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Who'd Ever Want to Be King?
- In the chess game, why don't the protagonists take the place of more important pieces, including the king? That way, they'd be much less likely to be sacrificed.
- The goal is to get to the other side, and that's kind of unlikely if you're playing the king...
- So why don't they just take two Rooks and a Queen?
- In the book, this was Ron's choice; the pieces walked off after Ron decided. (Adaptation Decay occurred in the movie, in which they took the place of three pieces that were missing when they got there (or, in the knight's case, the rider was missing)).
- Actually, according to the book, the only way across was to *win* the match. So replacing the King wasn't a bad idea at all.
- If I recall, they had to win in the movie, as well. Harry announcing "Checkmate!" was what finally let him through.
- Hmm, wonder why he didn't try that trick sooner? (JK.)
- Also, it's mentioned that the first capture is rook takes bishop. Any actual chess player knows that this is an extremely unlikely first capture.
- It's queen takes knight. Don't know how likely that one is, myself.
- Not very. Usually, a likely first capture is "Something takes Pawn" or "Knight takes something".
- The first few moves aren't mentioned at all. It's mentioned as a shock when the queen takes the knight, but there's no indication as to when this takes place in the game. Then the castle bishop move happens, which could be possible if the game is in an advanced state of play.
- At least in the movie, the first capture is pawn takes pawn, and it occurs on White's move 2.
- Though they make it look like Ron (who's a skilled chess player) only did it to see what would happen. Seems kinda dumb to sacrifice one of your pieces just cuz you're curious what it will look like.
- It wasn't dumb at all. Because of that pawn, they knew for certain that they had to protect their own pieces at all cost to avoid possible death.
- Ron was playing the Center-Counter Defense (hence Pawn to D4) but you have a point. The defense Ron used is not one of the best openings for Black.
- It's really not that inconceivable that a magical chessboard designed to keep people away from one of the most valuable treasures in the world and Ron Weasley, king of chess, would have made it to the middle game without losing any pieces.
- In high level competition, assuming the players choose to start with one of the Closed openings, it is not infrequent that you can get to well past move 20 without any captures taking place.
- Actually, since the knight is the only piece that can jump over other pieces, and the Trio are the black pieces, you can lose the knight to the queen in just five moves.
- The King cannot be taken in the game at all. A game ends with checkmate, where the king is in danger of being taken with no moves out of it. At no point does the king get defeated. Considering they needed to win the game, taking the place of the king would actually be the safest place, as it's an all-or-nothing game.
- Yeah, Ron made a foolish choice there. At least one character (presumably himself, since he plays The Strategist for the duration of the match) should have been the King and avoided unnecessary danger. The plot wouldn't need to be affected; just choose Harry or Hermione as King instead and Ron still gets to sacrifice himself.
- Well, look at it from JK Rowling's perspective. Ron had to sacrifice himself for character development, and Harry had to win the game because he's "The Hero", so the only person who could be the King would be Hermione, but that would seem sexist, like saying just because she's a girl she has to wait in the wings while the men do all the dangerous things. In-universe, there's not really an excuse, though.
- In the movie, Hermione was the queen-side castle, and that, actually, is arguably the piece that most commonly takes the longest to get developed into the action, and, aside from the Kings, the most likely piece to last all the way to the late endgame. When I, a chess player saw the movie, I immediately assumed that Ron was being subconsciously protective of Hermione when he assigned her to the queen-side castle.
- None of them would have willingly put themselves into safety if their friends were facing potential harm. Even if Ron did think of it, it would have just led to an argument.
- So it was a case of Honor Before Reason?
- That is a trope well-loved by Gryffindor. Just look a couple chapters back when Neville tried to stop the Power Trio from leaving Gryffindor Tower.
- He didn't know that people would be hurt by the chess pieces at this point, did he?
- Seeing as how he grew up with wizarding chess, which is essentially Battle Chess on a real chessboard, I'd say that if he didn't know, he should have guessed it.
- In the movie, he didn't know, hence he sacrificed a pawn to test if it was just like a real Wizard's Chess game. In the book, I forget if this was the case, since it has been years since I've last read it.
- It's only in the movie that the pieces destroy each other at all. In the book, Wizard's Chess just means that they move on their own. In that particular game, the opposing side liked to make captures by viciously punching out the defeated opponents. They had no way to know that until they saw them do it.
- Actually, the chessmen in the books are also violent and physical. Perhaps not so much as the white chessmen, but they still enjoy beating up the competition a bit.
- On a not entirely related note, but still about the chess match, when Ron is taken by the white queen, it says he takes one step forward. Forgive me if I'm wrong, as I do not claim to be an expert on chess, but can't knights only move in L-shapes? How could Ron move forward only one step?
- Maybe he took a really big step in a diagonal direction and/or the squares were relatively small.
