That. You’d definitely need a strong neck at the very least to rapidly turn your head as you corner, which I imagine would be imperative in high-speed seeker chases. The rest is obviously dependent on position – seekers profit from a lighter build, beaters would probably have to be more of an Aaron Judge type. I’d imagine keepers and chasers fall somewhere in between.

As for one fanon idea that I absolutely loathe, it’s the idea that Ron is a useless moron, included in a story only to play the moron to Hermione’s genius. It serves only as the laziest of characterizations, with no opportunity for character development whatsoever.

 

I'm not sure there are those protections, the wizarding world seems pretty casual with it's lack of safety protections. In fact, the concept of quiditch involves hitting 10 inch diameter balls of iron at each other. I can't think of any examples of safety being taken into consideration in Harry Potter's education.

 

I'm not sure if that's fanon so much as canon from the movie adaptations, though.

 

@Mordecai CoS11 Seems to support the idea that wizards are sturdier than Muggles.

 

I wasn't saying that they aren't.

However, to my mind its logical that if a wizard is sturdy enough not to be hurt by the various forces inherent in flying around at 150+ mph as a young teen, then there's something going on there biologically or magically that means they aren't going to get ripped by doing it. If its not affecting them, its not affecting them at all.

Of the quidditch positions I can see the chasers getting a good workout from throwing and catching, the keeper likewise, and the beaters definitely getting good upper body strength. The seeker, I don't see getting a substantial workout.

 

@Mordecai

Have you ever ridden a bike downhill fast? It's not a completely casual exercise.

 

I do motorcycle track days with my 'naked' style bike occasionally, and I can confirm, just sitting on the thing at even 100mph is a non-trivial exercise. Neck, core, shoulders, thighs all will be aching after a day and that's only an hour on track total. Considering that 150mph is more than twice the air resistance to overcome, that I'd imagine a racing broom can achieve better cornering forces than my fairly vanilla road bike and throw in some decent g forces in the dives as well and I think you'd be in pretty good shape. Especially if you're doing that for a couple hours 3 or 4 times a week in training.

A decent seeker seems to hover somewhere between a motorcycle racer and a red bull air race pilot in terms of physical stress, and for the most part those guys are at least in decent shape.

Uness of course there is some kind of wind shield on the broom and 'anti-g' measure I suppose, in which case, well, magic wins as per usual.

 

Eh, I figure that there's something going on to make it easier on the rider, but I always assumed that it would only be partially effective. I don't really have much to base that thought on, but that's just the impression that I get. If I'm right though, a reduced workout is still a workout of a sort, and would still have some effect.

 

So not an idea that I hate but that I saw several times in fanfic and that I am perplexed about: Harry or Hermione are all flustered while their roommates change into pyjamas and flee to change in the bathroom cheeks red in embarrassement... Even after years of living in a dorm...

Why should muggleborns be embarrassed about that? As soon as we go to school (meaning 6 at the very latest) we have sports 1-2 times a week with communal showers... Usually it's a time to chat together and nobody makes a fuss about being naked. And (at least in German speaking part of europe) communal showers at public gyms and pools are a thing and people don't wear anything between locker rooms and showers because it's just impractical, you'd only get your clothes wet. People aren't shy about socializing during that time either.
So where does this idea of "flustered muggleborns because purebloods run around naked" come from?

 

While I can't speak for every school in the UK, we never showered after PE in any of my schools as a kid so you'd never see anyone else in less than their underwear. Only time you'd strip down all the way was getting changed for swimming lessons - and there's wasn't much of that - but I think we had cubicles for changing so maybe not even then. And you'd shower in your swimming trunks after the lesson.

So yeah, being around a bunch of naked schoolmates would be pretty damn weird in my experience.

 

Thats definitely not my experience in the UK. There were showers in the gym block, but no one ever used them, even after swimming. And whilst there are communal changing rooms and such at most public pools, they aren't a place you socialise. Its generally considered weird to do anything more than just get changed and get your stuff together before leaving.

