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Rockos Modern Bask posted:Why doesn't she set the magic school wherever the Touhou girls live so she can have a crossover with the other beloved franchise that has swamped the internet with an inordinate amount of fanfic and fanart The Magic Spot really should be in some remote mountain valley full of cherry blossoms, and elderly couples finding babies inside random plants, but I get the impression that Rowling didn't do a lot of research on the countries she put the schools in. Hogwarts 2.0 in the US is the only one one that feels like it had some effort put into it, but she still doesn't seem to have any understanding of the cultures she's writing about. Of course she has a good reason: Samovar posted:Too forrin' int it?
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Oct 22, 2025 11:37
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Hogwarts 2.0 would have been an interesting place to depict in Fantastic Beasts; instead they went with Hogwarts 1.0.
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Oct 22, 2025 11:56
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YaketySass posted:Yeah, literally:  drat jake, can't you just have little people in your world?
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Oct 22, 2025 12:19
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An insane mind posted:Dumbledore: "Welcome to the realistic opening ceremony of Hogwarts school of Magic. I hope everyone has had a chance to go to the loo, we'll be sorting the first years now going by a 0,1% magical population on the whole of Britain." I think mathing that out comes down to about 1000 kids per year. You could feasibly do that I guess though you'd be at it all day (at one kid every 2 minutes, no lunchbreak). Do we know they all get to go to Hogwarts, though?
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Oct 29, 2025 10:50
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feedmegin posted:Do we know they all get to go to Hogwarts, though? It's Britain. If you're not able to afford the Hogwarts fees then they send you off to a halfway-derelict state school built out of RAAC and you'll mostly be doing your magic in portacabins.
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Oct 29, 2025 11:06
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i wonder if kids who didn't get accepted into hogwarts still got to do magic when they turned 17. Surely Morfin didn't get admission
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Oct 29, 2025 11:21
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in the gaunt house, strait morfin it
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Oct 29, 2025 11:22
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'Street' taught Wizards using expletive laced spells to beat up the loving entitled nerds from hogwarts
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Oct 29, 2025 11:27
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An insane mind posted:'Street' taught Wizards using expletive laced spells to beat up the loving entitled nerds from hogwarts The chavs from Burberry House only know one spell and the motion involves stabbing you. At that point the incantation feels a little superfluous.
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Oct 29, 2025 11:30
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caspergers posted:in the gaunt house, strait morfin it It's Morfin time
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Oct 29, 2025 11:36
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There are lower tier wizard schools as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-2ZxldMO-M
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Oct 29, 2025 12:18
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Watched some of the first movie today at work and I always forget how big of a deal the points were at the beginning. Like a big moment is after they avoid dying to a Troll, McGonnagall is awarding them like 5 points and it's dramatic and they got Snape seemingly mad about the points like he's really invested in the system.
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Nov 1, 2025 02:05
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Khanstant posted:Watched some of the first movie today at work and I always forget how big of a deal the points were at the beginning. Like a big moment is after they avoid dying to a Troll, McGonnagall is awarding them like 5 points and it's dramatic and they got Snape seemingly mad about the points like he's really invested in the system. Yep, and the most depressing part of the story is when she takes away 150 points for finding Harry, Hermione, and Neville out of bed after hours. How can Gryffindor possibly win the House Cup now?! Then by Book 6, Harry can be deducted 70 points at the very start of the school year and it never comes up again https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfJkjLP1SvM Jim Dale's Snape was so unbelievably great.
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Nov 1, 2025 02:29
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Lmao at the ending ceremonies where Dumbledore or whoever can just throw around as many points as they want at the last minute, effectively just picking whatever house they want. I would always be so annoyed seeing Griffyndor win because my house doesn't have the named characters. I may be a faceless classmate but I earned my points from common circumstances. Reminds me of bonus stars in Mario Party in a way.
Khanstant fucked around with this message at 08:46 on Nov 1, 2025 |
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Nov 1, 2025 08:21
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The House Cup Points system is just so hosed and I really don't know how it's even supposed to work in an ideal world or why anyone should be invested in it. Like, why do students care outside of just pure artificial tribalism? You don't GET anything from winning. There's no pizza party or trip to a water park or some other poo poo that might realistically motivate middle school kids. There's not even any real respect associated with it like a sports trophy or letterman jackets or something else where people will maybe acknowledge and possibly be impressed by the accomplishment, it seems to just make 3/4 of the school quietly resent you? It really all just boils down to which House can most effectively suck up to their blatantly partisan teacher the most and avoid the ire of the other blatantly partisan teachers the best. What I wanna know is why the teachers give a poo poo, either. Like, do they get a raise if their associated House wins the Cup that year? Or is it, again, just petty artificial tribalism but now even more embarrassing because these are all grown-rear end adults being essentially led along by the promise of a shiny gold star? And not even for them, a shiny gold star by proxy for their students who they helped cheat and sabotage their enemies like it's Boy Scouts pinewood derby cars?
