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