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The sport of the week: the Quidditch

Par AnonymeOn May 22, 2023

You like the extreme sports that allow you to kinda murder your opponents, or you love to pursue a sort of golden cochonnet, or your dream is to be creepily watched by old wizards like Dumbledore ? We found just the sport for you here at the WN : the Quidditch.

The true muggles will forgive me for explaining the concept of this sport, but since I despise the Harry Potter fan community, I simply do not care. So, Quidditch is a sport played by team, with balls, on flying brooms. The two teams are made of seven players.

The three chasers go after the “main” ball, called the “quaffle”. Their objective is essentially to pass the ball to each other, or to intercept the quaffle in order to finally get to the goals and score. One goal earns a team ten points.

The two beaters, which, as their names explain, are equipped with BATS, are hitting “bludgers”, which are basically the magical equivalent of a petanque ball thrown by Didier between two pastis at the village club. Their objective is simply to DESTROY their opponents, and also to defend their teammates. For the record, getting hit by a bludger on any body part means a fracture. So try to imagine that but with kids going through puberty, who don’t have completely constructed bones yet.

Other than the two sociopaths wich are trying to fracture people, their is the keeper which has to stop goals, and also to try not to get killed since he is regularly the target of attacks. You’ll notice that there are three rings for the goals. Is it particularly interesting for the sport ? Not really.

And finally, the seeker, which pursues what I called the golden cochonnet and what they call “the golden snitch”. The golden cochonnet moves around the field and the two seekers try to catch it as quickly as possible. Catching the golden cochonnet will get the team of the seeker a hundred points. Yes, you need to score ten TEN goals to make up for the points gotten thanks to the golden cochonnet. Which, scenaristically talking, is justified by the fact that the match is centered around Harry Potter, but is, from a sport point of view, close to the void.

I didn’t know that J.K. Rowling had written the history of Quidditch. Well, appart from coming back to what she said and being transphobe, she doesn’t do much. Quidditch appeared into the swamps of Queerditch (slay :P), hence the name of the sport. The apparition of the golden cochonnet happened later ! A witch, of which nobody cares except for Potterheads had accidentally released a “golden snidget” which is a “spherical, very quick and very mobile” bird. If spherical is a strange adjective to designate a bird, I will add that we can be angry to this person for introducing a not very interesting mecanic to this game full of potential.

When does the game end ? Often when the golden snitch is caught, sometimes by mutual agreement of the teams. Some games would have longed for months according to Harry Potter lore. Personnally, as a referee, I would have stopped after an hour because that sport is boring as shit. But this is without considering the unhealthy obsession for this sport in the magical world. In our world, if there is a storm or strong rain, a football match is stopped. In the wizarding world, if there are some kind of soul sucking creatures and lightning just above a field in a sport where people go high, they continue the match even if it is a match inside of a school, which doesn’t matter. (cf the third Harry Potter).

There are no more annoying fans than wizards are with this sport. Well, that is what I thought before the Harry Potter fanbase decided to get this terrible sport into the real world. Which I understand, when I was little, I thought it was fun, moreover you could fly. But I was five year old. The only thing that could be interesting to watch in this sport (watching players getting destroyed by bludgers) is completely missing. And, well, there IS a huge limit to adapt a collective sport on flying brooms. You got it ? Well done ! Actual brooms don’t fly :. Well, that didn’t stop the american fanbase. The “fake it ‘til you make it” mindset, surely.

This is the genius of the adaptation of this sport, in the end. To see rows of americans jiggling with a broom glued at the butt while they imagine themselves facing absolute evil afterward is hilarious. Ridicule does not kill, that’s for sure. The little bonus is that they translated the golden cochonnet by a man running around the field. This chase scene - between consenting adults who are re enacting the training games of Judo classes, the thirsday evening at 6pm to catch a hanging tennis ball - is particularly interesting to watch.

Once the match is over, the black screen of my computer only reflected my lifeless face. The joy I felt had only been mockery, or teasing but when the Quidditch ended, I was left feeling empty. When seeing such honest smiles on the faces of the people facing each other with brooms between their legs, I come to wonder : isn’t this what hapinness is ? To be content when a bitter associal is making fun of you.