Pottermore - weebls-stuff forums

Codgin · 15-04-2012, 04:03 PM

Pottermore

Harry Potter fans rejoice, Pottermore is now live, check it out on the link above, post your thoughts below and enjoy! (I couldn't tell you what it is just yet because I'm still waiting for my activation code, grrr, but theres minigames, extra info on the potter universe and a new way to enjoy the books??)

Eoin the Hairy · 16-04-2012, 12:22 AM

Just signed up, still waiting to get in. The one question I want answered is is there really shitty magic schools, because by the sounds of it there is about 3 schools in Europe, which can't be right. Plus it sounded like it cost loads to go to Hogwarts so maybe there was public schools that were kinda crap and the graduates had really poor prospects afterwards(this is not an attack on the muggle public schools system).

Obese5tickman · 18-04-2012, 01:15 PM

Pottermore is pretty great. It's a shame only the first book is available, and it looks as though the second won't be out for at least another few weeks.

And Eoin, it implies in The Half Blood Prince that Hogwarts offers financial help to those who need it (Dumbledore gives money to Tom Riddle). And there is a little extra bit on Pottermore that mentions other schools in Europe.

Harlequin · 18-04-2012, 01:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eoin the Bald

Just signed up, still waiting to get in. The one question I want answered is is there really shitty magic schools, because by the sounds of it there is about 3 schools in Europe, which can't be right. Plus it sounded like it cost loads to go to Hogwarts so maybe there was public schools that were kinda crap and the graduates had really poor prospects afterwards(this is not an attack on the muggle public schools system).

Well there aren't actually THAT many Wizards I don't think. I think the number of Hogwarts students is meant to be about 1000, and it says most children in the country study there. Also the entire wizarding world basically seems to make do with very little infrastructure. There aren't exactly many retail high streets, there seems to be only one hospital.

And if the Weasleys can afford to go to Hogwarts then I think most people would generally be fine. If there was free magical education other than home schooling you don't think they would have taken it?

Eoin the Hairy · 19-04-2012, 07:30 AM

Yeah but the poor ol' Weasleys broke their backs trying to keep them in school(especially on a civil servant salary). Tom Riddle is exceptional though, he was an orphan.

Time to get mathsy!

SO if you take it that the population of the UK(+ Ireland) is at most 68,000,000 and the school has 1000 students, then 1 in every 68,000 is a young school age witch or wizard. Then take the population of Europe which according to Wikipedia is 729 million.

739 000 000 / 68 000 = 10 867.6471

Hogwarts has 1000 students and the other two schools cater for 9000 plus students?

So, Beauxbaton is in France and according to one wikia JKR once said Durmstrang is in Scandanavia. I would not fancy being a Greek Wizard when the summer hols ended.

Obese5tickman · 20-04-2012, 11:38 PM

Being an unashamed Potterhead, I've occasionally contemplated how large the wizarding population actually is. A bit of an essay, but here we go:

In one of the Pottermore supplementary bits, Rowling says she planned on 40 students per year, so you've massively overestimated the number of students. There would be around 280 students at Hogwarts in any given year. If my maths is correct, then during a seven year school cycle around 520 students would have passed/be passing through Hogwarts.

Regarding Gringotts and St Mungo's, I always assumed there would be different branches of Gringotts spread across the world, and one hospital per country seems reasonable what with the variety of instantaneous magical transport available and the abundance of muggle hospitals for non-magical related injuries.

I think Rowling overstated the size of the Quiddich World Cup stadium. 100,000 seems a bit much as apparently the tickets were very expensive (if Malfoy is to be believed and if I'm remembering correctly) and the Irish and Bulgarian supporters seemed to outnumber everyone else significantly. But perhaps wizards aren't as dedicated to their nation teams as muggles are, which would explain lack of neutral spectators at the event.

