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darkangel787

Plot Holes and Writing Flaws

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As for the veritaserum, ok so she put that one her website, if she wanted to justify it, that should be in the books. Plot holes should be explained in the book or I will assume it was a plot hole and the author came up with a justification afterward, or they had it in their head but failed to convey their idea.

Because nothing says good reading like detailed exposition on the inner workings of how a spell/potion can be thwarted... tongue.gif

 

And veritaserum makes sense. IRL, more hardened and experienced liars will be better at keeping a poker face and their involuntary bodily motions in check, making it harder to tell the difference between lying and telling the truth, and the only way to break them is to use an appropriately large force, or leverage to make them tell the truth (getting them drunk, making them groggy, using a very effective means to make sure you can deduce if they're lying, etc.).

 

It'd make sense that a truth potion would work better on school children (most of which wouldn't know Occlumency, or ways to thwart a potion (especially if someone just put it in their drink)), rather than a trained and hardened criminal. And plus, IIRC, the elf of the woman who owned Helga Hufflepuff's Cup before Voldy took it was under the Imperius Curse, which would have made Veritaserum useless since the answers the elf would give would be whatever Voldy wanted him to say, and the fact that you couldn't be sure if someone was being controlled/brainwashed/etc... well... it makes for a sticky situation...

 

If anything, Polyjuice potion was more of an annoying plot device... it was a hard-to-make potion that needed to be brewed for a month... with hard to find ingredients... Yet Barty Jr. had enough for a YEAR, and in the final book it was used in the moving of Harry to the Burrow, When he went to the wedding, when the team infiltrated the Ministry of Magic, and when they got into Gringotts... the last two of which I have to question how the team got the potion (if they got it from someone), or how they brewed it (time-wise AND ingredient-wise). If Polyjuice potion has a good shelf-life, I can see Barty getting a giant brew of it, or after becoming Moody, he could have gotten a lot from the ministry (though, wouldn't they question WHY "Moody" would want it?), and maybe Hermione stocked up on some before the adventure (and while she did pack a lot, would he have planned THAT much ahead?), but otherwise it just seems... strange...

 

-K-

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As far as I know Africa is not bigger than Asia so as an example, in a fantasy, Africa CAN BE bigger than Asia. It is only an example explaining that a fantasy can break any and all rules, even geographical.

 

 

Did she ever say this is set in a world that looks exactly as ours. I don't think so. And even so it can be explained with the moving of tectonic plates. Maybe this is an alternate reality where brazil having a west coast is possible. As far as I know she never said it was this dimension the book takes place and because it has vampires I say it doesn't really take place in our dimension.

 

'It's like saying "this book is about magic, set on Earth. With magic, people can do all kinds of things, like doing chores, fighting, or any other menial tasks.'

 

Umm you can say that... If your talking twilight than no but a book can and HAS been like that before.

So you really think that she sat down to write the book and decided "In my vampire filled world, Brazil has a west coast!"?

Edited by superguy16

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If anything, Polyjuice potion was more of an annoying plot device... it was a hard-to-make potion that needed to be brewed for a month... with hard to find ingredients... Yet Barty Jr. had enough for a YEAR, and in the final book it was used in the moving of Harry to the Burrow, When he went to the wedding, when the team infiltrated the Ministry of Magic, and when they got into Gringotts... the last two of which I have to question how the team got the potion (if they got it from someone), or how they brewed it (time-wise AND ingredient-wise). If Polyjuice potion has a good shelf-life, I can see Barty getting a giant brew of it, or after becoming Moody, he could have gotten a lot from the ministry (though, wouldn't they question WHY "Moody" would want it?), and maybe Hermione stocked up on some before the adventure (and while she did pack a lot, would he have planned THAT much ahead?), but otherwise it just seems... strange...

 

-K-

Barty was stealing from Snape's stores, wasn't he? It wasn't just the gillyweed that had gone missing, it was quite a list of things. Snape knew those were used in Polyjuice and knew Harry had dabbled in it, so he assumed Harry was doing all the stealing after making the Poly connection after the task.

 

I think I just assume that in 7 the plan was to have Harry in disguise as much as possible, so they made a bunch over the summer as a just in case.

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So you really think that she sat down to write the book and decided "In my vampire filled world, Brazil has a west coast!"?

