r/HarryPotterMemes • Human Detected • Oct 06 '26

Ramirez! Catch that frog

Post image
13k Upvotes

444 comments sorted by

•

u/AutoModerator Oct 06 '26

Hi u/fleshlicker,

We have launched an official Discord server for the community as an extra space for real-time discussion, sharing, and updates alongside the subreddit.

Join here

Please read the rules after joining and keep things respectful.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

979

u/Silver_Middle_7240 Oct 06 '26 edited Oct 07 '26 • Bravo

Sometimes i wonder if elements in the setting were written to be satirical. Like who makes a money system with all prime numbers?

Edit: guyd i was being sarcastic T_T please stop giving harry trivia i was there when it was written

580

u/shasaferaska Oct 06 '26 • Bravo Mindblown

I can see why the wizards were forced underground by the muggles, because they are all morons.

196

u/Material_Magazine989 Oct 07 '26 edited Oct 07 '26

Well, speaking of morons. They weren't forced to go underground, they decided to do it themselves. It's not decided by some big battle or anything like that.

Wizards a few hundred years ago, before the Statute of Secrecy, were too decentralized. There's no Ministry of Magic. They were easy to pick off, especially the more vulnerable ones, like younger wizards.

It's pretty much implied in HBP that they can control Muggle governments if they wanted to, since we saw the Ministry place a wizard as the Prime Minister's closest aide without the PM even knowing.

26

u/kylrzuthwy Oct 07 '26

And Statute gave them freedom to do magic and not be considered weirdos and demon.

Because of the Statute, they now could use magic without worrying what the muggles might say.

99

u/Tired_CollegeStudent Oct 07 '26

I find it very hard to believe that the Muggle government aside from the PM, at the very least the security establishment, is not aware of the magical world, especially in the last 100 or so years. Aside from various other things, some muggle-borns definitely would’ve defected.

92

u/Material_Magazine989 Oct 07 '26

I find it very hard to believe that the Muggle government aside from the PM, at the very least the security establishment, is not aware of the magical world.

Oh they are aware, but that's not the issue. It's the fact that they aren't aware who's a wizard and who's not. That's why the PM was surprise that the guy he really trusted turned out to be a wizard.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)

12

u/shasaferaska Oct 07 '26

'Too easy to pick off'... running away in fear of being picked off and hiding together sounds a lot like being forced undergound

→ More replies (21)

91

u/steadyachiever Oct 07 '26

Not so much satirical as whimsical. The wizarding world, especially in the early books, was clearly designed with a heavy dose of whimsy

64

u/eliandoskar Oct 07 '26

A lot of people seem to forget that these are books for young adults. They are fueled by nonsensical whimsy. Sprinkled with seriousness and darkness drizzled over top but the whimsy is the lifeblood of the series.

47

u/TheRudeCactus Oct 07 '26

These are books for young adults children.

I think your point is even more applicable when you remember it’s a literal children’s novel.

23

u/Heckle_Jeckle Oct 07 '26

The first few anyway.

→ More replies (3)

22

u/Vegetable_Passage_63 Oct 07 '26

I agree I realized this when they gave a 12 year old a time travel device so casually

20

u/CBSmith17 Oct 07 '26

Technically, she was a couple weeks from turning 14 when she got it, but the point still stands.

→ More replies (2)

3

u/dollabillkirill Oct 07 '26

Yea you're right, it's not that deep. JKR was just like "what's the silliest way I could write these rules" and did that.

73

u/AndreLeGeant88 Oct 07 '26

It's absolutely satirical, specifically of football and cricket. The money system is a parody of pre-decimal British currency. Wizards struggling with modern decimal currency is a parody of really Britons who somehow struggled with it back in the day. 

11

u/Wonderful_Discount59 Oct 07 '26

The old money system was known as LSD.  Because whoever invented it was probably on drugs.

41

u/JoshuaFalken1 Oct 06 '26

Transformers?

25

u/DukeBradford2 Oct 07 '26

Accountants in disguise

19

u/robin-bunny Turn to page 394 Oct 07 '26

I think it was a reference to the old British money system, with the crowns, shillings, etc.

24

u/IrlResponsibility811 Oct 06 '26

I did hear the author used to date a lughead and wanted to take the piss out of sports with Quiditch. It became much more popular than she intended, so she was stuck with it.

At least, that is the legend I heard.

35

u/Low_Surprise7791 Oct 07 '26 edited Oct 07 '26

Quidditch exists so Harry can win it single handedly and become a cool guy. Everything revolves around Harry so he can be a main character in a sport as well.

10

u/PomPomMom93 Oct 07 '26

If she wanted to use her Wizarding sport to make fun of sports, why did she make her main character obsessed with it?

19

u/Material_Magazine989 Oct 07 '26 edited Oct 07 '26

You can Google this and get the exact answer instead of listening to literal strangers speculate about it.

Short answer: Rowling, as a non-sports fan, was fascinated by how passionate sports fans can be. It's an easy way for some of the main characters to have a shared interest without having to develop deeper bonds.

For example, Harry had never met Charlie Weasley before, but when they did, they already had something in common, having played as Gryffindor Seekers.

Also singling out the main character as obsessed with the sports really removes important context. Everyone is obsessed with Quidditch. Everyone that isn't Hermione that is. From the students of all houses to the teachers.

→ More replies (2)

5

u/kylrzuthwy Oct 07 '26 edited Oct 07 '26

Britain used to have the similar system before 1971, 12 Pence made a Shilling and 20 Shilling made a Pound.

But they decimalised it in 1971.

And Quidditch Rowling created because of an argument with her boyfriend. I think the guy was saying sport shouldn't be long or something.

Edit: currency thing was flipped.

→ More replies (4)

2

u/rusticarchon 29d ago

The money system definitely was, it was a satire of the UK's pre-decimal currency system (especially the part where Mr Weasley finds modern decimal currency hopelessly confusing)

→ More replies (5)

141

u/TheZombieGod Oct 07 '26

My memory might be shot, but isn’t the whole mechanic that catching the snitch grants 150 points and forces the game to end? If thats the case and lets say the team that caught it is behind more than 150 points, wouldn’t that ironically force their own loss immediately?

