Skip to main content

harry potter - How Could Hogwarts Have Realistically Accommodated the Basilisk 800 - 1000+ Years Ago?



This is the first of a three-part question on the basilisk plot in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.


Out of all the Harry Potter books, Chamber of Secrets is the most problematic for me as far as continuity and plot goes. I have issues with the whole basilisk plot. I have a set of three questions regarding Chamber of Secrets that I'm looking for CANON COMPLIANT explanations for. By "canon compliant", I mean within the spirit of canon, answers directly from the book(s), or quotes from J.K. Rowling.¹



  • In Chamber of Secrets the basilisk moves about the castle through the plumbing. However, if Hogwarts was built 1000+ years ago, that would precede indoor plumbing. How can this be explained, that the castle has original indoor plumbing? How could the Founders have anticipated this innovation?

  • The basilisk is described as very large: "as thick as an oak trunk" (CoS - page 318 - US Hardcover) and "able to grow up to fifty feet long" (FBAWTFT - page 3 - Scholastic) Would a snake this large be able to feasibly fit through standard-sized pipes used for indoor plumbing, even pipes sized to accommodate Hogwarts?

  • At the point indoor plumbing was installed in Hogwarts, how is it that the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets wasn't obvious and easily discovered by those installing the indoor plumbing?

  • How could sinks be installed above the entrance, complete with a faucet marked with a serpent, indicating the entrance, without anyone knowing the significance of the serpent on the faucet?


How could Hogwarts have feasibly accommodated a basilisk 800-1000+ years ago, presumably without indoor plumbing?


¹ I find the Harry Potter Wiki to be inconsistent and oftentimes incorrect. I am not looking for any answer(s) sourced from the HP Wiki unless Wiki itself backs that precise fact with explicit canon quote. Just an FYI.



Question Two - How Was the Legend of the Basilisk Established?


Question Three - How Did Tom Riddle Find Out About the Existence/Location of the Chamber of Secrets?



Answer



The Chamber was NOT designed for indoor plumbing. If you recall, once they fell through the pipe, they were walking in the tunnel, with no pipes mentioned. The Chamber was not a "place where plumbing goes". It was more of a catacombs/hidden chambers, under the lake (presumably as per Ron's guess - "Under the lake, probably" was the exact quote), which was a part of architecture and castles since Well Before Hogwarts (e.g. Romans).


The plumbing was merely an easier way to get from the castle proper to the catacombs - and more likely than not, existed in some primitive form in original Hogwarts (e.g. a water spring for hand washing) even if not a bathroom.


The trickier question was whether the entrance from the bathroom dated from Slytherin's time, as it looked to be more modern. But for a wizard of Slytherin's accomplishments, making a spell creating an entrance which would "conform" itself to the current surroundings of the room was surely NOT out of the question - heck, they created Room of Requirement! A mimicking entrance is incomparably simpler!


Now, a much more difficult question is, if the Serpent used the same pipe that Harry and Ron fell through, how was it able to climb UP? It sounded like an extremely steep, nearly vertical incline.



As far as fitting into plumbing - no canon answer. But THIS! IS! HOGWARTS! . The stairways reconfigure themselves. Why not plumbing?


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...
Post a Comment
Read more

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
Post a Comment
Read more

languages - Do we ever see written English in the Star Wars films?

In Empire Strikes Back , we see a transcription of what R2's beeps and bloops mean, but it's not English (sorry for the low quality, it's from the 2004 DVDs): I'd assume it's what Basic looks like when written, but is there some point in the the Star Wars films we see written English instead? (This sort of spun off from a discussion in How do people understand astromech droids? .) Answer At one point there was English but it has been phased out in subsequent versions of the films. Chris Gould at DVD Active did a comparison of all versions of each of the Star Wars films, and in his comparison of Episode 4 , there are a couple of screenshots showing how the power gauge for the Death Star tractor beam was changed. I imagine there are probably more to be found in his other comparisons but I haven't got around to reading those yet.
Post a Comment
Read more

Was the "pure soul" of Harry's what had really hurt Voldemort?

In the Order of the Phoenix, Voldemort possesses Harry, and it hurts. Greatly. I think that Dumbledore explained that it was because Voldemort's rotten soul was incapable of assimilating Harry's pure soul, that Voldemort didn't understand the love and friendship etc that Harry has in his heart. But, I think it was a lie. Remember that in Deathly Hallows, while looking for information regarding Horcruxes, it is discovered that it is in fact possible to merge a soul fragment back, but that the process was extremely painful. Now then, if Voldemort tried to possess Harry, and Harry had a fragment of Voldemort's soul, I think that it could have been the true cause of Voldemort's pain: the fact of having his soul so close of another fragment. I think that Dumbledore knew that fact, but had to lie to Harry because it was inappropriate to let him know that he had one of Voldemort's soul fragments at the moment. Is that right? Or was it truly the pure soul of Harry's...
Post a Comment
Read more