(no subject)
Gah. Not a day goes by, it seems, when the Leaky Cauldron doesn't make me want to spork myself in the eye.
Right now, TLC are running a contest of sorts whereby you answer a bunch of quiz questions concerning what happens in Harry Potter and Problem Child 3: Junior in Love um, that one time they all just sat around for 600 pages the Deathly Hallows, they save your answers, and whoever gets the most answers right come July wins, like, a bunch of sweet stuff.
No harm in giving it a go, I reckon, and anyway it whiles away part of a sleepy Friday afternoon I would otherwise spend scraping dirt out from under my nails and trying, in vain, to get "Baby Got Back" out of my head. So I registered and got going...
Gah. Perhaps, being a social science student, I'm oversensitive to this kind of thing, but - no, these are just really bad questions. Here's an example:
Does the fact that neither Harry nor Voldemort has wands [on the US cover] mean that wandless magic will play an important part in book 7?
- Yes, Harry will need to use it in the Horcrux hunt
- Yes, Harry will need to use it in the Horcrux hunt and in the final duel
Here's another one:
What are they doing [again on the US cover]?
- They are summoning something
- Harry is trying to summon something, Voldemort is trying to stop it
In both cases, that's it. Multiple-choice questions with single choices (you can't tick more than one box) which only allow for certain preapproved answers. FSM forbid that wandless magic is simply not important (has there even been an incidence of this in the books? I don't remember one, although I do recall a number of big-name fanfics that use the concept). I would write this off as a simple mistake except that almost none of the questions even allow for an answer of "other" - Draco might be on the run with the Death Eaters, with Snape and the Death Eaters, or at home with his mother, but he's neither of my preferred answers (dead, or in Hollywood). Snape is either good or evil, but there's no room for more complex answers. And a lot of the topics of the questions are just so mundane - one refers to whether we'll see "Norbert" again, and I had to think long and hard before I realised they meant Hagrid's dragon from book 1 and not, in fact, the recent "hilarious" film starring Eddie Murphy as Eddie Murphy. Because here's the thing - I don't care if Hedwig plays a role in the fight against Voldemort.
Or look at this question.
When Sirius died the curse from Bellatrix made a red flash instead of a green one that we have seen in other instances. What does this mean?
Again, is this actually true? I don't have my books at hand, and I don't have the energy to wrestle with the Lexicon right now (and anyway, my issues with the Lexicon are a rant for another time), but as I recall, he avoids a jet of red light, then the "next jet" or "second jet" hits him. It's a minor point, but I think it's a good example of why the more mainstream elements of fandom wind me up. Because something is accepted widely in fandom, it's taken to be true and rarely questioned, at least by the dominant voices of the fandom (by which I mean the loudest voices).
Like I said before, this may all be more about me being oversensitive to bad science and bad research than anything else. It's just that I think that, "Will Percy return to his family and realise the error of his ways?" with a single box for yes and a single box for no is an incredibly loaded question, and one that I don't want to answer without the option of writing an essay on it.
I understand that since this is a contest, and TLC is a massive site with a lot of traffic, essay answers would be totally unfeasible. However, it isn't the case that the only options are "essay questions" or "really simplistic multiple choice". The quiz is credited to the entire TLC staff; surely they could have - I don't know - provided more than two straight yes/no answers to each question? Haven't they got loads of people working for them?
Or maybe the whole thing was just written by someone a bit dim; some questions are repeated, one or two don't actually have any answers listed, and one question makes reference to Harry finding "Voldemort's motorbike", so what do I know?
I do like this question, however:
Will Harry have use of a foe glass in his quest for the Horcruxes?
Three reasons I like it: because it's a really mundane, dull question, and one which, for me, epitomises HP; partly because I thought it said "Will Harry have the use of foie gras in his quest for the Horcruxes?"; and partly because one of the available answers is "Yes, somebody will give him one".
Possibly the single thing that could save this book would be if Harry had use of foie gras. Also, smut.