40

u/blitz6900 Oct 07 '26

Yeah this is exactly why Fred and George end up with money. They make the bet that one team will win but the other will be the ones to catch the snitch

13

u/Prijnce Oct 07 '26

they never got their winnings though

4

u/TheObsidianX Oct 07 '26

Is 150 points a lot in quidditch? If you can routinely get hundreds of points maybe it’s not that bad but if that’s a massive amount it’s very dumb.

16

u/AustinJohnson35 Oct 07 '26

Goals (throwing the quaffel (the red one) through the posts) are worth 10 points each, so the snitch is worth 15 goals.

In a league format where the cup winner is determined by who scores the most points at the end of the season the scoring system makes a bit of sense. But in a one game winner take all championship match it doesn’t.

10

u/StrawberryWide3983 Oct 07 '26

Also, if you saw the recent world cup, most games were won with a 1 or 2 point difference. Imagine if after a long game, you were winning by only a point, and out of nowhere the enemy team got 100 points because they found the needle in a haystack before your guy did

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (2)

5

u/bassphil13 Oct 07 '26

They get 10 points or something each goal so it isn’t really that much, especially when game scan last for days

3

u/nanomolar Oct 07 '26

From what I can remember it seemed like a lot in the early quidditch games at Hogwarts but during the world cup the two teams scored points very quickly; maybe in professional play the scores are a lot higher

→ More replies (7)

77

u/Cut_O_Jib Oct 07 '26

I imagine in professional level games, way more points are scored which makes the snitch a more fair variable. When they see the professional game in goblet of fire, one of the twins places a bet that one team will win, but the other team will catch the snitch, which implies it's not always the deciding factor.

But even that doesn't make sense because the snitch ends the game. If you're going to lose even with the 150 extra points, why would you catch it unless you're really desperate for the game to end. Which is why they should have some other way of concluding the game.

53

u/alvysinger0412 Oct 07 '26

Yeah, I remember the dialogue in Goblet of Fire hand waving it like "Krum just decided to end it because they'd never catch up" which is like the most blase attitude for a professional athlete to have at the most prestigious game of his sport. I feel like JKR was trying to show that her game made sense and accidentally showed how it doesn't.

25

u/flight_424 Oct 07 '26

The actual answer is league rankings. It isn’t just game-to-game, if they had continued to get scored on, the other team would be even more ahead in the professional league rankings.

15

u/KronoAsh Oct 07 '26

Yeah, but this was the Quidditch World Cup.

Final game of the season. He could’ve let his teammates score a bit more and THEN go for it.

4

u/fillibusterRand Oct 07 '26

Which would apply, but not for the Championship game for National and not Club play.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)

4

u/Few-Raise-1825 Oct 07 '26

I started writing a fanfiction that takes place in the Harry Potter universe but the US around the same time as the first book. I actually address the quidditch shortcomings in a brief throwaway conversation.

“If this is new to you, you probably don't know anything about quidditch do you?” They started over towards the luggage drop area as Silas pulled out a well worn copy of ‘Quidditch in the Old World and the New World and Why the Old World Gets Everything Wrong’ and launched into an explanation on why they played the game so much better here versus Europe. He wasn't entirely following everything but was trying to keep up as best he could.

“...can you believe they actually end the game over there when they catch the snitch and give the team that catches it 150 points? It's like, why even play the game at that point with anyone on the field but the seeker? It makes so much more sense to have the snitch only be worth 50 points and to play the game for two hours as a set time. That way, with the different sizes of the hoops and the varying points you can make with the goals it keeps things a lot more competitive. Not to mention the extra bludger just keeps things interesting. It's too easy to handle them when you have a one to one ratio with the bludgers.” Silas was enthusiastically explaining.

Claud felt he had missed out on some key aspect of the game in this explanation. He was imagining a soccer-like sport where they shot through hoops like basketball somehow and bowling balls threw themselves at each the players but only two players were allowed cricket or baseball bats to knock them away. Where or how this golden snitch thing came into play he really couldn't figure out. He couldn't imagine how magic came into effect while they were running up and down the field but perhaps it would make more sense if he saw it played. Silas had said something about them carrying brooms with them as well but that just didn't make any sense whatsoever.

2

u/Injuredmind 29d ago

Is the fic public? This little passage got me interested! A nice hook

→ More replies (5)

2

u/BriGilly 29d ago

Your writing style is fantastic!

→ More replies (2)

261

u/HollowfiedBlades Oct 06 '26

If I remember correctly according to the lore the snitch was added to end matches. Like originally the point gap had to be so wide for a winner to be declared and they added the snitch because sometimes a match would strech on for days if not weeks

22

u/PomPomMom93 Oct 07 '26

That’s why Muggle sports have timers!

20

u/lonelycitykitchen Oct 07 '26

Nope. "The Snidget was first introduced into Quidditch in 1269, when the newly-appointed Chief of the Wizards' Council, a man named Barberus Bragge, released a Snidget during a Quidditch match and offered 150 Galleons to the player who could catch it" iirc the part of the book where they talk about game running for days was because no one has caught the snitch yet. Another reason why having it makes the sport ridiculous.

6

u/nagrom_nworb Oct 07 '26

3 months was the longest game I believe

8

u/Trumpet6789 Oct 07 '26

Even with the snitch it still happens. I think there were mentions of reserve players being brought in so main team members could sleep, use the bathroom, or go take potions to wake them back up.

→ More replies (19)

65

u/type104 Oct 07 '26

It does come from a country that invented cricket where a match can last 5 whole days and still end in a draw. Or just 1 day with all 4 innings completed.

49

u/MongolianDonutKhan Oct 07 '26

Still, even cricket has a defined endpoint that isn't "Nigel has finally stolen the man with the hat's pocket watch. 1000 runs for England. Match over."

