I mean, magic is inherently kinda jenky as a core concept. “The Magicians” series does a much better job of painting a magical boarding school and gets a bit meta-textual on the question of what the edges and limits of a magical world are expected to be.
I’ll happily spot you that Welters is a better wizard game than Quidditch. But it’s also more like Chess than Wizard Hockey, so it loses the narrative excitement in exchange for a more plodding and introspective exchange.
Shave down the Snitch aspect to, like, 20 points instead of 150 or whatever dumbshit Rowling originally ran with and it can create a few interesting edge cases for not catching the Snitch until the proper moment that can make the game more fun. Other than that hang up, its a very visually stunning and theme appropriate game for a bunch of kids on flying brooms to play.
I always found the whole snitch thing so stupid simply from a game rules perspective. Like most team sports have you work as a team to score points. Everyone participates and are more or less responsible for the outcome of the game. In quidditch you have that and then you have one team member that is just more special than everyone else, they can just control the outcome of the game by themselves. It goes against the whole concept of team sports.
Like most team sports have you work as a team to score points. Everyone participates and are more or less responsible for the outcome of the game.
A better writing of the game would have had other players working as a team to spot the Snitch. Or alternative strategies for leveraging the extra player in the early game, when finding the Snitch was unlikely. Or even just a history of the sport, or variations of amateur and professional rules, or a pro-league that got more than a casual mention for the first chapter of the fourth book and then never again.
you have that and then you have one team member that is just more special than everyone else
You could argue the pitcher in baseball or the QB in football fill a similar role.
But yes, the need to make Harry a Mary Sue at every opportunity definitely dragged on the series. The better parts of the series were when he wasn’t the center of attention and was more just an observer of a magical world.
Not necessarily. HP is just written with a soft magic system.
I quite like the Light Lightbringer series, which has a hard magic system.
It’s so much more fun for me to read about creative ways of magic to be used when it’s based on physics of the world it’s in, when I could theorise about what’s possible and be amazed by the characters’ ingenuity.
I love the Magicians. Just finished a rewatch not too long ago. Their approach to magic is definitely much more entertaining than the HP universe. Especially the hilarious concept of “sphincter magic” that Penny tries to learn when his hands get messed up. That show did a great job with the meta humor.
My head canon is always converting magic into sci fi. The wizards are the descendants of a civilization that created the tech but they’re so far removed they don’t know anything about how it works, or about simple spells that would shortcut all the fancy shit. Doesn’t really explain the Snitch though, other than “they’re more about tradition than logic”.
My head canon is always converting magic into sci fi.
Arthur C. Clarke will be by to collect royalties.
Doesn’t really explain the Snitch though, other than “they’re more about tradition than logic”.
Lots of sports spring out of a bunch of silly children’s games that get increasingly bureaucratic to sell tickets.
Why not end the game with a timer or at a certain score count? Why introduce a fairy trapped in a golden ball who has some kind of personality, rather than just being a buzzing semi-invisible toy? Why not yadda yadda?
Same concept but kinda from the opposite direction, kinda like elder scrolls. Magic used to be super powerful and utterly broken but over time it’s degraded for one reason or another some things and groups still have access to the old magic but as a whole it’s pretty inaccessible. This is kinda how magic works in Elder Scrolls, the magic of the Dawn Era and Merithic Era were fucken broken world bending shit that did things like turning Solstheim into an island instead of a peninsula, but the world has since gained too much internal stability or perhaps instability to allow such things all that often, but scratching into that requires getting into Elder Scrolls meta physics which just no.
I mean, magic is inherently kinda jenky as a core concept. “The Magicians” series does a much better job of painting a magical boarding school and gets a bit meta-textual on the question of what the edges and limits of a magical world are expected to be.
I’ll happily spot you that Welters is a better wizard game than Quidditch. But it’s also more like Chess than Wizard Hockey, so it loses the narrative excitement in exchange for a more plodding and introspective exchange.
Shave down the Snitch aspect to, like, 20 points instead of 150 or whatever dumbshit Rowling originally ran with and it can create a few interesting edge cases for not catching the Snitch until the proper moment that can make the game more fun. Other than that hang up, its a very visually stunning and theme appropriate game for a bunch of kids on flying brooms to play.
I always found the whole snitch thing so stupid simply from a game rules perspective. Like most team sports have you work as a team to score points. Everyone participates and are more or less responsible for the outcome of the game. In quidditch you have that and then you have one team member that is just more special than everyone else, they can just control the outcome of the game by themselves. It goes against the whole concept of team sports.
A better writing of the game would have had other players working as a team to spot the Snitch. Or alternative strategies for leveraging the extra player in the early game, when finding the Snitch was unlikely. Or even just a history of the sport, or variations of amateur and professional rules, or a pro-league that got more than a casual mention for the first chapter of the fourth book and then never again.
You could argue the pitcher in baseball or the QB in football fill a similar role.
But yes, the need to make Harry a Mary Sue at every opportunity definitely dragged on the series. The better parts of the series were when he wasn’t the center of attention and was more just an observer of a magical world.
Not necessarily. HP is just written with a soft magic system.
I quite like the Light Lightbringer series, which has a hard magic system.
It’s so much more fun for me to read about creative ways of magic to be used when it’s based on physics of the world it’s in, when I could theorise about what’s possible and be amazed by the characters’ ingenuity.
I love the Magicians. Just finished a rewatch not too long ago. Their approach to magic is definitely much more entertaining than the HP universe. Especially the hilarious concept of “sphincter magic” that Penny tries to learn when his hands get messed up. That show did a great job with the meta humor.
My head canon is always converting magic into sci fi. The wizards are the descendants of a civilization that created the tech but they’re so far removed they don’t know anything about how it works, or about simple spells that would shortcut all the fancy shit. Doesn’t really explain the Snitch though, other than “they’re more about tradition than logic”.
Arthur C. Clarke will be by to collect royalties.
Lots of sports spring out of a bunch of silly children’s games that get increasingly bureaucratic to sell tickets.
Why not end the game with a timer or at a certain score count? Why introduce a fairy trapped in a golden ball who has some kind of personality, rather than just being a buzzing semi-invisible toy? Why not yadda yadda?
Rowling definitely left a lot on the table.
Same concept but kinda from the opposite direction, kinda like elder scrolls. Magic used to be super powerful and utterly broken but over time it’s degraded for one reason or another some things and groups still have access to the old magic but as a whole it’s pretty inaccessible. This is kinda how magic works in Elder Scrolls, the magic of the Dawn Era and Merithic Era were fucken broken world bending shit that did things like turning Solstheim into an island instead of a peninsula, but the world has since gained too much internal stability or perhaps instability to allow such things all that often, but scratching into that requires getting into Elder Scrolls meta physics which just no.
Hell even in the actual games it’s gotten dumbed down. Can’t even levitate anymore ffs.
Needs more explosions and an anti exploding kid spell, but otherwise a solid thumbs 45 degrees up.