As for people being angry with twilight because their living place is not in it, if authors didn't write a book because it would offend someone then we wouldn't have any books.

 

 

 

 

 

Now the quote... do you really think that is impossible?

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Because nothing says good reading like detailed exposition on the inner workings of how a spell/potion can be thwarted... tongue.gif

 

And veritaserum makes sense. IRL, more hardened and experienced liars will be better at keeping a poker face and their involuntary bodily motions in check, making it harder to tell the difference between lying and telling the truth, and the only way to break them is to use an appropriately large force, or leverage to make them tell the truth (getting them drunk, making them groggy, using a very effective means to make sure you can deduce if they're lying, etc.).

 

It'd make sense that a truth potion would work better on school children (most of which wouldn't know Occlumency, or ways to thwart a potion (especially if someone just put it in their drink)), rather than a trained and hardened criminal. And plus, IIRC, the elf of the woman who owned Helga Hufflepuff's Cup before Voldy took it was under the Imperius Curse, which would have made Veritaserum useless since the answers the elf would give would be whatever Voldy wanted him to say, and the fact that you couldn't be sure if someone was being controlled/brainwashed/etc... well... it makes for a sticky situation...

 

If anything, Polyjuice potion was more of an annoying plot device... it was a hard-to-make potion that needed to be brewed for a month... with hard to find ingredients... Yet Barty Jr. had enough for a YEAR, and in the final book it was used in the moving of Harry to the Burrow, When he went to the wedding, when the team infiltrated the Ministry of Magic, and when they got into Gringotts... the last two of which I have to question how the team got the potion (if they got it from someone), or how they brewed it (time-wise AND ingredient-wise). If Polyjuice potion has a good shelf-life, I can see Barty getting a giant brew of it, or after becoming Moody, he could have gotten a lot from the ministry (though, wouldn't they question WHY "Moody" would want it?), and maybe Hermione stocked up on some before the adventure (and while she did pack a lot, would he have planned THAT much ahead?), but otherwise it just seems... strange...

 

-K-

At one point it should be explained that vertiaserum only makes people more likely to tell the truth. There are many ways she could have slid that in. Otherwise, readers could easily assume it is like a spell (like I did.) Leaving that tid bit out creates a loop hole. IMO good books contain very few loop holes. It is true that if there were some formula to get people to tell the truth IRL than more experienced liars could lie even under its influence, but I do not think of magic potions as the equivalent of what they would be IRL. The Helga Hufflepuff's cup case does make sense however. If you don't know if someone can really tell the truth veritaserum wouldn't be useful. I think the main issue with polyjuice is it's difficulty to brew. If she had just made it a little easier than it would work. Then again, it seems that most potions can last for awhile, so why not polyjuice? However, in book five, polyjucie ingredients were being stolen from Snape's stores, making it clear it was being brewed. Admittedly, with the Hermonie stocking up, we can probably assume there was a lot she didn't use that she brought in her magical handbag.

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As for the veritaserum, ok so she put that one her website, if she wanted to justify it, that should be in the books. Plot holes should be explained in the book or I will assume it was a plot hole and the author came up with a justification afterward, or they had it in their head but failed to convey their idea.

 

It is true, Ron did lose a chunk of his arm, but he lived didn't he? Also, Hermonie is bright and all, but she is a seventh year equivalent. If she could disapperate under pressure and only splinch the person that she brought with her I would think, say, Lilly Potter, could disaperate fairly safely with her son. As darkangel said, of magic folk Harry's age only Hermonie could teleport under stress. Harry is a teen/young adult. A rather experienced wizard, should be able to disaperate from a place where disaperation is possible under stress.

The books do make mention of the fact that Veritaserum will only reveal what the person believes to be true. And memories can be modified. Snape also talks about how the potion is very difficult and time-consuming to brew. Probably also requires some hard to find ingredients, if even Snape thinks it's a difficult potion. It would be impractical for the Ministry to try to procure large batches of it for all of the Death Eater or Muggle-Born trials, and it still has that margin of error. Under Veritaserum, the Muggle-Born witches and wizards would still claim that they were witches and wizards, because that is what they believe. Death Eaters could either modify their memories, or else have the strength of will to convince themselves that they were under the Imperius Curse.

