A Quiet Place of Inconsistencies

Saw this movie and was confused as to why it's been getting such good reviews. It has an interesting premise, but it's replete with inconsistencies and idiocies.

First thing that's hard to believe, where is the government? I don't care what sort of armor these creatures have, we have intercontinental ballistic missiles. You know that they're immediately attracted to sound. Blast some metalcore in some remote area, wait for a ton of them to come, then nuke 'em. Or, have a drone blaring out the Numa Numa song over a volcano. No weakness? Their weakness is nuclear warheads.

While still on the topic of the aliens, how in the world can they navigate the world (running through the forest, walking through a house including stairs), but they can't find prey unless the prey specifically makes noise? Stupid.

And the creatures can tear through a silo wall in under a second, but can only superficially wound an old truck? The aliens move really fast...unless they're near a main character. Then they slowly stalk around. More examples of creating rules then ignoring them, which just makes for a shoddy story.

Has no one coughed? No snoring, sneezing, farting, burping, tripping and falling, toe stubbing (they are going barefoot), choking on food? How do they farm (especially harvesting) or build things (can't use hammers or saws)? Where are they getting all this electricity? Generators are super loud, and they require fuel (making fuel is a loud process). It's especially hard to believe the deaf girl hasn't accidentally made some noise at some point. They try not to make creaking noises while walking in the house, but houses, especially old ones, make noises all the time. They put sand everywhere. Does it never rain there?

John Krasinski shows his son you can shout if there's a louder noise. Why don't they move next to a huge river or waterfall? Or find a holm in the middle of a river? Or try and find an underground bunker? Or at least move somewhere with carpet! Why not have speakers in the forest constantly playing loud sounds, perhaps even switching which speaker is playing before the creatures arrive, sending them into a never-ending sprint? I mean, they do have access to unlimited electricity. No, the only possibility is some rockets that last less than a minute and your child has to set of by hand.

I hate movies where the conflict is based off stupidity. Instead of saying, hey, let's try and keep ourselves and our current children alive, the main characters decide, let's have an effing baby. A BABY. A machine that only produces excrement and noise. Are you gonna keep it in that box for four years?

For how important silence is, they really give their little kid a long leash at the start of the movie. Another conflict based on stupidity. If they were truly worried about their lives, they would police that kid a lot more. Also, when the kid has the loud rocket, Krasinski is sprinting, making lots of noise with his feet. Why does the creature only attack the kid? Why don't more creatures come?

The nail. When Emily Blunt snags her bag on the nail, it catches the head. She pulls it, and somehow it switches to the point sticking up? What?

Okay, that's plot inconsistencies, now I'll touch on a couple technical issues. The beginning took way too long. It establishes pretty quickly that you can't make noise. Half an hour later...we're still going over the fact that you can't make noise. C'mon, assume a little more intelligence in the viewer.

Jump scares are lowbrow horror, and this movie was full of them. Worse, the majority of them were fake-outs. I'm convinced the bloody hand jump scare was an inside joke put in by Krasinski haha. It's just way too cliché otherwise.

Like I said, interesting concept. I liked that it was a family too. Emily Blunt's acting during the labor/birth scene was phenomenal. But way too many inconsistencies to call it a good movie. I think a lot of people are conflating their feelings for the actors' past work with the quality of the film in question.

The Things I Didn't Like About Black Panther

This is going to be my second post griping about a popular movie. Who knows if it'll become a recurring thing. Ha, by me doing this, it's almost certain that someone will absolutely shred my books apart in the same way someday. Oh well, I'll have deserved it.

Advanced technology, backward government

I find it very unlikely that a country with their level of technology would be led by an absolute monarch. What's more, a monarch who's decided through trial by combat. You're telling me that over their thousand-plus-year history, not one king has been a warmonger? Felt the desire to conquer with their superior technology? That every man who rose to power through their might-makes-right methodology has always had peaceful intentions only?

Vibranium power creep

It seemed like every time I blinked, vibranium gained some new fantastic ability. Invincibility. Medical panacea. Gravity defiance. At this point I'm more interested in finding out what this glowing deus ex machina can't do.

T'challa "dies"

This isn't necessarily a mistake, but more of a "why would you do something so painfully obvious?" As soon as Killmonger challenged him, you knew they were going to fight on the waterfall and T'challa would "die" by going over, only to later come back and defeat his cousin. I think that could have been circumvented to a decent degree if the combat wasn't on the edge of a waterfall. 

