What to do with the Quidditch team? (WAS Untackled (?) Questions)

[ftah3]

No: HPFGUIDX 32575

cindysphynx wrote:
> Hopefully, Quiddich in Books 5 and 6 will be a useful distraction 
> from the fight against Voldemort.  I hope, however, that future 
> Quiddich becomes "dark" just like the rest of the future books.   
> 
> My personal view is that Harry has been the Quiddich hero for long 
> enough.  I'd like to see him take it on the chin a few times in 
OoP.  
> It would be great if JKR introduces another (Ravensclaw?) character 
> who just is a better flyer and seeker than Harry.  Compounding 
> Harry's misery could be the fact that he (1) is also the captain, 
> therefore has a conflict of interest as to whether he should 
replace 
> himself while enduring criticism when he does not, and (2) has to 
> deal with the expectations associated with having won the Quiddich 
> cup twice now (or was it three times?).

Hmm, well, they've only won the Quidditch Cup once, in PoA.  In 
PS/SS, Harry 
was in the hospital wing during the last game, and Gryff. got 
stomped.  In CoS, the last game was cancelled (I think).  But that 
was why Wood was so freaked out in PoA about winning the cup that 
year ~ it was his last year, Gryff. hadn't yet won the cup, he was 
desperate to win.  (And you know, it seems like any time Gryff. lost 
once Harry made the team, he felt like it was his fault.  Something 
kept him from playing, so the team lost.  And I'm thinking, so why 
can't the *other* players step up, eh?)

The thing I don't get about the Quidditch games is why Gryff. gets 
stomped without Harry around.  It sounds almost as if the Seeker is 
the *only* player that matters ~ whoever has the best Seeker 
automatically wins.  In the school version, at least; because we saw 
in the World Cup that a cracking good Seeker does not the game win.  
Harry is used to being the loser (guilt trips galore!), so I don't 
really feel a bloodlust to see Harry get trounced.  I guess what I 
*would* like to see is the whole team improve.  So that it's not that 
Harry isn't the hero of the game, but that the whole team is damn 
good.  On the other hand, if Gryff. does get trounced, it'd be nice 
if it wasn't so much 'neener neener our Seeker is better than Haaaa-
rry' as the fact that the whole challenging team was better.

Right, so I get bored with the one-on-one pissing contests.  LOL.  :-P

On the other hand, I rather liked Book 4 for the fact that Quidditch 
had a very small role.  And it might be neat for Harry to be faced 
with the fact that, like many kids who star in school sports, that 
he's probably not going to leave school and be picked up as national 
league's star Seeker.  I don't expect he would suddenly become a 
bookworm or a top student, but I've always gotten the feeling that he 
has some latent natural talent, other than being good on a 
broomstick, that Harry hasn't explored.  Being so new to the 
wizarding world, and having been told all his life he's good-for-
nothing, it doesn't really surprise me that he hasn't taken many 
risks in terms of exercising his power; and since he has had 
Quidditch as the 'only thing he's good at,' he hasn't needed to.  

But, if Quidditch became less Harry's strong point, I wonder what 
he'd find to fill the void?  I hope we would finally see some of 
those elusive magical talents which make him a supposedly "great 
wizard."  Would he discover that he's particularly good at charms, or 
maybe discover to his great horror that he is (eek!  gasp!  heaven 
forfend!) a natural at potions?  ;-)  Who knows!

Mahoney