LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7 (Part 1)

LEGO Harry Potter

Introduction

Years 1-4: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

Years 5-7: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

This is a new game, but since we’re continuing from Years 1-4, I don’t believe we really need an intro. Besides, the Years are long enough to describe already. So, let’s jump in.

Order of the Phoenix: Things have changed

Cedric Diggory: Some assembly required.

Cedric Diggory’s death at the hands of Lord Voldemort marked a turning point in the series. I maintain that the class where Moody teaches about the Unforgivable Curses is where the remnants of the façade of whimsy finally broke away to reveal how dark this could get. However, Voldemort’s return and Cedric’s death changed something else. From this point on, anyone could die. And we know how the story goes. Further amplifying the change in tone is Harry showing signs of post-traumatic stress after the events of the Triwizard Tournament finale.

How will the LEGO games tackle this? The previous game did everything possible to avoid any sort of angst or heaviness, meaning that the events of the fifth novel and movie might clash with LEGO’s usual way of doing things.

Much like its predecessor, LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7 was released to multiple platforms; it came out on Steam on Janaury 5th, 2012, half a year after the films wrapped up. It is still made by TT Games (also known as Traveller’s Tales) and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. To my relief, the tone IS dark, with Harry mourning Cedric. Not helped is Dudley Dursley mocking him with all his friends, which pushes Harry to threaten his cousin with his wand. Rain begins, so Harry and Dudley go for cover.

Apparently Dudley is in the same category
as Hagrid and people who just took a swig
of a strength potion.

Oops - let one slip. That's okay, we're supposed
to let Dudley be attacked by a Dementor.

This being a new game, you don’t start with all of your spells; the game will switch you to the relevant spell for the starting scenes. Wingardium Leviosa (WL) is the basic one all wizards use, but others will also have one preset spell among those learned in Years 1-4. As for Dudley, he's able to pull levers for effects, a task for "strong characters" like Hagrid. Guess he went from an overeating jackass to actually working out. The two hide in a covered bridge and are ambushed by a horde of Dementors, which Harry defeats with his Patronus, but not before Dudley is attacked by one. While the Dursleys tend to their traumatized son, a group of wizards arrives to pick Harry up. They are the Order of the Phoenix, a group created to fight Voldemort’s forces, who take Harry to their headquarters. The second section of the level is a flight sequence on brooms; during it, the group is attacked by Death Eaters, and they crash land near the headquarters, so we help these seasoned veterans out of their predicaments.

At the time of posting this, I am more than halfway into the
game, and so far there hasn't been another broom-flying
sequence.

So many wizards in robes and pointy hats...
Come on, get into the 20th century already!

Once everyone’s fine, Mad-Eye Moody reveals the HQ: Grimmauld Place, Sirius Black’s house, hidden between two houses, building itself in true LEGO fashion. I love the few times that the LEGO games take advantage of their setting like this. Inside the house is a lot of other wizards, including the Weasleys and Hermione. Harry isn’t allowed to use magic outside of Hogwarts until he graduates, so the Ministry of Magic wants to punish him. He goes with Ron’s father Arthur to a court at the Ministry of Magic, where he's tried by the Minister Cornelius Fudge. The situation with Dementors is explained, though it’s not until Dumbledore arrives that Harry is finally pronounced not guilty, with only a lady dressed all in pink objecting. Dumbledore whispers to Fudge that Voldemort is back, and Fudge refuses to believe it.

Muggle world, Platform 9 3/4, I do like that
there are so many locations outside of
Hogwarts this time, way more than in
the previous game covering Years 1-4.

Harry can resume studying at Hogwarts. In the Hub, Diagon Alley is a little tighter in design, with extras packed behind less doors. The Leaky Cauldron still houses the level select screen and the cutscene viewer; the door to the exit doesn’t lead directly to Hogwarts, but into the Muggles' “normal world” instead. Considering the more varied settings of Years 5-7, it makes sense that more places outside of Hogwarts would be available. Then we go to King’s Cross, Platform 9 ¾, and finally to the wizarding school. Barring a new path from a train station to the castle (and a path to Hogsmeade), the place’s layout appears mostly unchanged. At the banquet, we meet the new Defense against the Dark Arts teacher, the character everyone despises even more than Voldemort: Dolores Umbridge. She goes on with a long spiel that puts everyone to sleep.

Fuck me, I hate her already.