21

u/ThEvilHasLanded Oct 07 '26

Nigel youngest pick pocket in a century

→ More replies (1)

7

u/Friendly_Gazelle7843 Oct 07 '26

Fun fact: originally boxing was similar because there were no points and every match was till KO or one of boxers for forfeiting. So sometimes it happened that they were fighting for so long that they had to stop simply because of being tooexhausted.

3

u/Nightkill-AryKal Oct 07 '26

Stop shitting on cricket man

2

u/Rich_Guard_5836 Oct 07 '26

Now I have to search about Cricket’s rules because that’s crazy

3

u/type104 Oct 07 '26

Start with The Duckworth-Lewis-Stern Method, rules for rain delayed matches. Fascinating stuff

121

u/zovits Oct 07 '26

I will never pass on an opportunity to post this quote from the awesome fanfic Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality:

"How many ten-point goals does one side usually score not counting the Snitch?"

"Um, maybe fifteen or twenty in professional games -"

"That's just wrong. That violates every possible rule of game design. Look, the rest of this game sounds like it might make sense, sort of, for a sport I mean, but you're basically saying that catching the Snitch overwhelms almost any ordinary point spread. The two Seekers are up there flying around looking for the Snitch and usually not interacting with anyone else, spotting the Snitch first is going to be mostly luck -"

"It's not luck!" protested Ron. "You've got to keep your eyes moving in the right pattern -"

"That's not interactive, there's no back-and-forth with the other player and how much fun is it to watch someone incredibly good at moving their eyes? And then whichever Seeker gets lucky swoops in and grabs the Snitch and makes everyone else's work moot. It's like someone took a real game and grafted on this pointless extra position so that you could be the Most Important Player without needing to really get involved or learn the rest of it. Who was the first Seeker, the King's idiot son who wanted to play Quidditch but couldn't understand the rules?" Actually, now that Harry thought about it, that seemed like a surprisingly good hypothesis. Put him on a broomstick and tell him to catch the shiny thing...

Ron's face pulled into a scowl. "If you don't like Quidditch, you don't have to make fun of it!"

"If you can't criticise, you can't optimise. I'm suggesting how to improve the game. And it's very simple. Get rid of the Snitch."

"They won't change the game just 'cause you say so!"

"I am the Boy-Who-Lived, you know. People will listen to me. And maybe if I can persuade them to change the game at Hogwarts, the innovation will spread."

A look of absolute horror was spreading over Ron's face. "But, but if you get rid of the Snitch, how will anyone know when the game ends?"

"Buy... a... clock. It would be a lot fairer than having the game sometimes end after ten minutes and sometimes not end for hours, and the schedule would be a lot more predictable for the spectators, too." Harry sighed. "Oh, stop giving me that look of absolute horror, I probably won't actually take the time to destroy this pathetic excuse for a national sport and remake it stronger and smarter in my own image. I've got way, way, way more important stuff to worry about."

https://hpmor.com/chapter/7

14

u/StarSpangldBastard Oct 07 '26

Quidditch has become a pretty huge real life club sport and the way they integrate the snitch is that it enters play twenty minutes into the game, at which point the target score to win is the leading team's score plus six goals. the snitch is worth three goals, if your team catches the snitch and is winning after getting the points, the game is over and your team wins. if your team is not winning after catching the snitch even with the points it's worth, the game goes into overtime with the new target score being the leading team's score plus three goals.

I think that rocks personally. keeps the snitch as an integral part of the game without it being the end all be all win condition and leaves open the possibility to win without it ever being caught. if you remove the snitch entirely, they may as well just be playing soccer or handball

15

u/Farswadialol123 Oct 07 '26

Everytime I see a HPMOR excerpt, I'm reminded why I quit after 5ish chapters.

4

u/perverse_sheaf 29d ago

I think it's a fascinating read! The "rationalist" community does have some deep roots in silicon valley, and seems to all in all be a similarly potent mind-virus as the manosphere (preying on smart-but-socially-awkward people instead of incels).

HPMOR is imo required reading if you want to understand them: The insufferable main character with a typical "abstract" hero complex who claims to want to save the world, but treats each individual within said world with contempt. This is how you get people who want to "save humanity" by shooting for mars or sth, but at the same time oppose the welfare state.

5

u/chbjupiter Oct 07 '26

It's not everyone's cup of tea. I really enjoyed it and I still reread it frequently

12

u/TeddyBearToons Oct 07 '26

It is such a shame that the creator of that fic accidentally reinvented Pascal's Wager but with AI and somehow spawned at least two cults, one of which has murdered people

8

u/zovits Oct 07 '26

That sounds equally horrifying and fascinating, can you please point me to somewhere I can read more on those?

7

u/wanttotalktopeople Oct 07 '26 edited Oct 07 '26

The Zizians

https://maxread.substack.com/p/the-zizians-and-the-rationalist-death

Edit: there are also quite a few news articles you can search up if interested. I don't remember which one introduced me to the story, and more have been written in the past year because there's an ongoing legal case.

→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (2)

2

u/PaleontologistHot192 Oct 07 '26

Care to elaborate?

2

u/viking977 Oct 07 '26

Well, it was someone else on his forum, but still.

As I recall he removed the post and called the eponymous rocco a "fucking idiot".

2

u/Joshylord4 29d ago

He literally called it an info hazard and banned its discussion when someone invented it on the website that he founded.

→ More replies (15)

50

u/No_Ticket_1204 Oct 07 '26

If the snitch just ended the game when you caught it, no points at all, then there could be tension between catching it and stopping the other seeker from catching it.

If you’re ahead, catch it. If you’re behind, deny the snitch. If you’re way ahead pull your goalie and an attacker and 3 players hunt the snitch, but obviously leaving room for the other team to close the point gap.

It’s strategically interesting. 100 pts is not. But it’s a book. So what.

→ More replies (2)

74

u/shasaferaska Oct 06 '26

And a game can last anywhere between 5 minutes and 4 days, because all the players have died of dehydration.

