To be fair, in canon Dumbledore and Grindelwald were a little more than just BFFs and one of them still ended up a psychotic dark wizard.

Edit: Wooo, 1000 posts and it only took me 7 years!

 

This is actually a really good, kind of amusing point. Hadn't considered that (Gryffindor being more evil as opposed to Slytherin being less evil, as a way of rationalizing their friendship). Maybe they disagreed about how Muggleborns should be handled but were both totally in favor of just stomping the shit out of those violent, slack-jawed Muggles.

EDIT: I mean, to be the best duelist of his age, he must have kicked a lot of ass/had at least a few enemies.

 

I'd wager that Gryffindor wasn't known for his sword just because he was a peace loving hippie.

 

Well those were Middle Ages.

Surely most folks had swords then.

 

There is a distinct difference between having a sword and using it methinks. Besides, even if you do use it, you have to be skilled enough not to impale yourself, training which most people probably wouldn't be able to afford. Additionally, swords are distinctly muggle, not necessarily something a wizard would have needed. And considering the witch burnings of the time, they probably wouldn't have had a very good reputation.

 

The Founders were able to build a castle for a school so I doubt they were lacking in money.

Gryffindor's sword was Goblin made and they are able to absorb anything that makes them stronger. Also Goblin forging techniques are highly coveted by Wizards (based on what Ron said in DH) so they must do something that wizards can't.

I don't really know, but I think the witch burnings happened from about five hundred years ago onwards whereas Gryffindor and the Founders are from around a thousand years ago.

 

Remember that according to Pottermore, wizards often openly associated with Muggles before the Statute of Secrecy (1692). Pottermore says that the Malfoys got their lands from William the Conqueror for doing some services for him. It's not hard to imagine that some other wizards might also have collaborated with or done work for Muggles, and that some of that work might have involved a sword for appearances, if not for actual work.

Then again, if there's any wizard that I can see actually using a sword, it's the "original" Gryffindor.

 

Well, I'd say if you go to through the trouble of getting your hands on a goblin made sword, you probably have a serious need to stab things considering how stingy the goblins are with their weapons. It would be a bit overkill to have one just to decorate your mantelpiece.

 

You sure about that? Maybe whoever bought these shoes needed to walk a very long distance.


"The design costs around $228,000. Each pair is handcrafted from solid gold and encrusted with 2,200 brilliant cut diamonds, for a total of 30 carats."

 

Fair enough, I could see it being a status symbol. Of course, I could argue that there is a difference between paying some money and convincing the Goblins to part with one of "their" weapons, but I suppose there isn't really any canon to back me up there. We don't know how exactly one goes about buying/receiving one.

That said, from DH we know that you can create an almost exact duplicate for the sword which only the goblins can tell is fake. I'd presume that means there wouldn't be much status involved in having a fancy sword among wizards who can conjure anything.

 

Just because Gryffindor had a sword doesn't mean he was evil. It just means he stabbed things and/or people with a sword at one point, and considering the time period he was from, that's not really a terrible stretch. You need to reach to justify Harry Potter walking around with a sword, but then, Harry Potter never lived in a time period that not only contained vikings, but enough vikings that they had a king and an established empire. On the list of things that justifies carrying a sword, "Viking King" is pretty high up there, alongside "Zombie Apocalypse" and "I'm A Jedi."

Also, I'd contest that example, Lulzing. If the sword was plated in silver and was dripping all over the place with ostentatious gems, I'd agree that it was probably strictly ornamental. But goblin-wrought weapons are expensive for practical reasons. A sword made of gold is ornamental. A sword made of adamantium is not, no matter how much craftmanship went into the Celtic knots on the crossguard.

Gryffindor obviously must have used the sword. If he hadn't, he would have had no need to have one made by freaking goblins. Unless the goblins spontaneously made one and then gave it to him. And as far as we know, that's not how it happened (but then, Griphook is a bastard liar, so we can't be totally secure in taking his word on it).

And I always wondered after hearing that why it was that the sword did not already have something absorbed that made it stronger. I refuse to believe that Gryffindor would have been stupid and/or lazy enough to not be assed to, for instance, dip the thing in fire and pull out a sword that would from that point forward perpetually be on fire. That would be the tits.

What's the point of commissioning an adaptive sword from a race of Lawful Evil Warrior-Lawyers if you're not going to flagrantly and openly abuse the living hell out of it? I'd have been shoving that thing into random shit just to see if something would happen.

Or won't. Or can't do easily, so they outsource it to the goblins instead of taking the harder route of learning how to do it themselves.

