A fact I did like about the books is that it takes both Harry and Neville to kill Voldemort. It's a nice touch. To this day it could be interpreted as both of them being required, or just a coincidence.
JK Rowling still sucks ass tho so I'll look at stuff exploring that in fanfics. And cry because so many forget that moment
dude, Neville was leading the resistance while Harry was out hunting horcruxes. Neville was literally in the trenches for the whole 2nd war while Harry was behind enemy lines.
It's unclear if the hallows were the real reason Harry lives in book 7 -- if the hallows worked, then replace everything between the two, and neville doesn't get the potter's cloak, and dies in the forest.
Or else maybe he does, because Dumbledore is just that much of a dick, I guess?
But then you're in "Dumbledore is actually a dick stealing from orphans" fanfiction territory.
I’m actually confused on what you mean because I don’t remember that bit. If you mean when Voldemort uses the killing spell on Harry, Harry lives because Lily’s protection basically made Voldemort a horcrux, and her protection magic lived in him even though Harry was dead
A prophecy being vague enough to refer to two people doesnt mean theyre equally likely to be the chosen one. It just makes it a poorly written prophecy and book. The chosen one was always harry
Doesn't the prophecy say something along the lines of a child born as the seventh month dies born to those who have thrice defied you a child who's power you shall know not that would mean the one born closer to midnight would be the chosen one
The very fact that Voldemort attacked Harry meant that Harry was from then on the chosen one. Dumbledore even spells this out for Harry after the battle at the department of mysteries. The prophecy mentions "marked as his equal".
While Neville also fit all the criteria, the moment Voldemort went to Godric's Hollow decided who would be the chosen one.
Parents of the chosen were said to have confronted the dark lord before (twice iirc) and survived. Both the Potters and the Longbottoms did so. Voldy more or less gambled when he chose the Potters. Both families were completely identical in regards to the prophecy. Even their background was more or less similar.
He didn’t gamble, fully. He had some twisted logic in picking Harry over Neville - Neville is a pureblooded wizard, while Harry is a halfblood like him, and that’s 100% the reason why it was Harry. T’was still a 50/50 shot and he gambled (and I’m in the camp that by doing so he created the situations in which they BOTH become the chosen one, because without Neville they still wouldn’t have defeated Voldemort, and Neville’s journey mirrors Harry’s the whole way) on which boy it would be, but he arrogantly didn’t think it WAS a gamble - he was convinced Harry was the threat because he saw ‘similarities’ in their story.
Sorry I’m not well actuallying you I love that you pointed out the parallels because people above are saying that Neville’s supposed to represent the average Gryffindor and no…that’s Seamus and Dean and Lee, on the boys side. Neville is supposed to be Harry’s direct foil, the Boy Who Almost Was, and suffers abuse at the hands of his family that shakes his confidence, in which he eventually overcomes and becomes the student leader of the DA while the golden trio are out questing. The Longbottom’s and the Potter’s are supposed to parallel one another and it’s a major recurring point that the movies did not do justice to so I feel gets overlooked /:
It's explicitly stated in the books that it could have been Neville, if not for the fact that Voldemort himself went out of his way to target Harry. That indeed they had all these similarities and the prophecy wasn't set in stone until Voldemort marked Harry as his equal. From that point on Harry was the chosen one though, not Neville.
This is not a theory, this is in the text.
It's almost as if this was talked about in the books itself, that Voldemort could have chosen Neville but thought it more likely to be Harry due to his parents
I hadn’t seen the movies in over a decade when I started reading the books. I thought this was genuinely going to be the case. The books even mention that it’s either harry, or could be Neville who fulfills prophecy and I thought for some reason in the movie Neville killed volde, but forgot it was actually the snake :/
Neville was so important in book 5 and felt like the biggest fumble in halfblood prince and deathly hallows is Neville and Luna not having as big of a role as in OOTP
Harry was the spare, and the decoy. Since it is Neville who actually draws the sword in the end, killing the snake and Voldemort, he was the actual chosen one.
Technically he is the chosen one alongside Harry. He kills the last Horcrux allowing them to defeat Voldemort. If not for Neville the prophecy never comes to fruition. It’s actually my only complaint in the movies is that they changed that scene. In the books he bows to show he is about to confess and then reaches into the sorting hat and pulls Gryfindors sword…he was the chosen one as well.
The extra kid in this scene is actually Ron’s second skin. For non book readers, every night Ron molts and forms a new Ron. The shed husk of old Ron takes the form of a random ginger kid which disintegrates by morning. In the movies this is replaced by Ron having brothers who are twins named Fred and George, who are not book characters.
It’s weird that I did not and you can eat yourself. Who the hell else would the extra boy be? Draco? Neville Longbottom is the only other male character I can remember and people are always talking about him. It could be Spiddowitz Mingehair for all I know.
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u/BlargerJarger 3d ago
Maybe it’s a book character that was cut from the movies, like, Neville Longbottom was originally in that scene or something.