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Nov 1, 2025 12:14
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Asterite34 posted:petty artificial tribalism that's how it's supposed to work
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Nov 1, 2025 12:26
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Runcible Cat posted:that's how it's supposed to work I don't know how the perfidious Britons do things but usually you need some kind of incentive to foment the petty tribalism. If you want to make people identify with a team or group it helps to in some way tie that person's material conditions to it. IRL sports are a bit of an outlier but those are also a different dynamic since a sports fan is not a member of the team and is not being asked to perform in any way besides buying merch or attending games - the latter of which, if you enjoy sports, is an intrinsically enjoyable experience anyway. Like I don't know, maybe the cohabitation really is enough - is that how British schools do it, no rewards for success or penalties for failure, merely status that is the most nakedly artificial and hollow?
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Nov 1, 2025 12:33
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House systems are/were a pretty standard part of board school fiction (and reality).
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Nov 1, 2025 12:39
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RoboChrist 9000 posted:I don't know how the perfidious Britons do things but usually you need some kind of incentive to foment the petty tribalism. If you want to make people identify with a team or group it helps to in some way tie that person's material conditions to it. IRL sports are a bit of an outlier but those are also a different dynamic since a sports fan is not a member of the team and is not being asked to perform in any way besides buying merch or attending games - the latter of which, if you enjoy sports, is an intrinsically enjoyable experience anyway. You're underestimating the British talent for petty tribalism. Doctor Spaceman posted:House systems are/were a pretty standard part of board school fiction (and reality). I've had it in at least one day school too. Bored the gently caress out of probably-autistic me but some people got really really invested in that poo poo. I assume the ones who didn't have anything else, but there's no shortage of those... Runcible Cat fucked around with this message at 13:06 on Nov 1, 2025 |
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Nov 1, 2025 13:03
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RoboChrist 9000 posted:I don't know how the perfidious Britons do things but usually you need some kind of incentive to foment the petty tribalism. I'm pretty sure studies have shown the exact opposite. Like you can randomly assign colored t-shirts to people and they'll quickly start thinking that people of their shirt color are better and resent the other color. Coalescing into an us-vs-them mindset is baked into our brains.
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Nov 1, 2025 13:09
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I went to a primary school with a house points system. Each week at the school assembly they'd count up the running totals of house points for the Hawks, Falcons and Eagles and everyone would clap for the house that did best. At the end of the year they'd get out the big house points trophy and put it in the trophy cabinet naming whichever house won it that year. Mostly getting house points was about the same kind of reward as getting a gold star sticker or whatever, I guess the houses encouraged kids in the same house to support each other about it a bit. They changed around who was in which house each year though so no one really got that attached to a house as an identity.
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Nov 1, 2025 13:36
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I assume it was designed to feed posh children into the workings of the Empire, which were often about singular loyalty and pride in institutions you got assigned to from near-birth.
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Nov 1, 2025 13:43
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I guess they kinda dropped the points the same reason they didn't do quidditch in the fifth film, saying "it's been done"
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Nov 1, 2025 13:47
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Tenebrais posted:the Hawks, Falcons and Eagles lol
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Nov 1, 2025 14:15
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Wingnut Ninja posted:I'm pretty sure studies have shown the exact opposite. Like you can randomly assign colored t-shirts to people and they'll quickly start thinking that people of their shirt color are better and resent the other color. Coalescing into an us-vs-them mindset is baked into our brains. Fair point. And yeah, I knew house systems were a real thing in the boarding schools that Hogwarts is a riff off of, I just always assumed that they would have some kind of reward, however minor, for the house that wins beyond pointless status. Just because in my experience elementary school children (not the older ones of course) are a bit more easily motivated by material rewards than prestige and status. Although obviously also the British may be different there too than my own experience as a kid in the 90s. Just yeah, in my elementary school anyway at least until like the last year or so we definitely would have been way more motivated by promises of pizza or a cool sticker than by 'you'll have the prestige of winning!'
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Nov 1, 2025 14:25
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Yeah I don't know I feel like "here's a score of how good you guys have been at following the rules" could backfire.
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Nov 1, 2025 14:28
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Still performs the desired function of keeping the schooletariat divided against each other, preventing them from seizing the means of education.
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Nov 1, 2025 14:46
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Still doesn't explain why the teachers are so drat invested in the House Cup. Are they still that steeped in House Pride? Why does McGonagall give a poo poo? I know she's supposed to appear to care so the kids don't catch on this is all a scam, but it really does seem like the teachers have a loving betting pool or something about who'll win. Snape I understand, he peaked in high school and while it wasn't a very HIGH peak, everything before and after was much, much lower, so I can see him legit being way too invested in House chauvinism
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Nov 1, 2025 16:09
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House cup winners are safe from elimination the following semester.
