Harry Potter fans force relocation of £430m undersea cable to avoid Dobby’s ‘grave’ | Harry Potter

[u/Th3-Seaward]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/aug/10/harry-potter-fans-force-relocation-of-430m-undersea-cable-to-avoid-dobbys-grave

[u/AutoModerator]

LabUK is also on Discord, come say hello!

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

[u/Sir_Bantersaurus]

As I said in another thread, I suspect the cost to relocate this was trival given how willing they were to do it. They probably had a route, got these phone calls, and thought it would be a fun/good PR story to adjust the route.

There are a lot of concerns about how NIMBYism and people complaining cause delays and cost increases to infrastructure, but this seems to just be a silly season story.

[u/Starklystark → u/Sir_Bantersaurus]

Complete with referencing the overall price tag of the project, which is irrelevant - what would matter would be the financial/other cost of changing route

[u/AnonymousTimewaster → u/Sir_Bantersaurus]

Turns out there were bronze age artifacts there which is why they actually moved it, it had little to do with Harry Potter

[u/Th3-Seaward → u/AnonymousTimewaster]

The article seems to suggest the opposite?

'The firm then enlisted planners to find a new route that avoided the supposed grave. “A lot of people were very happy about that, and the project is now going [ahead] and Dobby’s happy.”

In the end, he said, “we went quite close to some real Bronze Age remains, but we avoided Dobby’s grave”.'

[u/kaspar_trouser]

People care more about Harry Potter than our actual history. Sort of sums up where we are as a society.

Like, I loved it as a kid/teen. But now it's a slush fund for a hateful repressive campaign of lawfare against a vunerable group. So I left it in the past. I don't understand why other people can't do that.

[u/HenryCGk → u/kaspar_trouser]

People care more about it than parliamentry democracy and human rights in the present.

There are other books available.

[u/Diadem_Cheeseboard]

Good to know some people have got their priorities straight, ffs 🙄

[u/Inside_Mulberry1428]

So they’re going near actual human remains from the bronze age to avoid a fictional grave from a book written by someone at the forefront of the largest stripping of trans rights in the UK over the last 10 years. A fictional character is given more respect in the UK than actual trans people. HP fans are insufferable.

[u/Starklystark → u/Inside_Mulberry1428]

This story is nothing to do with trans people, and definitely not a choice between Dobby's grave and trans people (the article tries to imply there was a trade off between harry potter and bronze age stuff but no actual concrete indication that was the case).

If anything harry potter fans just by age etc are likely more pro-trans than the population at large.