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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   2385 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for November 3, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I've only watched gameplay and haven't tried it myself, but while the game seems like a good game, I'm mildly confused at the poor job it does of being an RPG in some important regards, such as making you feel like a student in Hogwarts as well as an intrepid adventurer.

What I do find baffling is how inconsequential the use of Unforgiveable Curses is, even if you do them in public or in front of your teachers (!). I understand the desire to not be too restrictive of the player, but it would have been easy enough to have it diegetically explained as a temporary relaxation in the light of the Goblin Revolt, and make the character face repercussions for blasting anything and everything they see with a killing curse, even if you don't end up in Azkaban or kicked out of school.

What I do find baffling is how inconsequential the use of Unforgiveable Curses is

I think that's just the way transferring original material to another medium works (you see it a heck of a lot in fanfiction, and in media it's often a form of fanservice that isn't the 'boobs and butt' type): there's this Cool Thing, you want to see/be able to do the Cool Thing, we're gonna sell it on 'your character can do the Cool Thing/the main characters do the Cool Thing' and so whether it's movies or games or what you will, the Cool Thing gets done willy-nilly.

In the books, there's a moral and ethical price - after all, this is why they're called "Unforgiveable" Curses. But when you're doing a tie-in/spin-off of a major franchise that is a licence to print money, you weigh up "Do I make it so that Cool Thing is rare and dangerous, or do I let your main character be the one who can do Cool Thing at will to blast the mooks because You're Just That Special?" and you decide "the fans want Cool Thing, if I don't give them Cool Thing they won't buy this".

So now you can go around zapping people with Unforgiveable Curses because that's what the majority of customers want. I also think there's a certain coarsening around morals and ethics in recent years (I know this is going to come across as "kids these days") but we've had a CW thread about "why bother with rules in war, the most effective way to win is crush the enemy and by shortening the war aren't you saving lives, so hell yeah use chemical weapons, bomb civilians, whatever it takes so you win fast and hard!". That to me is the mindset which goes "Unforgiveable Curses are really effective, use them, never mind the bleating about morals or the effect on the soul, pshaw!"

While I think you’re spot on regarding Cool Things, and the coarsening is plausible, I would hesitate to use this site as a bellwether for public morals and ethics. It’s very, very self-selected for edgy contrarianism.

That's true, but I have seen such attitudes expressed elsewhere and some years back. I do think there's been (for whatever reason) a genuine lack of understanding about rules of civility, where it's "but it's war (or other conflict or struggle), why wouldn't you do all you could to win, no matter what it takes?" That there are some things that are just wrong to do seems to be completely out the window. Whether that's due to "but we're the Good Guys so it's okay for us to do it" thinking or not, I can't say.

I am not sure how new it is, ending WW2 with nukes was arguably a breach of those erhics of civility in the service of ending the war quicker and thus saving more lives overall, is basically exactly the same logic you were talking about. Down to the same debates really.

Hardly - the destruction of civilian population centers with strategic bombing was not new in 1945. It was something accepted and widely used by all sides. nor was the use of nuclear weapons rationalised in those terms until later.

Thats...my point. It isn't some new invention, to breach the "civilized norms" of war. Because everyone accepted targeting civilians was ok then, so complaining about people now and making it some criticism of modern people wanting to break the sacred rules of war is nonsensical. We've always justified it to ourselves. Whether its targeting civilians, using weapons of mass destruction and so on.

It wasn't new then and it isn't new now.

I've only watched gameplay and haven't tried it myself, but while the game seems like a good game, I'm mildly confused at the poor job it does of being an RPG in some important regards, such as making you feel like a student in Hogwarts as well as an intrepid adventurer.

Some of it is explained as the main character having a special natural affinity for magic. The main character tends to learn new spells super easily with minimal instruction. There is a little mini game we have to play.

What I do find baffling is how inconsequential the use of Unforgiveable Curses is, even if you do them in public or in front of your teachers (!). I understand the desire to not be too restrictive of the player, but it would have been easy enough to have it diegetically explained as a temporary relaxation in the light of the Goblin Revolt, and make the character face repercussions for blasting anything and everything they see with a killing curse, even if you don't end up in Azkaban or kicked out of school.

I think in general they just took the lazy programming route on a bunch of things. There is also no penalty for being outside the dorms during curfew. They have a mission or two where they fake it by forcing you to use stealth in certain areas of hogwarts (a classic "sneak into the forbidden section of the library"). Also the headmaster conveniently bans quidditch that year. I cant imagine what kind of nightmare it would have been to program that sport.

Also no one seems to take the Goblin revolt very seriously. It seems most of the government and authority figures are in denial. Which isn't too unbelievable from a story perspective. But it means any kind of "special considerations" are off the table.

I can appreciate taking the lazy programming route. I'd rather have them make a good system for what they can do well than spend a lot of effort to make a crappy system that everyone hates.

I'd say the best thing about the game is the unique combat system. Its all very close range, closer than almost all modern shooters, but not actually melee range. The visual cues and mixed spell options make for a system with plenty of death. By the end of the game I felt like a god in some combat situations. Dodging spells to zip around the battlefield, or blocking them to unleash powerful retaliatory attacks. But one or two mistakes in a row would bring me to the edge of death.

The whole unforgivable curses thing suffers from increasing rust as the series progresses. First introduced as absolute trump cards, then slowly becoming more and more routine.

I mean, the Wizarding World went from a period of relative peace to warring against the resurgent Death Eaters, so I find that hardly surprising, and I can't recall many of the "good" guys ever resorting to them, if at all.

I can't recall many of the "good" guys ever resorting to them, if at all.

I mean, in the last book there was the protagonist casually using the torture spell on someone for the crime of spitting on an old lady he liked.

As far as I recall it wasn't much harsher than kicking him in the balls in context. Certainly wasn't a prolonged torture session like a typical Cricuatus use case.

That's the point, the creep from 'one of three unforgivable curses we will never tolerate' to 'oh it was only a little bit, kinda like kicking someone in the balls.'

He also mind-controlled a guy in the Gringotts earlier.

I also had a point about how Azkhaban seems significantly worse than the killing curse, but I deleted that part of my comment, because I realized real life prisons are often much worse than the crimes they punish too.

The "good" guys stupefying their enemies just to send them to a torture camp for the rest of their lives doesn't seem all that good though.

Yeah. Especially if the penalty for getting caught is life in Azkaban...if that's the case, I would expect a lot more big-league criminals in this world to fight to the death to avoid being captured by law enforcement. A big league drug lord or something can do OK in prison; a big league Death Eater is just going to spend the rest of his life being tortured by Dementors.

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