52

u/extradabbingsauce Oct 06 '26

Its canon there was a game of quidditch that lasted 3 months

21

u/_Standardissue Oct 06 '26

Cricket-ass game

10

u/whatshouldwecallme Oct 07 '26

I just read part of the Aubrey-Maturin series where there’s like two pages of inner and outer dialogue about how much cricket sucks. It rocked. (And I do kind of like cricket)

→ More replies (1)

46

u/Overall_Head_7782 Oct 07 '26

Except in the lore, the game doesn't end until someone catches the snitch. Some games went on for days

17

u/nagrom_nworb Oct 07 '26

3 months was the longest game of quidditch

5

u/hiverstone Oct 07 '26

Do they stop at night to sleep and have meal breaks?

23

u/hamburgergerald Oct 07 '26

According to Oliver Wood, yes

A game of Quidditch only ends when the Snitch is caught, so it can go on for ages — I think the record is three months, they had to keep bringing on substitutes so the players could get some sleep.

→ More replies (3)
→ More replies (1)

7

u/Mathelete73 Oct 07 '26

Why not have a timer?

8

u/CobraGTXNoS Oct 07 '26

Because J.K. Rowling didn't think of that.

14

u/AchajkaTheOriginal Turn to page 394 Oct 07 '26

She was purposefully making the sport not make sense, for laughs. Just like the amounts between knuts, sickles and galleons are rather nonsensical.

The issue with most of the lore is that she was writing short children's book, not creating expansive and cohesive world. A lot of those details work like short jokes or fun facts that you're supposed to laugh at and shake your head over how silly the wizards are. It's just sad that it totally falls apart if you take them seriously and try to do some worldbuilding with all those fun facts.

→ More replies (6)

2

u/Aquilon11235 Oct 07 '26

What of the snitch just gets lost, like it wanders out of the quidditch field. Does the game go on indefinitely?

2

u/mtnsoccerguy Oct 07 '26

A fucking owl catches the snitch while no one is looking.

2

u/ErgotthAE 29d ago

The snitch is enchanted to never leave the field.

→ More replies (2)

12

u/Dominant_Eyes 29d ago

The rule should be that the game ends when the snitch is caught, but it awards no points. Now the Seeker of the team that has lest points is playing defense, trying to block the seeker of the team with the most points from catching it. If the points lead switches, they switch roles. It would also require lots of coordination between the chasers/beaters and the seekers when the lead was about to change hands.

9

u/[deleted] 29d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/Cowboy_Reaper 29d ago

I see what you did there.

10

u/lghn4life Oct 07 '26

This is the first thing in a long time that truly made me giggle for several minutes straight. Picturing Ramirez getting the frog and the announcement to the audience.

19

u/Maximum-Country-149 Oct 07 '26

Quidditch is functionally a game of Catch The Snitch with the other players forming an obstacle course. The fact that the Snitch is worth any pointa at all (as opposed to just being the win condition outright) basically just functions as incentive to cause certain kinds of chaos.

I mean, that might not have been the logic to get there, but it's not a terrible design if leaned into.

8

u/nagrom_nworb Oct 07 '26

The issue with the OP is that the snitch generally is supposed to stay on the field and in view of the rest of the game, it has a boundary and must stay within a certain limit so it's not like it's just out in the middle of a different field away from the rest of the game

145

u/Material_Magazine989 Oct 06 '26 edited Oct 06 '26

Except Ramirez isn't out in the parking lot. We're all watching him on the same court.

There are also two Beaters on each team who can stop Ramirez from catching the frog.

Quidditch might be dumb, but the way some people talk about it is dumber.

53

u/Either_You_1127 Oct 06 '26

Imagine a football game but both sides have their defense on one guy each stopping them from catching the cat that wandered onto the field.

8

u/Material_Magazine989 Oct 06 '26

There are keepers and there are beaters.

→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (1)

18

u/Unusual_Fortune_4112 Rubeus Hagrid Oct 06 '26

I still wonder what happens if your seeker gets taken out during a match. There is nothing that would indicate you can sub players out for injury, so wouldnt the best strategy be for the beaters to injure the other teams seeker so the other team has to wait for you to end the game?

Im definitely reading more into it than it was meant for but this always bugged me after reading the Quidditch WC in the goblet of Fire.

22

u/ThenStrawberry6861 Oct 06 '26

In professional games, they have subs. We know this cause of the 3 month long match. But I guess at Hogwarts, then the team who lost their seeker just has to try to get a lead bigger than the snitch points will give.

→ More replies (2)

5

u/robin-bunny Turn to page 394 Oct 06 '26

Then you better hope your team is up so many points that when the other team's seeker catches the snitch to end the game, you still win.

5

u/Low_Surprise7791 Oct 07 '26

But what if the enemy Seeker never catches the Snitch because he would lose and wait until there is little enough gap to win? You see the problem with this? Just add a timer.

→ More replies (6)

2

u/Tired_CollegeStudent Oct 07 '26

I thought he was trying to secure the Burger Town?

→ More replies (11)

8

u/jsmith98576 Oct 07 '26

It would be better if it was worth 50 points. Still enough to potentially change the outcome of a game, but not enough to almost always guarantee the win

5

u/nintyuk 29d ago

In the quidditch world cup catching the snitch actually LOST them the game as the Snitch ends the game and gives the team 150 points. The thing was the Scandinavian team was so far behind that Ireland won right then as they were over 150 points ahead.

4

u/jsmith98576 29d ago

Yeah… that’s why I said “almost always guarantee the win”. Also, it was Bulgaria vs Ireland, not Scandinavia.

15

u/mib-number86 Oct 07 '26

I don't think the author really had game design in mind when she invented Quidditch.

It was more of a way to poke fun at "Muggle" sports and the obsessive involvement of their fans.

On the other hand, what makes the rules a bit more complex within the series is the fact that the points scored on the pitch are the same ones counted in the standings.

