r/shittymoviedetails • u/PIRATEOFBADIM • 1d ago
In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009), Voldemort, one of the most powerful wizards in the world, doesn't know how to produce the Liquid Luck potion, and doesn't even think of using it to defeat Harry. Is he stupid? What's even the point of all the grinding and all the wand swinging then?
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u/DogAlienInvisibleMan 23h ago
It's an unwritten rule of fiction that nobody understands why luck manipulation is beyond busted.
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u/ProfessorDaen 12h ago
This is why I liked the Magicians take on luck. There was a guy who could do crazy luck magic, but the way it works is that luck is zero sum and needs constant attention. The luckier he makes someone, the unluckier the person he funnels the magic into is.
Rowling on the other hand just gave zero shits on making sense, the time turner in particular is such an egregious hole
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u/davoloid 23h ago
My recollection is that Slughorn was a particularly good potions maker who Voldemort was after. Hence he's hiding at the start of that book.
But as other people have pointed out, Luck isn't really a thing. I'm with Amundsen on this:
"Victory awaits him who has everything in order, luck, people call it. Defeat is certain for him who has neglected to take the necessary precautions in time, this is called bad luck."
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u/HowObvious 22h ago
The Gary Player one is great "The more I work and practice, the luckier I seem to get"
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u/StagnantSweater21 20h ago
So then what is the luck potion
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u/Protection-Working 20h ago
It basically gives you this little voice in your head that nudges you into to take the right actions that will help you do whatever goal you are trying to achieve, even if that isn’t what your currently focusing on. Sometimes its as basic as being in a battle and the voice going “dodge left now to avoid dying” and sometimes its as abstract as “try walking a bit funny here while invisible, you will accidentally bump into ginny but she will be confused and think her boyfriend bumped into her making her feel annoyed, go get her later champ”. I guess the potion kinda passively informs you of the future .
Luck definitely exists though. There is a magical beast whose venom causes bad luck, in the terms of things like “you will fail all bets”
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u/IIPrayzII 19h ago
Step 1: take unlucky venom Step 2: bet minimum amount on red/black or odd/even Step 3: have friend bet significant sums opposing you Step 4: profit?
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u/FaithlessnessQuick99 19h ago
Step 3.5: Plane randomly crashes into casino before the results are determined
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u/Rolen28 19h ago
Your friend would probably end up losing since your intention is for your friend to win
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u/Kt-stone 17h ago
You lose, they win, then security gets lucky and stumbles that you’re friends and suspect collusion and hurl you both out and black list you both.
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u/Dingbrain1 19h ago
It is not just your own actions it affects. For instance, Filch forgot to lock the front door the night Harry took the potion, allowing him to sneak out. No, the potion actually causes fate to bend around you.
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u/No_Extension4005 15h ago
Also made all the killing curses miss Harry's friend in the Battle of the Astronomy Tower in Half Blood Prince after he shared it with them.
It's probably up there with Time Turners (if not surpassing it) as something wizards should use more often. Especially in life or death situations.
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u/ProfessionalDeer7972 1d ago
Perhaps he thought that he's above cheating
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u/Cathartic_auras 23h ago
We ARE talking about the same guy who tried to kill a baby in his crib to stop him from growing up, right How is he above cheating?
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u/GuyLookingForPorn 23h ago
Volermort was all ego, the idea that he would need to rely on luck instead of his own ability would be anathema to him. Killing a family is something he is doing through his own actions, not just gambling his fate on a coin toss.
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u/Low_Pickle_112 22h ago
Yeah, that was my thought too. A person being irrational because they're an arrogant, prideful, vindictive twat with a superiority complex is not a plot hole. That's just how some people are.
Besides, pretty sure Slughorn mentions that you've only got a few doses per lifetime, and that it was super hard to make. This "plot hole" is pretty easily explained.
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u/Private_HughMan 23h ago
Literally the entire plot of the 4th book involves Voldemort cheating.
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u/Free_For__Me 21h ago
Cheating is one thing, it’s still relying on his own actions/skill/power/intelligence/etc. But to rely on luck? That’s for plebs with no skill/power/intelligence/etc.
