Um, guys? I hate to say it, but…Quidditch doesn’t make much sense.
Chapter 10: Halloween
This is the chapter where Harry (and more importantly, an army of readers) learns the rules of Quidditch. It’s an exciting moment in the series. Quidditch is such an important part of J.K.’s wizard world.
But as Oliver Wood was explaining the rules, all I could think was “Why didn’t I notice this before? Quidditch doesn’t make any sense!”
Stay with me, all you die hard Quidditch fans.
I know the live-action grounded Quidditch assigns a different point value to the Snitch, but in the books, it counts for 150 points. That’s the equivalent of 15 goals. Unless one team is getting crushed by another, it’s the deciding factor. The Seeker is even introduced as the most important player on the team, responsible for the winning or losing of the game.
Thematically, I understand the reason for this. It’s nice to have Harry on the Quidditch team, but it’s way more exciting if the entire game balances on his “chosen” shoulders.
Here’s my problem:
If the Snitch is worth 150 points and essentially wins the game, why bother with the Quaffle at all? What’s the point? The best anyone else on the team can do is stall until the Snitch is captured. The only scenario in which the Chasers or Keepers are remotely important is if there’s a chance of gaining 15 goals on the other team. The whole game could easily be played with just the Seeker zipping around the pitch with the Beaters guarding him.
The trio reacts to the horrific troll CGI
Another question:
How does the troll get into Hogwarts? Isn’t Hogwarts the safest place in all of wizardom? Are you telling me a half-wit troll can just wander in at his leisure? And why send the students back to their towers? Isn’t it better to keep them all in the Great Hall, where we are certain the troll is not, instead of sending them wandering the castle? Again, I know this logic kills any sort of excitement or plot in the story, but it comes to mind.
Nevertheless, for as much as I tease, whine, and outwardly mock, this chapter as a few crowning moments:
This is the chapter when Harry and Ron become friends with Hermione. This is a vital plot point, because Ron needs a wife. No other reason. There’s just no feasible way he’d make it on his own without someone to cook his dinner and set out his clothes in the morning. (you know I’m right)
Also important to the series on a whole is the growing list of not-so-subtle hints that Snape may be evil. While the films failed to continue this story line past Sorcerer’s Stone with any sort of integrity, the books truly push the idea that Snape is not to be trusted. As a reader who was obsessed with the “Is Snape Evil?” subplot, I love finding these moments.
But despite my fears of being attacked by Quidditch fans everywhere (they can still run impressively fast with those brooms between their legs) I maintain the sport is horribly flawed.
Quidditch never quite made since to me either. Even when I was younger I tried desperately to grasp the scoring, because JK would have the House Cup winners decided on the scores of all the teams and how much exactly they beat the other teams by…like “you must catch the Snitch only if we are 60 points ahead otherwise we lose the cup.” (Or something along those lines…) I’ve never been good at math…so I finally gave up on trying to understand the game and just appreciated Quidditch for the all character building it provides, as well as being a ray of sunshine to counter some of the darkness of the books (in HBP especially). Sports have forever been a form of escapism. No exception in the wizarding world.
I always got the impression that J.K. wasn’t so much concerned with the logic of Quidditch, so much as how it propelled the story. You can even go so far as to say she’s not terribly interested in the logic of magic, either. It’s a means to an end.
I would agree that 150 points for catching the snitch unbalances the game too much in favor of the Seeker. But as you said, it does serve the plot line well.
On the other hand, in the finals of the Quidditch World Cup in book 4, one team did end up 150 points ahead of the other. So maybe this is normal for the sport.
See, you’re looking at it from a school’s perspective. Where, obviously, 150+ points through the Quaffle are near-impossible. BUT,on the professional scene, it’s more than possible. Think the World Cup – Krum caught the Snitch but Ireland won. (as Fred and George had predicted.. =])
Oh and the Troll – remember a certain Quirrell?
But Quirrell can just let a troll into the school?!?
