The light-creatures from In the Forest of the Night - the Here, according to the subtitles - are Vashta Nerada.

Both species have a strong connection with trees - the Vashta are ubiquitous in arboreal environments, while the Here identify themselves as the lifeforce or spirit of trees. Both are nearly-invisible specks in the air, not pulled down by gravity. Both are capable of rational thought, at least in large numbers, but can't communicate except by convoluted methods (memory chips, psychic crazy girls). And, of course, the episode titles of 'Forest of the Dead' and '(In the) Forest of the Night' are pretty close together.

Yes, the Vashta Nerada were malevolent, while the Here protected the earth - but both acted in response to a threat to their habitat. In the Library, they were living in processed wood, which can't have been very comfortable for them if they're intimately connected to trees. People wandering around reading the books was a threat to them. Back on Earth, the solar flare would have wiped them out; they weren't protecting humanity per se, so much as their own ecosystem.

And of course there's one other related species (in the new series): given another five billion years of evolution, the Vashta Nerada will learn to inhabit and 'awaken' the trees they're linked to. Ultimately, their line will lead to the Forest of Cheem, and to Jabe, who was present when the sun finally overwhelmed the Earth.

hS

Coming to you live from the dimmer recesses of my brain and bits of a mostly-forgotten physics education, may I present:

The magic of Harry Potter is actually a quantum field effect with observable results in a macro-scale universe.

Hear me out on this. The Potterverse is a strange, strange place at the best of time, but one of the more consistent bits of weirdness is the idea - patently wrong - that "Muggle technology" doesn't work at Hogwarts. Okay, I get that J.K. probably meant "Muggle science" by that (which doesn't really work either, unless - ah, but that's a discussion for another day), but she used a specific term and I'm running with it.

See, Muggle technology does work in the Wizarding World. We see the great spinning gear setups and locking-bars of the vault doors at Gringotts - mechanisms that work in harmony with magical defences, including whatever the Thief's Downfall is and a dragon (of the non-literal-five-headed variety). Hagrid has a dirty great crossbow firing bolts the size of a small tree, and crossbows (even hand-draw ones) are complicated bits of kit. The Flying Ford Anglia seems perfectly content in the grounds, though I'm not too super-duper sure that that one counts since it's kept going by magic kind of sorta maybe a bit but the headlights work and guh weird.

So, we know that mechanical stuff works. We also see in the films that Luna's knackered Converse (her trackie bottoms tucked in socks, alas, remain unpictured; anyone getting that reference deserves prizes) don't dissolve or anything, so we can safely assume that modern materials like plastics and so forth aren't subject to the effects. However, I'd wager that with the advent of portable electronics - presumably battery-operated torches, Walkmans, boomboxes, digital alarm clocks, and so forth, I mean, it's set from the early-Seventies to mid-Nineties - stuff started going haywire. Why?

Field interference.

See, if we look at magic as an observable phenomenon able to be replicated under laboratory conditions, which it is, assuming there's a wizard in the lab, it becomes obvious. "Magic" is some sort of deeply weird quantum field - and since every field has an associated particle, that's what is interacting with the electronic artifacts brought into Hogwarts by Muggleborn students. If we also assume that magic particles - which I'll call "thaums" for convenience and because I, like everyone else here, am a colossal nerd - act like neutrinos, permeating the world around them and passing through like it ain't no thang. However, they disrupt other fields... like the electromagnetic field, for instance. Like the one you use to read this and parse it into knowledge, also known as brain activity.

Major disruptions would probably cause strokes and so forth, but there's going to be a subset of people who can use it for some biological advantage. But that brings up the old saw of "Why isn't magic evolutionarily selected for?" To which I respond: see previous sentence. Perhaps the rates of strokes and brain damage and so forth were too great in those hypersensitive to this field - something that, even after the advent of effective medical care (which, for all its faults, the Wizarding World got to long before the Muggle one did) - meant that for the longest time, the trait was simply unprofitable from a genetic standpoint. But then someone figures out a healing spell, and everything changes.