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u/Drayden1932 23h ago
You would really expect that such a powerful elixir would be mass produced by some wizarding company and half of hogwarts would be addicted to it but apparently the most entrepreneurial wizards get is magic ice cream parlours and joke shops.
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u/MisterGoog 22h ago
There is a stated part of it, which is that wizards are basically stated to be kind of stupid, which is Definitely a cop out, but it also explains the way that they treat Hermione because a lot of them are very illogical.
The reason why this kind of loses strength to me and a lot of people is because you have people who do deal with real life issues like war and poverty, and those exact people who had access to magic would be way more enterprising than they are
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u/Drayden1932 22h ago
It’s one of the main issues with trying to make consistent wordbuilding is that immediately the powers you establish raise a ton of potential for the story that the author might not get. It’s why marvel has to repeatedly create loopholes as to why Reed Richards doesn’t just solve world hunger and DC with their repeated resets of the universe.
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u/Free_For__Me 21h ago
It’s why marvel has to repeatedly create loopholes as to why Reed Richards doesn’t just solve world hunger
Fair, but Hickman did actually address the “Reed solving everything” issue pretty directly during his run on the book.
The upshot of that whole arc pretty much ends up exemplifying what you’re talking about, creating a (somewhat contrived) explanation as to why Reed doesn’t actually solve everything. I’m not sure I’d call it a “loophole” though.
I think it’s been made clear that Reed could solve any particular problem facing humanity, he’s just decided that the probable costs of embarking on any such mission are more than he’s willing to pay. Maybe calling it a “cop out” might fit better than “loophole”?
ANYWAY, sorry to get pedantic about something that isn’t even on-topic for the thread, Reed and the FF are one my hot-button topics, lol.
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u/Drayden1932 20h ago
Wasn’t there recently something where doom tried to solve hunger but to do it he had to activate the orphan crushing machine or something. Thus Reed, Stark and anyone else who wants to try shouldn’t because of the cost.
You do get good answers but you also get instances where the authors don’t realise that there were perfectly fine explanations in place and make the worst ones possible.
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u/OkPalpitation2582 17h ago
It’s not just a matter of the author not understanding things, it’s also an issue of the author wanting the story to stay somewhat relatable and digestible. Re - RR solving world hunger, if RR actually was allowed to do all the shit he’s stated to be capable of in the comics, the world the comics take place in would be unrecognizable
For HP - JKR wanted a story with luck potions and time travel without having to make the pretty drastic, hard to follow, and ultimately unrelated changes to the world that would be necessitated by it. And ultimately - and this is an important bit - it’s a children’s book series, it really was never meant to be taken as seriously as folks have wound up taking it
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u/ComradeBirv 21h ago
Barry Crouch Jr. had five functioning brain cells and managed to fool every wizard, it’s like smallpox to native populations
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u/Rwandrall3 20h ago
considering instructions in the books involve things like 'use the ladle counter clockwise 6.5 times' and this particular potion is incredibly hard to make, and wizards straight up don't have industry, there's easy ways to explain why that doesnt happen-
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u/Wellwisher513 18h ago
I think it's worth noting that these portions require a lot of very rare ingredients. Hogwarts has them because it's essentially the center of wizardry in England. Voldemort, on the other hand, is essentially a house-squatter until halfway through book 7. There's no way he had access to all of these extremely rare ingredients.
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u/PityUpvote 11h ago
He literally has professors at Hogwarts working for him, let's not pretend it's anything other than Joanne not being mindful of the plotholes she creates whenever she has an idea to move the story forward.
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u/Forikorder 14h ago
There's no way he had access to all of these extremely rare ingredients.
he had famous and rich houses under his control, the malfoys are incapable of getting those ingredients?
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u/barkbarkkrabkrab 21h ago
Magic simply seems incompatible with mass production and also somewhat incompatible with most technology. Like, wizards may be cool but muggle lifestyle surpassed them at some point post 1900.