During the first DADA class, after seeing Harry and Ron in a scuffle with Draco Malfoy, Umbridge bans them from the class, also stripping them of several spells, we won't need (like Riddikulus). And some we'd need, like Reducto. Crap! The potions system has also improved; you can brew any potion from any cauldron, provided you've "unlocked" that cauldron in-story. However, you’ll need to relearn the potions, with only the strength potion available from the beginning.

Order of the Phoenix: The Pink Tyrant

Meet the Army

Harry befriends fan-favorite Luna Lovegood and meets Thestrals, skeletal flying horses who can be seen only by those who’ve witnessed death. With Voldemort’s looming threat and Umbridge sabotaging DADA classes on Ministry order, Harry is suggested by his uncle Sirius Black, a member of the Order of the Phoenix, to create a clandestine defense class of his own. A group is formed at the Hog’s Head in Hogsmeade in the game’s second level. Unfortunately for them, Umbridge awaits at the castle’s steps to disband the group. However, Neville discovers the Room of Requirement, which appears to those who need it. Harry makes it the headquarters for the burgeoning Dumbledore’s Army.

Come on George! Let no one tear anything
away from you in duels like this!

Okay, first rule of Dumbledore’s Army: You don’t talk about Dumbledore’s Army. Second rule… You can fill in the reference. To begin, Harry teaches dueling, and we play as Fred and George for the following sequence. Against a wizard opponent, you have to change your spell to the color on their side of the field. Magenta? That’s WL; white? It’s Lumos Solem, etc. I appreciate that the game improved its “combat” system, for what I assume is more interesting battles against Death Eaters down the line. Following a successful first “class”, students return to their dorms, but that night Harry dreams that he is attacking Arthur Weasley in the Ministry of Magic. It’s only further confirmed as a reality when he wakes up and sees Ginny in tears, being comforted by her brothers.

It's almost weird to see Harry and Snape
helping each other when we know all that
happens later.

Harry is angry that he’s been ignored the whole year and worried about his nightmares, so Dumbledore asks Snape to teach Occlumency to the young wizard. This is a form of mental magic that protects against mental intrusions, especially of the villainous kind, and means to allow Harry to push Voldemort out of his mind. This is another spell you learn, and it allows you to discover the desire of a character in Hogwarts whose mind is clouded (read: There’s a LEGO cloud above their head), and by breaking it you get a side-quest that involves finding an item for that character, with a Gold Brick as reward. Next, we learn Diffindo, a spell that breaks red items and walls. Said red walls are peculiar, as you must draw a line on a wall to summon an item from it before breaking it away to open a path

After this, it’s the Holidays, so Harry and friends are invited at the Order’s headquarters for a feast. In this level, Harry and friends first have troubles with the Blacks’ house elf Kreacher, who shares the bigoted views that the Black family – minus Sirius – espoused, and as a result hates the trio; however, we deal with his puzzles quickly enough, then Harry joins Sirius upstairs where the two rebuild the Black family tree. Odd idea for a level, only existing to foreshadow an important character: Bellatrix Lestrange.

Order of the Phoenix: Fighting the Ministry

Everybody's learning Expecto Patronum now.
Now, Luna, beat up this dummy Dementor!

Harry teaches Expecto Patronum in the Room of Requirement, but their class is cut short by Umbridge, informed by Cho much like in the film. (I almost forgot to mention Cho Chang, since I abridge the story even more for the review, meaning I had to cut out her romantic moments with Harry; not that the LEGO game does much with her, either.) The “teacher” blasts the wall open and “arrests” Dumbledore’s Army. When she asks Dumbledore about it, the Headmaster takes the fall for the students’ initiative and flees.

On one hand, we play as Harry's dad... on the
other, we're playing a bully...

We stop by the woods to meet Hagrid's giant half-brother Grawp, who picks up Hermione and won’t let her go until we’ve entertained him (…or she yells at him to put her down, that works too). In the next focus lesson, Snape goes too deep into Harry’s mind, so Harry strikes back and enters Snape’s mind, finding out that his father and his friends, the Marauders, were bullies to his potions teacher. In the book and film, Harry is shaken by the discovery; in the LEGO world, he laughs it off. Nice work there, BricksNotes; by trying to lighten the mood, you’ve created bad implications.

"Look at me! I'm like the guy from those Muggle
comic books! You know, the ones where the
pictures aren't moving!"

