this post was submitted on 22 Apr 2026
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[โ€“] samus12345@sh.itjust.works 75 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (7 children)

Same sort of problem with Quidditch. Whichever team gets the golden snitch automatically wins, so the whole game would realistically just be everyone trying to get it and ignoring everything else. JK is very bad at designing world rules. Maybe that's why she's so bad at comprehending reality as well.

[โ€“] Robust_Mirror@aussie.zone 6 points 11 hours ago

I know there's been a fair bit of discussion and I only skimmed it, but the main issue I could see is if one team actually ignored everything for the snitch, it's feasible the other team could get 15 goals literally for free before you actually succeed. But the video game nerfing the snitch tells you everything you need to know about whether it can be balanced at all.

[โ€“] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 12 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (5 children)

JK is very bad at designing world rules.

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.

[โ€“] filcuk@lemmy.zip 2 points 6 hours ago

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.

Needs more explosions and an anti exploding kid spell, but otherwise a solid thumbs 45 degrees up.

[โ€“] Kirp123@lemmy.world 4 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

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.

[โ€“] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 2 points 10 hours ago

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.

[โ€“] wabasso@lemmy.ca 2 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

My head canon is always converting magic into sci fi. The wizards are the descendants of a civilization that created the tech but theyโ€™re so far removed they donโ€™t know anything about how it works, or about simple spells that would shortcut all the fancy shit. Doesnโ€™t really explain the Snitch though, other than โ€œtheyโ€™re more about tradition than logicโ€.

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.

[โ€“] DragonAce@lemmy.world 2 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

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.

[โ€“] JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca 20 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

I hate myself for remembering, and am likely wrong, but isn't the snitch worth 150 points and ends the game? So if the opposing team was 151 points ahead catching the snitch would lose the match? I'm not going to look it up, I don't care enough about being right in regards to Harry Potter and I'm not even sure why I commented outside of my inate need for information to be correct...

[โ€“] samus12345@sh.itjust.works 10 points 18 hours ago (3 children)

That's correct - however, 150 points is a ridiculously high number that's almost impossible to overcome. Every time the snitch was caught, that team won the game.

[โ€“] Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

They won the game, but they may have lost the league if winning comes down to point differences.

[โ€“] zaphod@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 hour ago

This was a thing in the third book where Harry had to make sure they're a certain number of points ahead before catching the snitch so that they'd not just win the match but also their school league.

[โ€“] adj16@lemmy.world 3 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

Youโ€™re definitely right about it being a poorly-contrived scoring system, but there are a few games in the books where the team lost the game but grabbed the snitch. Itโ€™s always described as a โ€œstem the bleedingโ€ type decision

Edit: sorry, now seeing the replies to your other comments saying this, I guess you know by now ๐Ÿ˜…

[โ€“] RichardDegenne@lemmy.zip 5 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

It's fifteen goals. While unlikely, it's totally possible for a team to score fifteen goals more if the skill difference is high enough and the game is allowed to go for long enough.

[โ€“] zaphod@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 hour ago

There were some historic matches mentioned in one of the books, that apparently went on for weeks or even months, fifteen goals would be a really low number for that kind of match. The duration of a match only depends on how good the seekers are, a match can be over in five minutes which is really lame, or go on for ages which is also lame.

[โ€“] samus12345@sh.itjust.works 5 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)

Is there any example of a real life sport where one play (that can only be done once per game) equals making 15 goals? That's just bad rules.

[โ€“] Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz 1 points 4 hours ago

Not a sport, but in mahjong, dealer yakuman are worth 35x a 1-han hand

[โ€“] Maroon@lemmy.world 18 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

Yea, I kind of remember this in book 4 where in the world cup Bulgaria (Viktor) caught the snitch, but the other team (I think Ireland) scored more points.

That's why the Weasly twins were upset because they had placed that bet with Ludo Bagman who ran away with their money.

(Just to let you know, I enjoy HP as a kid but now, Fuck JK).

[โ€“] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

They won the bet, got the money... And the money was fake gold. (Leprechaun gold). It disappeared. So they were out the money. Not sure if gambling was legal or not, so I don't think trying to report someone as stealing your gambling wins was feasible.

Anyways, yeah the only professional game in the books we saw was the exact scenario that people are complaining here would never happen. As in he caught the snitch to save themselves from complete embarrassment. A score of 370-10 or some shit looks a lot worse than just losing by a few points and putting off the inevitable

[โ€“] samus12345@sh.itjust.works 4 points 18 hours ago

Ah, good call, I didn't remember that! A really stupid rule regardless.

[โ€“] pfried@reddthat.com 4 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (1 children)

In The Goblet of Fire, Ireland beat Bulgaria despite Bulgaria getting the snitch. The problem with the snitch isn't that the team that gets it automatically wins but that this particular match didn't make sense because Bulgaria knew that getting the snitch would cause them to lose, so they would have instead focused on preventing Ireland from getting the snitch while they tried to get within 150 points.

[โ€“] samus12345@sh.itjust.works 9 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah, another comment pointed that out. And as you pointed out, it's a stupid rule regardless!

[โ€“] pfried@reddthat.com 2 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

I think a reasonable game could be played with those rules, given how quickly goals are scored and how hard it is supposed to be to catch the snitch. It's just that it didn't make sense at all that Krum was celebrated. Catching the snitch was worse than scoring an own goal in soccer because it directly and immediately caused his team to lose the match. The rioting of the death eaters after the match is understandable, but the way everyone else behaved towards this obvious fraud is not. The Ministry should have started a match fixing investigation.

[โ€“] Crashumbc@lemmy.world 2 points 9 hours ago

The "reason" given in the books was that he knew they couldn't out score Ireland to catch back up. Like resigning in chess.

[โ€“] Tiral@lemmy.world 2 points 16 hours ago

I've never really thought about it, but your right if you think about it, it makes zero sense.

[โ€“] sad_detective_man@sopuli.xyz 2 points 17 hours ago

bro quiddich is ass.