If you ask a random Harry Potter fan off the street what they think of Severus Snape , chances are you will get a strong opinion. Get 100 Potterheads in a room, and there's a chance none of them will share the exact same take on Snape. Over the years, fan opinions have slowly but surely turned against Snape. While some still view him as a hero, it's a lot more common for people to see him as no more than a common villain who was needlessly cruel to an abused child because he still has a crush o…

Mostly politics-free

I'm sure everybody, no matter what Hogwarts house they're in, wishes they could spend their hours of study and leisure in the Gryffindor Common Room . None of the other common rooms could compare to where Harry, Ron, and Hermione spend their Hogwarts days inbetween classes. The Slytherin Common room would make you feel like you're surrounded by concrete, with the AC always turned up way too high. There's probably a lot of fluorescent lighting that would do a number on the complexion. Look at ho…

You can't press play without playing AVADA KEDAVRA!

Do any minorities in the wizarding world have normal names?

If there's one Harry Potter character whose hype I never really understood, it's Draco Malfoy . So many Draco fangirls see him as a misunderstood boy with secret depth and hidden pain. I don't think that the text of the books or the movies really supports that, but I believe they get this idea from the aesthetics of Harry Potter itself. Draco is in the dark Hogwarts house. He lives in the dark dungeons of the school and doesn't really have any other friends besides his lackeys. He is raised in…

To say that we are not fans of JK Rowling would be an understatement, but even if she stopped being a TERF, there's plenty to admonish her for. Today, we learned of another reason. While people have been discussing the subject of JK Rowling's sorta kinda racist map of the Wizarding schools for some time, the controversy (and later, hilarity) came to our attention via the @TerribleMaps Twitter account. The @TerribleMaps post features a fan's geographic depiction of Rowling's schools (the origina…

One of the greatest mysteries of my life has been one I'm sure all of us have asked at one point or another; What does Butterbeer taste like? That unanswered query is why I recently marched down to the Harry Potter store right near the Flatiron Building and spent 12 whole American dollars on a foamy glass of Harry Potter's favorite beverage. Nobody had ever described what it tasted like to me, so I was excited and ready for anything. When I tell you it is simply a butterscotch-flavored crème so…

[SPOILER ALERT] Not to turn the series into a love story, but would've been nice to really dive into how Harry and Ginny fall in love. It was just like immature flirting and then BOOM it's the end and they're married??

It was split between she's a real-life Disney princess or she crossed paths with Prongs and Padfoot—consensus says it's the latter.

I don't know if there's ever been a fictional character with more father figures than Harry James Potter . Considering his lack of alive and supportive immediate family members, Harry had the chosen family thing down to a science. Rubeus Hagrid, Arthur Weasley, Albus Dumbledore, Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, and arguably Severus Snape looked after Harry in a way his father no longer could. Hagrid made him and his friends tea, Lupin taught him how to ward off dementors, and Snape bullied him relent…

Charcuterie platters are an exceptionally fun way to consume food. The bottom half of my personal food pyramid is already primarily occupied by classic items on the average charcuterie board: crackers, cheese, grapes, and pickles. Slicing all of these foods up into tiny portions and consuming them communally just makes the foods themselves taste even better. However, I have recently heard of a shake up in the world of charcuterie plates. Allegedly, according to rumors, there are now charcuterie…

There are some Harry Potter takes that have been beaten to the ground. Everybody wonders why the Weasley twins didn't see Peter Pettigrew on the Marauders Map in the same room as Ron. Everybody has questions about how Gilderoy Lockhart was able to get hired at Hogwarts in the first place. My favorite Harry Potter plot hole pertains to everybody's favorite game: Quidditch. I really question the viability of Quidditch as a game. I know that in the Quidditch World Cup , the golden snitch is less c…

Gilderoy Lockhart is one of the funniest characters in the entire Wizarding World. He's one of those goofy, incompetent, largely unimportant fake-out villains that could've only come out of the first couple of books. It is such a wonder how this man even got hired at this school. Professor Quirrell, I get it. He's a socially awkward guy who happens to have Voldemort on the back of his head, but at least he knows the basic tenants of magic! Lockhart is worse at magic than 12-year-old kids who ha…

What does it mean to be funny? I have been told I'm funny on occasion. Whenever I say a little quip or joke socially, it tends to get a laugh. I may or may not have devoted the last six years of my life to doing comedy and trying to be the funniest person I can possibly be. But does that all mean that I'm funny? It's a very subjective thing. One person might think I'm literally the funniest person alive, and another might think that I couldn't be more unfunny . Comedy is not objective, and that…

Happy Boxing Day, Potterheads! It's days like today that really make me think about how Dudley Dursley is doing as an adult. Of course, I know Dudley Dursley isn't a real person, but there are thousands of kids just like him all over the world who are all grown up now. Kids who cried if they got 36 presents for Christmas instead of 37 are walking the earth as we speak. I like to believe that Dudley ended up as a better person than when we first met him in Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone .…