November 18 will mark the second time this year that Harry Potter fans will be going nuts.
The first time was when the sixth book was released, and this second time is when the fourth movie, “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,” will be released.
As a Harry Potter fan myself, I think this is generally a positive thing. I think the literature and film worlds tend to agree.
This led me to this discovery: Harry Potter does not get nearly enough negative press.
I shall thus shoulder the responsibility of going on a Harry Potter rant, against the game of Quidditch in particular.
The concept of Quidditch is not bad. Soccer on flying broomsticks is intriguing. If Quidditch was just that, it would be fine.
There is one thing about the game that makes it absolutely absurd: the Golden Snitch.
Entirely too much rides on the Snitch. Throwing the Quaffle through one of the hoops is worth ten points. When the Seeker catches the Golden Snitch, he or she earns the team 150 points.
This means that a team can be up by 14 scores, and it would still be anybody’s game.
With a strong defense and a good Seeker, it would be dang near impossible to lose. A mediocre defense would be fine. They would just need to keep from falling behind by more than 15 scores.
Why not use two Seekers? Heck, why not make every member of your team a Seeker?
There is no clock in Quidditch. The game just goes until the Snitch is caught. This is a mistake for two reasons. One, it means that the last 150 points will always be the deciding factor. Two, it means the game can go on forever (which is especially ridiculous because there are no line changes in Quidditch, nor any back-up players).
A losing team can thus lengthen the game by not catching the Snitch and by keeping the other Seeker from doing it until they catch up. The game may never end, but at least the losing team will never lose.
This ties in with the upcoming movie. During the Quidditch World Cup, Bulgaria’s Seeker, Victor Krum, whose team is down 160 poins, nabs the Snitch.
Ron is confounded by this, but Harry comes to Krum’s defense: “He knew they were never going to catch up! He wanted to end it on his own terms, that’s all.”
They didn’t have to catch up! If Krum had waited for his team to get two scores, Bulgaria would have won. And what is this about ending it on his own terms? Whatever happened to team spirit?
If I were Krum’s coach, I would give him quite an earful, and I would hope that Bulgaria would blame Krum for the loss, just as Philly would blame McNabb for the loss if he threw 10 interceptions in the Super Bowl.