BTW, healing spells and stuff that directly affects living matter, like transfiguration? I'd wager that was the first stuff to be discovered... though probably after some kind of proto-Killing Curse. People are warlike. I haven't got that much more to say on that, tbh. It doesn't interest me

Now, though... now there are effective treatments. It's like a genetic defect that people live with, like a tendency towards sickle-cell anaemia or something, it just happens to come with the side effects of flying broomsticks and magical creatures (which I accept this theory does little to explain, though I'd wager they came first). Magic users are, through good old genetic altruism, allowing other magic users to survive and thrive, getting a hold of their powers so that their heads do not a splode. Perhaps that's what Merlin was, the last of the really sensitive wizards. Perhaps magic's slowly coming back, finding a level between Muggle and "Ka-Boom Oopsie There Go My Eyeballs" that's suitable for further recreation.

There's an awful lot of perhapses here, but I think it's okay.

Also, this is wobblestheclown, rebranded and revamped and hopefully less of an angry tosspot this time around.

=]

The mild one: Mia from Power Rangers Samurai has anosmia/hyposmia--extremely decreased or nonexistent sense of smell. This is why she is so bad at cooking. Her sense of taste is skewed and she doesn't notice when her food is burning because she can't smell the smoke.

The crazy one: Tommy Oliver is a paradox. A few years after he started as a Ranger, the Wizard of Darkness (a minor villain) created a clone of him, which ended up getting sent back to the 1700's. Since it was created through magic, this clone was immortal and unable to age, and was thus the same man who became the legendary White Stranger in 1880.

At some point in the late 20th century he was adopted by the Olivers, and returned to Angel Grove, where he proceeded to get turned into Rita Repulsa's evil Green Ranger. Eventually he was turned good, and the bad guys started trying to get rid of his powers. Eventually they got to the point where using his morpher was dangerous--the power drain started him aging normally.

First and foremost, Pinkie Pie is able to warp reality the way she does (being places before Rainbow Dash, pulling stuff from behind her back, et cetera) because the Element of Laughter is a hybrid of harmony and chaos magic.

My reasoning is as follows:
--Pinkie's reality-warping shenanigans tend to happen in hilarious ways and/or where they'd further a joke. Discord, while (mostly) malicious, uses his chaos magic the same way.
--Pinkie and Discord are the only two characters "shown" to have Offscreen Teleportation and awareness of the fourth wall (enough to crack it), two things considered impossible for normal ponies. (Discord's not a pony, but the point stands.)
--Neither character has a real explanation for why they can do all of that beyond "that's just who they are." If anything defies explanation, it's chaos magic.
--Discord was clearly (as seen in the flashbacks in "Twilight's Kingdom") around at the time of Star Swirl (or whenever the Elements were created), who's to say he didn't have a claw in their creation?

We know that both Bill and Percy Weasley got twelve OWLs. Probably Barty Crouch Jr. also got twelve OWLs, although Barty Crouch Sr. may have talked about something he wishfully imagined. There may have been more unknown students who got twelve OWLs, and there should also be students who failed some OWLs, but had originally started to study twelve subjects in their third year. Why, then, did Hermione Granger need a Time-Turner in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, if it wasn’t just for conveniently having time travel available when it was needed?
 
There are seven obligatory subjects:  Astronomy, Charms, Configuration, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Herbology, History of Magic, and Potions (not counting Flying, because this is only for the first year). In Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Chapter 14, Neville asks about Arithmancy and Ancient Runes, and Percy talks about Divination, Muggle Studies and Care of Magical Creatures, giving us a total of twelve subjects for the third year. Do we really know all optional subjects, or may there be at least one neither Percy nor Neville mentioned?
 
In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Chapter 4, Hermione shows Harry and Ron the books for all optional subjects: Arithmancy, Care of Magical Creatures, Divination, Study of Ancient Runes, Muggle Studies – and there she is conveniently interrupted by Ron. This is such a common trope that it practically shouts “There’s another optional subject not mentioned yet! Prepare for future surprises. “
 
In Chapter 6 of the same book, Ron tries to discuss how Hermione’s classes for Divination, Muggle Studies and Arithmancy are at the same time on one day. Hermione reacts so annoyed that Ron never dares to discuss what else he might have seen on her timetable for other days. In Chapter 16, we see that Hermione has to sit double exams for Arithmancy and Transfiguration at Monday morning, and for Charms and Ancient Runes at Monday afternoon, but then Harry and Ron just give up and don't look at the other days, because there isn’t any point in asking how she’s going to do this. Is it possible that JKR deliberately avoided showing us full timetables because she knew that there had to be a sixth optional subject somewhere, but she had not yet decided what it would be?
 
