and then theres the magic users that dont use words just ends up beating the ones that do, like faust vs zatanna.
this post was submitted on 22 Apr 2026
865 points (98.2% liked)
Comic Strips
23408 readers
3183 users here now
Comic Strips is a community for those who love comic stories.
Rules
-
π Be Nice!
- Treat others with respect and dignity. Friendly banter is okay, as long as it is mutual; keyword: friendly.
-
ποΈ Community Standards
- Comics should be a full story, from start to finish, in one post.
- Posts should be safe and enjoyable by the majority of community members, both here on lemmy.world and other instances.
- Any comic that would qualify as raunchy, lewd, or otherwise draw unwanted attention by nosy coworkers, spouses, or family members should be tagged as NSFW.
- Moderators have final say on what and what does not qualify as appropriate. Use common sense, and if need be, err on the side of caution.
-
𧬠Keep it Real
- Comics should be made and posted by real human beans, not by automated means like bots or AI. This is not the community for that sort of thing.
-
π½οΈ Credit Where Credit is Due
- Comics should include the original attribution to the artist(s) involved, and be unmodified. Bonus points if you include a link back to their website. When in doubt, use a reverse image search to try to find the original version. Repeat offenders will have their posts removed, be temporarily banned from posting, or if all else fails, be permanently banned from posting.
- Attributions include, but are not limited to, watermarks, links, or other text or imagery that artists add to their comics to use for identification purposes. If you find a comic without any such markings, it would be a good idea to see if you can find an original version. If one cannot be found, say so and ask the community for help!
-
π Post Formatting
- Post an image, gallery, or link to a specific comic hosted on another site; e.g., the author's website.
- Meta posts about the community should be tagged with [Meta] either at the beginning or the end of the post title.
- When linking to a comic hosted on another site, ensure the link is to the comic itself and not just to the website; e.g.,
β Correct: https://xkcd.com/386/
β Incorrect: https://xkcd.com/
-
π¬ Post Frequency/SPAM
- Each user (regardless of instance) may post up to five (5 π) comics a day. This can be any combination of personal comics you have written yourself, or other author's comics. Any comics exceeding five (5 π) will be removed.
-
π΄ββ οΈ Internationalization (i18n)
- Non-English posts are welcome. Please tag the post title with the original language, and include an English translation in the body of the post; e.g.,
SΓ, por favor [Spanish/EspaΓ±ol]
- Non-English posts are welcome. Please tag the post title with the original language, and include an English translation in the body of the post; e.g.,
-
πΏ Moderation
- We are human, just like most everybody else on Lemmy. If you feel a moderation decision was made in error, you are welcome to reach out to anybody on the moderation team for clarification. Keep in mind that moderation decisions may be final.
- When reporting posts and/or comments, quote which rule is being broken, and why you feel it broke the rules.
Banned Artists
The following artists are banned from the community.
- Jago
- Stonetoss
It should be noted that when you make reports, it is your responsibility to provide rational reasoning why something should be removed. Saying it simply breaks community rules is not always good enough.
Web Accessibility
Note: This is not a rule, but a helpful suggestion.
When posting images, you should strive to add alt-text for screen readers to use to describe the image you're posting:
Another helpful thing to do is to provide a transcription of the text in your images, as well as brief descriptions of what's going on. (example)
Web of Links
- !linuxmemes@lemmy.world: "I use Arch btw"
- !memes@lemmy.world: memes (you don't say!)
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
My first time hearing this in the movie I was like "did this mfer just say abrakedabraβ½"
I mean...yeah. That's kind of the whole reference...
No, the reference is despite having a huge pool of spells to chose from, they both used the same one.
Joanne Rowling, folks.
Don't use her preferred name when she's an utter cunt destroying that right for others.
You mean Joanne Kunt Rowling?
Same sort of problem with Quidditch. Whichever team gets the golden snitch automatically wins, so the whole game would realistically just be everyone trying to get it and ignoring everything else. JK is very bad at designing world rules. Maybe that's why she's so bad at comprehending reality as well.