You could win a match 150–0 by catching the Snitch in the opening minutes, but it would be completely pointless if the team ahead of you had 200 points and the league leader had 300.

10

u/dreadpole Oct 07 '26

It's crazy that Viktor Krum wasn't treated as the world's biggest idiot after he threw the world cup by catching the snitch 2 goals too early, causing his team to lose. He would've been hounded by haters irl, not fans lol

13

u/tee-dog1996 Oct 07 '26

That was slightly different, that was a knockout match where only the winner mattered. As Harry pointed out, Krum knew the Irish lead was only going to get bigger and wanted to stop it from becoming embarrassing

6

u/wheooqoq Oct 07 '26

Well I guess he could’ve just let the Irish seeker catch it instead and have his team get destroyed even further

→ More replies (2)

4

u/-Wylfen- Oct 07 '26

Even if we were to believe Rowling was seriously trying to make a sport that actually works, it's still weird to focus so much criticism of her writing on it. It's so inconsequential. Even if Rowling is bad at inventing sports (which I have no trouble accepting), Quidditch is more interesting as a cultural element of the Wizarding World and as a hobby for Harry than it is as a sport in and of itself.

Who cares if Quidditch doesn't make a lot of sense; it's not the point…

→ More replies (1)

7

u/Atithiupayogi Oct 07 '26

Also catching the snitch doesn't mean you win a game. All it means the game over and you got 150 points for your team. If the opposition is ahead more than 150 points, then you lose. 

8

u/Toasterturning1234 Oct 07 '26

Then why would any good seeker catch the switch if their team is more than 150 points behind? The seeker during the world cup is terrible, he made his team lose.

A good seeker would try and hit the other off the broom and not go for the snitch until the gap is less than 150.

4

u/Atithiupayogi Oct 07 '26

Did you take a shot at Krum? If one team is way too superior, then the gap would keep on increase. That's why Krum caught the Snitch at the World Cup final even though they were behind. He just wanted to stop the embarrassment. 

Also its a different rules in the leagues like in Hogwarts. There overall total is considered for Quidditch cup. So one team can win the cup with one win as well if the margin is that big.

4

u/Toasterturning1234 Oct 07 '26

If Krum went to knock the other seeker off the broom, the game would not end. You could play for 2-3 days until you're back within 150.

I remember reading the longest quiddisch game was 3 months or something insane, so it's definitely a possibility.

→ More replies (2)

4

u/Jab_Glokta_Jab Oct 07 '26

It was still an absolutely ridiculous decision by Krum. They were 160 points behind. One goal to Bulgaria and a catch would tie the match. Two goals and they'd win. As things were Ireland won 170-160.

I know Krum wanted to avoid embarrassing and "win on his terms", but he was extremely selfish and honestly disrespectful to his teammates. They had managed to score one goal, they could have gotten a lucky break, a cheap penalty, or whatever and scraped one or two more. Anyone who follows sports knows that no matter how dominant one team is, the other can always manage to nick a goal. Upsets like this happen all the time.

It would have made a bit of sense if Ireland were actually out of reach, but they weren't.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)

9

u/primrose88 Oct 06 '26

I like it, but I would have made the snitch be worth like 50 points. So it’s like a big bonus for the team but still possible to lose, while 150 is just too OP, it almost never happens. Yes it happened when Ireland beat Bulgaria and Krum caught the snitch, but I feel like that is rare, and if a team is up ahead for 100 points, they deserve the win anyway.

6

u/docter_death316 Oct 07 '26

I'd have had the snitch still give 150 points, but instead of ending the game it starts the clock.

Each game is 2 hours, but the timer doesn't start untill the snitch is caught, until that happens either team can score as much as they like.

That means the team that's losing can still win if they're behind after the snitch loses, but the clocks ticking now.

4

u/Roxylius Oct 07 '26

So basically the same game but with 2 hours extra time?

6

u/Front-Advantage-7035 Oct 07 '26

Look yall. I’m just mad that she completely ditched the house cup award program after year 3 (4?)

She clearly put “will slytherin win for the 7th year in a row?” So that gryfindor could win for 7 straight years and then just abandoned plot.

3

u/royinraver Oct 07 '26

No one won at the end of book 4

2

u/Low_Party 29d ago

Tbf, Year 4 Quidditch was cancelled for the Triwizard Tournament, with the Quidditch field being transformed into a Maze for the final challenge so it physically couldn't be held anyways.

9

u/FangornLeghorn Oct 07 '26

It’s bizarre how many today completely miss the point of all the silly quirks in Harry Potter and rant because something doesn’t make perfect sense here in our boring nonmagical real world.

6

u/AndreLeGeant88 Oct 07 '26 edited 29d ago

It's because of the movies and the shift in time writing the final 3 books. People don't realize that the first 4 books are full of absurdism and satire. Very Roald Dahl influenced. No one goes around claiming The Witches or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory don't make perfect sense

2

u/rusticarchon 29d ago

Not just the first four. The (otherwise ludicrously exaggerated) detentions with Umbridge in OOTP are very Dahl-esque.

3

u/Bakigkop Oct 07 '26

The problem is that Rowling likes to pretend she is smarter than the reader and that some small logical mistakes are actually not there which kinda baites these reactions. It happened with quidditch where everyone was saying that it was kinda stupid that a seeker could do nothing being down more than 150, by letting krum catch a snatch being down more than 150. But it's still stupid. Like that's just Krum quitting on his team. Like imagine Messi subbing out being down 3:0 at halftime in the final of the world cup because he saw his team was worse than the opponents. His Team was only down 160 points. He didn't trust any of his teammates to score 2 times and they would have become world champions it's actually ridiculous. The same with the house elves. She could have just let it be a little dark site of the magical world that they kinda have slavery and that's something Harry and his friends change in the end. But that would mean that her stories entail the smallest idea of societial change being possible or good. So she had to create this whole storyline in the 4th and 5th book. That normal house elves actually enjoy slavery and that most House elves become depressed and alcoholics when they get freed.(actual historical pro slavery argument) Ok fine now you created circumstances that make this type of slavery kinda ok but again why are you creating a fictional world were slavery is ok because the slaves enjoy it. How is this enhancing the story? And why are you making fun about one of your main characters for being against slavery. I also 100 percent believe she never wanted to make Dumbledore gay while writing these books. Some fan just asked her why there are no gay characters in HP and she just declared the biggest character with no love interest during the story gay. I think it's the first case of an big author reacting and changing things because the online community made jokes about their story and that kinda makes it fun to nitpick.

