Skip to main content

harry potter - Are Quidditch teams restricted to 7 players in a squad?


In CoS Wood comments before Quidditch practice



we should have won the Quidditch Cup last year...But unfortunately owing to circumstances beyond our control... p84, chapter 7



We learn Harry's reaction to this is that




Harry shifted guiltily in his seat. He had been unconscious in n the hospital wing for the final match of the previous year, meaning Gryffindor had been a player short and had suffered their worst defeat in three hundred years. page 84, chapter 7



However when Harry was given detention for wounding Malfoy and thus missing a Quidditch game against Ravenclaw, Ginny was drafted in as a replacement seeker.


Therefore what's the difference as to why a replacement was sought for one game and not the other? And furthermore is there not a Quidditch squad for each team in order to accommodate for possible injuries and suspensions to one of the starting 7?



Answer



Probably not always


As Oliver Wood explained, in at least one Quidditch match substitutes were brought in for exhausted players:



"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."



—Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone



It seems likely from this that professional Quidditch teams have proper backups.


Hogwarts is a different situation, but as indicated in the question, they at least have substitutes. As to why the team was a player short for the match in question, the explanation is probably simple: they did not have sufficient notification to find a substitute, or all potential substitutes were busy.


It seems possible that they did find a substitute, but still lost, because the substitute was not as skilled as Harry. This could still be consistent with calling them "a player short," since that might refer to the situation before they could find a substitute.


That said, in the Hogwarts Quidditch games, they do not seem to have a regular squad of substitutes,and instead must find them as the need arises.


For example, when Katie Bell ended up in the hospital, Harry had to find a replacement:



Katie Bell was still in St. Mungo’s Hospital with no prospect of leaving, which meant that the promising Gryffindor team Harry had been training so carefully since September was one Chaser short. He kept putting off replacing Katie in the hope that she would return, but their opening match against Slytherin was looming, and he finally had to accept that she would not be back in time to play.


—Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince




The unofficial replacement roster seems to be those people who performed well at the last tryouts.



One of the reasons why Harry would have preferred not to have to ask Dean to play was that he knew Seamus would not like it. On the other hand, he had to do what was best for the team, and Dean had outflown Seamus at the tryouts.


—Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince



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

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
Post a Comment
Read more