My only real problem I've had with wrapping my head round the magic universe is the apparent ignorance to muggle technology and culture. Would wizards really need their own currency? Are their wizard supermarkets, or do families grow all their own food? And do all wizards work at the Ministry, Hogwarts or a shop? And while they explain why electrical stuff doesn't work in massively magic places like Hogwarts, the Ministry etc, there's no reason to assume they wouldn't work in wizarding households. The Dursley's TV doesn't suddenly explode every summer when Harry comes home does it?

Any views on this?

**Timmeh** · 21-04-2012, 08:49 AM

Not too sure where you got 520 from; assuming 40 per year, that's 280 in the school at any one time (or to say it another way, 280 magical children of school age). I would also add 10% to it to account for children who are home schooled or attend other schools (Malfoy mentions he almost attended Durmstrang, so it's certainly possible). Let's call it 310. Taking a linear slice out of the relevant population density, there are 2.325e6 children of ages 11 - 18 in the UK. This means a 0.0133R% chance that a given person is magical. Extrapolating the magical population of:

UK - 9,000
Europe - 98,000
World - 912,000

Although I can spot a potential major flaw with the world figure. Magic is genetic, however it's unclear when this genetic mutation first occurred. I'd assume not vastly long ago in the scale of human evolution; if it occurred more or less at the dawn of man, I'd assume it would be a significant enough genetic advantage that those with magic would be more sexually successful over a sustained period and thus it'd be a LOT more prevalent, if not propagated to everyone. If this is the case that it happened later, did it occur in Europe? If so, chances are that the magical population of the world is far lower than my estimate. Or maybe it occurred elsewhere in the world and only trickled in (though I feel this is unlikely), in which case the magical population of the world would be higher. It's ultimately impossible to know, but I want to highlight the probable flaw in the figures.

So if indeed we just take the figures as they are, and as you say the world cup housed 100,000 then that'd be over 10% of the population of the world. That said, people were clearly shown supporting countries other than the one in which they lived (all of the main characters elected to support Ireland, for example) and given that travel clearly isn't an issue, maybe such an event would draw that sort of a gathering.

Regarding schooling, I'm under the impression that Hogwarts is a "state" school and does not require fees, certainly no mention of fees have ever been made. I'd back this up with J.K. Rowling's personal politics; she donated £1M to the labour party, and given that she was writing Hogwarts with a highly positive spin, I can't quite see it being private - inevitably when you write, in an attempt to depict something as positive or negative, you project a degree of your personal beliefs. Durmstrang, however, you could probably make an argument for being private (though I have an unjustifiable gut feeling that it isn't). That being said, it appears that attending such a school is expensive simply for the equipment requirements.

Regarding number of schools in Europe... difficult to say, but given that they're boarding schools, they could easily arrange (taking the example of a Greek wizard) an Athens portkey for the start and end of term. Only difficulty I can see is language barrier. Interestingly, the accents Rowling assigns to Durmstrang students (slavic, almost Russian) doesn't quite correlate with its theorised location of Northern Norway.

A lot of the students from both Durmstrang and Beauxbatons didn't seem to have strong English (that is to say that an average muggle Norwegian of the same age would probably have far superior grasp of English than the Durmstrang students did), it's probably reasonable to assume they aren't taught in English. Durmstrang is also implied to draw in students from a wide net, including Krum from Bulgaria. While this doesn't discount the idea of local schools, it does cause me to think that Durmstrang may teach through the medium of Russian, though the evidence that leads there may be down to geographical muddling on Rowling's part. My personal guess (based mostly on gut feeling) is that there probably are other, smaller, less prestigious schools all around Europe.

As for muggle ignorance, I would assume that the magical world are predominantly slow adaptors. When there's no real need to understand non-magical transportation methods and electrical devices I can see why there'd be gaps in knowledge. That said, I think if the HP Universe were real, people like Arthur Weasley (who has both actual interest and career in muggle items) would have a more or less muggle-like knowledge of their operation. I figure people were portrayed as somewhat clueless as a device to demonstrate detachment from the muggle world, provide a bit of comedy and really highlight that the wizarding world is a self-sufficient one.

