Task 9: Exemplary submission (Deceased Parents Are the Best)

[student names withheld]

Featured Cliché: Deceased Parents Are the Best

Description: Parents Are Useless. Even if they don’t leave you and/or abuse you, the likelihood of them actually ever taking time to care for you is quite low. Good Parents are hard to come by. It appears that the only decent parents are the dead ones. Source: TV Tropes.

Breaking the Cliché

These are the final versions after going back-and-forth with the chatbot:

Logline

In an alternate magical world where Harry Potter is raised by his loving parents, Neville Longbottom becomes the Chosen One with a mysterious scar, and the two friends navigate the challenges of Hogwarts together, united in their mission to confront the rising darkness.

Character profiles

Harry Potter:

Harry, now a well-adjusted young wizard, has grown up in a loving home with his devoted parents, James and Lily Potter. The support of his family has fostered a strong sense of self, making him grounded, compassionate, and confident. At Hogwarts, Harry quickly befriends Neville, and though he feels a pang of curiosity about why Neville has inherited the destiny of the Chosen One, he wholeheartedly steps into the role of loyal ally. Resourceful and determined, Harry uses his magical abilities, innate courage, and strategic mind to support Neville in their shared quest to protect the wizarding world.

Neville Longbottom:

Shy but resilient, Neville Longbottom has grown up in the shadow of a tragic family legacy, with his parents incapacitated by dark magic. Despite his insecurities and anxieties, Neville is unexpectedly marked as the Chosen One, symbolized by a curious scar that raises more questions than answers. As he gains confidence through the trials of Hogwarts, Neville gradually realizes that his strengths lie in empathy, persistence, and a profound understanding of courage beyond mere bravado. With Harry’s support, Neville rises to the challenge, embracing his destiny even as he wrestles with self-doubt and the weight of expectations.

Plot twist

In this alternate version of the Harry Potter story, Harry Potter is still the main character and still plays a significant role, but the narrative takes a different twist. Unlike the original story, Harry’s parents, James and Lily Potter, are very much alive and deeply loving. They raise Harry in a nurturing environment, providing him with support and guidance. However, another student at Hogwarts, Neville Longbottom, becomes the chosen one with a mysterious scar on his forehead. As the story unfolds, Neville, with his own unique set of challenges, takes on the mantle of the chosen one, while Harry supports him as a loyal friend and ally. Together, they navigate the magical world, facing dangers, discovering secrets, and ultimately working towards a common goal – to defeat the dark forces threatening their world. This fresh take on the familiar story allows for a different exploration of friendship, bravery, and the power of unity.