I suppose at this stage in the game, Hogwarts is safe, but the extreme precautions haven’t been initiated. Voldemort isn’t back (per say), so there’s no need for a Code Red at the castle.
No code red, true, and while I doubt a troll could enter the school without inside help, or even be handled at all except by someone who has “a way with trolls,” as Quirrell admitted in the end, this particular troll apparently had both advantages.
“Euch…troll bogeys.” The beginning of a brilliant acting career for one Mr. Grint.
I thought the same thing about why they were sending the students tromping around the school with a troll on the loose. Especially when we know Slytherin and Hufflepuff houses are located down in the dungeon area.
Maybe Dumbledore was trying to decimate Slytherin house, and didn’t mind sacrificing a few Hufflepuffs to do it…
And since, according to the text, the Hufflepuffs are easily confused and likely to get lost.
If we presume that Dumbledore knows nearly everything that is going on at Hogwarts, he would know that Quirrell, with his special way with trolls, and sinister connection with Voldemort, would have influenced the Troll to go to the third floor, as a cover for him in trying to get at the stone, so there would be no danger to any of the students who obediently went to their houses. Knowing Harry and Ron, however, he would know that they would not likely go to their common room, especially if he knew that Hermione was probably crying in the third floor girls bathroom…. Ok, I think there is some limit to what Dumbledore knows.
Umm – Quirrell wouldn’t want the troll on the 3rd floor. It’s meant to be a diversion – to keep everyone busy AWAY from the 3rd floor – so he has a chance to sneak in. That’s why only Snape went to the 3rd floor (and got nibbled by Fluffy) – he was the only one heading off Quirrell.
Well, I was thinking that Quirrell just tried to mislead everyone by saying that there was the Troll in the dungeons, and to divert them from the third floor, while actually having the troll go to the third floor as a stopgap measure in case anyone went there. In any case the troll really was on the third floor when Harry and Ron locked him in the bathroom with Hermione; and again, at the end of the book when they passed the hurdles set by the various teachers to protect the stone. So, after they survived McGonagall’s enchanted chess game, they talked about which teachers’ enchantments they had yet to encounter: Quirrell’s and Snape’s. Then they passed the unconscious troll and moved on to the riddle about the potions.
Jo has remarked that her editors suggested cutting the troll scene from the book, but she was firm about keeping it. She felt something big needed to happen to bring the three together and make them friends. Battling the troll accomplished that.
And you’re right to question how the troll got into Hogwarts. That’s why the teachers were all worried. Except overly dramatic Quirrell. He tells Harry later that he let it in (skipping ahead to the scene in the chamber).
While the troll scene doesn’t really fit into the overall Hogwarts narrative, you don’t realize that when you’re reading “Sorcerer’s Stone” for the first time. So in the end, it’s a terribly useful way to get the trio together without causing too much damage to the credibility of the school. I didn’t even realize that a troll wandering around Hogwarts was a little odd until my second time through.
Perhaps 150 points for the Snitch seems to high, but bear with me. The appearance of the Snitch is random, and may not take place for hours. Even when it appears, it sometimes disappears before either Seeker can catch it. So, if one team devoted its resources to simply finding the Snitch, and ignoring the Quaffle, the other team would score at will, which, in a game this fast-paced, could put them up by hundreds of points in a very short time. Ultimately, if the team focusing on the Snitch is the one that caught it (no sure thing), they would earn 150 points, and potentially still lose by hundreds of points.
The second thing is the House Cup, awarded on the basis of cumulative points over the season. Even if the Snitch-focused team was lucky enough to win every match scoring solely by points earned from catching the Snitch, the team would total 600 points. Given the scenario above, that is unlikely to win them the House Cup.
I’m going to take a wild guess, and say you’re not a sports fan.
Bugger. That team would total 450 points, not 600. My bad.