Purple drank

So they get these superpowers through purple flower punch. I can't recall it ever being explained why only one person at a time can become superhuman. Why not make the whole country into black panthers? And you know, perhaps the comics clear this up, but that doesn't help when we're judging the movie on its own merits.

Obligatory car chase

Why are you giving chase in cars? You have an invisible, flying vibranium ship! Also, the general throws her spear, it lodges in the road, and it brings an entire moving car to an immediate stop. Then her car gets exploded, and she's surfing down the road on the door. For some reason, her slamming her spear into the ground doesn't stop her for many yards. Guess she has more momentum than an entire SUV. Additionally, they went on a mission to get a little piece of vibranium, but then she left the first spear in the road?

Killmonger's plan

Here's a dude who graduated Annapolis early (you can't start until 17, and you have to adhere to their strict 4-year schedule, but he graduated at 19?), then he graduated MIT, and for some reason he can't wrap his head around why arming random people (he obviously doesn't support background checks) with WMD is a bad idea? C'mon, if you're going to make his logic so faulty, don't give him such an intelligent background.

All these people are not united under a single banner, save some vague notions. What happens to the ones who don't want to follow your program? This isn't organized like the military; there are no options for reprimand. As soon as you give out those weapons it's a free-for-all. There might be some cohesion at first, but it'll fall apart.

Killmonger's plan II

Why even bother with Korea and the CIA? Killmonger has no compunctions over murder, so why didn't he kill his team off in the UK and just fly straight to Wakanda with Klaue's body? Going to Korea and doing a deal with the CIA seem like ridiculously unnecessary extra steps. "But then T'challa and crew wouldn't have dispatched and faced off with Klaue." Yes, exactly. This whole plot point is there only because the plot needed it, not because it makes sense.

Final battle is a rip-off of Phantom Menace

1. The natives are having a giant face-off involving blue force shields on a grassy hill.

2. Out-of-his-element pilot has to fly a system he gets unwittingly forced into, then destroys ships, saving the planet.

3. The hero faces off against the villain in face-to-face, color-coded combat, battling on thin platforms above a high drop, and the combatants keep getting walled off from each other.

Duplicate ending scenes

Why would you have the movie end with T'challa smiling to himself, thinking about Wakanda, then have it end exactly the same way again after a few minutes of credits? That was weird.

Polymath sister

I know it's a common trope to have one "science super expert" in a movie, but it still annoys me. People spend their whole (very intelligent) lives getting PhDs and doing research in very narrow fields at the exclusion of learning about other things, yet she manages to know and do everything all while being socially normal?

Northern lights

So T'challa drinks the Kool-aid and goes to the ancestral plane. Why are there (admittedly cool-looking) auroras? This is supposed to be a place of pure tradition. Did the ancestors come from northern Europe or something? Felt very out-of-place. Just imagine if this had been a movie where a viking visits his ancestral plane and there were purple zebras.

Leave the child

What exactly was the issue with them taking the child (Killmonger) back to Wakanda? You just tell him the truth, that his father betrayed Wakanda, then when confronted about it, he tried to kill another citizen in front of the king and was killed in defense. Better than leaving a kid with knowledge of Wakanda out rogue in the world.

Recap

There were a few other bits and bobs that I omitted (insignificant things like hands being in different places or window tint varying from cut to cut; those things happen even in the best movies). But there were too many other things that keep me from saying this was a great movie. Definitely had some cool stuff (I loved the visuals for the most part), but nevertheless.

A Better Ending to Harry Potter

Click to skip the introduction

Harry Potter had some great characters, ones that compelled you to read about them. The worldbuilding isn't too special. We've seen magical boarding schools, saying cantrips to invoke magic, using a channeling agent (wand) to perform magic, centaurs, trolls, potions, divination, herbology, teleportation, transfiguration, etc., etc (quidditch, however, was an excellent innovation). In many places the worldbuilding is just awful. For example, in a world where the government controls a reliable method of time travel, there should be no crime. You know exactly when and where each crime takes place. Maybe you should pop by five minutes before and throw a cheeky binding spell on them with those wands you got.

But one of the things I really didn't like was the ending. A book is only as good as its promises' fulfillment. Granted, the primary promise of Harry Potter is that Harry will defeat the Dark Lord. But I felt like there was a level of "Harry will become a powerful wizard" thrown in there too, which didn't happen. He learned like four spells and won by a fluke of wand ownership. I can't believe I read over a million words just to come to that conclusion.

