I’m thinking Soylent Green.
IT’S MADE OUT OF MUGGLES!!!
Enjoy,
Steven
No, you’re right, Quidditch makes no sense at all. The position of seeker is basically there to allow Harry(or occasionally Ginny) to be the hero in every match.
My question: In the Triwizard Tournament, was it Dumbledore who insisted on the age limit? For all of Maxime and Kakaroff’s posturing after Harry was chosen as a champion, I severely doubt that either had any under-age students who would stand a chance of being school champion. Harry, though, would stand an excellent chance of being chosen champion. Was Dumbledore trying to keep Harry out of the Tournament?
It doesn’t make much sense, and I’ve always chalked it up to my theory that Rowling didn’t think too hard on it initially, and by the time it became clear (i.e. two minutes after anyone read that chapter in the first book) that it didn’t make much sense, it was too late for her to tinker with the scoring rules. This theory works better with the assumption that neither she nor her editor are very into sports. I think this is also why she chose to have the World Cup (or whatever it was called) victory come about with the surprise The Team That Gets The Snitch Actually Loses Because The Other Team Is Up By So Much strategy, as a way of acknowledging it’s a bit of a stretch in terms of a workable sport.
I also have a question about the Triwizard Tournament. With all the other powers Dumbledore has, it has always seemed forced and, frankly, lame to me that there was nothing he could do other than some hand-wringing after Harry’s name popped out. I guess that’s more of a complaint than a question. The question could be “Did that seem forced and lame to anyone else?” I mean, I get that the plot of the book is that Harry has to compete in the Tournament, but I think there could have been a more clever way of getting him in there.
Oh, I also have an actual question. Has it been established when Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were students at Hogwarts, in relation to Harry’s parents and Snape and Sirius?
Yes. I know JKR tries to explain it away by saying “it’s a binding magical contract,” but I thought it was seriously lame-o. The only thing I can think of that makes it not embarrassing is that Dumbledore at that point knew Harry hadn’t put his name in nor asked anyone to. That could only mean that someone did it to try and hurt Harry. So Dumbledore decides to go along with it to try and flush out the bad guy.
Not great, I know, but better than Dumbledore sitting around with his thumb up his ass.
Re: the Weasleys–Molly at least is older than the Marauders and Snape–she says the Whomping Willow was planted after she left school (the willow was planted because of Lupin).
I think that Dumbledore goes along with a lot of illicit/rule-bending/problematic stuff because he is serene in the knowledge that by doing so he is training Harry to carry on alone after he dies.
If so, he should have felt partly responsible for the fate of Cedric Diggory – but he never seems to express any feelings of personal guilt.
What does any member of any hate group get out of it? They get a venue in which they can associate with like-minded people, and they get someone to feel superior to and to blame for their problems.
The Death Eaters, of course, also got a powerful wizard who was willing and able to kill in the name of their cause. They might have been willing to overlook his background because of that, or they may not have known that he was a half-blood.
I think AD does say he is at fault for Cedric’s death–after Harry takes the blame on himself–don’t have the exact quote, but the sense is there.
Quidditch scoring doesn’t make much sense–I wish the Snitch was only worth 50. That seems at least plausible.
RE the Triwizard tourney: I think it shows that AD, no matter how wise and skilled and mighty is still at the mercy of greater events. For me, the binding magical contract is enough. What bugs me is how AD never tells Harry anything–even in book 6 he is still looking like he’s going to tell something, but holding back (especially re Snape). Yeah, it’s a plot point, but still-if I were Harry I’d be saying something like, “hey, you want to share some of this stuff, so my ass isn’t grass next time?”
You sure that you’re not thinking of Sirius’ death, eleanorigby?
More hypothetical but:
-There is supposedly no apparating at Hogwarts
-House elves apparate and disapparate regularly at Hogwarts
-Wizards can use side-along appartion
-Wizards could therefore supposedly apparate and disapparate within Hogwarts with the help of a house elf.
Definitely not alone in this.
The problem about the Harry Potter universe is that you can’t think too hard or in depth about it. If you try to scrutinize how the economics, politics, and daily transactions of the world work the whole thing quickly falls apart.
Best to leave your brain out of it. That’s how I came to enjoy the fourth and fifth movies.
One possible explanation for the scoring rules in Qudditch:
A speculation about Quidditch
In one of the books, I think it might’ve been book 3, the captain tells Harry to hold off on catching the snitch until their team is at least 60 points ahead, which would put them ahead in the overall season. The team who gets the cup at the end of the season is the one with the most total points, not necessarily most total wins. So while 150 points is excessive, it shows that catching the snitch is a nice boost, but the points scored by the other players play an important role too.
Behold, the Harry Potter lexicon master timelineArthur and Molly Weasley elope and get married approx. 1969; Lupin starts Hogwarts approx. 1970
[in re Quidditch]J. K. Rowling says in several places that she is not good at maths. Explaining the bad Quidditch scoring (50 points, like eleanorigby says, would be much more reasonable from what we see of the school match scores - the Seeker would still play the most crucial role on the team because the Seeker has to end the game at the right moment, not whenever he can catch the Snitch, so part of his job would be to stop the other Seeker finding the Snitch at the wrong time.)
Another number thing that would be difficult to reconcile is the number of male students in Harry’s year vs. the number of students at Hogwarts, the number of wizards in England. Even the number of teachers at school seems curiously small. I agree with Soapbox Monkey that you can’t think too hard about any of this - for instance a wizard’s curious ignorance of almost anything concerning the Muggle world is pretty much unbelievable. Also the fact that with all these Muggle parents having wizard children going to Hogwarts, wizards still manage to keep their existence a secret.
