Age/Tri-wizard tournament

[Melanie Moore]

No: HPFGUIDX 2410

I'm back!  I finally gave up on catching up completely, and
deleted about 600 messages.  But in the past couple of days, I
have seen a few I wanted to answer.  This is the first.

Melanie the Ravenclawlady

--- Diann Recla <drecla at msn.com> wrote:

> Is it natural for underage students to dream of participating
> in activities they can not legally do?

Absolutely!  How many teens do everything they can (fake IDs
etc) to buy alcohol or sneak into adults-only clubs?  By the
time they are 21, it's same-old-same-old.

For Fred and George, it must've been doubly frustrating.  Ron
and Harry were far from their 17th birthdays, but F&G were
almost there.  In fact, they turned 17 in the course of the
tournament.

But, even without the forbidden fruit aspect, I think it
frustrated them to know that this would probably be the only
Tri-Wizard tournament during their time at Hogwarts. There isn't
"always next year," as there is for annual events, and it won't
"always be there" like alcohol or R-and-up-rated movies.

OK, it's late, but I hope this analogy makes sense.  I'd say the
closest muggle equivalent (to the Tri-Wizard tournament) these
days is the show "Survivor".  The other day, I was reading the
requirements to apply as a contestent (just out of curiosity;
I'd be *way* out of my element there!).  One of them was that
the applicant must be 21 as of a certain day.  Can you imagine
the frustration of someone whose 21st birthday is the day after,
or even a few month after that deadline?  Even someone who
normally wouldn't be interested might be attracted to the
forbidden fruit, or just angry at the principle of being barred
due to age.  And can you just see a muggle Fred or George trying
to get around that age barrier (especially if they were 20 and a
half as of the deadline)?

Of course, those people would be elgible for Survivor II, and
any subsequent ones they make.  But when they were taking
applicants for the first one, no one knew whether there'd be
enough demand for any more.

Melanie (who's been spending too much time on "Survivor" lately)

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