Right. The scoring makes sense because Quidditch is played in a series with accumulating points. At the end of the series, it doesn’t matter so much how many games you’ve won as much as how many points you’ve scored throughout the whole series. Therefore, catching the snitch will help you advance to the next bracket of the series, but in the end it’s the goal-scoring that makes the difference.
Don’t they explain how the troll gets in? Didn’t Quirrel let it in?
I don’t think it’s even a question of advancing in a bracket: unless I’ve misunderstood, each team plays the other three teams, regardless of win-loss record.
The Snitch, while giving you bragging rights over certain teams, really doesn’t do anything more than that (at least, in the Hogwarts “League”) unless the game is exceptionally low-scoring (e.g., Wood is really on his game
).
maybe “bracket” was the wrong word. I meant that as soon as you lose a game, you are competing for status among other teams who have lost the same number of games, even if that’s not who you’re actually playing against.
I don’t know if that made any sense…
Of course it did! Understood every word.
Fantastic guess.
Though I did just get into baseball, finally. Probably haven’t something to do with how awesome the Phillies are going to be this season.
It’s a solid theory, but throughout the book, 95% of the time the game is won by whoever catches the snitch. Yet there are 2 beaters and one seeker! Wrap your head around that! It makes the world seem so random. Is there even a God? Ehhem. Sorry, excuse me.
About the cumulative points: Taking your 3 games of 150 points =450.
As the manager, you have a few strategies now. You can either:
1) Put two more people on the snitch and have the rest guard the 3 hoops, basically ensuring victory. The other guys get like 20-30 pts a game while you always get 150.
2) Play it normally, on the chance that if you miraculously win every time you’ll have a higher score at the end. I think it’s a no-brainer.
I, too, am a fan of simple math. Yes, this high-point-carrying-snitch bothered me, too, at first. Later, I realized as others have commented, that the total points of the season makes a difference, as well as the skill of the whole team in the professional league. Just now, I am looking at another aspect of the game: giving different people some different parts to play. The beaters are would-be American football players, I think. The chasers would do well with basketball, and the keeper plays the part of the goalie in soccer or hockey. Conclusion: It is very nice to have one sport that lets these various types of players “play to their strengths.” (That may come up later.)
Speaking of having strengths that are different from each other, where would the famous threesome have ended up without Ron’s future wife? Harry and Ron would be lying dead underneath a massive growth of Devil’s Snare at the end of their first year at Hogwarts. (If they had even made it that far.)
Actually it is Ron’s contribution to the threesome that bothered me for the longest time. I would be interested in anyone else’s input here, but I have formed a few opinions of my own by now, too.
Yes, the troll was brought into Hogwarts by the ambitious Quirrel, which Dumbledore should have realized, since said Quirrel used said troll as his contribution to “guarding” the stone from the evil sorcerer growing in the back of his own head.
Who says Dumbeledore didn’t realize it?
I think Dumbedore knew exactly what was going down that year.
He does ask Snape, IIRC, to “keep an eye” on Quirrell.
True….
In many ways it does seem like Dumbledore knew exactly what was going on, so it seems like he was less than honest about how much he cared about Harry or at what time he became aware of what was going on, as he told Harry in the hospital wing at the end: “No sooner had I reached London than it became clear to me that the place I should be was the one I had just left. I arrived just in time to pull Quirrell off you—”
“It was you?”
“I feared I might be too late.” … “…the effort…nearly killed you. For one terrible moment there, I was afraid it had….”
I totally agree that Dumbledore probably knew exactly what was going on, but I just had to comment on what you said about Ron.
I’m a Ron hater, so I totally get you there. Ron is supposed to be the loyal best mate. Harry’s closest and best friend. JKR says that a few places, and the fact is reinforced by Ron’s patronus form, a dog, but when exactly is Ron ever the loyal side kick? Ron is jealous, ridiculously ignorant, breaks off connections with his friends the very moment they look like they might do something that he won’t like. He doesn’t listen to other people’s sides, he just acts on impulse. If anything Harry and Hermione are the loyal ones. They’re the ones that keep letting him back in. (And speaking of anyone being loyal, isn’t that a Hufflepuff trait?)
