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Gravitas Shortfall posted:People love, LOVE to sort themselves into categories, to the point where I think it might be a fundamental property of humanity. There should be subsets of wizard houses, and maybe levels. Like, a Level 3 Widdershins Ravenclaw. That way they could have more than four quidditch teams.
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Jun 12, 2024 14:29
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:People love, LOVE to sort themselves into categories, to the point where I think it might be a fundamental property of humanity. There's people who do and people who don't. I'm a Non-Sorter myself
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Jun 12, 2024 15:28
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Dabir posted:There's people who do and people who don't. I'm a Non-Sorter myself I'm a Grey Sorter, which is the good from both sides with none of the bad.
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Jun 12, 2024 15:39
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code:
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Jun 12, 2024 15:42
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Hufflepuffs: People who don't
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Jun 12, 2024 15:43
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I still think it’s funny that there are only six quidditch matches in the entire school year, and each house only plays three
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Jun 12, 2024 17:42
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Zoran posted:I still think it’s funny that there are only six quidditch matches in the entire school year, and each house only plays three And the most important thing is score differential even more-so than games won, so if your team won every game but the Slytherin team bribed the Ravenclaw team to let them win 500-0 they could just take the cup that way. Of course Jo's stock response has always been that she made Quidditch bad and infuriating on purpose to mock annoying men who care about sports
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Jun 12, 2024 18:53
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Which says a lot when you consider she made it one of the only things both her male leads have in common and care about, and all of the designated protagonists except The Nerd Girl are into.
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Jun 12, 2024 19:01
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Guy A. Person posted:Of course Jo's stock response has always been that she made Quidditch bad and infuriating on purpose to mock annoying men who care about sports It would be a really, really good gag as a one-off thing and not the main thing the hero enjoyed about magical boarding school
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Jun 12, 2024 20:01
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I believe Jo when she says she made up quidditch to make fun of soccer. It's so loving stupid, any writer that actually liked sports would come up with a less dumb wizard sport, it's just other people were into it so she felt like she had to keep making it part of the books.
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Jun 12, 2024 20:10
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I assumed it was partly based on cricket as well. Fundamentally it's making the same joke about sport as the currency system is about pre-decimal UK money, where it takes an already complicated and arbitrary system and makes it even sillier. It's the kind of thing that works in a whimsical kids book and becomes less fitting as the series goes.
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Jun 13, 2024 01:19
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Things Rowling thinks are inherently silly and exaggerates for comic effect: - Pre-Decimal British currency - Cricket and other organized sport. - Anti-Slavery campaigns.
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Jun 13, 2024 05:38
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IIRC, it's not just that Rowling created Quidditch to piss off sports fans, it's that she made it specifically to piss off an ex-boyfriend who was a sports fan. It's the kind of pettiness that would be funny with another author, but here it's just more proof of how hateful she is.
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Jun 13, 2024 10:02
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Eh, I can jive with that brand of pettiness. Ridiculing sports is a bit trite (even if my fat rear end don’t give a poo poo about any sport) but it’s bland enough to not approach real scumminess.
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Jun 14, 2024 20:17
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At least pre-decimalized British currency was based on sixes and twelves, and not prime numbers.
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Jun 15, 2024 00:38
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Base twelve actually makes a ton of sense in a pre-literate society, it's the number of knuckles on one hand before your thumb.
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Jun 15, 2024 01:14
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it would be insanely badass to flip down a gold coin the size of a hubcap. Bowlings on me tonight!
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Jun 15, 2024 01:19
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Presto posted:At least pre-decimalized British currency was based on sixes and twelves, and not prime numbers. There were still things like guineas being 21 shillings (which isn't a prime but isn't exactly practical either).
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Jun 15, 2024 03:26
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Air Skwirl posted:Base twelve actually makes a ton of sense in a pre-literate society, it's the number of knuckles on one hand before your thumb. See also why hours in a day are the way they are, and degrees in a circle. Also easily divisible into twos, threes and fours. It's more logical then people make it out to be. But decimalisation is much more sensible.
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Jun 15, 2024 10:43
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Doctor Spaceman posted:There were still things like guineas being 21 shillings (which isn't a prime but isn't exactly practical either). There is a reason for that also. The extra shilling vs the pound was apparently a built-in 5% commission for a wide variety of sales back in the day, such that the auction house (or whoever managed the sale) would get paid in guineas, and the original owner of the animal (or whatever else) would get paid the same number of pounds. Then, Britain being Britain, the guinea became associated with aristocracy and fanciness (because who else buys animals on the regular?), and so the unit of currency was kept on the books until the late 20th century for people to give purchases an extra dose of elegance or importance.