 

The Potters house was given every single magical protection it could have. I'm sure that included spells to block Apparition. Apparition also requires having your wand on you, which James did not, and if Lily did she didn't draw it. She could well have been unarmed too.

And yeah, Ron's Splinch was relatively small to what it could have been. Most of him still made it. But he lost a lot of blood, even from that small Splinch, and it was only on his arm. If it had been on his neck, or his head? A small Splinch in the wrong place can still kill you.

... But yes. An experienced wizard probably could Disapparate from a fight, if the place wasn't bound.

 

 

If anything, Polyjuice potion was more of an annoying plot device... it was a hard-to-make potion that needed to be brewed for a month... with hard to find ingredients... Yet Barty Jr. had enough for a YEAR, and in the final book it was used in the moving of Harry to the Burrow, When he went to the wedding, when the team infiltrated the Ministry of Magic, and when they got into Gringotts... the last two of which I have to question how the team got the potion (if they got it from someone), or how they brewed it (time-wise AND ingredient-wise). If Polyjuice potion has a good shelf-life, I can see Barty getting a giant brew of it, or after becoming Moody, he could have gotten a lot from the ministry (though, wouldn't they question WHY "Moody" would want it?), and maybe Hermione stocked up on some before the adventure (and while she did pack a lot, would he have planned THAT much ahead?), but otherwise it just seems... strange...

Barty Jr. was stealing from Snape's stores and brewing more potion all year. Moody no longer worked for the Ministry, so they wouldn't have provided him with any anyway.

Hermione stole several bottles from the Order's store of Polyjuice, wich they likely had brewed for the specific purpose of concealing Harry.

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The books do make mention of the fact that Veritaserum will only reveal what the person believes to be true. And memories can be modified. Snape also talks about how the potion is very difficult and time-consuming to brew. Probably also requires some hard to find ingredients, if even Snape thinks it's a difficult potion. It would be impractical for the Ministry to try to procure large batches of it for all of the Death Eater or Muggle-Born trials, and it still has that margin of error. Under Veritaserum, the Muggle-Born witches and wizards would still claim that they were witches and wizards, because that is what they believe. Death Eaters could either modify their memories, or else have the strength of will to convince themselves that they were under the Imperius Curse.

 

The Potters house was given every single magical protection it could have. I'm sure that included spells to block Apparition. Apparition also requires having your wand on you, which James did not, and if Lily did she didn't draw it. She could well have been unarmed too.

And yeah, Ron's Splinch was relatively small to what it could have been. Most of him still made it. But he lost a lot of blood, even from that small Splinch, and it was only on his arm. If it had been on his neck, or his head? A small Splinch in the wrong place can still kill you.

... But yes. An experienced wizard probably could Disapparate from a fight, if the place wasn't bound.

 

 

 

Barty Jr. was stealing from Snape's stores and brewing more potion all year. Moody no longer worked for the Ministry, so they wouldn't have provided him with any anyway.

Hermione stole several bottles from the Order's store of Polyjuice, wich they likely had brewed for the specific purpose of concealing Harry.

That does make sense for Lily and James not disaperating, and the polyjucie potion in my mind never was very unexplained. I still fell like the ministry would be able to brew veritaserum for death eater trials. I do remember all of those facts, but none of them mention being able to lie while under the influence of vertiaserum. I suppose if they really could convince themselves, vertiaserum would be useless.

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They can't lie per se, but if they truly believe something that is false, that is all the Veritaserum will be able to pull from them.

Fudge wanted to dismiss Barty Crouch Jr.'s confessions under Veritaserum because he could have been crazy and simply believed he was acting on Voldemort's orders, when it was actually just his own deranged mind.

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Yeah. I mean (referencing another book here) if someone actually LIKED the evil person but didn't actually know that what he did was evil, then when questioned under Veritaserum, all he would know is that the evil person's doings had a good intention. If you question a random person on the street with Veritaserum and ask them what <insert random country's names> nuclear missile plans, the average citizen wouldn't know that, so they wouldn't be able to provide an absolutely truthful answer.