A note on wand ownership: kids practice dueling and such all the time. Wand ownership in Hogwarts should be royally effed. Why wouldn't they have practice wands for such circumstances? This is another example of shoddy worldbuilding—an instance where she introduced a new element without considering how it affected that which came before.

The love magic/sacrificial protection was also a mess. Everyone was so dumbfounded when Harry survived as a child. Has no one in this world ever sacrificed themselves for another person? James sacrificing himself didn't save Lilly? The implementation at the end of book seven was even worse. You have to die in order for love magic to activate. Harry chooses to come back and it somehow still affects the Hogwartsers.

Harry Potter: "I was ready to die to stop you from hurting these people —"
Lord Voldemort: "But you did not!"
Harry Potter: "— I meant to, and that's what did it. I've done what my mother did. They're protected from you. Haven't you noticed how none of the spells you put on them aren't binding? You can't torture them. You can't touch them."

What kind of counterintuitive hogwash is that? "I meant to die. Duh, why else would I have chosen to come back? Lol, Voldiboi so stuped."

Alright. So I've outlined some of my problems with the ending. My biggest one is the wand ownership fluke. It just made the victory feel so cheap; felt like it betrayed the promise of the whole series. I'll reiterate, the promise of Harry Potter is, Harry will defeat Voldemort. Harry won because he said "expeliarmus" once to Draco. That's an exceedingly interchangeable cog; anyone could have done that. It really felt like it was chance and not Harry that defeated Voldemort. Like, we've been building up the whole series on this promise, and then it goes and tries to shove the wrong puzzle piece into the hole.

It felt like the type of ending you'd see in a comedy. Like Douglas Adams would have come up with the same thing. You've spent all this time prepping to fight the Dark Lord, then you defeat him by accident.

Without further ado, here's my shot at writing a more satisfying ending (obviously an outline).

A Better Ending

Harry goes to Voldemort, offers himself, and enters the crossroads of twilight where he chills with Dumbledore. During the chat, Albus says Harry can choose to return should he wish. Harry says no, that would negate his sacrifice (perhaps even mentioning the love magic). Dumbledore smiles and says, "Alright, let's be off then." They get up to leave King's Cross.

Then Voldemort appears.

It's the fraction of his soul that was horcruxed away inside Harry all these years.

"Death never felt so good, did it, Potter?" (Or whatever evil line he says.) "You realize your sacrifice is a farce, don't you? It doesn't matter if I can't directly harm your little friends, I have deatheaters plenty for that. We will break them. Enslave them. Use them to kill and rise to power across the world."

Voldemort continues to talk and reveals something (I'm not sure what, could just be general goading like above), which causes Harry realize he needs to go back. He tells Dumbledore, who is about to send him on his way.

Then Voldemort attacks.

Harry duels the fraction of the Dark Lord's soul on the crossroads of twilight—the fraction that he's been fighting all these years. Unbridled, raw magic flows between them, but Voldemort is only a fraction of what he should be, so he can't tap into the magic as well. Harry obliterates the soul fragment, then turns to Dumbledore.

"I can't let them fight this alone. But I need something I can do. Please, professor, there must be some dueling tip or other magic trick you can give me. If I time everything right, I can show up and defeat Voldemort before the deatheaters even know what's happening. Even if they kill me again after that, I need to save my friends."

"Well, Harry, things are a bit fuzzy on this side of thing. Tell me, does Voldemort currently possess the Elder Wand?"

"Yes."

"Ah. If I'm not mistaken, you disarmed Malfoy some weeks ago, yes?"

"I did."

"And it wasn't all that long ago young Draco disarmed me. I wonder who then is the proper owner of the Elder Wand?"

"Well wouldn't it be Voldemort, because he did just kill me."

"Harry, correct me if I'm wrong, but you just defeated Voldemort, did you not?"

Hope swells in Harry's chest. "Professor, are you saying—"

Dumbledore smiles. "Go, Harry. There may yet be some help you can give."

End chapter. The next chapter starts with Voldemort and friends saying come join us to the goodfolk of Hogwarts. When no one does, battle breaks out. The rest of the chapter is a montage of different characters locked in war, and the whole time you're thinking, where the heck is that Potter boy?

Next chapter. Harry opens his eyes and takes in what's going on. He spots Voldemort not too far away, gets up, and shouts, "Tom."

