num 2

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The wizarding world needed a hero.
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They got the wizarding hero they deserved.
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Or.. the wizarding hero they thought they needed?
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They thought they needed to deserve.
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The one they thought they wanted to deserve- Augh screw it, they got BATMAN.
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[Batman Effects]
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[Film Theorists Theme Song Plays]
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The one with the power to vanquish, the Dark Lord approaches...
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Born to those who have thriced defied him, born as the seventh month dies...
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And the Dark Lord will mark him as equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not...
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And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives...
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The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies...
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[Music Stops]
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Hello Internet, welcome to FILM THEORY!
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It's like Game Theory, but with one small difference.
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I'll let you figure out what it is.
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Now, if that prophecy sounded familiar, that's because it's the big reveal that comes at the end of Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix,
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The fifth in the series of books, movies, and ugh, "Video Games,"
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About the young orphan who gets whisked off to Hogwarts Wizard School with his friends, Ron and Hermione
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To find out he's destined to save the world.
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Honestly, I never got the "Hype."
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The fifth book was always my least favorite.
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Too much of all HP whining about being special.
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Oh suck it up! Anyone would love to have magical powers.
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So your different, get over it!
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But I will say the fifth MOVIE was my favorite in the franchise.
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Whoo, that final wizard battle! I could watch it for days!
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And yet, whether I loved it or hated it, I never got the "Hoopla" around this prophecy thing.
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Yeah yeah, Harry Potter's the chosen one.
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He's the one that's gonna have to kill Voldemort
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Big surprise..
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Like, did we really learn anything here? NO!
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We just had a nice filler book to kill off some of the big characters
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And then transition to some of the darker installments.
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It always felt like such an anti-climatic reveal,
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Well, at least it did, until I started thinking about it.
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We've all assumed that it was Harry the prophecy was talking about,
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Since you know, it's his name on the book covers, movie posters, and tighty whities.
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But what if it was all a cover-up, a reus, a brilliant PR campaign to take the attention off the "Other Boy" who lived,
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The TRUE HERO of the story.
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And what if this prophecy wasn't just "No Duh Moment,"
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But instead, a clue hidden out in the open for us careful fans, about the identity of the TRUE hero of Hogwarts.
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Sound crazy? Lets break down the prophecy!
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We know that the Dark Lord refers Voldemort, the evil wizard with the unfortunate nose job,
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But the rest of the thing is really unclear.
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We know that "The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord" must have been "Born to those who have thrice defied" ol' nose slits over here.
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Okay, well Harry seems to fit the bill. His parents, Lily and James Potter, were both members of "The Order of the Pheonix,
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A secret society founded by the Hogwarts headmaster, Albus Dumbledore,
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To oppose Voldemort, so they probably did their share of fighting.
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That said, we've never actually been given three specific examples.
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So, you know that connection is, meh, at best.
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What is with these darn ancient prophecies! Why could they never say in clear English what they mean?
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Hey you, Scar-boy, HP, you're the chosen one. Go kill this guy.
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Anyway, the hero also needs to be "Born as the seventh month dies."
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The prophecy is so adamant about this, that it mentions it twice.
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So, it's oughta be pretty important.
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Well, after doing extensive research on the subject, I learned that the seventh month is actually July.
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[Triumph Horns]
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And Harry's birthday is July thirty-first, so thats sounds pretty cut and dry,
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And finally there are those parts about "The Dark Lord will mark him as his equal" and "a power the Dark Lord knows not."
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With Harry, these two sort of go hand-to-hand.
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Voldemort marked Harry as his equal when he showed up at the Potters to kill Harry and avert the prophecy,
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But instead of killing him with unforgivable Avada Kedavra killing curse,
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Lily Potter threw herself between them, sacrificing herself in the process.
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Voldemort was completely blindsided as a mother's love, something he never knew or felt himself, activated an ancient magic
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That reflected the curse back onto him, and left Harry with an extremely marketable lightning bolt scar.
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Seriously, it looks like a temporary tattoo, and don't worry, it is.
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But yeah, the books and movies make it pretty clear that the power Voldemort knows not is "Love."
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And it's exactly that power of love that allowed Harry to defeat him in the battle of Hogwarts in Harry Potter and the Dealthy Hallows: Part 2.
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Ugh, really? "Love is the Power.."
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Can we.. can we get anymore clichéd here?
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It could've been something cool like uh.. I don't know, Laser beams.
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Ok, so lets take a second to step back here and look at the terms of the prophecy objectively.
