“Plot device, Mr. Frodo, plot device.”
This is what happens when an author designs a sport where the protagonist is the single most important player.
Specifically, when a hack of an author designs a sport.
The thing is, the seeds of something great are right there.
Ditch the stupid seeker role, and you have a game that’s both entertaining and narratively useful.
Harry could have learned how to be a team player, and eventually a leader.
Instead Rowling wanted Harry to be super special boy in the laziest way possible.
I also feel like half the reason he won all the damn time is because he literally just had the best broom in existence for most of the matches from his rich godfather. He’s also annoying af with all his angst in the later books (especially OotP) with “nooooo my friends don’t understand meeeeee I can’t talk to anyoneeeee lemme just be an impulsive idiot”.
Rowling had some really sinister cultural programming embedded in her brain that comes out in these books, regardless of the trans stuff that surfaced later. The entire magical governing system is hugely corrupt, based on family wealth, and obviously full of fascists, but the focus of the books was that there were bad actors abusing the system, rather than the system being broken from the start.
You could argue that’s done for realisms sake, and sure maybe it is, but if the characters never actually meaningfully tackle those issues then you’re re-enforcing complicity for the sake of it, rather than enacting change in a corrupt system when you have the power and ability to do so.
That is exemplified specifically by the “rich godfather buys Harry Potter the bestest broom stick” scenario.
Like, I’m pretty sure in Book 2(?) it’s a big deal that Evil Lucius Malfoy evilly outfits the Slytherin team with new broomsticks. Evil when Lucius does it because he’s evil, but okay when Sirius does it because he’s good.
Just like how slavery was bad when Lucius Malfoy did it to Dobby, but okay when Harry had Kreacher as a slave (who he also treated like shit, but it’s fine, Rowling wrote him to be evil and deserve it anyway)
Just like her worldbuilding, morality is whatever Joanne thinks is most convenient for the story she wants to tell.
Ugh yeah the way Sirius treated Kreacher annoyed me so much. Apparently it was completely fine for Harry to have him as a slave as long as he gave him some locket and made poor brainwashed Kreacher feel like he was the best treated slave ever.
JK Rowling’s lack of critical thinking is glaringly obvious in everything she has ever written.
You don’t have to ditch it, just make it so it’s not a guaranteed win under normal circumstances. Make it so the snitch isn’t released until a certain amount of time has passed, or points have been scored. And instead of having it be worth a ton of points, have it be worth a small enough amount that it could make a difference in a close game but not the only deciding factor. Then it’s a strategic position. A position that requires timing instead of just speed.
Just make it so that catching the snitch ends the game. As in, the scores from either side get fixed. This way the losing team would have an incentive to stop the winning team from getting it, but themselves wouldn’t be interested in doing so. It’s not game breaking, just another angle.
The mechanic of catching the snitch immediately ending the game is a pretty good one, and there’s several ways you could go about it.
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Adds no points to either side: you want to catch it when your team is up, but if you find it when your team is down, you want to misdirect the other team’s Seeker
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Adds a small number of points to your side: you want to catch it when your team is within striking distance of a win
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Adds a small number of points to the opposite side: you only want to catch it when your team is up significanty
My favorite would be a random or rotating points penalty. Like say every 3 minutes the points given to each side upon grabbing the snitch is randomized. It still allows for that stupid main character syndrome special boy causing the win thing, but it doesn’t completely break the strategy of the game.
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She isn’t a bad author, just a bad person. The reason I regret reading her work isn’t because of the work itself…
She’s not a bad person, she has an opinion that’s different from yours
You’re on the wrong site to have garbage viewpoints like this.
Funnily I’m not very fond opinions that entail treating me and my loved ones like dangerous subhumans
She can’t keep consistent with her dates and how long ago things were
She had good ideas but is a bad author
As I recall the story, Rowling designed that feature of the game specifically to annoy her sport-loving husband. It’s a feature of a fictional sport designed in spite. So really, it performs it’s function admirably…
I respect that, but I hate the fans who love it, it’s like they have never played or watched anything competitive before.
Monopoly was also designed to annoy people, yet somehow people play it hoping it will be fun.
Children play it for fun because they get to play make-believe about money, play the banker, etc. Just handling fake money makes it fun to them because they are interested in the world on that level. The game itself is not fun to anyone, and I don’t think adults ever actually play it without children…
Last I played was as an adult with 3 other friends. To make it tolerable we had a rule that, on landing on someone else’s property, we could either pay up or drink a shot of rum. Mistakes were made.
I used to and still play with my friends over and what we do is save the game state in writing for the properties, status cards, money, houses/hotels and we use rubber bands to keep games going for years.
New people mean new game, same people we just continue the last state
except that the golden snitch doesnt mean you win. it means you get 150 points and the match ends. sure, that often leads to a win unless the enemy has a 150 point lead, but still.
Also, apparently in the school cup the overall score seems to be counted to overall results - not just win/loss. Isn’t there a point when Harry needs to make sure he only catches the Snitch if they are in a lead by at least certain ammount of points to win the cup? One could assume this applies to leagues as well.
Not that it balances things much, but it does give a bit of nuance.
I do remember there was a game were they grab the snitch and STILL lost, because the other side was 10 points ahead
I don’t have a problem with the snitch. Your made up game, your prerogatives. It’s cool
I have a problem with not having a pair gigantic magical screens showcasing every freaking move it the seekers on the field.
I also have a problem with them not having MORE violence. Outside of unforgivable curses, mental tampering or insta kills (Ie bombarda) , EVERYTHING should be FAIR GAME.
These fuckers should be throwing diffindos left and right, crushing bones, burning skin and gouging each other eyes while putting up shields, auto targeting expelliarmus and self propelled physical objects intercepting every fucking shit that comes their way.
This game could have been awesome, instead we got a lame ass pansy party
Stop it, get some help.
I will
I’ll send a letter to Rowling requesting Quidditch Helldivers version, but I’ll need some more people to do the same.
Thanks for offering
QUIDDITCH, THE BLOOD BOWL EDITION!!!
I’d watch that.
They can heal basically everything, short of the mentioned
And given how prone they are to test wizardry ancestry in malicious ways, it strike me odd that the same level of mayhem is not taken into their games
