to think Hogwarts is actually a really small school?

[FlutteringButterflie]

I watch the film earlier and realised in Griffindor in Harry's year there were only 5 boys and 3 girls. There are 4 houses so probably about 40 pupils per year.

7 years, so about 280 pupils - not really that many when you think about it.

[geek]

[CaptainCapybara]

I was wondering that too, what's the right pronunciation then?

[Wellthen]

Surely it makes sense that if you cant remember the death then it doesnt really count? Which is why his mother's death doesnt count.

I dont understand hardcore fans who use the films as evidence for anything - the films are based on the books, not a complete visual representation of them! Lots of kids in the great hall - looks cool. A few extra in scenes in classrooms or common rooms - cheaper.

Equally people who apply muggle rules to the magic world - pastoral care and so on. School is obviously a completely different thing in their world. Ofsted report made me laugh though!

I guess I'm a bit of Lutheran with respect to HP. The only thing that matters is the actual books or what JK says.

[Tee2072]

Again, anything that makes no sense to us in the HP verse?

Magic.

Just assume magic.

[ConfusedPixie]

I have found the Shoebox Project, the ultimate Marauder-verse ff!
shoebox.lomara.org/

Thrilled about that!

slap I forgot about that! I wonder if Rowling threw that in there to get us all to realise that squibs do exist among us?

Tee it's made pointedly obvious that Dumbledore manipulated things for the greater good throughout the series though, he really was a fucked up character and I remember thinking as a teen reading the series that it related to parental figures in life who believed that they were doing things for your own good when actually, sometimes, they got it so very wrong, which I'm sure Dumbledore laments about at one point in the books? Unless that was ff too

Hagrid is a character who sees life very black and white and is the ultimate in somebody who has been manipulated by Dumbledore.

It did used to annoy me when people use the films as evidence for anything as like wellthen said, the films were only ever based on the books, they got so much wrong and they were only an approximation as JK herself admitted that she hadn't thought some things through and so she couldn't give much information when they questioned her about them. There was also the issue that the books had different storylines which they couldn't possibly follow in the films, and unfortunately they dropped ones that actually the book-fans wanted to see.

I remember seeing the first three films with a friend who had not read the books. I had to explain so much to her, especially the Marauders, as at no point in the film did they explain just who the Marauders were and why they were linked to Harry.

I only watched the fourth as I was playing a drinking game related to the film. It was great fun

[MortifiedAdams]

Ive been on the tour - that hall is tiny!! It just looks.bigger in the films.

Whats the situation with northern/scottosh students? Do they have to travel to LOndon to catch the train or are there other stop.offs.on the way?

[ConfusedPixie]

I think that they have to travel to London, as it's made clear that when the dementors stopped the train that it was a weird thing for the train to stop before they got to Hogwarts. I'd assume that after first year any muggleborns would be able to hitch a ride on the floo network from local floo points though or the houses of friends from school?

[Trills]

I've just spent AAAAAAAGES reading theories about all of Harry's year group.

[SelfRighteousPrissyPants]

I was at Hogwarts (Alnwick Castle) yesterday and the broomstick training class was massive...admittedly some of them looked a bit old for Hogwarts

[Tee2072]

Pixie I think Dumbledore did what he thought was best for the greater good. I think he was usually wrong!

[Trills]

Dumbledore was very old and very famous and very revered and so thought that he knew best.

[DiseasesOfTheSheep]

Maybe Hagrid knew that Sirius wasn't bad?

Sirius was Order of the Phoenix and I bet Dumbledore never believed he was bad, even if he couldn't prove it. And he trusted Hagrid so might have said so to him.

So Hagrid was telling the truth when he said they were all in Slytherin

But then why does he join in the panicking about Sirius being loose in PoA - he repeatedly tells H not to be out of the castle after dark, suggesting he believes Sirius to be a danger to Harry. Which he obviously wouldn't be if he knew the truth

[Wellthen]

Hagrid says 'never was there a wizard that went bad that wasn't in Slytherin' (paraphrasing)
NOT
never was there a slytherin that wasnt bad.

They arent the same thing. He isnt saying all Syltherins are bad, just that bad people are always from Slytherin. Its irrelevant whether Sirius or Snape were bad, he doesnt say they have to be.

[ConfusedPixie]

Tee Yes sorry, by putting it in italics I meant it in a sarcy way wrt his feelings on the matter I realise now that it reads back wrong! I agree with you, I think he fucked up on many occasions. Especially because all along he knew that Sirius was innocent!

[RoastedCouchPotatoes]

Ooh, I love this thread.

[DeWe]

Yes, but then in one of the quiddich matches she writes something like "three quarters of the audience was supporting Gryffindor, but there were 300 people supporting the opposing side".
Which would make a school of 1200, on the basis it's never mentioned that the entire wizarding population of Britain turn out for it.
If there's 300 people per house, that's roughly 40 per year.

I think she tried to get round it by saying Harry's year was notably small, but basically it's clear from that and other things she has no idea when it comes to numbers.

[Trills]

I think Hagrid is just exaggerating, and you're all reading too much into it.

Sometimes people say things that, if they were to think a bit harder about it, aren't precisely true.

[Trills]

There never was a wizard that went bad that wasn't from Slytherin

strictly means Every bad wizard went to Slytherin, there has never been a bad wizard from another house

but the truth is probably Most bad wizards went to Slytherin, or The most notable bad wizards went to Slytherin or Slytherin people are mean to me so I remember the bad ones more strongly than I remember the bad ones from other houses

[Heiderose]

I always thought that Hagrid had just forgotten that Sirius wasn't a Slytherin. His whole family was in Slytherin so after a while I could see people forgetting that Sirius wasn't one.

[YoniBottsBumgina]

Or he wasn't thinking about Sirius at all since at that time he had been in Azkaban for 9 years and probably not heard of during that time.

[ConfusedPixie]

I knew it was a double bluff but I thought that Dumbledore knew about the double bluff?

[DiseasesOfTheSheep]

I always thought that Hagrid had just forgotten that Sirius wasn't a Slytherin

Possible, but I don't really think JKR made him forget it intentionally. I think it was a plot hole / mistake that she might choose to explain in that fashion

[AmazingBouncingFerret]

I agree with whoever said that Hagrid see's thing very black and white. I always saw the "there wasn't a witch or wizard.." quote as being Hagrids opinion, which Harry being completely new to the wizarding world at the time took as gospel.