Or the goblins disappear any wizard who tries to break their monopoly.

Just because X product is highly coveted by Y group does not necessarily mean that Y is wholly incapable of producing X.

 

Clearly he got syphilis from some muggleborn poontang he was tapping in secret, then decided that that's what you get for messing around with mudbloods, and after a while, the syphilis drove him mad so he hatched himself a basilisk and stored it under the school with some insane bull about his heir coming back one day to purge the school of syphilismudbloods.

 

I finally understand why they named the school Hogwarts.

 

I just got an e-mail stating the final chapters of the Chamber of Secrets have been released. Fitting, opening the Chamber on Secrets on the day it was opened 10 years ago.

Here is some of the content I've found for those who do not wish to access Pottermore.

The Gryffindor Sword

Spoiler

The sword of Gryffindor was made a thousand years ago by goblins, the magical world's most skilled metalworkers, and is therefore enchanted. Fashioned from pure silver, it is inset with rubies, the stone that represents Gryffindor in the hour-glasses that count the house points at Hogwarts. Godric Gryffindor's name is engraved just beneath the hilt.

The sword was made to Godric Gryffindor's specifications by Ragnuk the First, finest of the goblin silversmiths, and therefore King (in goblin culture, the ruler does not work less than the others, but more skillfully). When it was finished, Ragnuk coveted it so much that he pretended that Gryffindor had stolen it from him, and sent minions to steal it back. Gryffindor defended himself with his wand, but did not kill his attackers. Instead he sent them back to their king bewitched, to deliver the threat that if he ever tried to steal from Gryffindor again, Gryffindor would unsheathe the sword against them all.

The goblin king took the threat seriously and left Gryffindor in possession of his rightful property, but remained resentful until he died. This was the foundation for the false legend of Gryffindor's theft that persists, in some sections of the goblin community, to this day.

The question of why a wizard would need a sword, though often asked, is easily answered. In the days before the International Statute of Secrecy, when wizards mingled freely with Muggles, they would use swords to defend themselves just as often as wands. Indeed, it was considered unsporting to use a wand against a Muggle sword (which is not to say it was never done). Many gifted wizards were also accomplished duellists in the conventional sense, Gryffindor among them.

Much like a magic wand, the sword of Gryffindor appears to be almost sentient, responding to appeals for help by Gryffindor's chosen successors; and, similar to a wand, part of its magic is that the silver drinks in poison and blood, which may then be used against enemies.

There have been many enchanted swords in folklore. The Sword of Nuadu, part of the four legendary treasures of Tuatha Dé Danann, was invincible when drawn. Gryffindor's sword owes something to the legend of Excalibur, the sword of King Arthur, which in some legends must be drawn from a stone by the rightful king. The idea of fitness to carry the sword is echoed in the sword of Gryffindor's return to worthy members of its true owner's house.

There is a further allusion to Excalibur emerging from the lake when Harry must dive into a frozen forest pool to retrieve the sword in Deathly Hallows (though the location of the sword was really due to a spiteful impulse of Snape's to place it there), for in other versions of the legend, Excalibur was given to Arthur by the Lady of the Lake, and was returned to the lake when he died.

Within the magical world, physical possession is not necessarily a guarantee of ownership. This concept applies to the three Deathly Hallows, and also to Gryffindor's sword.

I am interested in what happens when cultural beliefs collide. In the Harry Potter books, the most militant of the goblin race consider all goblin-made objects to be theirs by right, although a specific object might be made over to a wizard for his life-span upon a payment of gold. Witches and wizards, like Muggles, believe that once payment has been made, the object belongs to them and their descendants or legatees in perpetuity. This is a clash of values without a solution, because each side has a different concept of what is right. It therefore presents Harry with a difficult moral dilemma when Griphook demands the sword as payment for his services in Deathly Hallows.

Chamber of Secrets

Spoiler

The subterranean Chamber of Secrets was created by Salazar Slytherin without the knowledge of his three fellow founders of Hogwarts. The Chamber was, for many centuries, believed to be a myth; however, the fact that rumours of its existence persisted for so long reveals that Slytherin spoke of its creation and that others believed him, or else had been permitted, by him, to enter.

There is no doubt that each of the four founders sought to stamp their own mark upon the school of witchcraft and wizardry that they intended would be the finest in the world. It was agreed that each would construct their own houses, for example, choosing the location of common rooms and dormitories. However, only Slytherin went further, and built what was in effect a personal, secret headquarters within the school, accessible only by himself or by those he allowed to enter.

