Riona (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rionaleonhart) wrote2009-08-31 07:26 pm
rionaleonhart) wrote2009-08-31 07:26 pm
Entry tags:
I'll Ukulele Your Dog.
Today, I summoned all my courage and fought the fifth Colossus, the flying one that looks like a giant bird, without a walkthrough. It took me forty minutes and I fell off approximately a million times, but my goodness I felt awesome when I eventually brought it down.
(Since typing that, I have also defeated the sixth and seventh Colossi. The seventh is the sea serpent, and it is also a ridiculously awesome battle. HANGING ONTO THE BACK OF A MASSIVE ELECTRIC SEA SERPENT UNDERWATER. DEFEATING IT DESPITE ALL THE ODDS.)
This game still scares me silly. I think that, in an Inspiring Terror in Riona battle with Silent Hill 2, Shadow of the Colossus might actually win. (I have to say such things quietly in case Pyramid Head comes to get me, though.) Even the riding-around-the-landscape bits unnerve me, and I don't know why. There are no enemies but the colossi! I know this! Why am I so alarmed by the pretty lakes and trees and sunlight?
Also today, I saw a domestic abuse awareness message. It concluded with this:
domestic abuse
there's no excuse
Now, domestic abuse is a horrible, awful thing, and raising awareness of it is obviously very important. That said, I'm not certain that what we need is a catchy little rhyme to help us remember that domestic abuse is bad.
Something I've been pondering: in Hogwarts Potions classes, how much do the students learn about the actual science of making potions? When they add Shrivelfig juice to a potion, do they know why they are adding it? Do they learn general rules, like 'potions with negative effects are usually stirred anticlockwise', or do they just make potions from instructions without thinking about them? How did the Half-Blood Prince devise his improvements? Harry still seems to have very little idea of how potion-making actually works by his sixth year. (My brother's theory is that he is just crap at Potions.)
(Since typing that, I have also defeated the sixth and seventh Colossi. The seventh is the sea serpent, and it is also a ridiculously awesome battle. HANGING ONTO THE BACK OF A MASSIVE ELECTRIC SEA SERPENT UNDERWATER. DEFEATING IT DESPITE ALL THE ODDS.)
This game still scares me silly. I think that, in an Inspiring Terror in Riona battle with Silent Hill 2, Shadow of the Colossus might actually win. (I have to say such things quietly in case Pyramid Head comes to get me, though.) Even the riding-around-the-landscape bits unnerve me, and I don't know why. There are no enemies but the colossi! I know this! Why am I so alarmed by the pretty lakes and trees and sunlight?
Also today, I saw a domestic abuse awareness message. It concluded with this:
there's no excuse
Now, domestic abuse is a horrible, awful thing, and raising awareness of it is obviously very important. That said, I'm not certain that what we need is a catchy little rhyme to help us remember that domestic abuse is bad.
Something I've been pondering: in Hogwarts Potions classes, how much do the students learn about the actual science of making potions? When they add Shrivelfig juice to a potion, do they know why they are adding it? Do they learn general rules, like 'potions with negative effects are usually stirred anticlockwise', or do they just make potions from instructions without thinking about them? How did the Half-Blood Prince devise his improvements? Harry still seems to have very little idea of how potion-making actually works by his sixth year. (My brother's theory is that he is just crap at Potions.)
no subject
This, I reckon. As I recall, they do that in most classes - and their homework is usually to do with writing out the properties of a particular ingredient or whatever. And Hermione's meant to be the best in the year, but she's all book-smarts and hardly any logic/lateral thinking, you know?
Then again, since DH I've become quite cynical about that Potter boy anyway, so...
no subject
Hermione's meant to be the best in the year, but she's all book-smarts and hardly any logic/lateral thinking, you know?
That's true! When Harry uses the Half-Blood Prince's instructions for the first time, Hermione asks him how he does it, and when he replies:
'Add a clockwise stir - '
'No, no, the book says counter-clockwise!' she snapped.
(Rowling says 'counter-clockwise'! I don't think I've ever heard a British person using that term before.)
So, yes, Hermione refuses to deviate from the instructions she's given. She's good at retaining information, but she's not innovative.
no subject
She's good at retaining information, but she's not innovative.
Yeah, exactly - and she's meant to be the best in the year and gets 300% on exams and stuff. How does she do that?