- I always assumed step = move, as in he made one L-shaped move forward.
- Maybe the king wasn't available. I mean, if the king basically does nothing but move around the board and can't be taken, isn't it possible that all others but the king were able to be played by Harry, Ron and Hermione?
- Agreed! And what suicidal twit would ask to play a pawn? The film's solution makes sense for the same reason. Ron didn't have a choice as to the pieces, because the spaces were already there... the puzzle is set so that whoever wants to pass through is in danger. Quirrell would have been made a knight or a bishop - pieces that can survive to the endgame, but still have to risk it on the board.
- Knights can hop over other pieces. How did the bulky knights shown in the film manage that? (I suppose other pieces moved out of the way, but I like to imagine them springing over lines of pawns. Screams of terror etc.)
Lily and James, Middle-Aged Twentysomethings?
- Why do Lily and James look like they're in their forties in the Mirror Erised, and just about every other time that we see them as adults in any of the films? They were both murdered when they were in their early twenties. I mean, sure, they were "parents," but parents of a one-year-old, not a teenager!
- You have to keep in mind that Harry desires not just his family, but for his family to never have died. Fridge Brilliance says what he's seeing in the mirror is his parents alive and with at him at that moment.
- Dawson Casting anyone?
- The movies don't have to follow the same timeline as the books. Afterall the Millennium Bridge is shown getting destroyed when the book is set in the 1990s.
- Also note that if the movies followed the same timeline as the books, then Snape, Sirius, Remus and Wormtail (all contemporaries of James and Lily at school) would be in their early-to-mid-thirties. Instead, all appear to be in their mid-forties or even older — which is consistent with the pictures of James and Lily.
- Once they cast Alan Rickman to play Snape, they kinda had to make the other characters who'd been to school with him older than they were in the books.
- I don't remember where she said this but I seem to remember JK Rowling once saying that she didn't mean to make Harry's parents and co so young, it just sort of turned out that way. The books never really pay much attention to how young they are.
- The exact ages of Snape, Sirius, Remus and Wormtail was very implicit in the books and can only be discerned from details in the later books. In the movies you have to assume they're about a decade older than in the books. Therefore James and Lily Potter would be in their 30s when they died, and their contemporaries would be 40-something by the time Harry enters Hogwarts. The actors playing Sirius, Remus, and Wormtail were in fact around that age, and with a little suspension of disbelief you can accept Rickman in that age range as well. I think this was done in order to cast veteran character actors in the roles, who were likely to be older than their 30s.
- Meta theory here: I don't think JK Rowling ever really had set ages for them until much later. I remember shortly after Goblet of Fire came out she offhandedly gave Snape's age as 35 or 36 when a fan asked. I think she just gave a number and then when HP Lexicon (which she's admitted to using) and other sites listed that age as concrete canon she just sort of stuck with that. I think this is also partially why we have so many confusing issues with the timeline (Bellatrix's age is a commonly noted one).
Chocolate Frogs
- Is there any evidence that the chocolate frogs in the books are alive for lack of a better word is is this just another thing that the films invented? because whilst in the films they move and bounce and jump out windows and croak; in the books I don't remember a single character having to make any particular effort to catch one. From what I can tell from the book description they sound like nothing more than frog shaped chocolate.
- Yeah, I'm fairly certain the whole "sentient chocolate" thing was just in the movie.
- In the film, Ron mentioned that the chocolate frogs had a spell on them so they could move like a frog and had only one good jump in them. They were not stated to be sentient or alive.
The Boy Who Lived, according to who?
- I've only seen the movies so apologies if this is answered in the books. Everyone talks about how Harry is the only one to ever survive the Killing Curse. How does anybody know that's what happened? The only people around at the time were Lily (freshly dead), Harry (who can't exactly talk yet), and Voldemort (now a wraith/spirit/thing). Why was the first conclusion of this situation "Harry survived a killing curse which has never been done before in the history of ever" instead of "Lily and Voldemort killed each other somehow and injured baby Harry in the process"?
- Because Lily's wand could have been inspected to show it didn't fire anything lethal. Voldemort's body might have been there and it would bear no wound, meaning a Killing Curse must have struck him. Harry's scar also could be recognized to be a magical scar. There are ways of detecting that, as shown by when Bill was wounded by Greyback and the magical nature of the scars meant they could never heal.
- Doesn't hold up. Harry didn't have a wand either, why assume it was him? If baby Harry could invoke some kind of magic shield on himself, why couldn't Lily? Secondly, they didn't have Voldemort's wand to inspect, so it could easily be assumed it was his own spell backfiring. Peter Pettigrew had it the whole time, somehow.
- In addition to traces of magic left around, the Killing Curse was practically Voldemort's "signature spell". After seeing the scar on Harry's forehead and seeing his parents' bodies, with no marks but dead (a hallmark of the Killing Curse), it would have made sense to assume that Harry was attacked and survived somehow. Since it was known that Voldemort was targeting the Potters, it was a safe assumption that he had done the attacking, even if he hadn't left a body behind.
