harry potter - Is Azkaban the Only Prison in the Magic World?

The only prison that I can remember being mentioned in Harry Potter is Azkaban. Some simple research indicates one person was imprisoned for owning Sphinxes and Hagrid was sent there, apparently as a precautionary measure, after the re-opening of the Chamber of Secrets. This implies that even though living in Azkaban is a terrible ordeal, that it's possible to be sent there for smaller crimes.

Are there other prisons in the magical world, or is Azkaban the only one? And if there are, has JKR ever made any comments about why one would be sent to Azkaban as opposed to another prison?

Are there also prisons that might be more like a "minimum security" setup without dementors for lesser crimes?

Answer

No. We know at least of Nurmengard, where Gellert Grindelwald is imprisoned. Voldemort visits (that's probably an overly kind description) Grindelwald in his cell in search of the Elder Wand.

From the HP Lexicon:

A towering, "jet-black" wizarding prison built by Gellert Grindelwald to hold his enemies, Nurmengard is a forbidding place (DH18, DH23). Carved over the entrance is Grindelwald's grim mantra: "For the Greater Good" (DH18). And when Grindelwald was defeated by Albus Dumbledore in 1945, he himself was placed in the topmost cell of the tower, held captive for over fifty years (DH18, DH24) where he eventually began to show some remorse (DH35). Finally, in 1998, Voldemort sought Grindelwald out here, looking for information on the Elder Wand, and killed him (DH23).

HP Lexicon - Nurmengard

ETA: A cursory search doesn't turn up specific quotes from JKR re: why a prisoner would go to Azkaban as opposed to another wizarding prison, but I would wager that wizards and witches who commit an offense in the UK go to Azkaban. For example, Igor Karkaroff, a foreign-born Death Eater caught in the UK, did his time in Azkaban rather than Nurmengard.

Comments

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.

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...

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...

star trek - Warning regarding forward saucer section in Nemesis?

In Star Trek: Nemesis , just before the Enterprise rams into the Scimitar, Picard sends a text message from his captain's chair arm pad to Troi — who is manning the helm in lieu of the crewman who was just blown out through what was once the view screen — indicating that she should put full impulse on standby. (Literally, if you watch the scene closely, Troi's console prefaces the order with "TXT MSG" !) My question is: Did Picard also somehow warn crew members in the forward saucer section about what was about to happen? The ramming of the Scimitar was a heat of the moment decision. Considering that he also resorted to calling the auto-destruct sequence shortly after (which ended up being offline), he probably was of the mindset that any losses would be acceptable in order to hault Shinzon's march to Earth. Still, I'm curious. Answer The original script indicates that he called for the crew to " brace for impact ". Whether that call (or the comma...

Blog

Search This Blog