PoA MOVIE DISCUSSION.

[Carol]

"Nightbreed" <md at ...> wrote:

> The real question is, why have the train at all? Because JKR was on a train when she thought of the book in the first place, because the entire idea was based around a boy going to a wizard school by train. But, logically with brooms, floo & apparition the entire idea of a train seems pointless unless you unbalance the powers and preferences of the wizards. 
 
> Maybe it just says a lot about Lupin's character, his un-flashiness, his simplicity that he chooses less magical modes of transportation.

Carol responds:
 I've already indicated why I think that Lupin took the train (nothing to do with simplicity--DD wanted him there as DADA instructor to protect the students and especially Harry from Dark magic in whatever form--Dementors and/or Sirius Black).

As for why have the train, I think there are a number of reasons. First, Muggle-born students have no other way to get to Hogwarts castle. Second, a lot of younger students Pure-Blood or Half-Blood students Side-along Apparating of using the Floo Network would be awkward (IIRC, they do use the Floo Network one year as a "one-off" measure and McGonagall (and, presumably, the other Heads of House) has to put up with a stream of students landing in her office and getting soot on her carpet--I forget how they dealt with the Muggle-borns that year). Third, the Hogwarts Express is a shared cultural experience for the kids, a prolonged (several-hour) transition between their homes, where even the Pure-Blood and Half-Blood kids are theoretically not allowed to practice magic, and the magical world of Hogwarts (and vice versa). It's a time to get to know new students, who have not yet been Sorted, and for them to get to know each other, and a chance for students from different Houses (or years) who choose to do so to spend time together. (HRH, for example, can sit with Luna, who is both younger than they are and in Ravenclaw.) The older students probably enjoy the ride and look forward to it much more than they would a Floo trip or Side-along Apparition (daytime broom rides being out of the question even with a lightening spell for trunks because of the Statute of Secrecy). Even students old enough to Apparate ride the Hogwarts Express, either for the sheer enjoyment of the experience or because Apparition with a trunk (and possibly a pet) is cumbersome.

BTW, I realize that we're getting off track here and bringing in material from the books. Strictly speaking, the Hogwarts Express is part of the films because it's part of the books. But the shots of the Hogwarts Express in the films seem to me almost symbolic, a seeming part of the Muggle world that's really a journey to (or from) another world, the WW, which is and isn't part of our own world.

Another point--even the younger kids can use magic on the Hogwarts Express, so in a way the train an extension of the Hogwarts grounds or the WW even as they pass over indisputably Muggle territory. And King's Cross is the crossover point or gateway to and from that world.

Carol, who thinks that the Hogwarts Express is an integral part of the Hogwarts experience and suspects that the students think so, too