I know there's been a fair bit of discussion and I only skimmed it, but the main issue I could see is if one team actually ignored everything for the snitch, it's feasible the other team could get 15 goals literally for free before you actually succeed. But the video game nerfing the snitch tells you everything you need to know about whether it can be balanced at all.
JK is very bad at designing world rules.
I mean, magic is inherently kinda jenky as a core concept. "The Magicians" series does a much better job of painting a magical boarding school and gets a bit meta-textual on the question of what the edges and limits of a magical world are expected to be.
I'll happily spot you that Welters is a better wizard game than Quidditch. But it's also more like Chess than Wizard Hockey, so it loses the narrative excitement in exchange for a more plodding and introspective exchange.
Shave down the Snitch aspect to, like, 20 points instead of 150 or whatever dumbshit Rowling originally ran with and it can create a few interesting edge cases for not catching the Snitch until the proper moment that can make the game more fun. Other than that hang up, its a very visually stunning and theme appropriate game for a bunch of kids on flying brooms to play.
Not necessarily. HP is just written with a soft magic system.
I quite like the Light Lightbringer series, which has a hard magic system.
It's so much more fun for me to read about creative ways of magic to be used when it's based on physics of the world it's in, when I could theorise about what's possible and be amazed by the characters' ingenuity.
Needs more explosions and an anti exploding kid spell, but otherwise a solid thumbs 45 degrees up.
I always found the whole snitch thing so stupid simply from a game rules perspective. Like most team sports have you work as a team to score points. Everyone participates and are more or less responsible for the outcome of the game. In quidditch you have that and then you have one team member that is just more special than everyone else, they can just control the outcome of the game by themselves. It goes against the whole concept of team sports.
Like most team sports have you work as a team to score points. Everyone participates and are more or less responsible for the outcome of the game.
A better writing of the game would have had other players working as a team to spot the Snitch. Or alternative strategies for leveraging the extra player in the early game, when finding the Snitch was unlikely. Or even just a history of the sport, or variations of amateur and professional rules, or a pro-league that got more than a casual mention for the first chapter of the fourth book and then never again.
you have that and then you have one team member that is just more special than everyone else
You could argue the pitcher in baseball or the QB in football fill a similar role.
But yes, the need to make Harry a Mary Sue at every opportunity definitely dragged on the series. The better parts of the series were when he wasn't the center of attention and was more just an observer of a magical world.
load more comments
(3 replies)
I hate myself for remembering, and am likely wrong, but isn't the snitch worth 150 points and ends the game? So if the opposing team was 151 points ahead catching the snitch would lose the match? I'm not going to look it up, I don't care enough about being right in regards to Harry Potter and I'm not even sure why I commented outside of my inate need for information to be correct...
load more comments
(4 replies)
Yea, I kind of remember this in book 4 where in the world cup Bulgaria (Viktor) caught the snitch, but the other team (I think Ireland) scored more points.
That's why the Weasly twins were upset because they had placed that bet with Ludo Bagman who ran away with their money.
(Just to let you know, I enjoy HP as a kid but now, Fuck JK).
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(6 replies)
That's why Dumbledore kicked Voldemorts ass by flinging a statue infront of him, them doing a bunch of fancy shit, encasing him in ice. Since it's easier to hit than with an Avra Kedavra. Not that it matters until the author is no longer alive...
He knew he wouldn't win against a 1v1 power struggle with him, which is what casting a spell against a spell is in Harry Potter.
it's just Dragonball Z again yes, as per usual.
This isn't even my final horcrux
Wait it is? Fuck. Could you give me a week and maybe six, seven bodies?
My mom taught high school English for decades and she used to tell her students that JK Rowling is a great storyteller, but a terrible author. She dreamed up a really cool world that really resonated with people, but her execution in that world is awful. The biggest place you see this is to lift the curtain on anything, and it crumbles instantly. Time Turners? Unnecessary plot device with massive implications. American wand? Kills Voldemort immediately. Sex ed at Hogwarts? No sex, only snog?
