Quidditch strategy (was Couple of silly detail-questions...)

[Steve Vander Ark]

No: HPFGUIDX 9901


> >First, in CoS, Chap. 7, Harry is feeling guilty about missing the 
> last 
> >game of the season in SS/PS, resulting in Gryffindor's "worst 
defeat 
> >in three hundred years." 

Doesn't say anything about the score. It was worst because they 
deserved to win, really really deserved to win, and were robbed of it 
through no fault of their own. Plus, I see this as just another 
example of hyperbole in JKR's writing. Three hundred years? Maybe. 
Just a really really long time, when by golly we sure deserved it and 
got screwed? More likely. I didn't put it on the timeline because of 
that logic.



> 
> >We have ample experience with ghosts 
> >being invisible and speaking, so why not just assume that it was 
one 
> >of them?
> 
> Good point!  Maybe Ron and Harry don't know ghosts can be 
invisible?  
> The only one we see vanishing is Peeves, no?  But Harry pretends to 
be 
> the invisible Baron and that goes over okay . . . I think you're 
> right, they should've entertained that possibility.

Or we can look at it from the opposite view that the reason they 
DIDN'T assume ghosts was because what Harry heard and described 
didn't exhibit characteristics of ghosts. Ghosts typically do no 
actual damage to living beings. Even in our world, ghosts are not 
really reported to be dangerous, by which I mean that they 
don't "rip...tear...kill." They just go about their spectral business 
and usually leave livings alone. In the HP universe, they interact 
quite a bit more, but they don't actually do anything to hurt anyone. 
About the worst they could manage would be a rush of cold. So when 
Harry hears someone talking about viciously murdering people, he 
wouldn't think ghost at all. We do think that way simply because we 
haven't had as much experience with ghosts as he has.

Steve Vander Ark
The Harry Potter Lexicon
http://www.i2k.com/~svderark/lexicon