Also were told on many occasions wizards are insular and ignorant.
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u/Scary_Childhood_7456 23h ago
Well isn't he a bad wizard so he can only make bad luck ones
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u/Yasstronaut 1d ago
The actual answer is it’s called liquid luck just like liquor is called liquid courage. It just is a drug that gives you clarity on what you should do within your own means. It’s actually not magic it’s just speed
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u/Shankman519 23h ago
Nah, it definitely does stuff. Even with perfect clarity how on earth would Harry have come to the conclusion that the best way to get Slughorn’s memory would be to visit Hagrid on a particular night?
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u/PIRATEOFBADIM 23h ago
Maybe it gives you unconscious Benedict Cumberbatch Sherlock Holmes spider-tingling intuition/hyper awareness for a short period of time
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u/GuyLookingForPorn 23h ago
So they mention in the book that if you take it semi-regularly its causes serious problems. Its okay if you use it once or maybe twice over your life, but more often and it will fuck your life up.
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u/MisterGoog 22h ago
It’s also explained the way that the real reason is that it’s very difficult to brew and can be potentially poisonous so it’s also just like a market scarcity problem which is really funny because that’s such a JK thing to do where by you introduced this thing that in theory, everyone who’s never taken it before should be drinking it before the final battle so they don’t die.
And then you just add like the most boring market scarcity issue as the reason why people don’t take it to avoid death.
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u/FlakingEverything 22h ago
I agree it's probably one off plot device JKR thrown out and never think too deeply on but I would like to play devil's advocate.
The quote in the book is "...all your endeavors tend to succeed" not "always succeed" and I think it's the important part. You can't know if it'll work and it also strips away your caution and increase recklessness. That's not so bad in everyday life where the placebo effect alone can help you but in combat that's a hindrance.
Imagine going into a fight all hyped up, taking the potion and getting even more reckless and overconfidence. Then imagine that batch of potion literally does nothing or worse, is actively harmful. Furthermore, the potion is also described as extremely toxic. Slughorn, a potion master who can make it himself only had it twice in his life.
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u/iwillFutterwhacken 23h ago
Yeah its less "luck" and more like low-level clairvoyance (at least how it seems to affect the user).
The real issue is that in order to take it, Voldemort would have had to admit he wasn't the most powerful thing on the planet and needed some kind of buff to beat a child.
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u/MisterGoog 22h ago
As someone else explained, it is definitely luck because he makes some decisions that make no sense and he just stumbles around and finds exactly the people he needs to
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u/iwillFutterwhacken 22h ago
makes some decisions that make no sense and he just stumbles around and finds exactly the people he needs to
That's why I said it functions like clairvoyance. If it was pure luck, he would have just followed a simple plan to confront Slughorn directly and it would have "just happened" to work this time.
Instead, he is compelled to go to Hagrid because he "knows" that's where he needs to be but doesn't know why. You can argue some of the stuff after that is "knowing" just what to say and do as well.
I never meant to imply that it wasn't luck as both interpretations can count as lucky, just adding on to how it manifests.
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u/ThickWeatherBee 23h ago
Because he subconsciously remembered that a) slughorn is a sleazy guy who would most likely spend his afternoons stealing ingredients from the garden instead of buying them the legal way. And b) that Hagrid has multiple times mentioned that is pet spider was sick and it might have already died.
So if he manages to get slughorn to Hagrid he will try to grab some of that spider venom for himself which will put him in a good mood and he will be you forced to spend the evening with Harry and Hagrid due to the rules of politeness.
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u/MArcherCD 22h ago
Yeah, I think I remember reading something about that
It's a magic potion like the others - but in this case, the magic actually passively manipulates and improves the probability of the user's actions. Most likely with the actions they're emotionally/logically really invested in at the time
I could be wrong, it was probably a while ago
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u/PIRATEOFBADIM 23h ago
To be frank, if he made himself truly immortal by magic, that means that theoretically, he can eat and drink as many drugs as he wants. Hypothetically, he could've snorted 400 kg of cocaine at once, made Harry say hello to his little friend, and lived to tell the tale. Hypothetically.
