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My Issues with Harry Potter: Part 1 - Quidditch

As some of you may know, last year's seniors named me "Most Likely to Ruin Your Childhood".

In addition, they misspelled my name...
This has to do in part with my feelings on Santa Claus, but let's put a pin in that for now. It is also related to my dislike of Harry Potter. (Full disclosure: I didn't start reading Harry Potter until high school, maybe college, so I don't have nostalgic warm feelings about it from childhood. I was reading Lord of the Rings during fifth grade.) I've already aired my views on Ferris Bueller, so indulge me as I poke at another beloved memory. This will take several (up to 15) posts.

Part 1- Quidditch

I don't know quite how to say this, but JK Rowling created one of the few fantasy worlds that I would not like to live in. Don't get me wrong, Middle Earth and Scadrial have their problems too, but they have some awesome benefits. I have trouble seeing the benefits of the Wizarding World. A large part of my objections can be summed up by a study of quidditch. In this "fun" game, we see reflected the worst of the elitism of the society.

1. Seekers
Forget the Quaffle. Forget the Keeper, Beaters, Chasers, and all of that. There's really only one path to glory in the quidditch pitch: Seekers. Sure you can win a game without the Seeker, but at 150 points for the Golden Snitch to 10 points for a Quaffle score, how often does that actually happen?

Seekers are not team players players. In fact, being a team player undermines their performance. They must shut out everything else that is happening and focus on the Snitch. The rest of the team is merely playing a delaying tactic while the Seekers are the real game.

http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Seeker

2. Money buys ability
Part of the problem with a game involving flying brooms is that your broom quality can impact your game. Remember that time that Draco's father bought the Slytherin team new Nimbuses? You will correctly make the counter argument that this happens in real world sports all the time. There was a minor scandal in swimming a few years ago over the suits giving unfair advantage to rich teams. However, this disparity was corrected in new rules.

Perhaps I don't understand how British schools work, but why is one house of Hogwarts allowed to use different equipment then their classmates? The school is free, sure, but you'll get better treatment and opportunities if you have more money (wands, familiars, textbooks included).

3. Small teams
Let's pretend for a moment that the entire team does matter. How many students from a Hogwarts house can hope to play Quidditch? The team is 7. You can have alternates, but they don't really have much of a chance to play (almost any injury can be quickly treated by Madam Pomfrey). So that's 7 students out of shall we say 100 in each house? Only these students are allowed to reach for glory.

It's not like there are any other sports that you can play at Hogwarts. There's not even any extracurriculars that you can really join (select or clandestine groups don't count). The only activity that can get you house points is Quidditch and only a fraction of your House can contribute to that.

Let us also take a moment to feel badly for the 7th year Seeker in training in Harry Potter's first year. They patiently train and practice waiting for the glorious moment when they will finally have their chance to lead Gryffindor to victory. Too bad that "The Boy Who Lived" shows up. You'll never get your chance now. The talent scouts will never see you play. Sure, Harry is a great Seeker and good for the team. But we've already established that quidditch is not a team sport.


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