Whilst I'd disagree with you on it being relevant, I'd accept that something banished towards a wizard is, in that moment, innately magical. But falling off a broom is very different. He's hundreds of feet in the air, there's time between him no longer being in contact with or affected by the magical object and him smacking into the ground. At the moment of actual danger the only magic involved would be his own.

 

I think it isn't often relevant because it is so inconsistent. It's kind of like how some characters will seemingly do something out of character because the plot needs a character to do something. The teacher needs to leave so Harry can be great on a broom so Neville falls and needs to be taken to the hospital wing. Harry needs to be made a seeker so it just so happens Neville leaves a snitch sized object behind. You need the fairy tale vibes so Dudley bullies Harry and Harry lives in a cupboard, but instead of a fairy godmother and a glass slipper Harry gets a half-giant and a pointy hat. Similarly, the Dursleys get way worse to Harry before his second year seemingly for the sole purpose of emphasizing the prison break vibe when he escapes back to the magical world.

 

So your logic is that even though it happens in canon it doesn't count as canon because its inconsistent with how you believe things work in your head canon?

 

Rowling is not the type of author that is creating some insanely detailed magical system and insuring it stays consistent. I think that makes it reasonable to consider her intent when a contradiction comes up in the books. This is not a contradiction between my head canon and the books. It's a contradiction in the books themselves.

 

This doesn't really make sense. Aidan Lynch (the Irish Seeker) crashed into the ground twice while he was on a Firebolt, got knocked out once and walked away without any real injury the second time. If his 'natural ability' to protect himself cannot protect him because he's on a broom, why wouldn't he just die? The Firebolt can apparently go at 150 mph.

Personally, I like the explanation that wizards are just built different. An impact that could break my elbow would probably just be a bruise for a wizard. No accidental magic, just stronger physiology.

Even when Moody died, the fact that he didn't have his wand was what confirmed his death. No one really believed he could survive a fall without his wand. If it was indeed accidental magic, the height from which he fell shouldn't matter.

 

The 5 year period in between Tri-Wizard Tournaments, when coupled with the 17 years old age requirement.

These two things coupled together make it so that the vast majority of students will never be able to enter, let alone be selected as a Champion.

If we take GoF, only 7th years (or early born 6th years) can enter. Which means that 5 years later, only 2nd years (or early born 1st years) can enter.

Which means that 3rd, 4th, and 5th years never even get a shot at it.

Not only that, but by the time the the Tournament rolls around again, more than 70% of the students who witnessed it previously have graduated and moved on, effectively putting the Tournament, the Winning Champion, the glory, and the honor for the school out of the schools living memory.

Either reduce the age requirement or reduce the time between hostings.

 

Keep in mind Muggsie that the age restriction was only brought in for the revival of the tournament in GoF. Previous iterations of the tournament had no age limit. They probably tacked on the "everyone has to be of age" rule because honestly...the tournament was so dangerous that they shut it down in the 18th century. Safety expectations will likely have moved on a little bit since then, so they had to try and limit their liability and the possibility of public outcry.

 

Excellent point Mordecai.

In the past this seems to have not been a problem (aside from the death toll, obviously). I was referring more towards the reincarnated version in GoF. How much would it suck to be a 4th or 5th year to see the TWT go down only to do the mental math and figure out that you'll never even come close to getting a shot at it? Not only that, but more mental math can tell you that odds are very much against your kids or even grandkids getting a chance.

 

Yeah, definitely it'd suck for anyone in 3rd, 4th, 5th, or 6th year who failed to hit the age threshold but really wanted the chance.

My explanation for it would be one of two things happening. Either the age limit was a very last minute thing, added in to allay concerns brought up late in the process. Or simply no one thought of the impact because its the first time in 200 years that the tournament is being held, and at the same time as the Ministry was having to organise the tournament they were also organising the quidditch world cup final - 2 massive, potentially highly resource intensive projects for an organisation that (my perception is) would rarely have even one project of that scale going on in normal times. The world cup will have got all the best people working on it, because thats the event in the world's eyes. The TWT would have mostly been done by junior staff who had no idea what they were doing.

 

Incompetent bureaucracy? In my MoM? I never!

Seriously though, you are probably dead on. Comparing the QWC and the TWT really highlights just how much effort was put into one and how little was put into another.