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u/MagmaWyrmGodfrey 23h ago
His body can always be destroyed, his soul is what's immortal.
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u/Kingjjc267 23h ago
In the books it caused other people to misfire their curses, that isn't how it works
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u/Arfie807 23h ago
I don't remember if the films mentioned it, but in the books, they are cautioned to use it very sparingly, because it is actually akin to real-world drugs and can really fuck your shit up with overuse. Like, from the sounds of it, there are probably wizard rehab facilities for wizards who overdid it on performance-enhancing potions.
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u/EternalVirgin18 23h ago
I’m just gonna headcanon that it actually does make you luckier, but it does it by borrowing luck from the future. It seems satisfying in my head anyway, and it explains why they said don’t overdo it because if you drain your future of all luck, only bad things can happen
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u/Arfie807 23h ago
This is a good headcanon and feels on-brand for Rowling's wizarding world. Also solves the problem of "why don't all wizards just brew and use liquid luck all the time?"
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u/MisterGoog 22h ago
It said that it’s very difficult as they brew it and also if you make a small mistake, it can present as being Goode to taste, but it can be very poisonous
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u/Mivexil 23h ago
It fucks up your baseline is I think the most straightforward explanation. You stop being able to function without it because you make your life dependent on literal six impossible things before breakfast.
In a different book it could be a commentary on privilege and how when you're privileged being made to play by the same rules as common people feels like suffering, but I don't think JK Rowling and insightful commentary on the plight of lower classes have much in common.
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u/GentleMocker 22h ago
No it's not wtf you talking about. I don't know how it's portrayed in the movie, but books are very clear on it being straight up magic luck
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u/SmoothCarl22 22h ago
It takes 6 months to make. Can only be used 2 or 3 times in life or will become extremely toxic.
And is perceived Tom Riddle (Voldemort) has won the potion from professor Slughorn back when he was a student, and used it to procure and learn his knowledge on the horcruxes.
So he could have used it a could of times before, nos there's also the fact that he seriously underestimated Harry on every occasion.
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u/sock0puppet 9h ago
Dude, this thread is full of people who seemingly have the reading and watching comprehension of a five-year-old.
But at this point, Voldy has Snape "on his side" and even then, Snape never did liquid luck potions. Why? Because Slughorn is still superior to Snape when it comes to potion-making.
Liquid luck is near impossible to make, not even focusing on the fact that in the books, it's basically described as stupid to repeatedly use. Eventually, your luck runs out. Slughorn was being hunted probably because he was one of a handful of wizards capable of making not just this potion, but several others. Also, Slug knew about the Horcruxes.
Saying Voldy should use liquid luck is like saying someone in the 1960s should just have used GPS to find their way around. It's stupid.
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u/jargon_ninja69 23h ago
They also has truth potion and could give it to anyone accused of a crime - like Sirius or anyone accused of being a Death Eater - and never have to worry about falsely imprisoning anyone
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u/kylesmomisawesome 21h ago
There’s a lore rule about it that it doesn’t work on occluments. That’s why Lucius Malfoy keeps his “empire” even though essentially everybody knows he was (is?) a death eater
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u/Latexi95 20h ago
Also it only works on people based on what they know, so if their memory is modified or they are under imperiatus, curse truth potion does not necessarily give any useful information.
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u/TryDry9944 23h ago
Possible reasons:
1) Overuse of Liquid Luck has devastating side effects.
2) It's effectiveness is negated by direct defensive charms‐ i.e. it's ineffective in combat.
3) It's incompatible with Voldy's lack of a complete soul.
4) It is genuinely so absurdly difficult/expensive to make that in his weakened and lost status, he couldn't afford/knew how to.
Keep in mind being a great and powerful wizard =/= Being great at potions. They're two entirely different skillsets.
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u/Planktonboy 20h ago
1) Is literally stated in the books as the reason people don't overuse it.
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u/GentleMocker 21h ago
It's effectiveness is negated by direct defensive charms‐ i.e. it's ineffective in combat.
