Rules: There may be spoilers for all seven books and 8 movies Each match will last for exactly 24 hours. Any votes after that point will not count. Discussion is encouraged but not required. Make sure all of your votes are obvious. I should know who you are voting for, basically don't bury your vote in the middle of a paragraph. No alt-voting. Ties will be replayed the next day with the rest of the matches. No vote-saves or rallying for specific characters. Telling people to vote is encouraged but don't tell them how to vote! Don't complain about the seeds, they were the result of a save-my. Because matches can overlap, results will be in this topic. http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/61327435
Round One Results: (1)Luna Lovegood defeats (16)Winky 15-1 (8)Aragog defeats (9)Arabella Doreen Figg 9-7 (5)Viktor Krum defeats (12)Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank 13-3 (4)Lily Potter (née Evans) defeats (13)Irma Prince 15-1
Today's Matches: (1)Luna Lovegood (8)Aragog
(5)Viktor Krum (4)Lily Potter (née Evans)
-- Warning_Crazy Winner of Board 8 Big Brother! i may be running for senatorship (thanks nio) but i'm no SUPERNICEDOG
So...Krum has one good scene, where he plays quidditch, and then a bunch of "man, this guy is actually pretty normal and not that interesting" scenes. Which is kind-of the purpose of his character (celebrity and talent in one area doesn't mean you're a different breed of human) but doesn't really score that many points with me.
Lily... “You didn’t think it was such a freak’s school when you wrote to the headmaster and begged him to take you.” “Let me? Let me?” Lily’s bright green eyes were slits. Snape backtracked at once. “I’m sorry.” “I’m not interested.” “I’m sorry!” “Save your breath” Lilly, on the other hand, is intense in damn near every scene she's in. You know, the default comparison some people make for Lilly would be hermione--token Muggle born and all that. But Hermione's lines almost never have bite like these lines. (The only time Hermione's lines have bite is when she's talking to Ron). Know who does have lines like this, though? Harry...but only when he's in ass-kicking mode.
Lily has very little screen time, but it's high, high quality stuff. And she's up against...someone with low screen time, but much of the screen time he does have is kinda dull.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision
To be honest, I've mellowed out substantially on my opinion of Luna. First readthrough I loved her. She was funny, charming, and a novel character. But every subsequent read chipped away at my high opinion of her. I guess I can only read so many references to Wrackspurts, Nargles, and Crumpled-Horn Snorcaks before the oddity of them begins to lose their novelty and charm. Still beats the spider by quite a few long, blond scraggily hairs though.
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Arcanine: The best pokemon ever. Dewott: The cutest pokemon ever.
I was going to vote Lily, but I realized the only reason I like her is because of Snape's back story. Standing on her own, she's not that amazing. Plus I find Krum's actor attractive, so...
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http://i45.tinypic.com/fpchec.gif http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/9413/cutepuppy16.png - Number of people that D'awwed: 63
To be quite frank, neither of these characters is consistently good.
Krum, by all means should be extremely dynamic based on his description: all-star Quidditch Seeker who signed on professionally at a young age, one of three(ish) Tri-Wizard champions chosen of hundreds from his generation, representative of Durmstrang, the Bulgarian wizarding institution which rivals Hogwarts in a friendly manner, Hermione's first potential love interest, and he can Transfigure himself into a shark... sort of. All of this sounds fantastic in print, but the actual character is dull, doesn't have the sense to pronounce his girlfriend's name correctly, and doesn't impress me a terrible amount in the amount of time he's given to do so. He came in second (technically third) in the lake challenge and didn't come in last in the dragon challenge. Impressive?
He shows up one more time at Fleur's wedding, and he hits on Hermy, prompting Ron to drag her off while he delivers a bit of exposition about Grindelwald and glares angrily at Xenophilius for several minutes before attempting to distract himself by dancing with a pretty girl. When Harry implies Ginny is taken, Krum utters my favorite of his lines, "Vot is the point of being an international Quifditch player if all the good-looking girls are taken?" Ha! Well now we see his main motivation. Up until this chapter Krum had the personality of a rock.
Meanwhile we have Lily Potter. Oh Lily... Adult Lily... You. Are. So. BORING! Here we have a character who serves as a paragon of motherly love. Within the plot, it's like she's placed upon some holy pedestal like the Virgin Mary (Sue). She makes the ultimate sacrifice for her infant son, even after she is given a chance to save herself by leaving her son to die, but... this act isn't that special. I'm pretty sure any mother would've done the same. She's really not that unique in this regard except that her sacrifice grants her boy some sort of love shield.
No one ever speaks lowly of her. Dumbledore says she's kind, Slughorn says she was one of his brightest, Lupin says she saw the best in everyone, but wow, this is weak characterization. Snape is keen to tell Harry that his father and Sirius were douchebags but mentions nothing of Lily except her eyes (boy, I never get tired of hearing about the "same eyes" several times over several books) and that he has no idea what she saw in his father. In addition to mentioning that Lily saw the best in everyone, Remus mentions that once her favor is lost, it's lost forever. That's actually pretty interesting, but without an example it's just a throwaway line.
If all of the above were the only information I had to gauge Lily on, I'd be forced to vote for Krum here. Luckily, however, there's an entirely different side to Lily we get alongside an example of Remus' words books later.
Lily Evans, or young Lily is a bit of a spitfire. Every scene she's in is made better by her presence. She began to forsake her older sister (who had already begun to drive her off emotionally by insulting her) for this strange boy next door and the magical world he spoke of, and would later defend this boy to the death (until he called her a "Mudblood") and then forsook him too. When Petunia refused to come to her wedding and when.Severus announced he intended on becoming a Death Eater is when she severed all ties with both of them, proving Lupin's line to be eerily accurate. I appreciate this more wrathful and impulsive side- the Lily Evans side- much more than the immaculate Lily Potter side of her character, who thrice defies the Dark Lord offscreen and not even in detail... It's like she lost all her spark once she got married and had a kid. I suppose that's what they mean by "settling down", but it doesn't make for a particularly riveting character.
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Arcanine: The best pokemon ever. Dewott: The cutest pokemon ever.