Something like 500 wizards were contracted to spend a year building and protecting the QWC stadium and surrounding grounds from Muggle discovery, and the TWT had two events planned that could not be watched by a crowd. Junior staff indeed.

 

Actually...thinking about it, Percy Weasley may well have been one of the project leaders. He was what? 2 years out of Hogwarts, rapidly advanced to be assistant to the Head of International Magical Cooperation. Seems reasonable that Crouch might have lumped the TWT on his ambitious, young assistant, letting him handle most of the details and run the project team. Percy and a couple of other junior staff, probably no one over the age 20 involved in the day to day meetings, Crouch getting a monthly update memo that he barely paid any attention to because he was so busy dealing with the world cup.

 

Percy being involved as the Project Leader/Coordinator suddenly makes a ton of stuff make sense.

17 year age limit? Conveniently excludes Fred and George and Ginny from ever being able to participate.

Dragon Task? Conveniently puts his brother the Dragon Tamer into the international spotlight.

Lake Task? Conveniently gives his surrogate grandfather Dumbledore an opportunity to get involved with a mysterious and reclusive species on Hogwarts property, to either suss them out as an ally or learn more about a potential enemy.

Maze Task? Conveniently gives a hard pressed close family friend overtime pay and a chance to exhibit his new magical species and skill at growing magic plants.

 

Those are definitely one way to look at the decision making. I'd probably go another way.

Dragon task - approach the deadline for finalising the tasks, Percy is stuck for inspiration. He knows it needs to be something he can pull off without a hitch, he knows it needs to be something big and impressive for the first task, and he knows magical creates are traditionally featured. He realises he can rely on Charlie's contacts to make this happen, and handily funnel a little work to his brother at the same time.

Lake task - Percy is a clever clogs, he likes the idea of tasks that you need cleverness to win, rather than just daring and bravery. A challenge where knowing the right spell for the situation, or remembering some obscure magical ingredient, is the key to victory. This is the task he thinks he'd excel at.

Maze task - He thinks quidditch is a ridiculous waste of time, so growing a maze all over the quidditch pitch seemed like an excellent way to get back at his brothers and former school mates who he felt all took quidditch too seriously. Also, at its essence this task is ridiculously simple. A maze takes a couple of hours to design, and then he just has to pop down to the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magic Creatures and ask to borrow whatever they've got in storage to populate the maze. Then he asks the groundskeeper/CoMC professor of Hogwarts for any creatures he happens to have access to that can be thrown into the maze as well. Its a low effort task thats designed to sound impressive on paper rather than look or be impressive.

 

There are several parts I dislike, but at least most make sense. However, Molly Weasley killing Bellatrix Lestrange was something that took me out of the tense final battle.
I like the Weasley family. I do. I understand Moly was so upset about Fred and in protective mood over Ginny. That a mother's love is the most powerful thing in the world bla bla. I understand that was the point JK was trying to make.
But she's a housewife (I don't have anything against housewives) and Bellatrix is...a soldier. She took down trained Aurors (the Longbottoms, to name the most famous), Harry noted what a skilled witch she was at Malfoy manor. She killed Sirius, she alone escaped Dumbledore and the Order at the Ministry. I mean- I just cannot believe it, even for a second.
Someone else should have killed her. Remus, after she killed Tonks. Kingsley. Hell, even Neville, at least he spent his last year fighting and training, with the other DA members at Hogwarts. Andromeda (and JK could have her "mother's love" moment with her, since Bellatrix killed her daughter).
I just couldn't take the finale battle seriously after that.

 

I agree completely. That was a total fanservice moment, directed at her adult female readers. 'Are you fucking kidding me?' should have been the response of every sane person who read that scene. Her editor should have been ridiculed for years for allowing it to happen. That's the kind of idiocy they're paid to stop.

The one point where we disagree is about liking the Weasley family, which is a matter of personal taste. I don't want to debate anyone about whether Ron is a douchebag. I'll just say that I found the most irritating thing in the books to be the omnipresence of the Weasleys. The entire series should have been called 'Harry Potter and the Weasley Family.' They permeate every aspect of his life, save for the moments where Hermione saves everyone.