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Jun 15, 2024 16:06
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Air Skwirl posted:Base twelve actually makes a ton of sense in a pre-literate society, it's the number of knuckles on one hand before your thumb. As opposed to ten, which has no relation to the structure of your hand
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Jun 15, 2024 17:57
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Most people have two hands, but it took computer people to realize that.
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Jun 15, 2024 18:12
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base 5 because there is one dominant hand and chirality is impossible to understand. British currency was invented before optics and wizards aren't there yet.
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Jun 15, 2024 20:58
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I was curious what the size of the coins was actually supposed to be, so I looked it up and according to the wiki, wizards use prime numbers cause they just don't gaf and use magic to do all their maths
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Jun 15, 2024 21:33
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Dabir posted:I was curious what the size of the coins was actually supposed to be, so I looked it up and according to the wiki, wizards use prime numbers cause they just don't gaf and use magic to do all their maths I mean, does Hogwarts even have a math class?
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Jun 15, 2024 21:52
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Wizards use large prime numbers for the same reason cicadas do. I will not elaborate.Air Skwirl posted:I mean, does Hogwarts even have a math class? There's a class called Arithmancy that Hermione takes, but I think it's supposed to be divination-but-using-numbers, more like numerology rather than math. Hogwarts doesn't have any "normal" classes like math or literature or science or any foreign languages, though I guess it has a history class (but only for wizard history) and an astronomy class (but I think it's mostly about constellations or something)?
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Jun 15, 2024 21:57
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Lottery of Babylon posted:Wizards use large prime numbers for the same reason cicadas do. I will not elaborate. I'm pretty sure Hogwarts still teaches Geocentrism
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Jun 15, 2024 22:20
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Hogwarts "crossing a busy road" class cancelled due to lack of interest
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Jun 15, 2024 22:50
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Dabir posted:I was curious what the size of the coins was actually supposed to be, so I looked it up and according to the wiki, wizards use prime numbers cause they just don't gaf and use magic to do all their maths harry says hubcaps in book 1 so I went with that
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Jun 16, 2024 01:22
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Lottery of Babylon posted:Wizards use large prime numbers for the same reason cicadas do. I will not elaborate. Oddly enough, Hogwarts does have a music program, according to the movies. Not magic music either, just ordinary choir and pep band.
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Jun 16, 2024 01:37
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Voldemort also cursed the Sex Ed class along with the DADA position.
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Jun 16, 2024 03:05
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Tenebrais posted:As opposed to ten, which has no relation to the structure of your hand Yeah, but using ten means the most you can count on your fingers is ten, whereas the other way allows you to get up to seventy-two. It was a way to make a mini-abacus out of your hands.
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Jun 16, 2024 05:10
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Cranappleberry posted:harry says hubcaps in book 1 so I went with that Harry is an idiot 11 year old in book 1
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Jun 16, 2024 09:39
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Dabir posted:Harry is an idiot 11 year old in book 1 True, but wizards are also impractical idiots. Is it so hard to believe that people who use prime numbers for their currency may actually use dinner plate sized gold doubloons? They have TARDIS tech, it's not like having a coin purse that can carry that poo poo is a practical consideration
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Jun 16, 2024 13:58
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Dabir posted:Harry is an idiot 11 year old in book 1 Could've stopped four words in.
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Jun 16, 2024 21:16
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Cranappleberry posted:harry says hubcaps in book 1 so I went with that They only appear the size of hubcaps when projected in four dimensions, but they occupy ten dimensions. The Harry Potter books are actually sci-fi.
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Jun 16, 2024 22:45
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There's a line about Harry scooping coins into a pouch, so unless he's carrying like a Santa Claus sack the coins can't be that big.
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Jun 17, 2024 05:36
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The scene where Harry hands Fred and George a bag of 1,000 Galleons would probably look a bit different
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Jun 17, 2024 05:51
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Dabir posted:Harry is an idiot 11 year old in book 1 It's almost amazing how much Harry regressed as he got older, from being less curious about magic to being less empathetic to others around him. A good writer might have made that a deliberate point about Harry losing the perspective of being raised in a non-magical environment, but we all know that's not the case with Rowling.
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Jun 17, 2024 12:29
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Grundulum posted:There is a reason for that also. The extra shilling vs the pound was apparently a built-in 5% commission for a wide variety of sales back in the day, such that the auction house (or whoever managed the sale) would get paid in guineas, and the original owner of the animal (or whatever else) would get paid the same number of pounds. Then, Britain being Britain, the guinea became associated with aristocracy and fanciness (because who else buys animals on the regular?), and so the unit of currency was kept on the books until the late 20th century for people to give purchases an extra dose of elegance or importance. Still used for buying racehorses and paying lawyers, I think (decimalised, so it's £1.05)
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Jun 18, 2024 17:35
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