The Dark Lord turns and freaks out. "Potter? How in the acromantula tits are you alive?"

"Magic, you dumb twat. Now give me my wand."

"Your wand? How about I give you this, avada kedavra!"

A blast of green energy flies at and bounces off Harry. Voldemort recoils in shock and shoots another killing spell. Harry advances.

"I said, give me my wand," Harry says as death curses continue to glance off him.

"How are you doing that?" Voldemort says between green blasts.

"I said—" Harry reaches out his hand and performs a silent accio spell. The Elder Wand leaps from the Dark Lord's fingers to Harry's. "Give. Me. My. Wand."

Tom Riddle falls back, arm flung in front of his face.

"When people ask about today, I'll simply tell them you died as you lived. With a flash of green. AVADA KEDAVRA."

Recap

Obviously this is just a hash-up of ideas, and it's just a first draft at that. There are definitely things that could be made better. But I hope you see the merits of this idea.

1. This delivers on the promise of the series. It makes the revelation of wand ownership a lot more impactful. It's much less of a shoehorned-in, nearly after-the-fact "twist," and more of an exciting, actionable reveal. Makes defeating Voldemort a choice rather than an accident.
2. This gets rid of the love magic problem at the end. No weird, lumpy logic there. No, "I broke the fundamental rule of sacrificial protection, but it still works anyway."
3. Harry actually gets to fight and defeat Voldemort—twice. The first time is an intense magic battle of unbridled proportions. The second is a straightforward, "you are puny, I am mighty" smackdown. It's not won on a fluke, but because Harry actually was the better wizard (at the crossroads, which translates to the Battle of Hogwarts).
4. It allows Harry to directly defeat the fraction of Voldemort's soul that had been lodged within him his entire life. I think the whole "Voldemort kills his own horcrux" was clever. I think it would have been more clever if Harry had planned it (honestly he might have, it's been awhile since I read the books). I also think it would be very satisfying if Harry was able to defeat it himself.
5. Also, I personally am partial to the idea of Harry using the killing spell once, to finally defeat the Dark Lord.

What do you think? Have any ideas to add?

My Issues with Episode VIII

Image Source

I saw this movie a couple days ago and just needed some place to catalog all the reasons I thought it wasn't up to quality.

Holdo withholds info, spurring Finn toward a useless expedition that gets loads of people killed.

• There's no reason Space Cadet Jane needed to be all secretive about their plans.
• Finn's entire plot during this movie was useless, and Rose felt forced as a character.
• They can't get the code breaker's contact info from Maz, or even try to look it up online? They have to physically fly to his planet (which happens to be close enough) and get him?
• The casino place, which ended up not even being used, got more exposition than any other part of the movie.
• Meeting the code breaker was garbage. There's how many jail cells, and you get put in one with a guy who happens to be able to break through First Order encryption on the fly?
• Their entire mission to save their friends is jeopardized beyond redemption, but a shot at redemption comes along and their response is, "Nope." They don't even consider it.
• BB-8 takes down a bunch of guards. Felt like it leaned too heavily on comedy and not on "this could actually happen."
• Rose taking the saddle off the fathier and saying, "Now it was worth it," is such an eye-rolling moment. For all they know, their mission was a complete failure. All their friends are going to die. But you took a saddle off one animal that's going to be rounded up in an hour, and now it's worth it?
• Phasma was built up to be this big deal, then she poofed after like a minute.
• The giant First Order ship gets destroyed by the hyperspace jump. Everbody in armor: dead. Finn and Rose: A-okay.
• Even though Finn, Rose, and Poe do a thing that gets people killed, there are no repercussions for them (admittedly they did it because of poor leadership).
• At the very least, the First Order would have been able to see the heat signal from the escape ships' exhaust (not to mention Finn and Rose's ship). They (the First Order) didn't need to make a deal with the code breaker.
• Rose crashes into Finn. I'll ignore whether or not this was a good decision plot-wise and simply ask, how in the world did she reach him? They have the exact same crappy speeders. He's going at full throttle. She turned away and has to circle back. There's no way she can catch up to him, let alone t-bone him.
• The kiss felt very "we're going to jam two mismatched puzzle pieces together." It didn't fit. There wasn't really a buildup to it. No chemistry between characters.
• How did they get back to the base? It took the cruisers quite a bit to get out there going at high speeds. Somehow Finn drags Rose back in like five minutes, and all without any enemies noticing and shooting them.
• All in all, Finn, a great character, was wasted in this film. His plotline was supposed to be about failure, but instead of him failing it was the writer(s).