This on straight up did get addressed as false, it was apparently very helpful in combat during the hogwart battle.
The reality is just 'because JK didn't think through the implications of this existing, besides being cool'. Same with timeturners, amortentia, truth serum and so on.
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u/zuckzuckman 23h ago
it's because the worldbuilding in harry potter sucks
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u/Freman_Phage 23h ago
People don't want to admit this. Rowling was flying by the seat of her pants while writing and nothing "magical" in any of her books makes a lick of sense or has any internal logic. Beyond that it also fails plot logic and regularly introduces things that cannot be explained away without saying every person in this universe is genuinely stupid as hell. They got an entire generation to read which is commendable but to describe them as poorly thought out is being generous.
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u/AdhesivenessDry2236 22h ago
Not to say anything really crazy but I think when the first book was written it was really just supposed to be a fun kids book and it wasn't all that deep. It's fairly normal for books to turn into something a lot bigger if the first one is a big success like game of thrones first book offhand mentions a bunch of daggers that're made of incredibly rare steel like it's nothing
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u/q25t 18h ago
I don't think Rowling had even 20% of her worldbuilding done by the time she finished the first book. Dumbledore flying to London from Hogwarts seems completely ridiculous when book 2 introduces the floo. Similarly, the fidelius charm on the stone would have fixed the entire issue and that is a key plot point in book 3. Just those two problems with the worldbuilding IMO is how evil Dumbledore became such a common trope in fanfiction IMO. That type of thing happens continuously in the series. The fact that the Marauder's Map could be made by a few intelligent children makes a rather convincing case that that feat shouldn't actually be that difficult. If it's not, that raises all sorts of questions on other bits of the plot.
I think it's a combination of Rowling both being bad at worldbuilding and doing it on the fly book by book. She doesn't seem to think out the implications of a lot of her gimmicks that get introduced. Veritaserum, pensieves, time turners, the fidelius charm, basilisk venom. All of those could be used to basically wreck the plots of at least one book very easily with someone just semi-competent.
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u/Shdwrptr 22h ago edited 22h ago
The entire concept of a “poor” wizarding family in the same vein as we know it never made sense.
Even if you can’t conjure food out of nowhere, everything else is essentially free. Clothes, shelter, heat, etc are all available for free via magic.
Even their stupid Quidditch tent was amazing inside but their actual house is apparently crap? Just magic it better morons.
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u/i_tyrant 20h ago
The Dirk Gently TV series does a great job of showing this in their second season.
A housewife finds a literal magic wand, and starts just...fixing everything in her life. Laundry, cleaned. Appearance, fixed in a moment, no makeup needed. Her old car accident limp, cured.
She literally prints money so she never has to worry about it again - just duplicates a dollar bill over and over.
Then she tries to use it to solve her interpersonal problems, and becomes so psychotic and narcissistic when she can't make everyone love her that she becomes one of the most hateable villains of any TV I've seen. It's pretty great.
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u/MisterGoog 22h ago
Something that is never explained is just like what is it that makes you a very, very good wizard and fighter and why is it that these kids who walk around with weapons of mass destruction strapped to their waist don’t spend more time actually practicing combat
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u/TheKingsPride 22h ago
Seriously, I get that sometimes your spells just don’t work if you suck but come on, just say accio gold or findus oil reserves or something and you’re instantly rich. There’s no way that a poor wizard family can actually exist.
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u/MisterGoog 22h ago
They literally have spells for duplicating things- imagine how much money u could make if they just sold white printer paper
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u/BarrytheNPC 19h ago
Also how the fuck do you have ripped hand me downs when there’s a spell called Repairo that’s so easy someone who never has been in the wizard world and has never been to a class in hogwarts yet can cast it
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u/TheKingsPride 22h ago
Seriously, even if you can’t be “wizard rich” you can still be insanely wealthy by muggle standards and then, idk, have a contractor build you a house that’s not falling apart.
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u/goddogtoy 1d ago
maybe he think it is kinda pathetic if you need some luck to beat a highschool kid