Certainly it'd be strange for them to still be bothered by it after a short amount of time at Hogwarts. I'd think that you'd get used to that situation pretty quickly, especially if you are around a few other folk who genuinely don't care and who think you're a bit strange for caring.

 

My experience in school (Scotland) was that there was a portion of the class who had absolutely no qualms about stripping completely naked and using the communal showers together (usually people who were part of one of the sports teams), while many of the rest of the kids studiously tried to avoid seeing any kind of flesh at all.

Then there were the ones who tried to set each other on fire with deodorant, but there's always those guys, and they usually only managed it a couple of times.

 

Huh... Maybe it is a continental thing (or a girl thing) to chat in the showers... (Girls go together to the bathroom after all... not sure if it is a thing over here too)

Though we were more guessing holiday destination based on suntan than fighting with deodorant...

 

My PE teacher once opened the door because we were half naked burning each other with deodorant, yelled at us, threw two basketballs (doing more damage than the deodorant ever did) and left.

We were always in a hurry to get dressed up after that.

 

Gigantic Power-Gaps that in the end don't help Harry or Co. out of the sanctions of canon.

Characters having access to information on the virtue of "having done research on it" or "learning it through self-study", Harry can't learn Apparition on his own for several reasons (Highly regulated/will show up with the underage magic tracker, took him a long time in canon to do so despite wanting to and being of age, it's a practical learning sort of tool) you can't learn to drive a car by reading books. Also, a bunch of Dark Magic is highly restricted/not likely to be in any books in Hogwarts and ESPECIALLY not Flourish and Blotts. Even knockturn alley is presented as this really dingy place that mostly sells crap and useless junk.

Harry getting a very 'powerful' wand with ten thousand different mixtures of wood and a phoenix core drenched in thestral blood etc... I think the only interesting wand you can give Harry would probably be Horned Serpent (just because it lends itself to Parselmouths). Anyways the "power of a wand" isn't even mentioned in the books at all until the seventh, even then we don't see Ron's Unicorn Hair wand having any trouble with him casting several hexes and curses throughout the series, a lot of what Rowling wrote on wandlore is written but never actually put into practice.

Snape risking life and limb to save Harry/secretly loves the boy. Snape loathes Harry because of what he represents, the only reason he doesn't just flat out hate him is that he is Lily's son, but in practice, he doesn't care that much. He's not saving Harry from the Dursleys, he's not keeping tabs on him under a chameleon charm.

 

You must not have read Cursed Child then.

I think any idea can be done well, it just depends on the author.

Having said that, magical oaths, whereby a wizard just raises his wand and swears that he has not done so and so and as such is innocent is just too egregious. If this were really possible, one would think that the entire existence of DMLE and wizarding courts would be untenable. It would also have ensure that Sirius would never have gone to Azkaban and Lucius Malfoy would never have escaped going there in the first place.

It is just lazy prop and I have never seen it done well. I do not think any author actually thinks what the consequences of such ability would really mean in a world. Simplistically, it'd would at least make determining the truth so much easier, when on the contrary we see that it is actually just as difficult in the wizarding world as it is in the real. Probably more so because of Obliviation, Occlumency and so on.

The absolute demonisation of Dark Arts in Fanon and creating a counter to it by using so-called Light magic. There is, in canon no usage of the word light magic or light wizard. Fanfics also take a much more hardline view of Dark Arts then we see in Canon. Harry is not berated for using sectumsepra just because it is dark magic. His use of the unforgivables also does not bring about righteous fury from anyone else.
[This spawned a discussion which you can follow here: The Dark Arts - Canon vs Fanon]

 

Ugh... that one is terrible. A super-powerful, super special wand, usually really long, definitely not compensating for anything or even a staff. Unwieldy, but somehow that never makes Harry react slowly in a fight/duel or even gives him any trouble with handling it at first.

@Johnny Farrar : I swear that I won't make any more oaths to prove my innocence in the matter of the urine on the public loo floor. So mote it be.

As for the Dark Arts, [Moved to dark arts thread]

 

Apologies; didn't realize the discussion had moved.