 

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In the first Series of the Warriors books...there is at least two or three times where the name is miswritten. Example: Fire and Ice~on the way to their first Gathering as warriors, Fireheart stops too look back at the ravine and gets a little behind, Graystripe calls back to get his attention, Fireheart tells Graystripe "I'm coming" and then it says that FirePAW bunches up his leg muscles to jump up the rest of the ravine

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Sorry to bring it up a page later, but about Twilight's island off Brazil's west coast... I have to say that for something like that, it should make sense. You can't just say "it's a fantasy novel." If you decide "this story is based on this Earth, the one we live in, except it has [insert magical thing(s)] in it," you have to follow through. You say it's on Earth, it's on Earth, along with all of it's geography. Of course, you also decide when it's set, but that doesn't apply here. If you want to change something, then make your own world. You want Antarctica to be a rainforest, fine. But then you can't say that it's set in our Earth or this time period anymore.

 

Thing is, this is just a simple mistake, not a question of what a writer can and can't do.

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Yeah. I mean (referencing another book here) if someone actually LIKED the evil person but didn't actually know that what he did was evil, then when questioned under Veritaserum, all he would know is that the evil person's doings had a good intention. If you question a random person on the street with Veritaserum and ask them what <insert random country's names> nuclear missile plans, the average citizen wouldn't know that, so they wouldn't be able to provide an absolutely truthful answer.

This is true. However if you ask them say "Have you ever killed someone" or "Have you robbed a bank" they would probably know the truth. Unless they are insane. I do agree 100% that vertiserum is useless to use on someone who may be insane.

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In the first Series of the Warriors books...there is at least two or three times where the name is miswritten. Example: Fire and Ice~on the way to their first Gathering as warriors, Fireheart stops too look back at the ravine and gets a little behind, Graystripe calls back to get his attention, Fireheart tells Graystripe "I'm coming" and then it says that FirePAW bunches up his leg muscles to jump up the rest of the ravine

Also, in Firestar's Quest, they mis-wrote the correct Clan name. I think it was for Thunderclan, which would mean Firestar. Instead of saying ThunderClan, they wrote that Firestar was leader of ShadowClan >__>

 

 

 

I don't think the serum is completely reliable...

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In the first Series of the Warriors books...there is at least two or three times where the name is miswritten. Example: Fire and Ice~on the way to their first Gathering as warriors, Fireheart stops too look back at the ravine and gets a little behind, Graystripe calls back to get his attention, Fireheart tells Graystripe "I'm coming" and then it says that FirePAW bunches up his leg muscles to jump up the rest of the ravine

And in the last book of the first series (can't remember the title, it's been so long since I've read them), it mentions "Ravenpaw's mentor, TigerPAW."

 

I've seen mistakes like this in all of the Warriors books.

Edited by St. Jimmy

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Sorry to bring it up a page later, but about Twilight's island off Brazil's west coast... I have to say that for something like that, it should make sense. You can't just say "it's a fantasy novel." If you decide "this story is based on this Earth, the one we live in, except it has [insert magical thing(s)] in it," you have to follow through. You say it's on Earth, it's on Earth, along with all of it's geography. Of course, you also decide when it's set, but that doesn't apply here. If you want to change something, then make your own world. You want Antarctica to be a rainforest, fine. But then you can't say that it's set in our Earth or this time period anymore.

 

Thing is, this is just a simple mistake, not a question of what a writer can and can't do.

HAVE to means the rules are unbreakable and seeing as this is a fantasy we are talking about that isn't true. If you claim a story is on earth you SHOULD make it geographically correct, and as I said in a previous post what you should do is often ignored by what you can do, but you don't actually HAVE to.

 

 

You forget the alternate reality theory, and seeing this is a fantasy this is very likely. This could be an alternate reality where brazil having a west coast is possible. Can, and most likely, this be a mistake? Sure but just because Smeyer sucks at writing doesn't make everything in the book a mistake. Unless she says she F'ed up you can't call it a mistake and claim it as fact. Observation but not fact. And yes all my theories are just that, THEORIES.

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And in the last book of the first series (can't remember the title, it's been so long since I've read them), it mentions "Ravenpaw's mentor, TigerPAW."

 

I've seen mistakes like this in all of the Warriors books.

i noticed that one too...i just couldnt remember which book, the last book is Ths Darkest Hour. I've got all the books in hardcover except Night Whispers (which I am getting tomorrow) I would always seem to run across these errors in the books, but after the first series I found them less often and less obvious.

