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Just for laughs...

Scalenex said:
I have lots of thoughts on this. I'm curious to how many British people pay attention to basketball. I'm betting the answer is "not very much but more than baseball or American football."

Now I am used to American centric media.
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The above is perfectly rational to me...

Rowling is VERY British centric. Goblet of Fire covered the wider wizarding world beyond Britain a lot but none of the other books really did. Deathly Hollows struck me as odd. When Harry, Ron, and Hermione were trying to avoid detection it never occurred to them to hide out of the United Kingdom. When Voldomort was hiding his horcruxes, it never occurred to him to seek a horcrux or hide a horcrux outside of the UK.

Despite the fact that there was a wider wizarding world, no one outside of Britain intervened when Voldomort and his cronies took over Great Britain. None of the Deatheater's enemies seemed to have the idea to flee overseas for safety. Now, I guess the other countries have their own dark wizards to worry about, but this is another blindspot. If I was Voldomort and I was struggling to solidify my hold on a conquered nation, I would invite other dark wizards from foreign lands to join them. Given that Voldomort is basically Wizard Hitler, he could have then used Britain as a base to export his ideology to the rest of the world.

But nothing outside of Great Britain mattered...at all. It's like the entire rest of the world were all Ravenclaws. There was one Ravenclaw that mattered at least a little bit and that was Luna Lovegood. There was one foreigner wizard that mattered, at least a little bit and that was Victor Krum.

I don't think Rowling liked sports much. Dean Thomas' favorite soccer team was one of Rowling's friends favorite soccer team, that's about the extant of her knowledge of sports. Ignoring the physics of a male Quidditch player make sudden maneuvers with a a rod against his groin, the whole concept of the golden snitch made the actions of the non-Seeker almost pointless. It was not really a balanced sport, it was basically a story vehicle to give Harry one more avenue to be exceptional by near-single handedly winning matches.

As a means of competition, the snitch being worth 150 points is a bad idea because it makes the other player's actions meaningless. From a spectator sport, it's an even worse idea. The golden snitch is so tiny and hard to see that looking at it from the stands, it's basically invisible. So watching the two Seekers fly around would be pretty boring. Watching people toss the quaffle around or avoid bludgers, that would be interesting but because it has so little impact on the game, you lose the emotional stakes.

I would not complain so much about JK Rowling if I didn't really like her stories. If I really dislike a piece of media, I won't complain about it, I just won't watch it or read it.
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That's a pretty flipping good argument.

It's funny, I had the same idea when reading the last books.

First off, I really like the books.

It's very funny to hear you state your case. I have always thought it was funny that aliens always land in America (other than once when they obviously got lost and landed in South Africa in "District 9" or whatever that movie was). I didn't really think about the UK being ego-centric on magic! I guess in my mind, it was justified by the fact that it wasn't a hostile takeover so to speak, as the characters coment a number of times that he does it in the shadows, putting puppets in place that he controls, etc.

She definitely doesn't make a big deal out of the rest of the world. There is some, with Beauxbatons and Durmstrang as well as at the Quidditch world cup. Unfortunately, seems like all the bad guys are in England :( as apart from that guy he dueled when he was younger, all the Death Eaters are English!!! (I might have missed a couple, but no-one major for sure).

Ironically JK Rowling has depicted the seat of magical evil being (at least at that time) in the UK. Funny.

Your take on Quidditch is very interesting. Even without being able to spot the Snitch, I think watching the main game would have been fun and with a surprise adrenaline boost whenever the Seekers spotted it and did one of the dives. Does overpower that player though, I agree. Would make for interesting tactics.

Plus I would personally LOVE to play the game. Always liked the idea of flying. If one of @NIGHTBRINGER 's potions had been flight, I would have chosen that one for sure
 
Lizards of Renown said:
She definitely doesn't make a big deal out of the rest of the world.
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I forgot to mention when Scotland was having a vote whether they wanted to remain in the UK or whether they wanted to become a separate nation. Rowling donated A LOT of money to the remain in the UK camp.

I don't remember which comedian pointed it out, but the vaguely Scottish red head Ron Weasley was clearly subordinate to the more traditionally English Harry Potter. Rowling at least has a fondness for Scotland's geography. She said in an interview that she meant to imply that Hogwartz is in Scotland because it's a long train ride north from London and she meant the terrain to be inspired by Scotland.

Being as I'm not in the UK I don't have any strong opinions on Scottish nationalism.
 
Lizards of Renown said:
I have always thought it was funny that aliens always land in America (other than once when they obviously got lost and landed in South Africa in "District 9" or whatever that movie was).
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Obviously because an alien invasion of Europe requires dealing with a man in a blue box, wacky Nazi super-science, and the powers of Stalinism. :p
 
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