Don Arnold/WireImage / Reddit
Most Harry Potter fans spend their time thinking and talking about the characters, the storyline, that one friend they have that they just know is a Hufflepuff, etc. Others, though, prefer to take their Harry Potter talks in another direction. Those fans are into talking about the psychology, the anthropology, the politics... what the Harry Potter universe could mean. That's where one Reddit user came into play when they asked:
What are some of the more horrifying implications of the Harry Potter universe? Be warned, the answers went dark almost immediately and are not for the faint-of-heart or children.
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1. Soul-crushing... literally.
They have confirmed, empirical evidence for the existence of souls
The general public is perfectly OK with the destruction of the soul as a form of punishment
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2. Maybe Muggles Were Slaughtered As Cattle?
Avada Kedavra = Abra Kadabra
The only spell that exists for the one purpose of killing, is also the spell that's deeply ingrained in Muggle culture. Which means that the Killing Curse was used enough around Muggles that its butchered pronunciation is used as a general "magic" sounding phrase.
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3. Ohhh That's Creepy McGross
Two words.
Polyjuice prostitutes.
You know that girl you've got a crush on? Just find a single hair and some polyjuice potion and voila! Have a prostitute drink some polyjuice for an hour of fun with anyone. And you know there is a black market for that shit. Lockhart probably sells a few clippings a day for a thousand galleons a pop
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5. Nope, We Didn't Want To Think About That.
The sheer number of times poor Peter Pettigrew had to watch young Ron wank.
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6. Well That Killed Our Buzz
That their world is dying.
Think about it. All of the great magicians are dead and ancient. Time Turners? Nobody knows how to make those anymore. A powerful magic who's methods have been lost to time. The Deathly Hallows, three items that turn well known laws of even magical physics on their heads, cannot be recreated using modern means. The three brothers were probably intelligent and powerful to create them, yet modern wizards find the idea so outlandish they consider them a fairy tale. There are even old magics, like the The Arch in the ministry, that nobody even knows what they are anymore. What purpose they may have served.
The pure blood lines are crumbling, falling back on old money and old blood to prop up their nobility. The segregation and racism deepen the gulfs and serve only to ensure that their world sinks deeper into disrepair. Wars flicker off and on, magic guarded jealously, and even among magical people there are those born without the spark. Squibs.
Certainly there are powerful wizards. Dumbledore was put forward as an example of such. But bear in mind that he also used the Elder Wand and still was no match for Voldemort. The creator of the Sorcerer's Stone, Nicolas Flemel, opted to let the secret of its creation die with him. And maybe it's that mentality of wizards, to jealously guard their secrets, that have led to a world that is slowly dying around them.
Edit: In addition they are stagnant. They don't know how to grow. As a society they don't know how to advance. For the most obvious example let's look at Snape and Potions.
Snape was a school child, around Harry's age, yet he was a prodigy. He made vast and sweeping improvements to the art of potions and tried his hand at inventing spells. He was a remarkable young person who was revolutionizing the way that Potions are made and the methods used. He was improving on methods that could have conceiveably been in place for hundred of years.
Fast forward all those years. Snape is now Potions Master at the top school in the world. He has political clout and is close with Dumbledore. It has been decades since he was a child and he has likely turned the art of Potion Making into something unrecognizable from what it was only a short few decades previous. Surely the children are learning the Snape Method right?
Wrong.
The children are still learning the same old methods from the same old textbooks. And Snape is forced to teach those same old inferior methods because that's the way it's done.
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7. Would Accio O-Zone Layer Work?
Magic is a clean, renewable source of energy. We could end pollution, oil dependence, etc.
But screw us muggles. Wizards are too busy playing broom ball to end global warming.
- Gnujack
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8. Molly Weasley The Secret Savage
Molly Weasley is unique among the protagonist characters in that she dueled to kill, not to capture or incapacitate.
Sure, fred's death and ginny's near miss probably pushed her over the edge, but that distinction is important to make.
Molly Weasley may look at all cheerful and plump, but she will f*cking end you.
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9. Well this just became a YA novel
Its something that is not talked about or even heavily implied since is a childrens series BUT my god underage sex must have run rampart there I mean teenagers jailed in close proximity 24 hours a day with the opposite sex, all those wonderful empty classrooms laying around?, and the wonderful sense of discovery to know what is behind the robe? Man that was some crazy *rgy going on in the boys room after the Quidditch games and the house cup!
- Pinipf
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10. Poor Weasleys
How does their economy work? Why are the Weasleys "poor" if they could theoretically just make things appear out of thin air or change into other things?
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11. Ending Drought Could Be Easy
That Aquamenti creates water out of nothing.
Think of all the people dying of thirst in the world are only dying because a wizard can't be bothered to create some water.