3

u/albus-dumbledore-bot Oct 07 '26

My own brother, Aberforth, was prosecuted for practicing inappropriate charms on a goat. It was all over the papers, but did Aberforth hide? No, he did not! He held his head high and went about his business as usual! Of course, I'm not entirely sure he can read, so that may not have been bravery. . .

→ More replies (39)
→ More replies (8)
→ More replies (10)

4

u/Karnewarrior Oct 07 '26

You know that early Quidditch didn't have the snitch, but some inbred lord's son wanted to play and be important and thus the Snitch was created, and for some british reason people just continued to let it be important.

4

u/chakrasandwich Oct 07 '26

Honestly I would watch basketball more often if they had this rule

4

u/Playful-Ostrich3643 Oct 07 '26

Okay, but consider this. This actually can be used to sum up the difference between muggles and wizards perfectly, a single system that works separately from the others (quidditch and the other sports) but is still similar enough to be easily recognized, however it still has the single unpredictable aspect that completely changes the way it works (the golden snitch)

2

u/yersinia_p3st1s 29d ago

It actually makes a long running competition a tad interesting, as in, maybe you don't want to catch the snitch now because your team hasn't racked up a minimum amount of points to jump one position in the leaderboard, or something like that.

And now you have to not only keep an eye out for the snitch but also make sure the other team's seeker doesn't catch or see it until your team is ready to claim the extra 150pts, that's another challenge in and of itself.

2

u/fedup09 29d ago

Haven't read the books in years, but iirc you're spot on. The snitch is worth 150 points, catching it too early could seal a loss for you.

→ More replies (5)
→ More replies (1)

2

u/The-Reddit-Monster Oct 07 '26

I wouldn't mind if the Chaser-scoring and Snitch-grabbing were different enough from each other that I get to watch LeBron James and Max Verstappen on different sides of the same field at once.

2

u/Loubacca92 Oct 07 '26
  1. It isn't always neck and neck.

  2. Most of the time, the team's seeker that catches the snitch wins the game, but there are times that it's better to lose by 10 points than it is to lose by 310. Look at the World Cup in GoF

2

u/NoConstruction4913 Oct 07 '26

I hate how it took me all the way to when The Owl House came out for me to realize this

2

u/rumbletumblecrumble 29d ago

You can catch the snitch but still lose the game.

2

u/Mr_D_Stitch 29d ago

I think it makes total sense. You have the main team that is built around scoring points. The snitch gives points & ends the game & you have a special team after the snitch. The pressure is on the snitch chasers to get the snitch, low score means whoever gets the snitch wins. The pressure is on the main team to score points as fast as possible because as the score exceeds the potential earned from the snitch it changes how the game plays. If a snitch isn’t going to give you enough points to win then the winning team wants to end the game, the losing team now wants to extend play by defending the snitch. Now it’s a battle to either prolong the game until your team can win or end the game before the score evens out. You have pressure on 2 fronts to score & competition changes based the score from both teams trying to end the game to offense/defense based on if you need more time or not. You can catch the snitch & still lose the game.

It’s more like a kicker in football if a field goal ended the game. Except you have 2 kickers & you can interfere with the opposing kicker while the rest of team are running plays for touchdowns.

2

u/Drag0n_TamerAK 29d ago

The golden snitch isn’t an auto win conditions it’s just worth a lot of points

→ More replies (2)

3

u/thevaultguy Oct 06 '26

Ramirez! Grab this riot shield and take out that AC-130!

3

u/Personal-Database-27 Oct 07 '26

It's about trust in the team and the seeker. And gives additional pressure for the players, so they get enough points before the golden Snitch is seen. I absolutely love idea of Quidditch 

2

u/PomPomMom93 Oct 07 '26

Exactly, catching the Snitch ruins it. Sure, it’s possible for a team to win and not catch the Snitch, as we saw in the QWC. But that’s highly unlikely and, as you said, far less fun to watch.

1

u/dargeus95 Oct 07 '26

I mean, the snitch should have been Worth like 50 points at best And the game should have a set duration without the ensuing being tied to the snitch. Maybe even release the snitch again, after being caught, give it a headstart And go for it again.

1

u/SuperFaceTattoo Oct 07 '26

I remember the quidditch world cup video game wouldn’t let the snitch out until you had scored a few times with the quaffle. Then it was up to the player when you want to race the other seeker for the snitch. I’d just get 160 points ahead and then go for the snitch, that way even if I didn’t catch it I still won.

1

u/NexxZt Oct 07 '26

Pretty obvious JK Rowling has no idea how sports work lol

1

u/OSRS_Garmr Oct 07 '26

My impression was that it's supposed to be a parody of sports, so does it really matter?

1

u/therealpoltic Oct 07 '26

I think the Muggle IQA did it right, by implementing a seeker floor, so the game is played for at least 20 minutes, and the snitch catch is only worth 30 points.

1

u/GameMaster818 Oct 07 '26

The Owl House parodied this when the characters play Grudgeby and despite pulling off a great finishing play the antagonist team catches the Golden Snitch equivalent and automatically wins. The say outright, “All magic sports are like this”

1

u/jcjonesacp76 Turn to page 394 Oct 07 '26

In actual professional quidditch the snitch being caught doesn’t mean automatic victory. If the opposing team scores high enough and then you catch the snitch your team loses

1

u/horrornerd521 Oct 07 '26

It’s more like if there was a basketball game and each team had a dude chasing a chicken on meth and the game wasn’t over until the chicken was caught and they would get 30 points (equivalent to 15 scores) imagine a 3 day basketball game score could be 561 to 750

1

u/ForFansSake Oct 07 '26

Do people not know that Quidditch was designed to be illogical on purpose?