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Nov 1, 2025 16:47
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There's the other side of a house system at boarding schools to consider; if you LOST your house points by loving up, you could expect to be woken up and beaten by the others in the dorm room that night
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Nov 1, 2025 16:52
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Asterite34 posted:Still doesn't explain why the teachers are so drat invested in the House Cup. Are they still that steeped in House Pride? Why does McGonagall give a poo poo? I know she's supposed to appear to care so the kids don't catch on this is all a scam, but it really does seem like the teachers have a loving betting pool or something about who'll win. McGonagall is kinda like pride. In a perfect world, without homophobia, we wouldn't need pride parades. But since such a system exists we are forced to participate. Ideally, McGonagall wouldn't give a poo poo, but since Snape gives such a poo poo then the for kids' sake, she has to as well.
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Nov 1, 2025 16:57
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RoboChrist 9000 posted:I don't know how the perfidious Britons do things but usually you need some kind of incentive to foment the petty tribalism. If you want to make people identify with a team or group it helps to in some way tie that person's material conditions to it. IRL sports are a bit of an outlier but those are also a different dynamic since a sports fan is not a member of the team and is not being asked to perform in any way besides buying merch or attending games - the latter of which, if you enjoy sports, is an intrinsically enjoyable experience anyway. Brits can't even walk a couple blocks in any direction without needing to create and maintain a new accent identity and stereotype for the region. But even over here we don't need any incentive for tribalism. In middle school for scheduling reasons you'd be assigned to Hall A, B, or C. There was no prize or competition, there was no tier to the groups, just very occasionally needed to know what group you were in to know where or when to assemble for this or that. Even so you'd sometimes find or make up cause to talk poo poo about another group as if it were a cohesive tribe with any meaning.
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Nov 1, 2025 20:52
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McGonoggal loves rulefollowing
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Nov 1, 2025 21:05
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Oh, middle school absolutely, no arguments here. I just meant, again, elementary school.
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Nov 1, 2025 21:06
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McGonagall bought Harry a top of the line broom based off of one showing because she was sick of losing. Those brooms are implied to be super expensive too which kind of sucks for the other kids.
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Nov 2, 2025 02:13
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The House Cup winner is in no way decided by any sort of merit or failures on the actual students' part, it's all based on which authority figure is most nepotistic, vindictive and/or corrupt that year that it overwhelms the nepotism and vindictiveness and corruption of all the other teachers managing the crab bucket. An important lesson for all those kids on how the grown-up world works, I guess
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Nov 2, 2025 02:23
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Seems like it's working as intended to me, teaching all those kids that no matter what they do, the guy that sucks up to the ones in charge best is going to get whatever they want. That's exactly how the magical government works, so...
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Nov 2, 2025 05:30
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There was a great moment of liberal satire in book 5 or 6 where Dumbledore makes a speech in the Great Hall about Voldemort being back and how the best thing they can do is to throw away the interhouse grudges and work together in harmony. This could've been a big moment where Dumbledore uses his power as the School Headmaster to abolish the houses. Have the students live in dorms for different years so they'd be forced to adjust to having new people to live with, maybe flesh out the Slytherins to be not just The Evil House. But nope, gotta keep the lovely, marketable status quo. And then you find out it's not meant to be satire, and Dumbledore is supposed to be god's perfect angel who can do no wrong lmao.
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Nov 2, 2025 09:30
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RoboChrist 9000 posted:And yeah, I knew house systems were a real thing in the boarding schools that Hogwarts is a riff off of, I just always assumed that they would have some kind of reward, however minor, for the house that wins beyond pointless status. Just because in my experience elementary school children (not the older ones of course) are a bit more easily motivated by material rewards than prestige and status. Why do you think Hogwarts is an elementary school? It's a standard British secondary school, you start there at 11 and graduate at 16 or 18 (I don't think it's quite clear whether it has a Sixth Form since Harry has other things to think about in the last couple of books). Where Harry or the others went for primary school is never really covered I think; for Muggles presumably just a normal state one. My (non-boarding but private) secondary school had houses. You got sorted into them (they rolled a die, I presume) when you started, you got a different coloured tie and a weekly house assembly but the only way it really made any difference was sports because there were inter-house games (field hockey and rugby, not Quidditch). I guess those people cared, most people didn't. feedmegin fucked around with this message at 10:06 on Nov 2, 2025 |
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Nov 2, 2025 09:56
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feedmegin posted:Why do you think Hogwarts is an elementary school? It's a standard British secondary school, you start there at 11 and graduate at 16 or 18 (I don't think it's quite clear whether it has a Sixth Form since Harry has other things to think about in the last couple of books). Where Harry or the others went for primary school is never really covered I think; for Muggles presumably just a normal state one. First to fifth year is essentially secondary school, since OWLS are the equivalent of GCSEs. NEWTS are effectively A levels/sixth form I guess. I suppose they must be optional like they are for us since no one cares that Fred and George ditch them. Presumably education ends at 18 for wizards and they go straight into teaching/policing/politics since university is never mentioned. stev fucked around with this message at 10:53 on Nov 2, 2025 |
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Nov 2, 2025 10:50
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