Harry Potter plot inconsistencies

Mike Ventrella

Mike Ventrella

Duke
I'm a guest panelist at a number of Science Fiction Conventions in the northeast, and at one recently I hosted a panel on Harry Potter Plot Holes that was very well attended. They've asked me to do it again at a different convention and I thought I'd post here for more ideas.

While I'm a big fan of the books and films, it's mostly because Rowling has created such memorable characters -- it's not because of the plots themselves, which are, honestly, rather ordinary.

But there are a few Plot things that have bugged me, and that's the point of the panel.

1. The Time Turner. They have a freakin' magical device to go back in time! Why don't they just go back and kill Tom Riddle when he's in the orphanage and prevent everything?

2. The Portkey in "Goblet of Fire." Voldemort hatches a plan where they make the Triwizard Cup into a portkey in order to get Harry into the graveyard so the ritual can be performed. In order for this to work, they have to also get Harry into the competition even though he's not eligible and then they have to make sure he wins. Why didn't they just make his stupid bookbag a portkey or something and get him in September instead of going through this complicated plan?

3. The "Right Place Right Time" Plot Twist. OK, this isn't really a plot hole, just a complaint. Harry learns so much by merely being hidden at the exact right place and spot to overhear conversations. Had he been five minutes earlier, he wouldn't have seen Snape argue with (fill in blank) and learn exactly what he needed to save the day.

4. The "School Year" Syndrome. Every problem starts in the fall and climaxes at the end of the school year. Nothing ever gets settled in February. When I learned in the 6th book that Harry was going to leave school, I thought "Great! Now the 7th book can take as long as she wants -- it could even take years." Instead, once again, everything climaxed at the end of the school year. She even had to have the gang camp for months just to get to that point.

I had some others that I used at the convention and now I can't remember them -- anyway, post yours here (or take exception to mine) and if I remember the others I'll add them.
 
Well, my main issue with people bringing up 1 is that the time turner only goes backwards, not forwards, so that would require going back almost 50+ years and never being able to go home again. Also in "Prisoner," it's shown that there wasn't really an alternate future where Harry and Hermione didn't go back in time, just the one that they did. For all we know, someone tried to kill Tom Riddle as a child and failed. After all, even in a world of magic you'd be hard-pressed to justify the attempted murder of a child based on what you say is the future.

As for the others, I don't really have a good counterpoint to them. They just never bothered me, to be honest.
 
wowy319 said:
Well, my main issue with people bringing up 1 is that the time turner only goes backwards, not forwards, so that would require going back almost 50+ years and never being able to go home again. Also in "Prisoner," it's shown that there wasn't really an alternate future where Harry and Hermione didn't go back in time, just the one that they did. For all we know, someone tried to kill Tom Riddle as a child and failed. After all, even in a world of magic you'd be hard-pressed to justify the attempted murder of a child based on what you say is the future.
Click to expand...

Interesting point about the time turner.
 
1. Harry should always be able to see Thestrals - given that he witnessed his mother's murder. Even if he were "too young to have understood", he should have been able to see the Thestrals after witnessing Cedric's death at the end of GoF.

2. The whole accidental reversed order of ghosts coming out of Riddle's wand in the original print of GoF - JKR reversed James and Lily's death order. It was fixed in later printings.

3. In the Battle of Hogwarts, in DH, Neville and Professor Sprout are lobbing Mandrakes willy-nilly into the Death Eaters. It's all well and good to kill the DEs, but how on earth would/could they prevent allies from dying?

4. Mysteriously, few people seem to suspect Quirrel of letting the Troll loose in the dungeon, despite him supplying a troll to protect the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone because he had a way with trolls...

5. Why on earth doesn't everyone use accio all the time in every single battle??? It's mighty hard to fight without a wand, when your shoes or clothes are being forcibly pulled off your body, or when the rug underneath you gets pulled out...
 
The accio one was addressed briefly in book 5. It wasn't strong enough to yank the prophecy out of Harry's hands, so I'd doubt people would be keen to use it in a fight where your opponent could set you on fire, paralyze you or just outright murder you with an unblockable curse. As for the mandrakes and how they could have prevented friendly fire, the answer is they couldn't. It was a pitched battle with giants, big damn spiders and werewolves running amok. I would be stunned if there weren't dozens of casualties as a result of wide shots and unintentional friendly fire, so the Mandrakes probably weren't the worst things going around there.

Oh, and I do have a response to the Portkey point. The protection Harry had when he stayed with his mother's family would probably have warded off death eaters as well as Voldemort, whose active followers at the time consisted of a cowardly middle-aged man hunted by the Order's members that needed to stay near Voldy to keep him alive, and a fugitive whose usefulness depended entirely upon his not being discovered or seen. If he'd just gone after Harry at King's Cross or Diagon Alley, all kinds of things could have gone wrong. With the tournament, it would be much easier to operate behind the scenes and possibly kill Harry if things got too risky to use the portkey plan.

I guess the whole protection harry had with his mother's family explains the school year syndrome as well, though not as much in DH.
 
Also: Hogwarts is as heavily protected as anywhere, this is stressed constantly. The Goblet is a powerful magical artifact and thus could carry the portkey enchantment without being a tip-off to Dumbledore and associates. Even more importantly, Voldemort has an attested flair for drama; not for an audience, but for himself. It would likely have been too tempting to him to pass up to have Harry strive and strive throughout the year, giving his all just to play into Voldemort's hands.
 
The whole "school year syndrome" is very similar to something we have in Alliance (how the heck would a town stay alive if what happens every gathering were to happen when the adventurers were not there?). I just shrug it off as an easy to follow pattern.
 
How old is Mrs. Weasley at the end of the series?

According to her in Goblin of Fire, Mrs. Weasley went through Hogwarts when there was a different gamekeeper than Hagrid. Hagrid was expelled, and then remained at Hogwarts as the gamekeeper, 52 years prior to that time. She would have had to go to school for at least 7 years prior to this occasion, if Hagrid had not been gamekeeper. Also, she would have been 11 years old at the beginning of that. Then add the 3 years AFTER Goblet of Fire.

So, at minimum (assuming she left Hogwarts the year before Hagrid became gamekeeper, that is):
11 + 7 + 52 + 3 = 73 years old, minimum!

Possible, but strange. Does anyone else find that a bit odd/creepy?
 
Gandian Ravenscroft said:
How old is Mrs. Weasley at the end of the series?

According to her in Goblin of Fire, Mrs. Weasley went through Hogwarts when there was a different gamekeeper than Hagrid. Hagrid was expelled, and then remained at Hogwarts as the gamekeeper, 52 years prior to that time. She would have had to go to school for at least 7 years prior to this occasion, if Hagrid had not been gamekeeper. Also, she would have been 11 years old at the beginning of that. Then add the 3 years AFTER Goblet of Fire.

So, at minimum (assuming she left Hogwarts the year before Hagrid became gamekeeper, that is):
11 + 7 + 52 + 3 = 73 years old, minimum!

Possible, but strange. Does anyone else find that a bit odd/creepy?
Click to expand...

Hagrid may not have been the primary groundskeeper at first.

Mrs. Weasley may have been drunk.

That's a pretty good one, though.
 
JKR said, in a few interviews, that wizards age more slowly than muggles, though it's not mentioned in the books themselves.
 
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