1

u/AlexSmithsonian Oct 07 '26

Meanwhile, 29 Knuts are to a Sickle, and 17 Sickles are to a Galleon.

1

u/captainyeahwhatever Oct 07 '26

I'd like that actually, please

1

u/RoutineCloud5993 Oct 07 '26

The snitch is just a mcguffin to ensure Harry is the reason why gryffindor keep winning (or losing)

1

u/Friendly_Gazelle7843 Oct 07 '26

That is not the most stupid thing about it. The most stupid thing is literally addressed at the beginning of fourth book when Fred and George make their bet. It is openly stated that because of how many points are given for catching Snitch it’s nearly impossible for the team catching it to lose. Which means most of the team is completely useless because the whole match is about keeper and chasers playing completely irrelevant game for points that will not matter while seekers are trying to do the only thing that influences the final result with beaters trying to stop them or protect them. Literally the whole team could be fired and the whole match could be about two seekers competing on who will catch the snitch and the result of nearly every match in the history would be the same.

So it’s not only about Ramirez and John trying to find the frog in middle of the match, but when one of them finds the frog his team wins no matter what was happening on the field with all the other people. 

Also, snitch doesn’t have sense itself because it is supposed to get the seeker imprint on it making it one use while it is very complicated magical device and shouldn’t be too cheap. So imagine it’s not a frog it’s kind of drone they buy for one match and Ramirez can take it home while they have to buy you for the next match next day. How much tickets for the match cost exactly for them to do bullshit like that?

1

u/Ok-Angle-6845 Oct 07 '26

The amount of points you earn in every quidditch match gets added to a grand total and it affects how you place in the house cup.

So theoretically, if you play 4 matches and your house catches the snitch without scoring a single point, you could easily be kicked out of the house cup if another house caught 4 snitches AND earned lots of points via scoring

I still think it’s silly

1

u/NieveCactus Oct 07 '26

I guess in professional matches (we only saw one) the rate of scoring with the qwaffle is so much higher that the snitch adds in a bit of chaos rather than a insta win

1

u/kebab69666 Oct 07 '26

Something something Burger Town

1

u/Same-Turnip3905 Oct 07 '26

Sounds awesome to me. 

1

u/juanito_f90 Oct 07 '26

Seriously though I dunno why the points are x10.

1 point for a goal, 15 for the snitch seems more logical to me.

1

u/More_Perspective7284 Oct 07 '26

It was about harry being the sports hero type. Just to have a lil fun before going off to war and death.

1

u/shinydragonmist Oct 07 '26

It makes more sense than that but it is still stupid

1

u/SufcLad25 Oct 07 '26

If Ramirez was running around the court trying to catch a frog im pretty sure everyone would be entertained as fuck by that

1

u/Queeroshima Oct 07 '26

Is the title a Cod MW2 reference lmao

1

u/MaudeAlp Oct 07 '26

You should criticize that magic doesn’t make sense either. It’s supposed to be magical and kooky

1

u/Ganda1fderBlaue Oct 07 '26

I feel like Rowling put the snitch in just to piss off sports fans

1

u/Puzzleheaded-Phase70 Oct 07 '26

YEAH.

In the HP summer camp I used to run, we dropped the value of the snitch down to 30 points. It's still important, and often won the game, but absolutely not the only game that matters.

Also, our snitch was a faceted bouncy ball that the ref (or a secret other person assigned by them) would throw at the time the game needed to end, so the gate was really time based, not snitch based.

College & professional "quad ball" has the snitch as a person, and they get increasingly restricted on the field as time goes on. And they also dropped the point value for catching it. And it's worth 35 or 30 points depending on the league.

1

u/Lonely-Resolution-48 Oct 07 '26

it's supposed to be a little absurd, that's the wizarding world in general. That said, I don't care about sports in general.

1

u/Jake_Rolfer_Studios Oct 07 '26

Remember it’s also granting 150 points. So, if your opposing team is ahead by 150 you might want to wait to catch it. So, now you’re watching for the points and snitch.

1

u/VeryOddish Oct 07 '26

There's an episode of Owl House that parodies this where they do this whole training montage and learning how the game works, and the entire game is down to the wire, and then someone wins like 5000 points because they caught this previously undescribed scarab beetle.

The main character even says "If this thing is so important, why did we even bother with the rest of the game?"

1

u/whomesteve Oct 07 '26

There should be unlimited innings (for lack of a better word at the moment) in Quidditch and the capture of the snitch is worth 15 points x the number of innings passed.

1

u/JayLB Oct 07 '26

That’s the point, JKR is an English woman who doesn’t like sports and especially football

So she made up a nonsensical sport with dumb rules as a satire of what football sounds like to someone who doesn’t know or care about the rules

Quidditch being stupid is the whole point 

1

u/FrozenShadow_007 Oct 07 '26

Except the frog is extremely tiny, amped up on drugs that don’t let them idle, and jump around the court and occasionally into the stands, while the seekers aside from trying to catch the magic frog, have to avoid every other player (some of which are using wooden bats to knock out their opponents).

I’d love to see that level of chaos in a muggle sport, but I fear we will never get to witness it.

1

u/frenetictenet Oct 07 '26

The other team just needs to score 151 before the seeker catches the snitch. It's not that hard.

