I think this belongs here, but I could be wrong. Quidditch. The Harry Potter game they play on magic broomsticks in the movie. I saw them once last year. It’s an organized league with at least eight teams in different colored shirts playing a game of some sort to let them live in the HP universe. I guess. Now the Harry Potter business is a zillion dollar international enterprise, and I’m worth approximately nothing, so I’m not going to make fun of… [John Wayne] Like hell I’m not. They put several courts crosswise on a soccer field. There are some vertical hoops on each end, and they play with multiple balls on the field. In the movie, they seem to be shooting magic curses or something. I guess that’s what the balls are for. But here’s the deal. To complete the metaphor, they have to be pretending to be flying on brooms. So they carry a stick between their legs. Okay. Like a stick pony. But most of them have to hold it with one hand while they used the other for the ball. But I saw, this time and last, guys running down the field with a stick between their legs with BOTH hands free.:eek: I don’t know. What do you think?
https://www.usquidditch.org/events/special/world-cup/
Fans have been playing organized Quidditch at least since 2007.
I once saw a patient in the Emergency Department for an injury sustained during a Quidditch tournament. Really.
I asked all the pertinent questions about the injury, then asked how Muggles can play Quidditch since the game as described in the books depends on flying.
As we toured colleges it seemed like half of them mentioned having Quidditch teams. It must be fairly popular for the current 18-23 year olds.
A couple of years ago, I attended a role-playing game convention at Indiana University; most of the other attendees were IU students (or recent graduates). One of them was on the IU Quidditch team.
Saw it played at the Lambeth Country Show a couple of years ago. London Unspeakables vs Werewolves of London. After I stopped laughing (the above descriptions of play are spot on), two thoughts occurred.
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Do they wipe down those plastic sticks with something antiseptic?
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The teams were mixed sex. And, well, you got the overall impression that the players maybe didn’t get to see an awful lot of the opposite sex. (Or, for that matter, daylight). So overall a (ahem) healthy pastime for persons less socially capable.
j
When there’s a Rollerball league game, call me. 
This isn’t limited to the USA, either. Last summer, I was in Oxford for a conference, and there was a sign up near the entrance to one of the colleges looking for people to join the college’s Quidditch team. Yes, even kids who are smart enough to get into Oxford think that running around with a broom between your legs is a good idea.
BTW, AFAIK, in “Muggle Quidditch,” you need someone to run around pretending to be the Golden Snitch.
I played Quidditch in college for two years, so if anyone has any questions over the finer points of the game I’m more than happy to talk about it!
I LOVED my time playing the game and wish I could play it now. It’s a super physical game, so it doesn’t surprise me that someone was hurt. In fact, my favorite part of the game was its physicality. I absolutely loved setting a pick for my teammate and just blasting the ever-loving shit out of the opponent.
Sigh…memories…
And, now, I start to wonder if veteran Quidditch players in Rowling’s universe suffer from CTE. :eek:
Not quite as strange, but I visited Universal Studios a month or so back. The temp outside was about 85. I saw maybe a dozen or so people wearing those robes from the movies. Couldn’t have been comfortable.
My honest opinion is it’s an incredibly undignified thing for adults or near-adults to do.
I never read the books, only saw the first movie. The low point without question was the Quidditch match. Overly long, pointless, multi-stupid, etc. Put the nail in the coffin for watching/reading anymore of that stuff.
The scoring regarding (and even the name) the Golden Snitch tells you how badly designed it is.
And somehow people try to play a fake version, without all the cool flying and such? So it’s just like the crappy game in the movie only crappier?
“To be honest with you, Quidditch matches have been the bane of my life in the Harry Potter books.” J. K. Rowling.
Amen, sister.
No doubt they do. The IRL version uses playground balls as the bludgers, in the book they fly at you at, like, 30mph and knock people straight off their brooms. Ouch
I see that all the time down here. I don’t know how the uber nerds do it in 100 degree weather
I figured there were enough people on board to justify this. I did advertising for Warner Bros for years and worked on all of the films and know so many things about the HP world that I have no business knowing. But no, I wouldn’t have known they have been doing this game for however many years cuz I only paid attention to what was in front of me, not the fandom. Still, the stick between the legs thing…
I have long thought that Quidditch was the dumbest game imaginable. Imagine a version of football in which a field goal scored one point, but a touchdown scored 15 and ended the game, even if it happened in the first minute. Not Rowling’s best invention.
Maybe Rowling deliberately described the dumbest game imaginable, but some impressionable fans took it seriously. Like Double Fanucci. At least they are out in the fresh air, and, if they can avoid a debilitating groin injury, there is a chance they will get to some basketball.
The nerve of those people having fun. I can well imagine the stress it caused you.
Of course it’s a stupid game. That’s what makes it realistic. Most sports are stupid; it’s just that we’re used to the stupidity in Muggle sports, so we don’t notice it.
Like, the scoring. Is it really any worse than a game where the first two scores are worth 15 each, the third one is worth 10, and the fourth one is worth 20 and wins the game? Because millions of people watch that sport.
It’s not a scoring flaw. It’s a game design flaw. The game, if played by anyone with sense, would devolve almost entirely into being about the snitch. Not just one person going after it, but everyone, with the other stuff unimportant.
It also takes a sort of academic scoring system and puts the points of a sport directly into that system. Why be heroic for Gryffindor when you can make more points just playing this game?
I don’t begrudge anyone playing it, as I don’t begrudge anyone having fun. But it is very much not a well-designed sport. The tennis thing you mention is a mere quirk: the game still works the same way if you just give one point.
In fact, I would have thought you’d be on board with trying to redesign Quidditch to be a well-designed game. Though, as Harry in HPMOR said, replacing the snitch with a clock goes a long way towards fixing it.