We never see Hermione’s full timetables in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire either. Could JKR still not think of a plausible sixth optional subject, that wouldn’t be covered in other classes? Or did she forget that she had never actually said what it is?
 
In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Chapter 31, at the last morning of the OWL examinations, Harry sits in the common room, reading through the notes he had borrowed from Hermione. After the Astronomy examination, Hagrid’s sacking and the aftermath at the previous evening, Ron is sleeping long. But wouldn’t sleeping long like Ron be out of character for Hermione? Shouldn’t she be right there, sharing her notes with Harry to prepare for the examination in History of Magic? Where is Hermione if she isn’t sitting another exam for the still mysterious sixth optional subject?
 
In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 5, Harry, Ron and Hermione receive their OWL results. Hermione got ten "Outstandings" and one "Exceeds Expectations". Since she gave up Divination and Muggle Studies when she returned the Time-Turner, Hermione had tried to do something that had never been accomplished before: studying thirteen subjects during her third year.
 
So there is a good reason for giving Hermione a Time-Turner. No, it’s not for letting her try to get thirteen OWLs. It’s for teaching her these important lessons:
Magic cannot do everything.
Your Heart’s Desire may always be out of reach.
Even if you can add some extra hours to your day, it’s still impossible to learn everything that can be learned.
 
Addendum 1:
Uh, what? A newer edition of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince says that Hermione got only nine "Outstandings"? Did somebody complain that eleven OWLs for Hermione is WRONG and should be edited, because this would require her to have started studying thirteen subjects while there are only twelve subjects available?
 
Fanon says that time travel isn’t really such a big secret and everybody who studies more than ten subjects at Hogwarts gets a Time-Turner. This theory is very popular because people just love to use time travel in their fan fiction. JKR tried to shoot it down on Pottermore, saying that time travel is really very dangerous and really top secret, and that Hermione was really the only student who ever used a Time-Turner at Hogwarts, but nobody believes her. That’s what you get when you listen to your readers and throw years of planning and deliberately writing around the mysterious subject out of the window because after so many years you don’t remember why the plot of your second book requires Hermione to get eleven OWLs in the sixth book.
 
Unfortunately the Department of Inaccuracies, even if it existed, can’t do anything about this.
 
Addendum 2:
Look, Ron, it isn’t too difficult. It took me only ten years, and I didn’t even lurk on Hermione’s timetables. BICIMTG is "Basics of Interspecies Communication: Introduction to Mermish, Troll and Gobbledegook".
 
It’s sufficiently magic, not covered in other classes, not requiring an additional teacher we have never seen, and Hermione never talked about it because she was just too curious whether Ron would ever figure it out on his own. (Thanks to Julia H. of the Harry Potter Lexicon Forum for suggesting that Professor Dumbledore could teach Mermish and probably also other languages.)
 
HG

I realized something about the Others and the chidren of the forest. They're not elves; they're fairies.

How do I figure? They're the Courts Unseelie (winter) and Seelie (summer) respectively.

Also, on Howland Reed: I think he represents the old gods, in the same way that Melisandre and Aeron respectively do for the Red and Drowned Gods. Deeply religious, hugely magical, a true connection with his gods (he's a crannogmen, so he knows the secrets of the children), and (more directly related to Melisandre), he has some connection with one of the implied Princes that were Promised (namely Jon Snow). Regardess of whether Jon is Ashara/Brandon's son or Rhaegar/Lyanna's, Howland knows who he really is.

...yeah, I might be anxious to meet this guy in the books.

I think Reddington isn't Liz's father- he's only ONE of her fathers. He and Liz's adopted father were lovers at one point.

Totally nuts, I know. >_>

As for why Lupin never contacted Harry to see how he was doing, I'm fairly sure Dumbledore made Harry's location not only a secret, but protected him from being found by anyone, regardless of their intentions. That would also explain why Harry never seemed to get any fanmail.

More specifically, he's the tiny fragment of Sauron's power left after the Ring was destroyed, plus whatever he's managed to (slowly and painfully) accumulate in the six thousand years in between.

The proof:

-They both rule over orcs/goblins.

-They both rule kingdoms which are supernaturally attuned to them - Mordor is evil because Sauron lives there, and the Labyrinth is merged with Jareth to the point that his face keeps showing up in the scenery.