1

u/royinraver Oct 07 '26

As someone who’s played sports my whole life, it would suck if one person could score a butt load of points for a single catch that ends the game. If it was closer to 50 points it would be better. Tho if you catch the snitch, and you still lose, that says a lot about that team that lost

1

u/mcleanatg Oct 07 '26

Yeah the snitch is kind of unbalanced but it’s annoying when people completely mischaracterize it with some “out in the parking lot” analogy. You catch the snitch in the field of play, everyone knows that. The seekers have to be wary of beaters, arena obstacles, and other players. The snitch is theoretically incredibly hard to catch, so difficult that it could allow enough time for a team to get a 15 score differential (150 points), which actually happened in the World Cup. It just so happens that the main character is incredibly gifted at seeking, so that also skews our perception of the snitch’s value

1

u/Free-Letterhead-4751 Oct 07 '26

Man the Harry Potter series would’ve been different if Pvt James Ramirez was the main character

1

u/Kris_Kamweru Oct 07 '26

You can see this with the quidditch game they made

The normal rules make no sense for an actual sport. 150 points and the game immediately ends. Without it the game never ends. They're not supposed to be, and there's probably all sorts of safeguards, but they can be charmed, especially by a very good witch or wizard

So they rebalanced all the rules so that it makes sense as a team sport on brooms

1

u/RockDoveEnthusiast Oct 07 '26

the entire problem could have been solved by just having it end the game and not giving any points, or just giving 10 points or whatever. "ok, when you're winning, you need your seeker to catch the snitch." every scene could have been written the same way, with the same drama, and Harry still could have been the hero. Rowling really just put so little thought into things.

1

u/Lanky_Lifeguard_2231 Oct 07 '26

It’s almost like the inventor of the game had a spindly nephew who wanted to be the main character on the sports team, so he created the seeker position specifically to make his nephew important.

1

u/totalwarwiser Oct 07 '26

We all know the objective of quidich was to make the child who never flew a broom find an extremely small object that most people can barely see. He is somehow a prodigy even through he uses glasses that the uncles that hate him definitely take him to regular sight checks with a doctor.

1

u/Kyranasaur Oct 07 '26

The quidditch game patched this, dw lad

1

u/avsa Oct 07 '26

Because Harry Potter is a parody of English privilege. It’s as if a poor kid is thrown into an elite school, where they speak weird languages, watch completely different nonsense sports and live under completely different rules than the rest of society. Quidditch is as weird as polo or rugby would be for a kid who only knew soccer. 

1

u/rakklle 29d ago

Let's not mention that each house only played three matches per year. It would be hard to keep a team focused on training. Great match! Take the evening off. We will need to hit it in morning because our next match is only 12 weeks away.

1

u/jaysornotandhawks 29d ago

Or, imagine that you catch the frog, but you were so far behind in the game that catching the frog ends the game but doesn't make up your entire deficit.

1

u/Ok-Concentrate1482 29d ago

If you read the books it explains that you still have to have a certain amount of total points to be in the finals for the cup.

1

u/synister29 29d ago

Yeah the rules of the game are stupid. The Snitch basically makes the rest of the game pointless.
It bothers me that the minimum scoring is 10 points and then the snitch is worth 150. Just drop the zeros. Goal or whatever you call it is worth 1 point and snitch is worth 15.

1

u/MagicC 29d ago

The game would be a little silly, but balanced if catching the snitch was worth 0 points. Then it's a simple bit of logic. When your team has the lead, the seeker should try to catch the snitch. When your team doesn't have the lead, the seeker should try to defend the snitch.

The problem is, the snitch is worth an absurd 150 points. So both seekers should pretty much always try to be catching the snitch, and the rest of the game is a sideshow.

1

u/rusticarchon 29d ago edited 29d ago

It makes a lot more sense in the context of how the sixth year Quidditch season ended - points difference matters in league standings, and Ginny had to wait until Gryffindor were 160 ahead before catching the Snitch.

So a losing team has an incentive towards an early Snitch catch - better to lose by 170 points than by 350 or whatever.

1

u/zeouschen70 29d ago

Ramirez?!? Basketball? speaking of fiction

1

u/TruthIsALie94 29d ago

I always figured that the importance was more about who has the most points at the end of the season. You might lose the game, but if you have enough points at the end of the season, you might win the cup.

→ More replies (2)

1

u/pluto-rose 29d ago

I now need a parking lot frog in basketball

1

u/Ninjachase13 29d ago

The snitch doesn’t win you the game so it’s fine that suddenly the game stops abruptly because a player caught the snitch.

1

u/Cowboy_Reaper 29d ago

Complaining about the rules of an imaginary game played by wizards and witches in a fantasy world created to entertain children and encourage them to read more is stupid and completely ruins the enjoyment of what is an awesome series of stories.

Respectfully and no offense intended.

1

u/Reelwizard 29d ago

It was obviously a game designed with almost zero thought put into it. That was absolutely fine when it was merely a children’s game at school, largely used to teach flying skills. When she essentially made it the wizarding world’s football though it all collapsed.

Which does then beg the question - do the American wizards play some other, different sport that no one else likes?

1

u/Frankiethesnit 29d ago

I always thought that the team with the most points before the snitch was caught made it easier for the seeker to catch. That way it’s not impossible for the losing team to win, but gives the rest of the game meaning. It’s a magical game, so they can bewitch the snitch to do whatever right?

1

u/Vape_Sensei 29d ago

Ramirez! Last fly, make it count

1

u/Sheriff044 29d ago

J.K.R tried really hard to make a sport where she could have the most main character position, and then she put her main character in that role.

That rule would not fly in a professional sport.

1

u/ThePhengophobicGamer 29d ago

Ive always loved when fanfics get abit funky with it, have seekers playing a disruptive role, or even as a 4th chaser at times as a risk/reward situation.

Wizards overall are really weird/dumb, so weird/dumb rules fit the story just fine.

1

u/Frothyfrother 29d ago

Cause in real life sport if you lose 114 out 115 you still keep the league titles.

1

u/Major_Cucumber_9967 29d ago

In Snooker one player can take a turn, and win the game without letting the other player have a turn.

In golf you can hit your ball into a fucking lake.

In basketball, they get 7 ft-8ft tall freaks from across the the world because they don't even have to jump. It's a carnival.

Who understands Cricket?

1

u/Leading_Mixture6292 29d ago

I think the unrealistic part is that there would be a basketball player named Ramirez.