There are a few things that back up my slow adaptor theory, such as radios (though presumably magical ones), which somewhat implies that magical people will take the principle of a non-magical device and implement it themselves. Give it 200 years and maybe we'll see some form of magical TV.

Obese5tickman · 21-04-2012, 11:59 AM

I got 520 from the 40 new people a year that would join during any one person's time at Hogwarts. So during a person's entire school time, they'd be in contact with around 520 different students. Thinking about it now, I can't remember why I thought that was relevant.

Also, something I forgot to mention is the number of teachers seems a bit low to me. One for each subject wouldn't be enough, without at least a few more compulsory subjects or a load of free periods. It would also make sense for students to be taught core subjects too, such as english, maths and science, so you don't graduate an illiterate moron.

Eoin the Hairy · 21-04-2012, 02:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Timmeh

Although I can spot a potential major flaw with the world figure. Magic is genetic, however it's unclear when this genetic mutation first occurred. I'd assume not vastly long ago in the scale of human evolution; if it occurred more or less at the dawn of man, I'd assume it would be a significant enough genetic advantage that those with magic would be more sexually successful over a sustained period and thus it'd be a LOT more prevalent, if not propagated to everyone. If this is the case that it happened later, did it occur in Europe? If so, chances are that the magical population of the world is far lower than my estimate. Or maybe it occurred elsewhere in the world and only trickled in (though I feel this is unlikely), in which case the magical population of the world would be higher. It's ultimately impossible to know, but I want to highlight the probable flaw in the figures.

"Hogwarts is a coeducational, secondary boarding school, taking children from ages eleven to eighteen.[4] Education at Hogwarts is not compulsory, with some students being home schooled as stated in the seventh book. Rowling initially said there are about one thousand students at Hogwarts.[14] She later suggested around six hundred, while acknowledging that this number was still inconsistent with the small number of people in Harry's year. She further explained that this had resulted from her creating only 40 characters for Harry's year"-Wikipedia

Well that clears up a bit. It also says on the wikipedia page that JKR said radios were not powered by electricity but magic. I don't know if that applies to all radios.

The oldest reference I remember in the books to witches & wizard was them being burned at the stake in Europe and them having a laugh at it.

Harlequin · 21-04-2012, 11:02 PM

All electronic items in the wizarding world are actually powered by magic, including cameras and radios.

They have a knack for taking some Muggle technologies and making them work magically but generally the cultures are kept incredibly separate as the entire theme of the books are wizarding prejudices to non magical people.

Wizards have their own currency, technologies, customs and communities simply because they generally dislike Muggles.

Obviously throughout the book there are many numerous professions mentioned as well, such as journalism, photography, research, cultivation, healing ect.

15-04-2012, 04:03 PM	#1
Codgin Ninja apprentice Join Date: May 2008 Location: West Midlands, UK Posts: 803 Rupies: 340 Gifts	Pottermore Pottermore Harry Potter fans rejoice, Pottermore is now live, check it out on the link above, post your thoughts below and enjoy! (I couldn't tell you what it is just yet because I'm still waiting for my activation code, grrr, but theres minigames, extra info on the potter universe and a new way to enjoy the books??)

16-04-2012, 12:22 AM	#2
Eoin the Hairy Got beefs Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Baile Núis Posts: 563 Rupies: 18 Gifts	Just signed up, still waiting to get in. The one question I want answered is is there really shitty magic schools, because by the sounds of it there is about 3 schools in Europe, which can't be right. Plus it sounded like it cost loads to go to Hogwarts so maybe there was public schools that were kinda crap and the graduates had really poor prospects afterwards(this is not an attack on the muggle public schools system). __________________ There's nothing ever gained By a wet thing called a tear When the world is too dark And I need the light inside of me I'll walk into a bar And drink fifteen pints of beer MySpace-YouTube

18-04-2012, 01:15 PM	#3
Obese5tickman Pie crumb Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 30 Rupies: 5	Pottermore is pretty great. It's a shame only the first book is available, and it looks as though the second won't be out for at least another few weeks. And Eoin, it implies in The Half Blood Prince that Hogwarts offers financial help to those who need it (Dumbledore gives money to Tom Riddle). And there is a little extra bit on Pottermore that mentions other schools in Europe. __________________ "Nothing amazing ever happens here... It's like a life time of dying slowly..."