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If we're being completely honest, if we were able to find another kid who was born at the end of July,
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Had Do-Gooder parents,
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And was loved at some point in his life, you actually have yourself a pretty darn valid canidate for hero of the wizarding world.
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Well, make that one very specific hero candidate.
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You would have yourself;
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Neville Longbottom. Wait, that's him? This guy?
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Oh wow, he actually turned out to be quite handsome. Did he.. It is strictly
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Platonic I'm hey, I'm able to appreciate his handsomeness and in a strictly
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Platonic way.
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Don't be getting ideas. Now I get the confusion. In the movies, Neville was
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worse than the third wheel, he was a fourth wheel to the Harry Ron Hermione
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tricycle, and yeah the idea that he's a hero seems like one of those bits a
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far-flung fan fiction that surfaced in some dark corner of Reddit but if you
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go with me on this one for a minute, I think you'll be surprised
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by what we find. Let's go back to the prophecy. Born as the seventh month dies;
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That was the biggest at least vague stipulation of the prophecy, and one that
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would be really difficult for me to fudge.
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Funny thing is though, I don't have to Neville's birthday was on July thirtieth
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one day earlier than Harry's, and based on the vague wording I'd say we have at
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least a few days window here. Especially if the prophecy is okay writing off "Love
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is the power he who must have sleep apnea knows not."
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Ok, Next. "Born to those who thrice defied him."
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So Lily and James Potter may have done their share of old defying. Again, there
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are really no clear examples given to us, but look at Neville's parents Frank and
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Alice Longbottom.
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These two were aurors. It's basically like being a professional Harry Potter,
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but less pouty and with better pay. Their backstory kind of gets the shaft in most
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of the books and definitely in the movie, but they were a serious power couple who
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would clearly have been on the front lines of Dark Lord defense they were so
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important in fact that Voldemort's followers captured and tortured Neville's
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parents using the Cruciatus curse to leave them permanently insane.
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One of the attackers Barty Crouch jr. even disguised himself as a teacher and
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made Neville watch him torture a spider with that same curse.
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Anyway if we're going to assume that the Potters somehow defied Voldemort three
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times, I think we can give that same consideration to the Longbottoms so
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that's two major check marks
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maybe there's something to this thing after all; Which leaves us with our last
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two criteria for being the chosen one: Being marked by Voldemort as his equal and
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having a power that Voldemort doesn't . I said earlier that this missing power is
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clearly meant to be the power of love. Que that Hewey Lewis!
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All right that's enough, we don't want to challenge copyright police and the
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movies and books drive the love point home, but it's unreasonable to rule out that
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this power could also belong to Neville. We've already established that his
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parents parallel the dedication of James and Lily Potter, maybe even more so as
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the only way to disable them was to torture them beyond recognition.
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A prolonged period of torment as opposed to Lily's snap decision to save her son.
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So, we have just as much evidence to believe that Neville has powerful love
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juice pumping through his veins just like Harry, or then again maybe
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everyone's wrong and the power Voldemort knows not is Herbology. Let's face it
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that's one Neville really excels at, and Harry eh green thumbs
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he has not but then what about Voldemort marking Neville as equal? The lightning
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lightning bolt scar [trademarked], and the spell that merged Harry and Voldemort's souls
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together are pretty solid evidence for Harry being the chosen one. Nevel doesn't
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seem to have that sort of a connection.
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So have we hit a brick wall here? Is it even possible to make a case for Neville
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with this one piece of evidence blocking our way?
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Well as it turns out we've been asking the wrong question.
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It's not whether Harry or Neville are the chosen one.
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They're both the chosen one at the same time. Over that to make them the chosen
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two I guess? I don't know. Anyway without any of us realizing it, JK Rowling has
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been teaching all of us Potterheads a little bit of quantum physics.
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There's a well-known quantum physics principal called the "Many-Worlds"
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interpretation which was coined by Bryce Dewitt. As we go through time, there are
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many possible futures for us while we're waiting for the future to happen, every
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possible future is real.
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Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Let me put it this way I might have cereal for
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breakfast tomorrow or
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who knows i might have leftover cake. Both of those futures are real events,
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but the "Many-Worlds" theory says that I decide which one of those real futures i
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participate in by making the choice to eat that awesome slice of cake.