Umbridge puts the students of the Army in detention, but they’re broken out at the end of a sequence in which we control Fred and George Weasley, planning their big prank on the pink tyrant. This sets up a new gameplay mechanic: The Weasley Boxes, which contain the twins’ magical prank inventions (such as shoes to walk on walls). Those boxes can only be opened by someone from the Weasley family. The Twins build the mother of all fireworks and let it loose into the detention room, where it turns into a fire dragon that knocks the tyrant on her ass. The students run outside and the twins finish their big move, but Harry gets another vision, this time of Sirius being attacked in the Ministry of Magic. The trio heads to Umbridge’s office to teleport to the Ministry, but are captured before they can.

In the fifth level, Harry and Hermione take Umbridge into the woods in the pretense that Dumbledore is in hiding; what they find instead is a bunch of centaurs that Umbridge expertly fends off (in comparison to the novel/film where she's defeated quickly). Hermione calls Grawp to intervene, which knocks the lady in pink off-balance and the centaurs carry her away. (And, considering what centaurs did to victims in the original mythologies… YIKES.)

In the background, Umbridge is literally fighting off the
centaurs. That makes her way more badass than the book
and novel made her to be.

Being a little literal there.

With this comes the sixth level: Dumbledore’s Army assaults the Department of Mysteries, looking for the prophecy about Harry. They cause a ruckus but find it, and it shows Harry and Voldemort in a constant struggle, in a fight to live (the heart-shaped item from the game is what they’re shown fighting over), which won’t end until one has killed the other. Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange arrive with more Death Eaters, forcing a battle in the halls. The Order of the Phoenix arrives to help, so Sirius lends a hand in rescuing the other members of Dumbledore’s Army, all taken prisoners by Death Eaters. This culminates into a duel between Harry or Sirius against Lucius or Bellatrix.

Now THAT's what the final boss of the
previous game should have felt like!

Unfortunately, Bellatrix takes advantage of a moment of inattention from Sirius to kill him with a spell. Sirius rises into a magical gate, despite Harry’s attempts to pull him out, ripping his godfather’s legs piece off instead. (Sirius reappears for a moment to ask Arthur to hand him his legs back – okay, clever gag there.) Further away, Harry bumps into Voldemort, and Dumbledore arrives to fight the Dark Lord in a battle that feel way more like a final boss than, ironically, the final boss of "Years 1-4" did. Voldemort is genuinely tough. However, he is defeated by the Headmaster (and Harry), and flees just as ministers show up, plenty witnessing Voldy’s return this time. The Ministry can no longer pretend that this isn’t happening. Fudge leaves in shame, while the students are back at Hogwarts and celebrate. End of the fifth year.

…Phew!

Half-Blood Prince: The Secrets of Slughorn

That’s the only Fantastic Beasts reference I’m willing to make.

Even Harry doesn't look too sure about this.

It's a bit dark, but that's Lestrange, Snape, and Draco's
mother Narcissa Malfoy here.

Shortly before the sixth year begins, Dumbledore asks Harry for help. Picking up the boy at a metro station, the wizards go to the home of Horace Slughorn, whom the headmaster attempts to convince into coming back to teach potions at Hogwarts. It succeeds; Harry was tagging along as a bargaining chip, as Slughorn likes exceptional or famous students). Heading back to Hogwarts with their new ally, Dumbledore drops Harry at Diagon Alley, where we see the new store: Fred and George’s joke shop. However, Harry notices Draco and Bellatrix headed towards Knockturn Alley, outside; with Ron and Hermione, he tries to follow but doesn’t see anything. They don’t know that Draco is being given a task by Death Eaters. Severus Snape, ex-Death Eater, makes an umbrekable vow to help the student. Draco’s task? To kill Dumbledore.

Speaking of! At the start of the new school year, while Slughorn has taken on the role of potions teacher, Snape has moved on to teaching DADA. Eh, even with what we just learned, he’ll still do better than Umbridge.

A new school year means new gameplay mechanics, and here’s a quick rundown:

This one makes sense. Of course you learn a
spell that conjures water. You're gonna have
a lot of fires to douse soon.

-Spectrespecs are glasses you must put on your character so they can see invisible bricks (in areas showing both blue and pink sparkles on the ground), in order to rebuild them through Wingardium Leviosa into something useful.

-During Slughorn’s class, Harry gets a secondhand potions book with annotations from someone calling themselves the Half-Blood Prince; thanks to it, he makes the new potion, the Draught of Living Death, better than everyone else. (This potion's game ability is to turn the drinker into a skeleton temporarily,) For this, Slughorn gives him a vial of Felix Felicis, a potion of “liquid luck”.