19-04-2012, 07:30 AM	#5
Eoin the Hairy Got beefs Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Baile Núis Posts: 563 Rupies: 18 Gifts	Yeah but the poor ol' Weasleys broke their backs trying to keep them in school(especially on a civil servant salary). Tom Riddle is exceptional though, he was an orphan. Time to get mathsy! SO if you take it that the population of the UK(+ Ireland) is at most 68,000,000 and the school has 1000 students, then 1 in every 68,000 is a young school age witch or wizard. Then take the population of Europe which according to Wikipedia is 729 million. 739 000 000 / 68 000 = 10 867.6471 Hogwarts has 1000 students and the other two schools cater for 9000 plus students? So, Beauxbaton is in France and according to one wikia JKR once said Durmstrang is in Scandanavia. I would not fancy being a Greek Wizard when the summer hols ended. __________________ There's nothing ever gained By a wet thing called a tear When the world is too dark And I need the light inside of me I'll walk into a bar And drink fifteen pints of beer MySpace-YouTube

20-04-2012, 11:38 PM	#6
Obese5tickman Pie crumb Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 30 Rupies: 5	Being an unashamed Potterhead, I've occasionally contemplated how large the wizarding population actually is. A bit of an essay, but here we go: In one of the Pottermore supplementary bits, Rowling says she planned on 40 students per year, so you've massively overestimated the number of students. There would be around 280 students at Hogwarts in any given year. If my maths is correct, then during a seven year school cycle around 520 students would have passed/be passing through Hogwarts. Regarding Gringotts and St Mungo's, I always assumed there would be different branches of Gringotts spread across the world, and one hospital per country seems reasonable what with the variety of instantaneous magical transport available and the abundance of muggle hospitals for non-magical related injuries. I think Rowling overstated the size of the Quiddich World Cup stadium. 100,000 seems a bit much as apparently the tickets were very expensive (if Malfoy is to be believed and if I'm remembering correctly) and the Irish and Bulgarian supporters seemed to outnumber everyone else significantly. But perhaps wizards aren't as dedicated to their nation teams as muggles are, which would explain lack of neutral spectators at the event. My only real problem I've had with wrapping my head round the magic universe is the apparent ignorance to muggle technology and culture. Would wizards really need their own currency? Are their wizard supermarkets, or do families grow all their own food? And do all wizards work at the Ministry, Hogwarts or a shop? And while they explain why electrical stuff doesn't work in massively magic places like Hogwarts, the Ministry etc, there's no reason to assume they wouldn't work in wizarding households. The Dursley's TV doesn't suddenly explode every summer when Harry comes home does it? Any views on this? __________________ "Nothing amazing ever happens here... It's like a life time of dying slowly..."