I agree that the plot of Goblet of Fire is the least logical one of the whole series. At least mention the consequences of breaking this magical contract! If Harry Potter just sat in the common room stuffing himself with Chocolate Frogs during a Tri-wizard trial, what would happen to him? And why does the fake Moody have to wait a whole school year before handing Harry Potter a portkey?
eleanorigby, regarding your comment about Dumbledore always hiding things from Harry - what always surprises me is that Harry doesn’t ask everybody who could tell (Lupin, Sirius, Dumbledore, Moody, Hagrid et al.) what his parents were doing at the time they died, where were they living, what were they like, what happened to them exactly, etc.
Do places like Platform 9¾, Diagon Alley, even Hogsmeade/Hogwarts exist in real geographic space? Or is there some kind of spatial folding involved?
Most house elves. Big plot points are made that if a house elf really want’s to thwart your bidding they can find a loophole, practice malicious complaince etc. Dobby and Kretcher are prime examples.
There are also limits on magical power. Harry, for one has shown great resistance to imperious and it tends to wear off over time (Crouch Sr.).
I think the comments here cover the motivations very well. But the followers of Evil V wouldn’t have an easy time of it even if they did become the ruling class.
I’ve actually given way, way too much of my life in arguing over a lot of these points…
I think in the very beginning he probably didn’t have awfully many followers. Being a Dark Wizard doesn’t mean you’re a Death Eater, and the world probably has the occasional fellow who thinks raising corpses is fun. Voldemort gave them a place where they didn’t have to be alone in their lunacy, where he could focus their power and aggression as he desired.
As he got to be higher-profile and his power grew, as more Aurors died and more people got scared, I think more aristocratic pureblood pride families joined him in the hopes that he’d chase the Muggleborns out of Hogwarts, out of the wizarding world, and either the wizards would gain primacy over the entire modern world (realistically unlikely; how many wizards do you think could really fight a tac nuke and win?) or they would close off their world entirely from Muggles.
I think Lucius Malfoy never really believed Voldemort would come back. He was more subtly setting himself up as the new Dark Lord, but a bit more as the Dark Politician. …Wow, I never realized. Malfoy wanted to be Vetinari. 
Did V and the Death Eaters invent the various unforgivable curses, or did they just make them famous again?
I think they’ve always been famous… it never really mentions who invented them, but it’s certainly implied they’ve been around a while.
I’ve never really been certain of that one, but I have to assume there’re wizard farmers. Remember, not everyone born to a wizarding family is particularly good with magic. Off the top of my head I assume they use the same sort of not-really-there enchantments as the Weasleys have in their pup-tent – er, pup-flat.
Barring that, well, even a first year student can squirt water from their wands.
It seems like religion isn’t awfully important to most of the wizards, no more so than it is to the average Brit, as far as I have ever heard.
That has ALWAYS BUGGED ME. I don’t get the point of a wizard’s bank other than security. They have no automated or magical way to just get a few Galleons for the weekend; you have to go down in a freakin’ mine cart. I have no idea if they generate interest or even give loans. I can’t imagine goblins being very willing to give out their own money, and since banks consist of big safe-deposit boxes rather than a teller with a safe full of money and notes as to how much of it you have… well, they’re quite safe from runs on the bank, but they can’t invest, they can’t lend…
As far as literature and mathematics and such, Rowling has said wizard kids are homeschooled until they get to Hogwarts. Considering how much a Muggle expert like Weasley knows about electricity and telephones and stamps, I can’t imagine the wizards get much education in anything that isn’t magic. I think to a wizard the question is roughly analagous to “And why don’t they teach cooking over a campfire, gathering grubs, making bricks with dung and straw, and spinning flax to our children?” As far as wizards are concerned, a lot of that stuff is unnecessary.
As above, it makes a lot more sense from two perspectives: first, that goals in Quidditch are like goals in some basketball games – not too hard to get one after another for a really talented team – and second, that the scores make a huge difference over the course of a season.
On an online coded Hogwarts game I played on, every house played every other house once. Of course, whoever caught the Snitch would almost always win the game… but not ALWAYS. Let’s say one team’s Seeker is knocked out. THAT DOES NOT END THE GAME. Only one person can catch the Snitch anymore, but if he can’t catch it before the other team makes enough goals, winning is not actually assured. More to the point, though, we had a season where the score looked something like this:
Slytherin 100 - Hufflepuff 160
Slytherin 220 - Gryffindor 30
Slytherin 200 - Ravenclaw 100
Hufflepuff 150 - Gryffindor 60
Hufflepuff 170 - Ravenclaw 100
Gryffindor 90 - Ravenclaw 180
So: Slytherin has won two games, Hufflepuff has won three, Gryffindor sucked, and Ravenclaw won one.
Slytherin’s total: 520
Hufflepuff’s total: 480
Ravenclaw’s total: 380
Gryffindor’s total: 180
Though Hufflepuff won more games, they still lost the House Cup. They never really learned the best way to use their Chasers, so they made very few goals. Their Seeker was very good, but in the end it didn’t matter all that much.
So in Sorcerer’s Stone, a big deal is made of Harry’s first wand, and how the wrong wand does bad things. Then in Chamber of Secrets, Lockhart grabs Weasley’s wand and uses it with no problems, and Marvolo grabs Harry’s wand and makes like he can use it, but never does. It happens a couple of other times in the other movies too. What’s the deal?