He’s an awful character in my opinion. I was hoping that he’d die at the end of DH, but oh well. Guess the Golden Trio just gets to go on with everything storybook perfect. Wasn’t that the point though? That the books were supposed to be a little bit realistic is the portrayal of war? Instead she kills off the bad guy, the crazy chick, the pathetic lowlife, a bunch of kids that were mentioned once or twice (or not at all), Harry’s last connection to his parents (who was really just a douche anyway) dooming Teddy to follow in Harry’s footsteps, and a ton of people that were background characters (important to some of us, but not a gigantic loss), and Fred (because ruining George’s life was much more important than killing Ron or Arthur). Oh, and Snape of course. We go through seven books to find out if he’s evil or not, we bounce back and forth, then he dies. Wooh. At least she pulled it off WAY better than Stephanie Meyer’s ‘Let’s squeeze this in here, in this tiny, inconspicuous paragraph in the last chapter, because I HAVE to make sure they know they the werewolves AREN’T werewolves. They’re shape shifters!’
Rant over. Sorry I took it out on you. Lol
I think Ron is one of the most realistic characters in the series. He acts like a teenager while his two best friends act like adults. He expresses jealousy and confusion, frustration and fear. He throws a tantrum and immediately regrets it. The way he acts as the trio hunts down horcruxes is far more believable than Harry and Hermione, who are steadfast in their mission. What I love about Ron is he displays his weaknesses outright. He’s insecure and terrible at hiding it. But the key is, he comes back. He is loyal.
I actually like Ron, but I couldn’t think why, for a long time. He is a key player in the threesome because he is the only one with inside information in the wizarding world.
He is a bit confusing because he wants recognition for his own achievements so desperately. He might be a good Slytherin if it weren’t for his LOYALTY to his family who are tried and true Gryffindors.
Also, I have changed my opinion of Quidditch recently: Now, I view it as one of the many crazy things Jo Rowling is making fun of in the wizarding world. Ha Ha. What do witches and wizards do when they get together? Hop on brooms and play a ball game in the air. What kind of game? A stupid one with crazy rules… Lots of laughs!
Sorry to say, but you guys are idiots! the reason why they have the quaffle and chasers is because the quidditch cup, and the way it’s put. You can still win if the seeker doesn’t catch the snitch. And you have to get loads of points even if you catch snitch because then you can go into the finals. if you read all the books correctly, you’ll know
I’m sorry to say but that’s what everyone else has said in varying degrees. And the way you put it is rude
I suppose because quidditch games can go on indefinitely the scores can go very high indeed. In that context the effect of an extra 150 points across the total scores for the whole series becomes diluted and therefore less crucial.
when you read the books and watch the movies you notice it does not take much time for goals to be scored. think of basketball if you will. in the professional leages basckets really are only 1, 2, or 3 points each, yet both teams can have the scores at the end be around eighty or ninety plus. so with the time of acual playing time only being forty minutes or so you can assume it does not take all that much time to get a lot of points scored. now back to quidditch. many tims in the series the games have the scores be well higher than 150 without even catching the snitch. so really when you look at it that way whoever catches it really doesn’t determain who wins or not
Oh, and here I was thinking that we all played Quidditch because we loved the chance to beat up the others… Was that not the point?
The quaffle and chasers are only there for show, the real game is between the beaters…
You have to catch the snitch guys. The snitch gives you 150 points but it also ends the game…that is why it is The Seekers job to find it. That is that person’s one and only job to catch the ball that ends the game. Everyone else is supposed to make sure there team is ahead enough for that 150 to make them win. Book 4 World Cup Krum gets the snitch but his team still loses because Ireland had at least 160 points more than they did before the snitch was caught.
