Spoilers ahead.

Just finished listening to the Harry Potter audiobooks (brilliantly narrated by Stephen Fry) for the second time and probably will end up re-watching all the films for the third time. I am... a big Harry Potter fan. I have plenty of issues with the series, but there is more of it to love, for me.

I was curious about other Ovarit HP fans thoughts on the characters I mentioned in the title. Why them specifically? I think all of their characters have interesting "twists" in their character development. I also think they're the "darkest" of the characters- at least the "main" ones.

I used to share Harry Potter's resentment of Dumbledore throughout the last few books, but upon this re-listen I've changed my mind. Dumbledore had to make a lot of tough choices. And in the "King's Cross" chapter near the end, when he's 100% honest with Harry for the first time, he displays a lot of anguish and regret for the way he was when he was younger and even for some of the things he kept hidden from Harry (such as the Deathly Hallows). The man had to get rid of Voldemort... it's messed up that he literally set Harry up to be killed, but considering the circumstances... I bounce back and forth about it TBH. It's interesting.

I'll be surprised, but very intrigued if I hear defenses for this character on Ovarit: Severus Snape. Man, I hate this guy. Well, maybe I could have liked him if some details were different. There's two things that I can't get over:

1. He straight up bullied a kid. Dude... Harry is a literal child... it's not his fault his dad was a jerk to you... also, I think Dumbledore pointed this out, Harry is way more like Lily than James. I mean, I get it that Snape saves Harry's life many times but it doesn't negate the fact that he targeted him constantly on a day-to-day basis!

2. More importantly... as I understand it... both Harry and Nevile fit into the description of the person who would defeat Voldemort in Prof. Trelawney's prophecy. I don't remember why, but Voldemort picks the Potters over the Longbottoms. The scene where Snape goes to Dumbledore asking for a second chance, it's quite clear that the only fucking reason he's upset is because Voldemort killed Lily. Lily, who he had been in love with all his life. MEANING! If Voldemort chose the Longbottom family, I believe that Snape would still be a death-eater!!!!

I do like that the overarching theme of the Harry Potter series is love and JK Rowling did very well inserting many types of love- friendship, romance, a child's love for his parents and vice versa... but this Snape-Lily silliness doesn't work for me. Yeah, Snape joins the good side, but other than that, does he have any character development at all? When we see his childhood memories in the pensive, he's not much different as a child than he is as a teenager, a young adult, nor a post-Lily-death adult.

What I DO love and think JK Rowling did, frankly flawlessly, is Tom Riddle's upbringing and the result of it. The tragic story of his parents (every detail- from his own mother's childhood to him growing up and killing his dad), his upbringing in the orphanage, his deep obsession with material items (valuable ones especially), his all-consuming fear of being ordinary as well as mortal, his conniving, manipulative nature, his ambitiousness that was admired but ultimately led to his demise, his mistake of trusting the prophecy about his death practically fulfilling it himself, the way he pushed the horcruxes business to the absolute limit (in my opinion not even having respect for the limitations of the dark arts which already push the limits far enough)... I'm so enthralled by Tom Riddle, I could read a whole Harry Potter series from this point of view, lol.

Anyways, I have more thoughts but the post is long enough. I'm interested to hear others' thoughts.