21-04-2012, 08:49 AM	#7
Timmeh Mew. Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Swansea Posts: 4,781 Rupies: 160 Gifts	Not too sure where you got 520 from; assuming 40 per year, that's 280 in the school at any one time (or to say it another way, 280 magical children of school age). I would also add 10% to it to account for children who are home schooled or attend other schools (Malfoy mentions he almost attended Durmstrang, so it's certainly possible). Let's call it 310. Taking a linear slice out of the relevant population density, there are 2.325e6 children of ages 11 - 18 in the UK. This means a 0.0133R% chance that a given person is magical. Extrapolating the magical population of: UK - 9,000 Europe - 98,000 World - 912,000 Although I can spot a potential major flaw with the world figure. Magic is genetic, however it's unclear when this genetic mutation first occurred. I'd assume not vastly long ago in the scale of human evolution; if it occurred more or less at the dawn of man, I'd assume it would be a significant enough genetic advantage that those with magic would be more sexually successful over a sustained period and thus it'd be a LOT more prevalent, if not propagated to everyone. If this is the case that it happened later, did it occur in Europe? If so, chances are that the magical population of the world is far lower than my estimate. Or maybe it occurred elsewhere in the world and only trickled in (though I feel this is unlikely), in which case the magical population of the world would be higher. It's ultimately impossible to know, but I want to highlight the probable flaw in the figures. So if indeed we just take the figures as they are, and as you say the world cup housed 100,000 then that'd be over 10% of the population of the world. That said, people were clearly shown supporting countries other than the one in which they lived (all of the main characters elected to support Ireland, for example) and given that travel clearly isn't an issue, maybe such an event would draw that sort of a gathering. Regarding schooling, I'm under the impression that Hogwarts is a "state" school and does not require fees, certainly no mention of fees have ever been made. I'd back this up with J.K. Rowling's personal politics; she donated £1M to the labour party, and given that she was writing Hogwarts with a highly positive spin, I can't quite see it being private - inevitably when you write, in an attempt to depict something as positive or negative, you project a degree of your personal beliefs. Durmstrang, however, you could probably make an argument for being private (though I have an unjustifiable gut feeling that it isn't). That being said, it appears that attending such a school is expensive simply for the equipment requirements. Regarding number of schools in Europe... difficult to say, but given that they're boarding schools, they could easily arrange (taking the example of a Greek wizard) an Athens portkey for the start and end of term. Only difficulty I can see is language barrier. Interestingly, the accents Rowling assigns to Durmstrang students (slavic, almost Russian) doesn't quite correlate with its theorised location of Northern Norway. A lot of the students from both Durmstrang and Beauxbatons didn't seem to have strong English (that is to say that an average muggle Norwegian of the same age would probably have far superior grasp of English than the Durmstrang students did), it's probably reasonable to assume they aren't taught in English. Durmstrang is also implied to draw in students from a wide net, including Krum from Bulgaria. While this doesn't discount the idea of local schools, it does cause me to think that Durmstrang may teach through the medium of Russian, though the evidence that leads there may be down to geographical muddling on Rowling's part. My personal guess (based mostly on gut feeling) is that there probably are other, smaller, less prestigious schools all around Europe. As for muggle ignorance, I would assume that the magical world are predominantly slow adaptors. When there's no real need to understand non-magical transportation methods and electrical devices I can see why there'd be gaps in knowledge. That said, I think if the HP Universe were real, people like Arthur Weasley (who has both actual interest and career in muggle items) would have a more or less muggle-like knowledge of their operation. I figure people were portrayed as somewhat clueless as a device to demonstrate detachment from the muggle world, provide a bit of comedy and really highlight that the wizarding world is a self-sufficient one. There are a few things that back up my slow adaptor theory, such as radios (though presumably magical ones), which somewhat implies that magical people will take the principle of a non-magical device and implement it themselves. Give it 200 years and maybe we'll see some form of magical TV. __________________ <3 Last edited by Timmeh; 21-04-2012 at 09:01 AM..

21-04-2012, 11:59 AM	#8
Obese5tickman Pie crumb Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 30 Rupies: 5	I got 520 from the 40 new people a year that would join during any one person's time at Hogwarts. So during a person's entire school time, they'd be in contact with around 520 different students. Thinking about it now, I can't remember why I thought that was relevant. Also, something I forgot to mention is the number of teachers seems a bit low to me. One for each subject wouldn't be enough, without at least a few more compulsory subjects or a load of free periods. It would also make sense for students to be taught core subjects too, such as english, maths and science, so you don't graduate an illiterate moron. __________________ "Nothing amazing ever happens here... It's like a life time of dying slowly..."