I won't get into the fact that the wizard could then become a de-facto ruler of said nation by controlling the water source for the country afterward.
- Ellistan
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12. It's Not That He Couldn't...
I've thought about this a lot....I mean c'mon I'm pretty sure there was a lamp in that flashback, babies aren't hard to murder
I've decided it was the principal of the matter. He could have just murdered the shit out of him (I mean he was a baby, what could he do poop on The Dark Lord? Drool a bit?) But what kind of crap could be spread if it was found out that the Dark Lord, the most powerful wizard in history, didn't trust his own magic enough to do the job. It would have been too muggle, and not enough dark evil wizard if he had just punted him across the yard and screamed "AND THE FIELD GOAL IS GOOD"
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13. Like An Evil Cage Match?
Its implied in some comments that wizards are a dying breed.
Those who use horcruxes are utilizing dark magic and don't die until their horcrux(es) are destroyed.
When all wizards (and potentially humans) die out, nobody is left except those with horcruxes. Ultimate evil showdown.
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15. Is The Human Government Holding Wizards Hostage For Weapon Use?
There is some serious conspiracy shit going on in the Harry Potter universe. How does a society, outnumbered outnumbered by a margin of 1000 to 1 not know ANYTHING about the society they are hiding in? Wizards don't know how muggles dress, they don't know anything about muggle weapons or muggle technology in general. How is it that only 2, underpaid, overworked men compose the entire ministry's concern with muggles? The ministry, as far as I can tell has the primary duties of A) Keeping wizarding society secret and B) Keeping the wizards from getting too bored (seriously, who makes a teenager have to fight a dragon with a magically binding contract? They seriously couldn't have written in a "Contestants can bow out whenever they feel like clause?")
The currency system seems designed from the ground up to be absolutely confusing, and it isn't at all compatible with muggle money, which for some reason no wizard understands despite it being significantly more simple. Compounding on that, the whole banking system is run by one race of tiny, greedy, hateful monsters who everyone hates. It all just smacks of a system designed to keep wizards happy, complacent and ignorant to me, which is why one charismatic psychotic was able to do as much as he did.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Everyone in the wizard community seems to assume that everyone, muggle born to full blood wizard, will be loyal to the wizard community and its never really answered "why?" And I have absolutely no good answer for this. I've yet to hear one. The muggles, at least at high levels are aware of the wizarding community. I cannot believe, for a single moment, that the government wouldn't immediately start trying to gather as much information as possible on wizards from the moment they learned of them. I would even say that they would recruit wizards, most likely muggle born, but a big enough payoff would get some wizard in their pocket.
The only logical conclusion I can find is that the Government has, at a minimum, spies in the Ministry, and possibly a number of wizards actively on its payroll doing work for the Government. So now that the government has its agents its starts learning all about wizards. The government becomes worried about one spell in particular. Death is easy for muggles. Guns, chemicals, nukes, weaponized pathogens. The avada kedavra curse is considered rather quaint. A very efficient and human way of doing things. The cruciatus curse is more horrifying but torture is pretty old school. No one needs magic for that either. But the imperius? That curse is a fucking game changer. Holy shit. On low level scale it can be used to make people do any number of horrible things. But say a prime minister is controlled? All of a sudden, someone can, from a huge distance invisibly get that person to fire nukes at whoever they like? That is not the sort of serious existential threat a country's leader just leaves lying around.
The more I think about that curse the more horrifying it becomes. Imperiused people aren't puppets. They are magically enhanced slaves. They retain all their knowledge and can act perfectly normal, and gain physical skills they don't normally have(see Neville Longbottom doing acrobatics in book 3). It also works on animals. An army of bears anyone? And then you we have the fact that imperiused people can imperius in turn. Even if there were evidence that there was a limit to how many people a single person could control simultaneously, it could be gotten around by just performing a giant pyramid scheme of mind control. Resistance is a joke btw. Harry's DADA class had what? 30 students? Harry was the only one who showed any native resistance and he was expecting it. 1/30 isn't particularly comforting.
I personally am under the impression the the government was WMDs pointed at every major wizard population center in the country, in addition to there existing a number of damn loyal wizards working exclusively for the government. If Voldemort had ever truly started working against muggles instead of being distracted by other wizards, I would bet solid money that hogwarts would have been leveled by WMD or at least the surrounding countryside would have been bathed in enough radiation to make the school glow. Gas attacks on the ministry and Diagon ally to kill as many wizards as possible. And thanks to wizards nsa like levels of tracking, undoubtedly hunting down and killing of any wizard who could be found.
Whatever. This is some serious rambling and will get buried anyway. I'm going to post cause I did write it all out and it seems like a waste to delete.
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H/T: Reddit
Experiencing death is a fascinating and frightening idea.