"Somebody has to stay behind."

• No, you dumb cow, nobody has to stay behind. This is why they invented the computer. I promise the autopilot can handle flying in a straight line. If not, I promise you can control it remotely.
• Side note: this was a problem in Rogue One, too. People not knowing how computers work. "We have to get this hard drive physically to the top of this tower in order to transfer the info." No, that is absolutely not how computers work.
• Even if somebody did have to stay behind, it shouldn't have been Holdo. Leia or Ackbar would have been better. Someone who we care about should have been the focus of the most cinematically stunning scene in the movie.
• I couldn't tell if the hyperspace thing was her plan all along, or if she just thought of it as she was watching her fellows get obliterated. Her insistence that someone (her) stay behind makes me think it was in her plan. If so, why did she wait while the others got killed?
• The hyperspace kamikaze, though extremely cool, presents the issue of, why doesn't everybody just have hyperspace missiles? Why build humongous ships when someone could just hyperspace through it and shred it?

Let's make the main conflict be a whale hunt.

• Where were the TIE fighters? They've already shown that TIE fighters can damage the rebel ships. Why did they call them back if they're so dead-set on taking their enemies down? Poe can take down a dreadnought's entire weapons systems with one X-wing, but the First Order can't spare a single TIE fighter?
• It's been pointed out to me that they knew the rebels would run out of fuel (not sure how the FO knew), so it was economically better for them to wait it out than to expend ships taking them down. We know the FO has resources though (they built a planet that could eat stars and have loads of ships and troops), so I don't wholly buy that argument. Also, they destroyed a bunch of rebel fighter ships already. My response to "we can't cover you from this distance" is, once again, computers. Self-driving ships.
• Why in the eff were lasers fired in space arcing in a parabolic trajectory? I know they do things that don't always gel with physics, but some (lightsabers) it's assumed there's a technological reason for it. The arcing lasers just felt like bad design.
• I refuse to believe they're using anything except fusion or fission to power these ships (since they have limited amounts of fuel, so they're not using radiant energy). That being said, the fuel should have lasted a lot longer.
• Why couldn't the First Order have called in more ships? I'm sure you could have some hyperspace in ahead of the rebels and come at them the opposite way.

Snoke? Snoke who?

• Here's an incredibly strong force user that's been around since the Empire. How did he rise to power? Where was he during Palpatine's reign? Response: Lol, why would anyone want to know that?
• Luke says that Snoke already had too strong a hold on Ben Solo. How did they come in contact? Internet chat room? 
• Snoke, who can arrange force Skype sessions for other people, who can levitate other force users, who can read minds, etc. etc., doesn't notice that Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber is being turned through the force four inches away from him? Not believable.
• How are we supposed to care that Kylo took him out if we don't even know anything about him?

The Amazing Flying Leia!

• What on earth was that?
• You go unconscious pretty fast in space. Not to mention she was already unconscious from the blast (but she wasn't really hurt?). But somehow she came out of that and was able to use the force to fly back to the ship? Not believable.
• We've known she's force sensitive, but she's never actually used the force before in her life. Now that she's unconscious in the cruel vacuum of space, she can suddenly use it.
• Also, how did they get her back in the ship? When they opened that latch, it would have sucked them out into space, not to mention their oxygen.
• I wish there would have been some follow-up to her suddenly using the force. They completely ignore that it happened.

Luke.

• I feel like they weren't really true to his character. I know it's been a long time and things happen, but still. He's always been the guy who defends others and jumps in to help where he can. Why would he run away from Ben Solo alone when he had all these other apprentices?
• We never get to see his reaction to Han dying. It just cut away from that. Obviously not as important as drinking green milk from tumid space teats.
• He's cut himself off to the force for how long, and as soon as he opens himself up to it again he can do amazing feats like astral project into the physical plane across bazillions of miles?
• There was no reason for him to die. "Oh boy, what a hard day's work. Guess I'll die." The logic behind it is very shaky.
• So he's lost his hope. Okay. His turnaround for regaining hope seemed kind of quick.
• When he saw Leia, I really wanted him to say, "Wanna make out again?"

Force power creep.