Storyboard

Scene 1 – The Potters at Home Sunlight streams through the windows of the cozy Potter home, casting a warm glow over the breakfast table where Harry, eleven and bright-eyed, sits between his parents, James and Lily. As they chat about the upcoming Hogwarts term, Harry eagerly asks questions about life at school, his eyes shining with excitement. Lily responds with patience and warmth, telling tales of her own Hogwarts days, while James adds in exaggerated tales of daring feats from his time on the Gryffindor Quidditch team. The room is filled with laughter and love, a picture of a family deeply connected and happy. Our prompts: For this first picture we were trying to get the AI to show Harry with his alive, loving parents. This is the prompt we gave it originally: [Quintis Holloway, an 11 year old boy with messy brown hair, glasses, wearing Hogwarts wizard robes, carrying a wand, standing with his mother and father in a family portrait] and this is the prompt that gave us the final result that was the closest we were lookin for: [A 40 year old mother, with her husband who is also in his 40’s, standing proudly with their 12 year old son, Rolland Rodge. Everyone is wearing Hogwarts wizard robes. Only Rolland Rodge is wearing glasses, he has brown hear, and green eyes. His mother has auburn hair and no glasses. His father has brown messy hair, a short beard, and wears glasses. There are only 3 people in the photo.]
Scene 2 – The Sorting Hat’s Surprising Choice: In the Great Hall, the Sorting Ceremony is underway, and Harry, well aware of his family’s Gryffindor heritage, eagerly awaits his turn. But as Neville sits on the stool, the Sorting Hat pauses, muttering about potential greatness and an unusual destiny, finally declaring him a Gryffindor. The hall erupts in whispers about the curious scar on Neville’s forehead, and Harry, sensing his friend’s discomfort, exchanges a reassuring look with him across the room. In this moment, an unspoken bond forms between them, as both boys are united by a future they can’t yet understand.Our prompts:For this second picture we were trying to get the AI to show Neville as the chosen one, with a scar. This is the prompt we gave it originally: [Lou Lyle, a 12-year-old boy with a pale complexion, big front teeth, and tousled brown hair. Dressed in a wizard cloak, he holds a simple yet powerful glowing wooden wand. A scar sits on his forehead. A zig-zag scar on his forehead. In front of stone castle. Bold scar on forehead. scar on his face] and this is the prompt that gave us the final result that was the closest we were lookin for: [Jules Quinten, a 12-year-old boy with a mark on his forehead, a pale complexion and a zig-zag mark on his forehead. In front of a stone castle, Bold scar on his forehead. scar on his face, big front teeth, and tousled brown hair. Dressed in a wizard cloak, he holds a simple yet powerful glowing wooden wand. A scar sits on his forehead, cut on his forehead. black smudge on his forehead. big line on forehead]
Scene 3 – A Prophecy Unveiled in the Library’s Shadows: Late one night, Harry and Neville find themselves in a secluded corner of Griffindor, poring over an ancient book that hints at a mysterious prophecy. As Harry reads aloud, the words begin to glow, revealing a prophecy about two boys—one marked by fate and the other by choice, destined to face the forces of darkness together. With a look of realization, Neville clenches his fist, feeling the weight of destiny, while Harry, unwavering, places a reassuring hand on his shoulder, vowing to stand by him, come what may. This solemn vow deepens their bond, setting the stage for the challenges ahead.Our prompts:For this third picture we were trying to get the AI to show Harry as a ‘sidekick’ and best friend to Neville (the now chosen one). For this image, we surprisingly only needed one prompt to get the desired scene we wanted. This was that prompt: [Jules Quinten and Rolland Rodge, hanging out in the Gryffindor Dorm room. Rolland Rodge is telling a story, and Jules Quinten is laughing.’]

AI Dialogue

-Story-

• • This first AI generated story breaking the dead parent trope of Harry Potter was almost without fault. Our original prompt for the AI was this:
    • Acting as a short story author, write a short paragraph describing the story of Harry Potter but break the dead parents trope of the original story.
  • It generated a story from the outlook of a different student at Hogwarts instead of keeping Harry as the main character so we added this to the prompt:
    • Keep Harry has the main character
  • It then generated a better story in the eyes of Harry but our group wanted there to be an even better twist so we added this to the prompt:
    • Have Neville Longbottom be the chosen one with the scar in this story
  • It then generated the story we have now, with an even better twist than we were expecting. It made Harry Potter the ‘sidekick’ friend of Neville! In this version, we have Harry still as the main character but Neville is the chosen one and they go on adventures together, leaving Harry to be more like Ron from the original story. Our group liked this story so we kept with it and started to generated the images based on what this story told.

 

• Overall, it didn’t take much for the text version of our story to come together quite nicely. The more difficult part of this assignment was the image generation. See below for details…

-Images-

• • Getting a portrait of Neville with a scar on his forehead was surprisingly extremely difficult. We ended up settling for the scar of Neville not being on his forehead since this IS a different story than the original.
  • The family portrait of the Potters was also difficult. When you tried to add glasses to one of the family members, they’d all be wearing glass. The size and age of the family members was also weird with some of the kids being unproportional to the parents or the kids also looking old.
  • The last image of Harry and Neville being friends was the easiest to get out of the AI generation. It even added one of the ghosts in the Gryffindor dorm room which we thought was a great addition which really tied these images back into the magic and mysterious side of the Harry Potter series.
  • Something else that was an interesting finding throughout our image generations was that we had to change up the names quite a bit to get our desired result. We tried to do what was shown in class with keeping the same name of a character so they looked closer in other images but every now and then it would create a character that looked more like our desired result so we switched to working on that character and getting them closer to what we wanted. That is why you can see a switch up in a few of the names from the first prompts to the last.

Credits

[Student name withheld]: Chose cliché, wrote initial logline, prompted for story edits.

[Student name withheld]: Wrote initial character profiles, prompted for character edits, prompted for more interesting plot twist.

[Student name withheld]: Prompted incrementally to get the best images, formatted and posted Task in WordPress.