Who doesn't want to know what is waiting for us on the other side?
But so many of us want to know and then come back and live a little longer.
It would be so great to be sure there is something else.
But the whole dying part is not that great, so we'll have to rely on other people's accounts.
Redditor AlaskaStiletto wanted to hear from everyone who has returned to life, so they asked:
"Redditors who have 'died' and come back to life, what did you see?"
Sensations
Happy Good Vibes GIF by Major League SoccerGiphy"My dad's heart stopped when he had a heart attack and he had to be brought back to life. He kept the paper copy of the heart monitor which shows he flatlined. He said he felt an overwhelming sensation of peace, like nothing he had felt before."
PeachesnPain
Recovery
"I had surgical complications in 2010 that caused a great deal of blood loss. As a result, I had extremely low blood pressure and could barely stay awake. I remember feeling like I was surrounded by loved ones who had passed. They were in a circle around me and I knew they were there to guide me onwards. I told them I was not ready to go because my kids needed me and I came back."
"My nurse later said she was afraid she’d find me dead every time she came into the room."
"It took months, and blood transfusions, but I recovered."
good_golly99
Take Me Back
"Overwhelming peace and happiness. A bright airy and floating feeling. I live a very stressful life. Imagine finding out the person you have had a crush on reveals they have the same feelings for you and then you win the lotto later that day - that was the feeling I had."
"I never feared death afterward and am relieved when I hear of people dying after suffering from an illness."
rayrayrayray
Free
The Light Minnie GIF by (G)I-DLEGiphy"I had a heart surgery with near-death experience, for me at least (well the possibility that those effects are caused by morphine is also there) I just saw black and nothing else but it was warm and I had such inner peace, its weird as I sometimes still think about it and wish this feeling of being so light and free again."
TooReDTooHigh
This is why I hate surgery.
You just never know.
Shocked
Giphy"More of a near-death experience. I was electrocuted. I felt like I was in a deep hole looking straight up in the sky. My life flashed before me. Felt sad for my family, but I had a deep sense of peace."
Admirable_Buyer6528
The SOB
"Nursing in the ICU, we’ve had people try to die on us many times during the years, some successfully. One guy stood out to me. His heart stopped. We called a code, are working on him, and suddenly he comes to. We hadn’t vented him yet, so he was able to talk, and he started screaming, 'Don’t let them take me, don’t let them take me, they are coming,' he was scared and yelling."
"Then he yelled a little more, as we tried to calm him down, he screamed, 'No, No,' and gestured towards the end of the bed, and died again. We didn’t get him back. It was seriously creepy. We called his son to tell him the news, and the son said basically, 'Good, he was an SOB.'”
1-cupcake-at-a-time
Colors
"My sister died and said it was extremely peaceful. She said it was very loud like a train station and lots of talking and she was stuck in this area that was like a curtain with lots of beautiful colors (colors that you don’t see in real life according to her) a man told her 'He was sorry, but she had to go back as it wasn’t her time.'"
Hannah_LL7
"I had a really similar experience except I was in an endless garden with flowers that were colors I had never seen before. It was quiet and peaceful and a woman in a dress looked at me, shook her head, and just said 'Not yet.' As I was coming back, it was extremely loud, like everyone in the world was trying to talk all at once. It was all very disorienting but it changed my perspective on life!"
huntokarrr
The Fog
"I was in a gray fog with a girl who looked a lot like a young version of my grandmother (who was still alive) but dressed like a pioneer in the 1800s she didn't say anything but kept pulling me towards an opening in the wall. I kept refusing to go because I was so tired."
"I finally got tired of her nagging and went and that's when I came to. I had bled out during a c-section and my heart could not beat without blood. They had to deliver the baby and sew up the bleeders. refill me with blood before they could restart my heart so, like, at least 12 minutes gone."
Fluffy-Hotel-5184
Through the Walls
"My spouse was dead for a couple of minutes one miserable night. She maintains that she saw nothing, but only heard people talking about her like through a wall. The only thing she remembers for absolute certain was begging an ER nurse that she didn't want to die."
"She's quite alive and well today."
Hot-Refrigerator6583
Well let's all be happy to be alive.
It seems to be all we have.
Trying to lose weight is a struggle understood by many people regardless of size.
The goal of reaching a healthy weight may seem unattainable, but with diet and exercise, it can pay off through persistence and discipline.
Seeing the pounds gradually drop off can also be a great motivator and incentivize people to stay the course.
Those who've achieved their respective weight goals shared their experiences when Redditor apprenti8455 asked:
"People who lost a lot of weight, what surprises you the most now?"
Redditors didn't see these coming.
Shiver Me Timbers
"I’m always cold now!"
– Telrom_1
"I had a coworker lose over 130 pounds five or six years ago. I’ve never seen him without a jacket on since."