Anyway, I finished this thing, and apparently...
Funny... I don't remember saying that.
Right now, TLC are running a contest of sorts whereby you answer a bunch of quiz questions concerning what happens in Harry Potter and Problem Child 3: Junior in Love um, that one time they all just sat around for 600 pages the Deathly Hallows, they save your answers, and whoever gets the most answers right come July wins, like, a bunch of sweet stuff.
No harm in giving it a go, I reckon, and anyway it whiles away part of a sleepy Friday afternoon I would otherwise spend scraping dirt out from under my nails and trying, in vain, to get "Baby Got Back" out of my head. So I registered and got going...
Gah. Perhaps, being a social science student, I'm oversensitive to this kind of thing, but - no, these are just really bad questions. Here's an example:
Does the fact that neither Harry nor Voldemort has wands [on the US cover] mean that wandless magic will play an important part in book 7?
- Yes, Harry will need to use it in the Horcrux hunt
- Yes, Harry will need to use it in the Horcrux hunt and in the final duel
Here's another one:
What are they doing [again on the US cover]?
- They are summoning something
- Harry is trying to summon something, Voldemort is trying to stop it
In both cases, that's it. Multiple-choice questions with single choices (you can't tick more than one box) which only allow for certain preapproved answers. FSM forbid that wandless magic is simply not important (has there even been an incidence of this in the books? I don't remember one, although I do recall a number of big-name fanfics that use the concept). I would write this off as a simple mistake except that almost none of the questions even allow for an answer of "other" - Draco might be on the run with the Death Eaters, with Snape and the Death Eaters, or at home with his mother, but he's neither of my preferred answers (dead, or in Hollywood). Snape is either good or evil, but there's no room for more complex answers. And a lot of the topics of the questions are just so mundane - one refers to whether we'll see "Norbert" again, and I had to think long and hard before I realised they meant Hagrid's dragon from book 1 and not, in fact, the recent "hilarious" film starring Eddie Murphy as Eddie Murphy. Because here's the thing - I don't care if Hedwig plays a role in the fight against Voldemort.
Or look at this question.
When Sirius died the curse from Bellatrix made a red flash instead of a green one that we have seen in other instances. What does this mean?
Again, is this actually true? I don't have my books at hand, and I don't have the energy to wrestle with the Lexicon right now (and anyway, my issues with the Lexicon are a rant for another time), but as I recall, he avoids a jet of red light, then the "next jet" or "second jet" hits him. It's a minor point, but I think it's a good example of why the more mainstream elements of fandom wind me up. Because something is accepted widely in fandom, it's taken to be true and rarely questioned, at least by the dominant voices of the fandom (by which I mean the loudest voices).
Like I said before, this may all be more about me being oversensitive to bad science and bad research than anything else. It's just that I think that, "Will Percy return to his family and realise the error of his ways?" with a single box for yes and a single box for no is an incredibly loaded question, and one that I don't want to answer without the option of writing an essay on it.
I understand that since this is a contest, and TLC is a massive site with a lot of traffic, essay answers would be totally unfeasible. However, it isn't the case that the only options are "essay questions" or "really simplistic multiple choice". The quiz is credited to the entire TLC staff; surely they could have - I don't know - provided more than two straight yes/no answers to each question? Haven't they got loads of people working for them?
Or maybe the whole thing was just written by someone a bit dim; some questions are repeated, one or two don't actually have any answers listed, and one question makes reference to Harry finding "Voldemort's motorbike", so what do I know?
I do like this question, however:
Will Harry have use of a foe glass in his quest for the Horcruxes?
Three reasons I like it: because it's a really mundane, dull question, and one which, for me, epitomises HP; partly because I thought it said "Will Harry have the use of foie gras in his quest for the Horcruxes?"; and partly because one of the available answers is "Yes, somebody will give him one".
Possibly the single thing that could save this book would be if Harry had use of foie gras. Also, smut.
Anyway, I finished this thing, and apparently...
Funny... I don't remember saying that.