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There's been a lot of factual errors throughout the warriors series, especially with names. I'm not sure if an editor lost his/her handy dandy red pen, or they were just overlooked, but they're getting annoying.

Like, I remember in the newest one, Night Whispers, they mentioned (names put into white for spoiler's sake) Briarlight as Briarpaw.

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There's been a lot of factual errors throughout the warriors series, especially with names. I'm not sure if an editor lost his/her handy dandy red pen, or they were just overlooked, but they're getting annoying.

Stuff like that is usually the copyeditor's job. It's a separate job from the general editor. I find a lot of those kind of errors in mass market books where the point seems to get them out there and making money as quickly as possible. I tend to try to judge those and typo-style errors (the job of the proofreader) separately from the basic story and what the general editor should have caught. They are all different parts of the job.

 

For example, I would consider the incorrect location of an island off Brazil in Breaking Dawn to be the copyeditor's fault more so than Meyers. If the author makes mistakes like that it is the job of his/her copyeditor to catch them and find out if they were purposeful or in need of correction. The copyeditor should have had a map.

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Stuff like that is usually the copyeditor's job. It's a separate job from the general editor. I find a lot of those kind of errors in mass market books where the point seems to get them out there and making money as quickly as possible. I tend to try to judge those and typo-style errors (the job of the proofreader) separately from the basic story and what the general editor should have caught. They are all different parts of the job.

 

For example, I would consider the incorrect location of an island off Brazil in Breaking Dawn to be the copyeditor's fault more so than Meyers. If the author makes mistakes like that it is the job of his/her copyeditor to catch them and find out if they were purposeful or in need of correction. The copyeditor should have had a map.

This is a good point also. While, if it actually is one, the mistake is originally made by the author, the copyeditor should catch them so the corrections can be made.

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Barty was stealing from Snape's stores, wasn't he? It wasn't just the gillyweed that had gone missing, it was quite a list of things. Snape knew those were used in Polyjuice and knew Harry had dabbled in it, so he assumed Harry was doing all the stealing after making the Poly connection after the task.

This also brings up the point (since I forgot he was stealing from Snape) of how Barty was able to brew a month long potion with meticulous details while still being disguised as Moody. He would need a month's worth at least before he even started stealing from Snape (unless he stole before the year started, which seems unlikely), and considering how much he would need to maintain his form at all times (or whenever he's in public, at the least), which is one dose for every hour, the amount of ingredients he'd need to have before hand AND the amount that he stole from Snape would probably be a lot more than he could procure himself/that Snape would have on hand, and wouldn't the sheer amount of ingredients missing make Snape a bit suspicious of what Harry would be doing with so much of it?

 

It all just seems a bit too much... :/

 

-K-

Edited by Kamak

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T_T But Smeyer STILL should have been able to use Google Maps when she first wrote the dang thing...

Again we don't KNOW it is a mistake. She could have done it on purpose. There is a POSSIBILITY it is a mistake, not a GUARANTEE.

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For example, I would consider the incorrect location of an island off Brazil in Breaking Dawn to be the copyeditor's fault more so than Meyers. If the author makes mistakes like that it is the job of his/her copyeditor to catch them and find out if they were purposeful or in need of correction. The copyeditor should have had a map.

Didn't someone on the previous thread say that SMeyer insisted on NOT having Breaking Dawn read/edited before publishing, because the previous books sold oh-so-well and she got herself into the idea that she's a literary genius? :B

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Didn't someone on the previous thread say that SMeyer insisted on NOT having Breaking Dawn read/edited before publishing, because the previous books sold oh-so-well and she got herself into the idea that she's a literary genius? :B

I think that was mentioned.

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Again we don't KNOW it is a mistake. She could have done it on purpose. There is a POSSIBILITY it is a mistake, not a GUARANTEE.

I did not want to enter the discussion, but, really!

 

As long as she doesn't explain it, and it bears no relevance to the story, it IS a mistake. Otherwise, we can just skip all flaws we see in books with such a lame excuse.

 

I am working on alternate reality real world, but all the changes done have a relevance to the plot and ARE explained. She does not explain it, she's simply done 0 research when writing her books.

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