JK Rowling hasn't helped herself with this either, by continuously editorializing. Hermione was always black. Dumbledore is gay for wizard Hitler. Wizards didn't need bathrooms and would just magic away their shit, except wizard bathrooms are a central plot point for the second book. When she was starting out, she didn't have the money for a real editor. When she made it big, it was by the strength of her own bootstraps, so she didn't need one. It shows. She shat gold once, and in her eyes, it's now gold every time.
Avada Kedavra is dumb. Wizard duels essentially have to follow the be first, best, or cheat rule. The definite death spell makes being best pointless and cheating too slow. You have to go nuclear first and fastest. Also, the defining characteristic is the green flash and no marks on the dead body. In the world of Harry Potter, if nobody sees the flash, and nobody finds the murder wand, every heart attach and brain aneurysm is indistinguishable from the universes ultimate crime.
But, I think things like this are a reason why people love Harry Potter. It's why I did. When you're presented with a world so incredible with an execution that's lukewarm at best, it allows your imagination to take over. I love reading cheap, bad, free-on-Kindle sci-fi and fantasy, because oftentimes the central idea can be really unique, cool, and interesting. The execution can be awful, or sometimes not, but the core idea is usually a diamond. I get to be an archeologist, uncover it, and re-imagine it as I see fit. That's why so many Harry Potter fans get defensive. It resonated so strongly because people had to invest their own imaginations so deeply to make sense of a story that fundamentally doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
I love that it's finally culturally acceptable to say "Actually no, the books weren't better. They sucked" lol
What Alfonso CuarΓ³n managed to achieve with Prisoner of Azkaban on screen however still gives me goosebumps... plotholes be damned lol
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(12 replies)
Not using Avada Kadavra in a wizard duel in which you intend to kill the other is like having a duel with guns with infinite ammunition and attempting to bludgeon the enemy with the stock or stab them with a bayonet instead without ever taking a shot.
There is a reason that every real fight Harry was in was just Avada Kadavra vs Expelliarmus. If you can just kill with an unbeatable curse and are willing to, you just kill. If you aren't willing to kill, your best recourse is removing their weapon before they kill you. It may be boring, but literally any other moves in a typical duel would be the sub-optimal at minimum, suicidal at worst.
Which is why it's bad writing.
"Unblockable killing spell" is the kind of thing that pops up on a middle school playground because every kid wants to have the trump card in make-believe and the last kid just cast Meteor.
Eragon is a contemporary-ish book and has killing magic that can kill normies by the dozens/hundreds, but other magic users have to do more than play rock-paper-nuclear-option.
Yeah, it's a common problem with soft magic systems in general. Eragon's harder magic system at least defined clear(ish) boundaries, even if those boundaries were kind of a retcon after the ending battle of the first book. I definitely enjoyed the mechanics of the harder system better.
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(6 replies)
Not using Avada Kadavra in a wizard duel in which you intend to kill the other is like having a duel with guns with infinite ammunition and attempting to bludgeon the enemy with the hilt or stab them with a bayonet instead without ever taking a shot.
So, they do kinda explore this in the books. Book 4, when the kids learn the Killing Curses in Defense Against the Dark Arts, its implied that you really need to want to kill someone for the spell to work. Otherwise, it just kinda gives your victim a nose bleed.
There's a secondary implication that Avada Kadavra is not just a simple killing curse, but a predicate for creating a Hoarcrux. In Book 6, Tom Riddle learns that you need to kill someone in order to create a Hoarcrux. And, as Harry Potter is a Hoarcrux created by accident when his mother shields him from Voldemort's killing spell, there's a presumed through-line that using the spell severs your own soul with every successful incantation.
So, the need to be fairly powerful, competent, and ruthless makes it more like going into a wizard duel with a blunderbuss than a Beretta. There are other spells that can kill (or immobilize in anticipation of a more traditional murder) with less effort. And - assuming the implications - no risk of shredding yourself internally to land a lethal blow.
load more comments
(1 replies)
It was more like HP using expelliarmus a billion times
Except for the one time he learned the Sectumsempra curse, used it one time on Draco Malfoy, and then we never talked about it again.
You're talking about it...
We don't talk about rectumsempra
load more comments
(1 replies)
view more: next βΊ