Cedric's Death and the TWT maze
bluesqueak
pipdowns at etchells0.demon.co.uk
Thu Feb 19 21:53:32 UTC 2004
No: HPFGUIDX 91278
Carol wrote:
> But what I don't understand is how the guards or protectors or
> whatever they were could get into the maze to help the champions
> who sent up sparks to indicate that they were in trouble. The
> protectors were apparently at ground level outside the maze and
> couldn't see in.
Pip!Squeak:
I'd guess that was why the 'in trouble' signal was sparks, which go
up into the air. Distress signals for ships at sea follow the same
principle - you send up a rocket, which can be seen by ships that
won't be able to actually see *you* (because of the curvature of the
Earth).
See rocket, head like heck for the area it came from. See sparks,
crash through the maze hedges to the area they came from.
Carol:
> They'd have had to pass the same obstacles as the contestants to
> get to them.
Pip!Squeak:
But they would have had the major advantage of knowing exactly what
the obstacles are, and the correct countermeasures. The selected
guardians are Hagrid (dangerous beasts expert), Moody (who's
*supposed* to be a highly-trained Auror), Flitwick (charms expert)
and McGonagall (transfiguration expert and general tough cookie).
Between them, they could easily tackle anything in the maze - and
each of them would know *when* they couldn't handle something by
themselves.
<Snip>
Carol:
> But, again,
> if the only way into the middle is through the maze, obstacles and
> all, how is the winner supposed to get out again (assuming that the
> cup is not a portkey) without the help of the protectors, who would
> also have to get through the maze? And how would the protectors
> know they were there, except for the roar of the crowd, which had
> witnessed the winner seizing the cup?
Pip!Squeak:
The general conclusion the board reached before (personally, I was a
bit slow in getting this) was that the cup was probably always a
Portkey, set for a brief trip to the front of the maze. Fake!Moody
just added an extra stop. Nothing else makes much sense, as you say.
Alternatively, perhaps it was charmed to send up sparks of another
colour (green, blue, whatever) when someone touched it and Fake!
Moody removed that spell.
Pip!Squeak
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