– r7ndom
"140 lbs lost here starting just before COVID, I feel like that little old lady that's always cold, damn this top comment was on point lmao."
– mr_remy
Drawing Concern
"I lost 100 pounds over a year and a half but since I’m old(70’s) it seems few people comment on it because (I think) they think I’m wasting away from some terminal illness."
– dee-fondy
"Congrats on the weight loss! It’s honestly a real accomplishment 🙂"
"Working in oncology, I can never comment on someone’s weight loss unless I specifically know it was on purpose, regardless of their age. I think it kind of ruffles feathers at times, but like I don’t want to congratulate someone for having cancer or something. It’s a weird place to be in."
– LizardofDeath
Unleashing Insults
"I remember when I lost the first big chunk of weight (around 50 lbs) it was like it gave some people license to talk sh*t about the 'old' me. Old coworkers, friends, made a lot of not just negative, but harsh comments about what I used to look like. One person I met after the big loss saw a picture of me prior and said, 'Wow, we wouldn’t even be friends!'”
"It wasn’t extremely common, but I was a little alarmed by some of the attention. My weight has been up and down since then, but every time I gain a little it gets me a little down thinking about those things people said."
– alanamablamaspama
Not Everything Goes After Losing Weight
"The loose skin is a bit unexpected."
– KeltarCentauri
"I haven’t experienced it myself, but surgery to remove skin takes a long time to recover. Longer than bariatric surgery and usually isn’t covered by insurance unless you have both."
– KatMagic1977
"It definitely does take a long time to recover. My Dad dropped a little over 200 pounds a few years back and decided to go through with skin removal surgery to deal with the excess. His procedure was extensive, as in he had skin taken from just about every part of his body excluding his head, and he went through hell for weeks in recovery, and he was bedridden for a lot of it."
– Jaew96
These Redditors shared their pleasantly surprising experiences.
Shopping
"I can buy clothes in any store I want."
– WaySavvyD
"When I lost weight I was dying to go find cute, smaller clothes and I really struggled. As someone who had always been restricted to one or two stores that catered to plus-sized clothing, a full mall of shops with items in my size was daunting. Too many options and not enough knowledge of brands that were good vs cheap. I usually went home pretty frustrated."
– ganache98012
No More Symptoms
"Lost about 80 pounds in the past year and a half, biggest thing that I’ve noticed that I haven’t seen mentioned on here yet is my acid reflux and heartburn are basically gone. I used to be popping tums every couple hours and now they just sit in the medicine cabinet collecting dust."
– colleennicole93
Expanding Capabilities
"I'm all for not judging people by their appearance and I recognise that there are unhealthy, unachievable beauty standards, but one thing that is undeniable is that I can just do stuff now. Just stamina and flexibility alone are worth it, appearance is tertiary at best."
– Ramblonius
People Change Their Tune
"How much nicer people are to you."
"My feet weren't 'wide' they were 'fat.'"
– LiZZygsu
"Have to agree. Lost 220 lbs, people make eye contact and hold open doors and stuff"
"And on the foot thing, I also lost a full shoe size numerically and also wear regular width now 😅"
– awholedamngarden
It's gonna take some getting used to.
Bones Everywhere
"Having bones. Collarbones, wrist bones, knee bones, hip bones, ribs. I have so many bones sticking out everywhere and it’s weird as hell."
– Princess-Pancake-97
"I noticed the shadow of my ribs the other day and it threw me, there’s a whole skeleton in here."
– bekastrange
Knee Pillow
"Right?! And they’re so … pointy! Now I get why people sleep with pillows between their legs - the knee bones laying on top of each other (side sleeper here) is weird and jarring."
– snic2030
"I lost only 40 pounds within the last year or so. I’m struggling to relate to most of these comments as I feel like I just 'slimmed down' rather than dropped a ton. But wow, the pillow between the knees at night. YES! I can relate to this. I think a lot of my weight was in my thighs. I never needed to do this up until recently."
– Strongbad23
More Mobility
"I’ve lost 100 lbs since 2020. It’s a collection of little things that surprise me. For at least 10 years I couldn’t put on socks, or tie my shoes. I couldn’t bend over and pick something up. I couldn’t climb a ladder to fix something. Simple things like that I can do now that fascinate me."
"Edit: Some additional little things are sitting in a chair with arms, sitting in a booth in a restaurant, being able to shop in a normal store AND not needing to buy the biggest size there, being able to easily wipe my butt, and looking down and being able to see my penis."
– dma1965
People making significant changes, whether for mental or physical health, can surely find a newfound perspective on life.
But they can also discover different issues they never saw coming.
That being said, overcoming any challenge in life is laudable, especially if it leads to gaining confidence and ditching insecurities.