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In the interest of my New Year's resolution

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to not talk about Magic: the Gathering anymore...

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let's do a quick one about another formerly

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beloved magical IP.

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“I wished for J.K. Rowling to write more wizard 

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stories and she wrote Fantastic Beasts”

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This may be a hot take, but the

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entire Harry Potter universe has an elephant in

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the room about how its entire plot works.

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Wizards are dumb.

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And I don't mean the IP is bad

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and you shouldn't like it.

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That's left as an exercise for the reader.

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I mean the wizarding world is canonically top

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to bottom infested with fucking morons.

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Of course it would be.

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Point one, think about how eagerly your brain

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will offload thought.

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Quick, when's your sister's dog's birthday?

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Fuck knows, you own a calendar.

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Give driving directions from your high school to

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your current favorite bar.

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Who knows, just pull up GPS.

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Do you have the speed of sound memorized?

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Einstein would just look it up.

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So it follows that wizards have an attitude

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of waving a stick and saying some words

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works reliably enough.

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Who cares why?

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Point two, there is precisely one catch-all

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gen-ed class at Hogwarts.

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Here's a fun game.

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The next time someone says “they should teach

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(blank) in schools”, ask them what existing courses

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they're going to get rid of to make room.

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Students' schedules have been overfull forever -

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And at Hogwarts, who knows what they discarded

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for magic.

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Anyway, think about how many plot holes are

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filled in:

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1. why are wizards hiding from muggles in

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spite of Avada Kedavra?

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There's some conflicting information in the books -

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it's The killing curse, implying it's the only one.

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But for example, sectumsempra would kill someone, eventually.

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Avada Kedavra is apparently guaranteed instant death if

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we ignore Barty claiming he could tank a

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room full and come out of it with

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a nosebleed.

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The whole reason Harry is a celebrity is

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that he's apparently the only known person to

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have survived it once.

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So apparently every kid with a wand is

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walking around with instant death on a stick.

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How did wizards get persecuted into hiding by

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muggles when they can fly and muggles were

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still horse-centric?

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Because they don't have as much control of

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magic as they tell you they do.

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If a wand and the knowledge of Avada

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Kedavra is a handgun with infinite ammo, it

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still has to be aimed and it takes

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time to execute.

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So maybe it's feasible for muggles to beat

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any given wizard's UnFoRgIvAbLe DaRk MaGiC by sending

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two dudes with blunderbusses, three to be extra sure.

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2. why do wizards have to enslave house

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elves to cook and clean when there's a

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clean-up-the-room-spell?

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Has there never been a great wizard Microwavicus Boyardee?

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4. look at all the construction -

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the Weasleys just magic'd up their house and

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whatever building came out is as good as

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they're ever going to get.

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Magical construction predicted vibe coding by 20 years.

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Hogwarts has a whimsical labyrinth of stairs with

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lots of moving parts, surely because a spiral

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staircase with regular landings just never occurred to them.

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Wizards have Tardis camp tents and yet not

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every wizard rents a cheap storage unit to

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store a port key to their palatial mansion.

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5. are spells invented or discovered?

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We see zero evidence that any wizard has

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ever had an inkling of curiosity about the

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fundamental nature of magic itself.

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Snape apparently created sectumsempra -

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“You dare use my own spell against me, Potter”

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Did he upload that to the leylines?

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Or did he just go “wow, wave wand

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in this motion, say these words... 

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conveniently it works.

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I don’t know why but it’ll work for you!”

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Harry's too dumb to have ever invented a

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spell, surely, but Hermione must have.

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6. why do evil characters keep demonstrating how

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much they don't care about their loyal subordinates

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but go through trouble to bust them out

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of jail?

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Because those henchmen are an unfathomably rare specimen

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of a coworker with some basic competency.

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3. hi, I tore the very fabric of

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time and space to move this point to

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the back.

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They issued a time travel locket to a

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third grader.

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To be honest, none of the rest of

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these even matter.

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No wonder the "fEaReD dArK lOrD" who lost

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a 1v1 against literally a baby got brought

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back to life and had the world reconquered

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in a few months.

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You might wonder why I haven't touched on

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the seemingly paradoxical rarity of liquid luck.

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There is a good in-universe justification for

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why it isn't dispensed out of fountains every

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10 feet.

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Welcome to the real video, the actual point

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I'm getting around to.

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The narrative function of Felix Felicis is actually

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great.

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Even ignoring toxicity, it can't possibly not warp

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your perspective.

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Analogy, suppose we invented a chemically perfect painkiller.

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This hypothetical wonder drug has no other side

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effects, isn't toxic, isn't directly addictive, and is

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somehow so cheap that everyone has a lifetime

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supply.

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You should still abstain.

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Pain is data and if this drug is

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just obscuring that data from you, you won't

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realize that your damage is outpacing your healing.

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Do you like sunlight?

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If not for the emotional reaction of avoiding

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sunburn, how long do you think it will

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be before you give yourself skin cancer?

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Likewise, Felix Felicis offers to do too much

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for you.

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I'm sure you know someone who has atypical

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advantages working for them and thinks that's just

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how the world works.

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“You live in a bubble where people do

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what you want and tell you what you

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want to hear.”

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Because as Churchill didn't quite say - “we shape

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our tools and afterwards our tools shape us”.

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A person acclimates to their tools.

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Like I referenced above, no one can remember

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birthdays because calendar software is a solved problem.

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No one can do mental math because we

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reliably have a calculator with us.

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Countless rhymes to share intuitions about tomorrow's weather

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have been made obsolete by the National Weather Service.

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This is all great. Victories of engineering. But

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it's still not okay to remain entirely ignorant.

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Calendar software is a solved problem thanks to

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the VCAL standard, so an entity that obscures

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it from you is trying to unsolve the

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problem and make you dependent on them so

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they can raise their price.

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A calculator is a great thing to have

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with you, so imagine if your device's owner

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didn't deign to give you a calculator.

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In both of those cases, you'd offload your

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thought to a service, which then stops.

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So shape your tools to be sure the

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way they shape you back is acceptable.