I understand why JKR made them so central. The books were about the importance of love, family, and sacrifice. (That also makes them a pale imitation of Chronicles of Narnia). But think about how much richer the magical world could have been without the presence of the Weasleys. Virtually every other important character in the series (Dumbledore, Snape, Voldemort, Hermione, Tonks, Luna, Moody, etc.--even Umbridge and Malfoy) helps create a universe that is unique, weird, and captivating.

The Weasleys serve as an anchor to the mundane. They are loud, ordinary, and everywhere. Did we really need that to such a degree? Even if you like them, I think it's indisputable that they're a major roadblock to writing good fanfiction that departs from canon. We mock people for bashing the Weasleys, but you almost can't write them out of Harry's life without criticizing them. The very existence of Ron, from his petty jealousies to his unpredictable loyalties to his relationship with Hermione, makes it hard to write a story that excludes him and doesn't go radically AU. No matter what, you'll get accused of bashing.

tl; dr: I have no problem with Harry/Ginny, Ron/Hermione, or any other pairing. What I truly dislike about canon is how much everything revolves around the Weasleys -- the least interesting or charming group of people in the books.

 

[QUOTE="
The Weasleys serve as an anchor to the mundane. They are loud, ordinary, and everywhere. Did we really need that to such a degree? Even if you like them, I think it's indisputable that they're a major roadblock to writing good fanfiction that departs from canon. We mock people for bashing the Weasleys, but you almost can't write them out of Harry's life without criticizing them. The very existence of Ron, from his petty jealousies to his unpredictable loyalties to his relationship with Hermione, makes it hard to write a story that excludes him and doesn't go radically AU. No matter what, you'll get accused of bashing."
Oh, I agree. I'm not a super fan. I just wanted to point out I'm not a Weasley hater, that is not why her killing Bellatrix bothered me. I do have my problems with Molly (mainly due to the way she treated Sirius in his OWN house) but I don't hate them. The twins irk me on occasion. But I do enjoy Ron. Even flawed as he is, I found he makes a realistic friend at the age of eleven-seventeen. And I like Arthur. The rest I am..whatever. Don't hate them, don't like them.

 

I think another issue caused by the centrality of the Weasleys is that it shrinks the world. A Weasley opens the Chamber of Secrets. A Weasley unwittingly harbored Voldemort's last chance for resurrection. Which in turn means a Weasley family vacation motivated Sirius to escape Azkaban. A Weasley became the assistant to the Ministry official Voldemort subverted to manipulate the Triwizard Tournament. They rival Harry himself as a magnet for plot-related weirdness, and the craziest thing is, none of that stuff has anything to do with their association with Harry! Doesn't make me dislike them, as such, but it strains credulity just a bit.

 

One problem I have witht he Weasleys is that they kinda prove this whole 'some families are better than others' Idea right. Like pretty much all of them are unusually talented, even Ron wo is the most normal of them, still gets above average grades in pretty much everything, becomes a prefects, is a very talented quidditch keeper and in Deathly Hallows we even see that he is capable of taking out most Death Eaters and Snatchers he faces.

Like I am fine with each of them being indivdiually talented, but all of them strains my suspension of disbelief a little, since they all pretty much start out disadvanted too because of their pooverty and family size.

 

Everything you mention about Ron there is very much powered by necessity of the plot. He's not shown to be a particularly capable wizard, except for when the chips are down and he needs to fight. He's a talented quidditch keeper, except when he's utterly shit. He becomes a prefect despite in no way deserving it, for plot reasons. Does he maintain above average grades? We don't see his OWL results as I recall, and he doesn't sit his NEWTs.

 

I think you forget how bad most wizards are at magic, as for grades, we can simply guess them well enough by the NEWT classes he takes, Ron got 7 OWLs only failing divination and history and we know at least six of them were Exceeds Expectations(we know he passed Astronomy, but dont know the grade).

Taure actually made a comment on Reddit a while ago, where he puts into perspective how good Harry is compared to normal wizard, though you can see how it also applies to Ron.

The people the story focuses on are unusually competent by normal standards. I dont have a problem with Ron being competent, or any one of the Weasleys for that matter, my problem with the Weasleys is, because of the unlikelyhood that this many good wizards are from a single family, despite blood not being supposed to matter.