And the troll was let in by Quirrel because of Voldemort. Voldemort used trolls in his first conquest 20 years ago. So he would know how to control them.
Uhh…. Voldemort had giants at his disposal, not trolls. You can’t really rely on trolls to much, because they aren’t smart enough to follow orders. They just kind of wander, smash stuff, and stink up the place. You wouldn’t be able to trust trolls to only go after your enemies. They attack anyone that gets to close.
Ok, If you’d read the recently published book by JK rowling, you’d know that the tradition of the snitch, came from a magical bird called a snidgit that was small gold, round, and very, very fast. It was popular in those days to catch snidgits for sport. One day a snidgit was seen racing in the air above the quiditch pitch, and a very wealthy spectator offered the player who could catch the snidgit 150 galleons, hence the 150 points. And if you’d have read the book closely you would know that the troll had been found in the forbidden forest and had been put in the dungeons so it would not wander onto school grounds and harm students.
That is some excellent info! I have not read the supplementary books by J.K. yet, but I’m glad to hear there is an explanation for the 150 point snitch. It does seem a bit excessive. Catching the snitch almost guarantees a win unless the other team is annihilating you. Of course, as we see in Prisoner of Azkaban, sometimes the amount of points a team finishes ahead is as important as winning.
I was unaware of any book Rowling had written since the Tales of Beetle the Bard. Which book are you talking about?
JKR wrote Quidditch Through the Ages (the book Hermione gave to Harry) in 2001, which gives a lot of information about Quidditch.
Lol. Although I do have to point out that school age Quidditch, like school age football, is very different from the professional league. During GoF at the world cup we see that it does happen. The longest game recorded lasted for three months, and many last more than a day; how many points can you rack up with that long of a span? Plenty more than a fifteen goal gap.
And as for the troll, it didn’t get in on it’s own. Quirrel let it in as a distraction, so that he could get to the third floor, and thus, the sorcerer’s stone. What you should have pointed out, though, is Dumbledore’s severe lack of concern for the Slytherins. Ravenclaw and Gryffindor dormitories are upstairs, far from where the troll was supposed to be. Hufflepuff dormitories are on the ground floor near the kitchens, but they still would have been safer. The Slytherins, however, were sent down to the dungeons with the troll.
Not so smart on Dumby’s part, or rather, Jo’s.
On that note, I would have been mighty annoyed if I got tickets to the Quidditch World Cup (Ireland vs. Bulgaria) and the game didn’t go 3 months!
I almost agree that the Snitch is too heavily weighted, BUT you have to remember that both professional Quidditch nor Quidditch at Hogwarts involve more than two teams and more than one game. Points matter, and they add up. A good Quidditch team will work hard to pull as far ahead via the Quaffle as possible, so that when they win, they add 150 points to an already high score, thereby increasing their lead in the tournament as a whole. Does that make sense?
It’s also worth noting that WHAT SEEKER IN HIS RIGHT MIND would catch the Snitch and LOSE if there was any chance at all his team might pull ahead? Krum seems to have had a good excuse – he knew Ireland’s chaser and keeper were just too good and wanted to end it on his terms. I guess the notion that an seeker with misplaced attention could cost his team the match, but I agree it seems like an odd rule.
But I stand by what I said. Aggregate points matter in tournament play, and the chasers and keepers are there to boost aggregate points as much as possible.
The troll thing… you know how each teacher had one thing protecting the stone? Yeah, Quirrell’s was the troll, he just let it loose, he didn’t just bring in a troll. As for the Quidditch thing, I don’t get it either.
I get what you mean, they depend too much on the Seeker. What’s the point in trying to score if the Seeker can win within seconds? But the troll got in because he was let in. He didn’t just wander in, Quirrell brought him in.
The troll didn’t just walk up the front steps into the school. It was in the dungeon and escaped the dungeon.
I know Harry Potter better than I know the back of my hand. (;
In book 4 during the quidditch world cup, Ireland won even though Krum caught the snitch.