-Jareth uses songs as magic (mostly 'As The World Falls Down' and 'Within You', though the latter failed). Sauron comes from a world literally created by magic singing.

-Jareth's all about Words of Power ("Say your right words, the goblins said..."). Sauron, again, comes from a setting where saying the right words is one way to invoke (innate) power ("Naur an edraith ammen! Naur dan i ngaurhoth!").

-They both try to trick people into saying powerful words - Sauron attempts to convince Finrod and Beren to swear "Death to light, to law, to love! Cursed be moon and stars above!" to prove they're really orcs. That would not have been a good idea.

-They both have an unhealthy obsession with specific brunettes - Luthien and Sarah.

-They both have far-viewing crystals.

-They both have the power to change people into goblins - Jareth implies it'll happen to Toby, while Sauron may well have been involved in the original creation of orcs from elves.

-They both have an unhealthy obsession with shiny things - Sauron and the Rings, Jareth and, uh, endless glitter.

-They both transform into flying creatures - a vampire for Sauron, a barn owl for Jareth.

-Just look at them:



Yeah, the Dark Lord is trying the whole 'Hi, I'm pretty and I bring you presents, just call me Annatar Jareth' thing again. And once again, he gets taken down by a girl. ;) Serves him right.

(Does this mean Hoggle needs to go on a quest to throw a bag of glitter into the Bog of Eternal Stench? I think it rather does)

hS, bringing the crazy ^_^

I know, I know - you thought he was all about the gold. And yeah, he likes the pretty jewellery as much as anyone. But Smaug is actually a vigilante anti-hero: righter of ancient wrongs, punisher of the guilty for their heinous crimes against dragonkind.

In the First Age, when Melkor still ruled as rightful king over Middle-earth, the dragons had their beginning. The greatest among them were Glaurung the Golden - the Father of Dragons - and Ancalagon the Black, first of the winged variety. Smaug, of course, must be descended from both of them, since he's winged (and a dragon); he also clearly identifies with Glaurung, since he's adopted the same aftername - 'the Golden', or 'Glóren' in Sindarin.

In all the years of the First Age, there were two occasions when dragons were defeated in major battles. First, when Glaurung fought in the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, he was driven back to Angband in disgrace by masked dwarves. Second, when Ancalagon sallied forth in glory in the War of Wrath, he was brought down in ruin by the bearer of a Silmaril.

So imagine how Smaug feels when, after millennia of brooding on these ancient wrongs, he hears that a mountain full of dwarves (Glaurung's bane) have dug up a glowing jewel bearing more than a passing likeness to the Silmarilli (Ancalagon's last sight). At last, there is a chance to exact vengeance for the great dragons of old - and, along the way, to burn down a city of scruffy mortals very similar to the one who (wearing a dwarven helm, mark you) slew Glaurung the Golden himself.

And so Smaug the Avenger flew down from the North in flame, and all burned before his righteous wrath.

hS

I have a whole bunch of headcanons about most of my fandoms! Some are more crazy than others.

One Harry Potter headcanon that I have has to do with the reason why no one reported for the Dursley's for child abuse. If the obvious neglect and abuse had been reported, he would have been removed from the Dursley's home from the British equivalent of CPS. But then that would have broken the protection that he had from being there- in his mother's family's house- and it would be entirely possible that Harry would be at risk from Death Eaters harming him. My headcanon is that the abuse he suffered was noticed and reported. But the British CPS didn't investigate for whatever reason; probably an obliviate or two, and probably cast by Dumbledore- all a way to keep Harry alive until it was the right time for him to die, after all the Horcruxes were destroyed.

My craziest headcanon is for the Marvel universe. I believe that Age of Apocalypse Blink is really Pixie and Nightcrawler's daughter. Pixie isn't seen in AoA; but both Pixie and Kurt are teleporters. A pink teleporter plus a blue teleporter equals a purple teleporter. Plus, Pixie's pink hair is genetic; her mother has the same hair color, so it's plausible that her daughter will have pink hair as well. Blink also has eyes that are one solid color, just like Kurt. It is also implied that Sabretooth is Kurt's father in the AoA universe; if Blink was Kurt's daughter (and thus Sabretooth's granddaughter) it would explain why Sabretooth took her in.

Those are the two big ones that I can think of at the moment. If I think of any more I'll post them later!