• I'm a little iffy on the power creep we've seen going on with the force. The limits keep getting blurred (not that they were crazy well defined to begin with, but it was never so grand).
• Being able to force two other people into a distance-disregarding face-to-face talk is pretty big. Being able to astral project and talk and give dice is big.
• When is it going to stop? How preternatural are force wielders going to get by the end? 
• Some foreshadowing for new abilities would be nice, at the very least. I guess Yoda hit Luke with his cane, maybe showing that force ghosts can interact with the physical plane.

We need more humor!

• Star Wars has always had humor, but it feels out of place in this movie. Big explosion, lost a lot of people and equipment, Poe flies back, BB-8 flies by with a comedic scream (of course neither of them got injured when everyone else did).
• Maybe they're going to merge Marvel and Star Wars at some point, so they're prepping audiences by duplicating the humor.

How do I Reyact to this?

• I did like Rey better in this movie. She was much less of an I-can-do-everything type.
• Her training . . . was essentially no training. It was Luke proving that he can complain about things. And that's it.
• Didn't like how they built up this "darkness under the island," then when she goes down there it's a mirror that shows . . . a reflection of her. Wow. So amaze. Dark side so mystery.
• I reeaally wanted her to join Kylo Ren. I guess it's okay that she didn't, but can you imagine?
• How did she get off the ship and back to the Falcon? Do none of these ships have cameras?

Kylo Ren is good.

• He's my favorite character. Great performance by Adam. Great conflict and weaknesses.
• He was really the only one in the movie that acknowledged that Han Solo had died. Kind of disappointing.
• Where are the other apprentices Kylo took with him?
• There were no lightsaber duels in this movie. Almost one between Kylo and Luke. Almost one between Kylo and Rey. But no. This was the least lightsaber-intensive Star Wars movie ever.
• He doesn't notice that Luke is holding Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber, which was just destroyed by Kylo and Rey. I can write this off as him being blinded by rage, but still.
• He says that Rey killed Snoke. Once again, are there no cameras!?

I think that about wraps it up, though I'm sure there were more things (like them saying godspeed). My question is, what happened? Did Rian Johnson and everyone at Disney start taking stupid pills? Sure, there are plenty of things that you could argue are stylistic choices, but there are lots of things that are just straight up defects. Can Episode IX save this trilogy? Yes. Will it? I doubt it.

The Flaws of Harry Potter

This is a subject that many of my generation find blasphemous, but I assure you that this post is purely academic. It's a worthy pursuit to identify things that successful authors did poorly in order to avoid them. Let us begin.

The Goblet of Fire Plot Hole
One of the most blaring mistakes of the Harry Potter series is book 4. The entire plot of the book rides on the idea that the Death Eaters have to get Harry to touch any object. That is to say, a portkey can be any object, and Harry just has to touch it outside the walls of Hogwarts. So instead of having a Death Eater come up to Harry at the Three Broomsticks and give him some present, they decide, "Let's make it one of the single most difficult objects to touch in the wizarding world."

Voldemort wants to kill Harry. But first he needs Harry's blood to be able to kill Harry. We need to keep him alive so we (or more specifically I) can kill him. I feel like a whole lot of trouble could be bypassed by just killing him, then resurrecting Voldemort. Maybe that was the Death Eaters' plan. Put Harry in the Triwizard Tournament and let him die accidentally. Or not, they seem pretty fawning. The point is, don't make an entire book based off a plot hole. Examine your characters' motives before making a plot (and after).

Hm, this picture appears unwilling to show up. It's rejecting my accio picture command. Another flaw of Harry Potter: I've never gotten any of the spells to work.

Time Travel
A classic way to fill your plot with holes is to introduce time travel. Now, Rowling tried to patch this up in book 5 by sending the time-turners into an infinite loop of getting knocked over, thereby rendering this useless. But that doesn't cover up the fact that they existed for a long time before then.

That means that for every crime committed, the Ministry could just take time turners, go back, and prevent it. Pretty useful, eh? Every single event that they weren't pleased with, they could revert time and change the course of events. For example, the murder of Lilly and James Potter. Why don't we go back and stop Voldemort, or at least warn the Potter's so they can flee? No, no, let's save Buckbeak. (I'm talking more about Dumbledore at this point.) The point is, don't introduce time travel unless you put limitation on it.

Voldemort: The Most Powerful Wizard in the UK
For how infamous and powerful the Dark Lord is, his reach doesn't seem to extend very far past the UK. I don't know that this is a huge flaw, but you'd think that a sociopathic megalomaniac would want to rule more than just one country. One might counter argue that he was still in the process of conquering the UK when he got zapped by Lily's love power. Not a flaw per se, but it just seemed like the villain had a relatively small vision to me.