Perhaps, when he first constructed the Chamber, Slytherin wanted no more than a place in which to instruct his students in spells of which the other three founders may have disapproved (disagreements sprung up early around the teaching of the Dark Arts). However, it is clear by the very decoration of the Chamber that by the time Slytherin finished it he had developed grandiose ideas of his own importance to the school. No other founder left behind them a gigantic statue of themselves or draped the school in emblems of their own personal powers (the snakes carved around the Chamber of Secrets being a reference to Slytherin’s powers as a Parselmouth).

What is certain is that by the time Slytherin was forced out of the school by the other three founders, he had decided that henceforth, the Chamber he had built would be the lair of a monster that he alone – or his descendants – would be able to control: a Basilisk. Moreover, only a Parselmouth would be able to enter the Chamber. This, he knew, would keep out all three founders and every other member of staff.

The existence of the Chamber was known to Slytherin’s descendants and those with whom they chose to share the information. Thus the rumour stayed alive through the centuries.

There is clear evidence that the Chamber was opened more than once between the death of Slytherin and the entrance of Tom Riddle in the twentieth century. When first created, the Chamber was accessed through a concealed trapdoor and a series of magical tunnels. However, when Hogwarts’ plumbing became more elaborate in the eighteenth century (this was a rare instance of wizards copying Muggles, because hitherto they simply relieved themselves wherever they stood, and vanished the evidence), the entrance to the Chamber was threatened, being located on the site of a proposed bathroom. The presence in school at the time of a student called Corvinus Gaunt – direct descendant of Slytherin, and antecedent of Tom Riddle – explains how the simple trapdoor was secretly protected, so that those who knew how could still access the entrance to the Chamber even after newfangled plumbing had been placed on top of it.

Whispers that a monster lived in the depths of the castle were also prevalent for centuries. Again, this is because those who could hear and speak to it were not always as discreet as they might have been: the Gaunt family could not resist boasting of their knowledge. As nobody else could hear the creature sliding beneath floorboards or, latterly, through the plumbing, they did not have many believers, and none, until Riddle, dared unleash the monster on the castle.

Successive headmasters and mistresses, not to mention a number of historians, searched the castle thoroughly many times over the centuries, each time concluding that the chamber was a myth. The reason for their failure was simple: none of them was a Parselmouth.

 

...I'm not sure whether to facepalm or laugh.

 

I think the developers must be getting as bored of this nonsense as I am. They at least put some effort into book 1, book 2 was pretty boring the whole way through.

 

Perhaps it didn't create enough revenue so JKR lost interest.

 

Aye, I suppose thats possible. But it wasn't just the extra material that was lacking, it was also the 'moments' that were more boring that the ones for PS.

 

When an actual Wizard/Witch needed to be rescued (I'm presuming this all before the Secrecy act) during that time when Muggles were prosecuting and burning Magical folks, then I'd say a rescue team of wizards riding in on horses with swords would be far more effective and practical than a bunch of men in robes making a grand entrance on broomsticks, shooting spells from sticks left right and centre, which would not help in anyway in trying to avoid a major battle/fight with Muggles. A magical, goblin-made sword which would be highly sort after in the Wizarding world too, well that's just a bonus.

So I can sort of see where getting a sword comes into it. Godric is this "hero" of Wizards who goes about with a magical sword, which would be very useful in those times. This is a sort of conclusion you can jump to easily I think then you know he's the sort of person who's easily persuaded (or from his own volition) to start a school to hide children and a place where they can practice their magic.

EDIT: Oh, I see this was sort of addressed better in the later reveal, nevermind.

Yeah I see the parallels here too.

Gryff and Slyth, friends who have a lot of money, agree to help in the foundation of the school. They create the school but then have a falling out over a big issue, the bad side of Slytherin is shown (for all we know Gryffindor could have been a qunt too, history written by the victors etc) and he sticks a Basilik in the hidden room to get back at the other founders and to continue his anti-mudblood doctrine.

There doesn't have to be any black-white, with this. Slytherin could have been a nice enough guy whilst he and Gryffindor got along helping wizards or starting schools, he was just an elitist bigot which ended up causing the falling out.

Same as how Dumbledore may have been a really nice guy, and went into the whole "for the greater good" thing with the best intentions, when really it was a nasty bit of shit that he should never have gotten himself into to begin with.

 

...completely ignoring the whole Wizards Vs Muggle debate, every argument that can be made for the muggle side of it relies on modern tech. Why would wizards prefer to go hand to hand with muggles, rather use magic?