koryos:

let’s call this post A BIOLOGIST’S 1 AM ISSUES WITH THE BASILISK IN THE MOVIE VERSION OF THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS (BY POPULAR REQUEST)

and let’s be clear most of the time i dabble in mammals and not herps so i’m expecting a herpetologist to whisk this post away when i’m done and get in on the real schooling

now let’s be clear there are some major differences between movie basilisk and book basilisk. by perusing my copy of chamber of secrets i can give you the major points of the description:

• very large (“thick as an oak trunk,” with a mouth wide enough to swallow Harry, a 12 year old gryffindor child, whole)
• “bright, poisonous green”
• “bulbous yellow eyes”
• “fangs long and thin as sabres”
• fuck i love rowling’s descriptions OKAY

and you know what, it’s pretty ok. aside from the size (i’ll discuss this in just a minute) it really works. with the bright green coloration, I always imagined it looking like a green mamba or a boomslang, two types of highly venomous snakes. (yes, a boomslang IS a real thing that JKR did not make up as a polyjuice potion ingredient!)

Above: a gorgeous boomslang. Tell me that fucker wouldn’t look awesome huge and CGI.

Okay now let’s look at movie!basilisk.

Oh…

Oh, no.

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