- Nobody would have even guessed it was a killing curse. Clearly, killing curses have never failed before, they don't cause things to blow up or disintegrate bodies. Whatever happened that night, BOTH these things occurred. Unless they were told by some authority figure on scene (hint hint... Dumbledore?) everyone would assume the cause was some kind of spell that is supposed to blow up.
- I've seen this discussed and there's is a theory that because wizards are so bigoted that they went oh' it couldn't be Lilly, she's a muggleborn, it must have been the son because at least he has two magical parents.
- Additionally, the wand movement used when casting Avada Kedavra just so happens to be in the shape of Harry's 'lightning bolt' scar.
Keys: Birds or Bugs?
- When Harry first sees the magic flying keys, he thinks they're birds, but wouldn't a flying key look more like a weird butterfly or a dragonfly than a bird?
- He saw feathered wings, he thought birds. Seems fairly logical.
- You might be thinking of the film, where the wings look more like butterflies. In the book, the wings are feathered, and it takes a longer time for the children to realise they're keys. In the film, Hermione just thinks they're birds and Harry notices quickly.
Time flies...
- Harry's birthday is July 31st. Hogwarts' school term begins on September 1st. So why did Harry and Hagrid seem to go from Diagon Alley directly to King's Cross Station after buying his school supplies? Harry leaves the hut on the rock with Hagrid after meeting him, so it's not like Hagrid left and then came back later in August to take him school shopping - otherwise, where did Hagrid take him when they left the morning of his birthday? Did they stay in the Leaky Cauldron and just hang out in Diagon Alley for a whole month?
- No, you're right. There was a whole month between Diagon Alley and King's Cross. Harry spent that month at Privet Drive. "Harry's last month with the Dursleys wasn't fun....Every night before he went to sleep, Harry ticked off another day on the piece of paper he had pinned to the wall, counting down to September the first." It was right in the chapter transition, so it's easy to miss. There's a rather amusing scene, however, where Harry awkwardly asks the Dursleys for a lift to King's Cross, they leave him at the station, and promptly drive away as quickly as possible.
- My apologies; I knew I should've clarified. I was actually referring to the film adaption, where there wasn't any "awkward month spent with the Dursleys" shown. It cut directly from Harry learning about Voldemort in the Leaky Cauldron to Hagrid giving Harry his ticket at the station. (And Hagrid still had the stone from Gringotts in his pocket, so it isn't as if he sent Harry back to the Dursleys for the month and met him at the station later to give him the ticket.)
- Perhaps they just cut that scene. It certainly wasn't a particularly interesting scene, especially when you consider the time constraints of film. I just assumed that Harry hung out with the Dursleys for a month, and Hagrid picked him up in September rather than the Dursleys giving him a ride.
- Then why does Hagrid still have the stone with him? He clearly pats a hand over his pocket when he mentions that Dumbledore will be wanting to see him - if he'd gone back to Hogwarts for a month, why wouldn't he have given it to Dumbledore before then?
- *clears throat* Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe the films ever specify when Harry's birthday is or the exact date that term starts at Hogwarts, and there's plenty of evidence elsewhere that they're following a different timeline than the books are. His birthday isn't even alluded to in the prophecy in the fifth film — the "Born as the seventh month dies" line is cut out. So it's likely that his birthday was moved from July 31st to sometime in August, and Harry stayed with Hagrid at the Leaky Cauldron for a few days until it was time for him to go to Hogwarts; this way, the filmmakers didn't have to cover the events of him going back to the Dursleys for an entire month before heading to school.
- And in the fifth film, the "born as the seventh month dies" part of the prophecy is changed to "approaches", so you're definitely on to something there.
Why laughing in front of Uncle Vernon?
- Why did Harry allow himself to let out a laugh upon Dudley's predicament only for Uncle Vernon to turn around and severely ground him once they got back home? If he knew that Dudley's situation would really worry his uncles, why he didn't opt to laugh more discreetly? He could have made a surprised expression on his face to make it look he was worried for Dudley too and cover his mouth with his hands so Uncle Vernon would not see that he was laughing. Even better, he could have also said something like "I'm gonna call security" and run away so he could laugh alone far away from his uncles so Uncle Vernon would not have seen him laughing.
- Because he's a kid who's taking relish in the fact that one of the people who taunts and bullies him daily is panicking. It also shows how impulsive he is, even at that age.
Smart boa (movie)
- In the movie, as Harry is talking with the boa at the zoo, he asks how Burma was and if he missed his family. The boa then makes Harry aware of the sign on the outside of the window that states he was bred in captivity. How does the snake know that sign exists or what it means? Can it understand English?