-Aguamenti is learned during a class held by Professor Flitwick; it causes the wand to project a stream of water. It’s used to solve many puzzles, revive plants around the school and douse harmful fires.

-Finally, after the third level, we relearn Reducto, so it wasn’t lost too long.

Probably the safest mission the old Headmaster
has ever given to Harry.

Dumbledore gives Harry a quest: Slughorn knows things that would be useful in the fight against Voldemort, so Harry must get a memory from the potions professor. The Headmaster demonstrates by showing a memory of his own in the Pensieve, namely of the first time he met Tom Riddle. With his newfound aptitude in potions with the Half-Blood Prince’s journal, Harry quickly becomes one of Slughorn’s favorites, and is thus invited to his Slug Club. Level 2 of Year 6 takes place over two of those receptions, but Harry’s efforts to get Slughorn's memory remain fruitless.

The less I say about Hermione trying to flee from a
stalker in the last part of the level the better.

Half-Blood Prince: Sectumsempra

Okay, Wolf!Lupin is awesome. Well... more than he ever
got to be in the novels and films.

The third level happens while Harry is at the Burrow. Ginny and he have been growing closer (barring the occasional cockblock from Ron). That’s when Death Eaters attack. The teens run off to fight, but the adults get left behind in a circle of flames. When it happens, we control Molly and Arthur Weasley, Nymphadora Tonks and Remus Lupin. The latter is super-good in this game: As a human, he has access to most spells, much like all adult wizards in the series. However, he can turn into a werewolf or back into a human at will – which goes against canon, but whatever – and in his animal form, he can dig the ground, and he has super strength, allowing him to pull heavy things with handles.

Dammit Bellatrix, I want to feature your
minifigurine more often, but dammit, you're
alwaysin the damn shadows!

This helps the adults reach the actual fight. The teens and adults fight the Death Eaters (with one of said Death Eaters, Fenrir Greyback, capable of killing any of them in one hit), while Bellatrix appears to also cast one-hit kill spells and toss farm tools at them, which we throw back at her with WL. A very tough boss battle. Once the monsters are defeated, they leave, and the Weasleys look back at their burning home.

So, we all agree on love potions? That they're
the absolute worst? Yes? Good.

In the fourth level, As Hary and Ron walk into their dorm, they find chocolates; Ron rushes to eat some and becomes infatuated by a love potion. I like the treatment of love potions in the series; they quickly go from being treated as “quirky magic” to “magical roofies”, which is exactly what they are. Harry goes to Slughorn, and they cure Ron with a love potion antidote. They then have to cure him again when, as victory, the professor shares booze that was given to him (but was meant for Dumbledore) that turned out to be poisoned, and Ron took a swig from his glass before the others. Ronald Weasley, professional poison detector.

Well! Doesn't look like it actually hurt Draco.
But it SHOULD, because it was an
intense moment from the novel and film.

They notice Draco was spying on them angrily (the bottle was his plan for Dumbledore and it failed), so Harry and Ron give chase into the bathrooms, where Harry duels his bully. Harry ends this by casting an unknown spell from the Half-Blood Prince’s book, Sectumsempra, which literally separates Draco’s torso from his legs. Jesus! Thankfully, while Harry and Ron back away, Snape arrives to heal/reassemble Draco.

Since the annotated potion book is more dangerous than it looks, Harry asks his friends what to do with it. Eventually he goes with Ginny to hide it in a "Room of Hidden Things", which is where they find a mysterious wardrobe from which a bird pops out, one that has been put in there by Draco earlier. This is a Vanishing Cabinet, which can serve as a portal for items. …or more…

Anyhow, this has been long enough, let’s continue in Part 2!

Fim Review: NOPE

...If Jordan Peele's next film is called "Come On, You're Joking", I'll have called it. Anyhow...

Hey, fun fact before I properly start this, um, odd review: The movie theater I go to hangs posters for upcoming films relatively high above the path towards the theaters, and they're also relatively small posters too. So for the longest time, I would see this poster for NOPE up there, and with distance + the generally dark look of the picture, until the trailers I had no idea the thing floating in the sky was a horse.

Actually, I think there's something to be said of this film's marketing, where everything was kept fairly vague and cryptic. You may have some idea of what's going on, but there's too little in the trailers to actually piece it all together. There was an air of mystery to the entire thing, and God damn it - I wished Hollywood did that more often nowadays, because that's the exact reason why I went to see this film. I was intrigued, I wanted to see what the Hell that was all about, they got my butt in a seat to view the spectacle they had crafted.

