I’ve actually thought out a way that Quidditch’s scoring system can be somewhat rationally explained other than as a pot-point to make Harry-the-Seeker a school sports idol. It’s been a while since I’ve read the books, and I’ve never read “Quidditch Though the Ages”.
Quidditch has been played for centuries, if not millenium. There have been references to historic Quidditch matches played hundreds of years ago.
Neither the Quidditch euipment (Snitch, Quaffle, Bludgers, etc.) nor the rules appear to have changed much over that time.
However, new and improved broom models seem to come out every year. The books pretty much flat out state that whichever team has the newest. most expensive brooms has a major advantage.
I posit that because of constant increases in broommaking efficiency, modern Quidditch is radically different from the original game. On an inferior broom, it would take much longer to catch the Snitch, so rather than the relatively quick-ending matches of today, where the Seeker wins the game almost single-handedly 90% of the time (Notable exception: Krum caught the Snitch, but Bulgaria still lost the World Cup.), old-time Quidditch matches would last for hours, so the Chasers could score enough points tooverride a caught Snitch by the other team.
Not really, because both teams are on the field the whole time and both teams have the opportunity to score – on average, with standard goals being worth 10 points, two teams are going to tend to score well within the 150-point range of each other. So it’s basically impossible to set up a statistical situation in which the golden snitch isn’t going to be the deciding factor the vast majority of the time.
Only if the two teams are exactly equal, which of course they’re not. In the matches we’ve seen, one team fairly consistent manages to get 4-5 more quaffle scores than the other. If historical matches went, say, four times as long, then, one would expect that one team would be able to get 16-20 more quaffle scores than the other. Which would, in fact, be enough to guarantee that catching the Golden Snitch was not an auto-win. And matches lasting four times as long is a seriously conservative estimate, given that we’re explicitly told that matches have been known to last for days. In a 30-hour match, it’d be completely implausible that the difference in score could be as low as 150.
Harry’s definitely a special case – he’s The Boy That Lived and all, and in this case his fall was precipitated by a Dementor. I’m talking about all the random students who nobody’s keeping a special eye on. I’d expect there to be a constant “catching spell” in place on the field, like safety nets under a trapeze swing. Even detailing a professor to keep an eye on every game and practice – which they don’t – wouldn’t prevent many injuries.
And they demonstrably can’t bring students back from the dead, so once they’re really badly injured it’s too late.
Something I was thinking of while watching Goblet of Fire: Why would anyone watch any of the Triwizard Tournament? All three challenges take place outside the view of anyone in the audience (maybe the other three champions at least battled the dragon in the pit, we don’t get to see in the movie). At the lake and in the maze none of the champions could be seen for any of the action - sounds like a pretty lousy spectator event to me…
From a real world standpoint, of course you’re absolutely right. But I know you’re also a writer…think of it from a thematic sense. In the first book, Harry’s 10, and he’s been raised in a horribly oppressive environment. Part of the fantastic nature of the Wizarding World is freedom and empowerment. He’s literally freed from his oppressive life under the stairs into a world where anything is possible. Hurt yourself while flying on a broom playing a glorified version of soccer, and the teacher will patch you back up in a few days at the most. While there are rules at Hogwarts, like any boarding school, there is also a whole lot of freedom Harry’s never experienced before. Quidditch isn’t a nanny sport because it is a metaphor for childhood freedom…those kinds of bonebreaking ecstatic games that are never allowed by grown ups in the Muggle world.
As the books go on, restrictions become more and more a part of the Wizarding world. All those restrictions, first by the school and then from The Ministry of Magic, are bad things in reaction to threats from He Who Shall Not Be Named and his Death Eaters. It’s institutional reaction to terrorism, and it’s not pretty. By the final book, the Wizarding world and the Muggle world overlap so much as to be indistinguishable, and it’s an ugly world for our hero.
Quidditch began as a childhood dream of freedom and empowerment. Childhood dreams don’t hold up so well when the real world rears its ugly head.
Can you give a cite for that? I distinctly remember that pro-quality high-end brooms were given a great deal of respect by students as opposed to the brooms provided by the school, but beyond the characters going ooh and ahh over different models (the way teenagers will over interesting and expensive high-end gear of all sorts), I really don’t remember anything to “flat out state” that the, say, Nimbus 2001 was any better a broom than the Nimbus 2000.
Yes, we are told that the Firebolt is the fastest broom in the world, but that’s not a yearly model difference, that’s like comparing a Porsche to a Corvette.
Oh my God, now it totally sounds like curling. Substitute “club” for “school” and “adults” for “teenagers”. That’s interesting–as we’ve seen in this thread, J.K. may not have understood sports, but she understands something about the mindset of people who play sports–the scorn for “house equipment” and the fascination with the latest and greatest gadgets, even if they aren’t much better.
While we’re on the subject, don’t these kids ever take a geometry or world history class? If the magic thing doesn’t work out for them, they’re gonna have a really hard time getting into college.
[QUOTE=Bill James]
For the Harry Potter novels, J. K. Rowling invented a sport, Quidditch, which is played by magical peoples. But in inventing the sport she made an obvious mistake. She placed a very high value—150 points—on catching the golden snitch. What is obvious to a sports fan is that this would, in effect, make the game unplayable; the too-high value for the snitch would crush all of the other objectives of the sport, making the entire game revolve around capturing the snitch. In practice, every player would be basically committed to spotting the snitch, rather than just the Seeker, so that the game would not in fact play out the way that Rowling assumes that it would.
[/QUOTE]
You’re basically saying that having a ridiculous point value for catching the Snitch is no problem because the games are usually lopsided? If that were true, I’m not sure how popular this game would have ever become.
It does seem as if the hunt for the Snitch is curiously disconnected from the rest of the game. It would make more sense if there was some interplay between the two facets of the game. Like maybe if the bludgers targeted the Seeker and the rest of the team was forced to choose between protecting the Seeker and helping to score with the Quaffle. Or if the Snitch made itself preferentially available to one Seeker over the other depending on the status of the rest of the game. Or if just catching the Snitch wasn’t enough, you had to get it through the goal posts. Or if catching the Snitch gave no points at all, it just ended the game.
Any game is inherently at least somewhat lopsided: If it weren’t, it wouldn’t be a game, since in the end, someone has to win. And what I’m saying is that the point value for catching the Snitch isn’t ridiculous, compared to the amount by which the game is typically lopsided.
Of course quiddich is ridiculous and illogical. It basically involves two completely separate games being played simultaneously and yet one having significant impact on the other. There’s no sport like it in reality because it makes no sense whatsoever.
On that note, its pretty much like everything else in her books. The only difference is that flying on a broomstick well seems to be the only actual skill that Harry possesses. Everything else in those books just kind of happens to him.
Maybe it is easier for a non-sports fan to accept. I don’t follow most major sports, and therefore it is easy for me to lump in the scoring system under “Sports Rules Don’t Have to Make Sense”. Why can’t anyone but the goalie use his hands in soccer? Because that’s how the game is played. Why is tennis scoring 15-30-40-love? Because that’s how the game is played. Why is a touchdown six points but a field goal four? Because that’s how the game is played.Why does a waza-ari cancel out any number of yukos? Because that’s how the game is played.
I’m not a sports fan and I still can’t accept it because I can still imagine putting myself in that position and thinking “Why bother with the stupid quaffle? Everyone should just help the seeker find the snitch!”