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Because, let's face it. We all know that that's the future i'm going to choose
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because chocolate icing rocks, and yeah sure, I'll regret for the rest of the day,
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but that alternate future, the one where I'm super lame and choose to eat cereal
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and probably do some push-ups or whatever
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Ehh
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sucks just thinking about it, but yeah that's still real too - I just chose not to
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participate in it so screw you health! It was the point where I made the choice to
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obey my sweet tooth that determined the path that I went down but history and
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future still have all those other choices within them. Think the past and
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future like a tree with a whole bunch of branches all the way through
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we choose which branch to follow but the whole tree still exists; And that brings
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us back around to the problem of Harry and Neville. Harry, according to the
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prophecy is the Chosen One. Neville
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according to the prophecy is also the Chosen One.
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Think about it we just went through all the reasons either can fulfill the
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prophecy.
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There's nothing so remarkable about Harry that makes him more likely of a
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hero of the wizarding world than Neville. Except for one thing,
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one choice. In this case the only person who had the ability to choose between
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these two was Voldemort himself of the two equally real chosen ones, he could
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have decided to attack,
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he chose Harry Potter. He could have just as easily chosen Neville Longbottom but
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in choosing harry he gave him an entire future, an entire identity, as "the boy who
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lived" in a weird way.
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Harry should be thanking Voldemort otherwise he would have just been well
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Nevel; And if you think this theory sounds a bit far-fetched, well, listen to
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someone you do trust "Mr. I Knew The Answer The Whole Time and Just Chose Not
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to Share it With You Until the Very End,"
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Albus Dumbledore. Dumbledore actually explains this theory to Harry noting
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that it could have gone either way, between who Voldemort chose to attack,
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Harry or Neville. In fact from the very beginning of the series we can see
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Dumbledore understanding of these parallels. In a way Dumbledore and
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Hogwarts Proper treat both of these kids like they could be the chosen one.
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Probably because Neville and Harry both represented equally likely branches of
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history. in the very first installment Dumbledore recognizes Neville's
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contributions and awards him points for his bravery and standing up to his friends
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these points, not Harry's, end up being the deciding factor in Gryffindor's win
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over Slytherin for House Cup (Idc I'm a Ravenclaw.)
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What seemed like Dumbledore playing favorites was actually him catering to
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the other chosen one.
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Nevel's also only one of two individuals we know for a fact to have actually had
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a conversation with the Sorting Hat about which house to go into. Only he and
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Harry have the self determination to do this.
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Following their first year, Neville repeatedly demonstrated he was both
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smart and capable, in a lot of cases more capable than Harry himself. He provided
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Harry with gillyweed in year four, saving him from failure in the Triwizard
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Tournament, helping the quote on quote "chosen one" fulfill his destiny.
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While Harry was moping around in the wilderness for most of movie seven and
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seven part 2
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Neville stayed at Hogwarts, even as it was being taken over by dark magic.
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He actively subverted his professors , and even endured torture and beatings to
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continue helping Harry.
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He literally raised an army, Dumbledore's Army, and led his peers to fight against
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Voldemort and his death eaters. Neville did all of this.
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Neville Longbottom. Their parallels only get closer as the series ends. In the
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final battle with Voldemort, it was Neville who pulled the sword of Godric
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Gryffindor out of the sorting hat and then used it to kill the Guinea;
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Voldemort's final Horcrux.
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it was this and only this specific act that made it possible for Harry to
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actually finish off
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Voldemort. The only other person ever to demonstrate this ability pulling a sword
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out of the hat, Harry Potter, and in the final moments of the battle, in movie 8,
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part 2 of number seven,
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when everyone thinks Harry is dead, we see one person step in to take his place;
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To stand for him directly and fight Voldemort, Neville. Harry Potter isn't
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actually the chosen one.
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There is no one single chosen one.
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Both Harry and Neville are the chosen ones and each plays out their timeline
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as this character even if we only get to see one side of the story in the movies.
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Maybe JK Rowling set up this parallel to demonstrate something about fate or
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about the choices we make impacting the rest of the world or that no matter what
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hand were dealt, it's the small acts of bravery that matter.
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That prophecies for all their worth don't make you any less special because
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in the end what it truly shows is this:
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It's the choices that you make in your life. Either way, that's just a theory, a
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Film Theory and cut! And next time we'll prove that Ron is actually Voldemort!
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Wait, what? You should continue your Film Theory marathon by clicking one of the
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videos over to the right. We have all sorts of good ones for you to watch
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right now, so keep going, keep watching. Stay the course man
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stay the course. Give the gift that keeps on giving and subscribe. You'll give an
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angel its wings.
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Thanks to everyone who contributed to the captioning.