(Another fun tidbit of info: The title they went with for the Quebec dub of the film is "Ben non", which roughly translates to "Come on", usually on the tone of "You're kidding me" or something along those lines. Hence my quip at the very beginning.)

LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 (Part 3)

LEGO Harry Potter

Introduction

Years 1-4: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

Years 5-7: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

Still no time to spend on an intro!

Prisoner of Azkaban: You’ve seen the film, right?

Wait, is the LEGO Knight Bus deconstructing
itself to thin down to pass between the double
deckers? That is super clever.

We begin the third year with Harry at the Dursleys, where one of their guests is mean to him so… uh… some weird wizard powers cause her to inflate like a balloon (though here, Vernon is quick enough to pop her with a fork). Harry leaves and sees a dark dog on a playground, then climbs aboard the Knight Bus to leave towards the Leaky Cauldron. The Knight Bus is one of those super-weird aspects of the Wizarding World that felt out of place in the movies; it’s seen once and never mentioned again, while the novels feature it whenever possible. Since it follows the films, this game suffers from the same issue (but at least the Bus’s scene still sticks out, even showing a cool LEGO effect).

Harry now stays with the Weasleys at the Leaky Cauldron. The wizarding world’s newspapers talk about the scary prison of Azkaban and how the convicted murderer Sirius Black is on the loose, looking for Harry. In the first level, Harry gets ready for the new school year, in a process that involves killing his book of monsters… which IS a monster. Following that, we have to get onto the train, with Draco Malfoy trying to prevent the main trio from doing so. They manage, but Molly Weasley, Ron’s mother, hurriedly brings him his pet rat, which he was about to forget. Ooh, that’s gonna clash with Hermione’s new cat, the large Crookshanks.

LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 (Part 2)

LEGO Harry Potter

Introduction

Years 1-4: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

Years 5-7: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

I’m a bit of in a time crunch, so no time to waste with an intro. Let’s go!

The sorcerer’s philosopher’s stone: The Classes

"TROLL! IN THE DUNGEON!
...thought you ought to know."

We all know what happens on Halloween in the first film, but here’s a refresher: After being bullied by Malfoy, Hermione runs to the girls’ bathrooms. Professor Quirrel busts into the dining hall, yelling about a troll in the dungeons, and Harry and Ron end up having to rescue their friend. The troll, already? It’s only the second level! Goes to show just how quickly the Bricks’ Notes version speeds through the events of the story.

Pictured: Me being stupid, using the wrong
controls, while playing a game for kids.

Harry and Ron first need to find a way to sneak into the girls’ bathrooms, which they do by getting a disguise. Then, it’s a boss fight against the troll, setting up one of the main defensive tactics in the game. See, you can grab a projectile  by using Wingardium Leviosa (WL), and then toss it back at sender. Many boss fights in the game work exactly that way. And because I was still figuring out the controls at the time (+ dealing with the accidental activation of 2-Player Mode), I couldn’t for the life of me understand how to fight the troll. I kept pressing H, which takes a moment to detect a target for levitation, whereas using WL with the J key instantly targets an object within range. And that’s what I had to do in order to grab the debris the troll was throwing at me, so that I could throw it back at his face. Then finish him off by levitating his own club and dropping it on his head, just like in the film.

Shouldn't plants like the light though?

Before the next level, we learn the Lumos spell, which is useful to light places, but is mostly used to get rid of light-hating vines blocking the way; we even upgrade it to Lumos Solem later to defeat the Devil’s Snare. The game is built in such a way that each spell is necessary to deal with a particular type of enemy or blockade, railroading the player and providing puzzles. And of course, it means that once you learn how to take care of an obstacle, suddenly that obstacle is everywhere. Examples: The goddamn screaming mandrakes pop up all over the place after the Herbology class with Mrs. Pomona Sprout, and after you learn to cast Riddikulus, you can’t walk five steps without finding a chest containing a Boggart. Geez, I hope you’re not a first-year student, or you’re kinda screwed.

LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 (Part 1)

LEGO Harry Potter

Introduction

Years 1-4: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

Years 5-7: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

Full disclaimer: I have already talked at length about the controversies surrounding JK Rowling in my previous post, so I will NOT discuss them further during this review. It’s sad that I need to make that statement, but if I don’t, I’ll be expected to bring the review to a screeching halt to address it. I already have.

From the movie posters alone, you can
pinpoint exactly the moment at which the
series starts getting dark.