Another issue with the geography of things is why did the Potter's feel the need to hide in the UK? I'm sure there are hundreds of other wizarding communities (where Voldemort has seemingly no reach) that would willingly hide them. But no, they decide to hide with the bomb instead of away from it.

The Magic System
So then there's the magic system. Rowling just kind of improvises new bells and whistles as she goes along. Then in later books she might completely ignore an element of magic that was so interesting in previous books.

It also seems as if you could just learn Latin and become a master wizard. Why don't they teach Latin at Hogwarts (I mean, they do, but it's broken up). And who decides when you can make new spells? Snape just kind of comes up with a sinister, powerful one as a student. Why hasn't Hermione made a list of her own inventions?

Why do spells have to be generated from the wand? Powerful wizards don't have to use a wand to channel their magic. Why, then, couldn't they originate a spell right in front of someone's face?

Another qualm I had was how Harry only learned like 3 spells his entire 6 years at Hogwarts. I expected him to become a great wizard. In the end, he won off a fluke of wand ownership. Rowling defined dueling magic as the quickest and wittiest wizard will win. But instead of using that definition, she had Harry win because one time he disarmed Malfoy. It was clever, but I didn't feel it was terribly satisfying.

Love Magic (Sacrificial Protection)
Ah, perhaps one of my biggest issues. The love magic. Rowling uses an a priori assumption that love trumps all, but never goes into too much detail. The basic rules of love magic, or sacrificial protection, are die for somebody and they get arcane protection against your killer. So my question is this: why is Harry so revered? Has no one ever sacrificed themselves before? This sounds like a documented phenomenon, yet the entire wizarding world seems oblivious to the fact, naming him The Boy Who Lived. I find it hard to believe that so few wizards have ever sacrificed themselves that the entire community views this as incredible.

And the second part comes when Harry invokes the powers of Sacrificial Protection. He goes to Voldemort who kills him. Then all the good guys back in Hogwarts are protected from his (and somewhat from his cronies') magic. But here's the thing: Harry didn't die. Dumbledore explicitly states this. If he did die then it would be breaking the Rule Against Resurrection when he came back.

But that means that you don't actually have to die in order to access the Love Magic. So another question that gets brought up is are there other acts of love that would activate the Love Magic? I suppose we'll never know.

Other Random Flaws
The Potter universe also seems to completely disregard the existence of modern weaponry. That was likely on purpose, but Harry and Hermione lived with muggles for years before learning about magic. Of course they know about guns, planes, bombs, tanks, etc. Why doesn't Harry keep a glock on him for the next time he meets Voldemort? Imagine the battle in the fourth book: their wands connect. Voldemort is distracted. Harry pulls out a 9mm and pops a cap. It's suddenly a 4-book series.

In the telling of the Deathly Hallows, we learn that one can hide from Death with the invisibility cloak made by Death himself. But somehow a group of teenagers made a map that can see through it. Perhaps Death should have hired the marauders.

Liquid luck, or felix felicis, will purportedly give the user a perfect day. Why didn't Harry and the gang brew some of that up and down it once they came up against Voldemort?

Another thing that was always an issue for me was that when Harry said a phrase that closely resembled Diagon Alley (maybe even how some dialects would pronounce it), he was transported to a place called Knockturn Alley. Diagon, Knockturn. Di, Knock. Is magic so stupid that it can mistake the two?

This isn't exactly a flaw and was touched upon above, but what's the deal with wizards outside of the UK? We see a bit of that in the 4th book with the two visiting schools and the World Cup, but what about continents beside Europe? I understand this topic is briefly discussed in non-series books that I haven't read, but you think there'd be more of a mention. What did wizards of the Plains Indians do in the early second millennium? What about Mayan wizards? Aborigine wizards? African? It's not vital to know, but it would have been nice if the topic were addressed. It could come in a passing comment by Hermione. "We can't reveal ourselves, Ron. The ancient wizards of Mesoamerica did just that and they ended up controlling the people."

In Conclusion
All in all, the books are fantastic. This was merely an exercise to show how even great authors can forget elements they introduce and leave loose ends. They can get caught up in a story and not realize that the plot they're writing is unnecessary. They forget motives. They make a priori assumptions. They ignore facts. They capriciously make and break rules. And we loved it. This is not a ticket to go and do all those things