Now let’s try our best to separate the art from the artist to discuss this game and its sequel, which cover the entire story of the Harry Potter franchise. Well… Cursed Child? Fantastic Beasts? Ha… ha… ha… let’s pretend those don’t exist. Let’s act like the tale of Harry James Potter begins at Sorcerer’s Stone and ends at Deathly Hallows. Let’s conveniently ignore Rowling’s other statements about the franchise. Remember that time she said that for the longest time Hogwarts didn’t have bathrooms, so wizards had to do their business in the open and then made the poop disappear with magic? I wish I could forget. Let’s pretend we forget, alright?

Besides, this beast is somewhat different. LEGO Harry Potter (Years 1-4) was developed by TT Games (also known as Traveller's Tales), published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and released on June 25th, 2010. It was ported to several platforms at the time, including for Wii, DS, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Steam, with re-releases on later consoles. And though it adapts the story, it actually covers the films rather than the novels.

Some details appear once and never again;
some of those... are bigger than others.

Now, I don’t think I’m making any controversial statements by saying that the film adaptations of the Harry Potter novels are generally considered good movies. The books, obviously, are more complete by virtue of being several hundred pages long, but the films have done a decent job of keeping most of the vital information in, making the story cohesive. It’s not perfect; There were characters and scenes cut from the books that led to plot holes in the eight films. Details left behind that later turned out were necessary. A handful of scenes feel detached from the rest. As an example, I didn’t remember that the Knight Bus from the first chapters of Prisoner of Azkaban actually was used several more times, by various characters, throughout the saga; but in the films, it’s just that one (memorable) scene and the bus is never mentioned again.

I have far more memories of watching the movies than I have of reading the books. As a result, I’m glad that the LEGO games adapt the movies. Not just because I have a greater attachment to them, but also because it makes another step that distances this adaptation from Rowling’s original. Sure, it’s the same basic story, but it’s seen through the lens of a team of writers for the LEGO game reinterpreting the elements from the movies, which were themselves reinterpretations from the books. An adaptation of an adaptation can spell disaster, but there have been instances where the magical spark of the original has carried on regardless.

Man, I hope I can slip in more “magic” puns throughout.

The Tricky Question of Supporting Problematic Creators: An Essay...Ish

LEGO Harry Potter

Introduction

Years 1-4: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

Years 5-7: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

It’s a topic that’s been going around in my head for a long, and I do mean a LONG time. I never really got to address it in full here, because it’s the sort of topic that I felt would warrant an entire blog post dedicated to it, as just talking about it in the midst of another review wouldn’t suffice. Fair warning, there won’t be much humor to this one. In short, I plan to review something that will be controversial to say the least, so I’m covering my bases here so as to not bog down the articles themselves, which are going to be lengthy.

Part 1: The duality of man

Nobody’s perfect, that’s one of the only certainties in this world. And yet, it’s a harsh reality to live with. From a cynical standpoint, one could accept the statement that “people suck” and expect the worst out of everyone they meet, but that sounds like an utterly depressing way of life. The complete opposite isn’t much better, as thinking of everyone as potentially ‘perfect’ sets one up for disappointment when the people around reveal a darker shade of themselves. I personally favor the old motto “Hope for the best, prepare for the worst”. Even then, I’m not safe from the mindset of hoping people are better than they are.

And it’s always been that way; there’s always been awful people out there. But if you meet them, you can steer clear, and if you’ve never met them, they’re hardly a problem. The situation muddles when we enter the topic of problematic celebrities. Before the advent of the Internet, you would only ever know about what makes a person ‘problematic’ by reading or watching the news. And there were stories. Hundreds of examples of celebrities – musicians, producers, directors, actors – that committed crimes or turned out to be rotten human beings. That aspect of the duality of man is necessary to accept, but that doesn’t make it any less difficult.

It’s particularly difficult to accept if it involves someone that you feel a nostalgic or parasocial connection with. People whose work you’ve enjoyed for a long time, perhaps since childhood. Or, in this day of the Internet and social media, someone you actually got to interact with, to some capacity. Unfortunately, this takes me to the next point…

Part 2: Social media makes everything worse

I once read in a newspaper one of the best pieces of advice: “Never publish to social media what you wouldn’t proudly display on your shirt as you walk down the street”. It helps emphasize that, although we use them in the privacy of our homes and devices, social media are actually public places where your contributions can and will be seen by others. That goes for posts, but also for comments beneath posts made by others. Or Tweets.