this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2025
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Harry Potter
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It'd work better if he only caught it once, like if it were a one in a million it'd balance better and represent the "hope against all odds" kinda device that i thought it was. But Harry catching the bloody thing every third game ruins it.
Iirc a game of quidditch doesn't end until the snitch is caught. I believe one game lasted months
Really, I thought they were timed or something? I thought catching the snitch ended the game, but was not the only thing that could end the game?
They actually say a game once went for months because nobody caught it, and they had to keep switching players out to sleep. Which now that I think about it, how did they not have players on the bench...
What the hell's the point of everything else in the game then? I thought people were scoring points and stuff. Why isn't everyone just going after the golden snitch?
If everyone was trying to get the snitch on team a, team b would just get constant empty net goals and rack up a huge lead.
Since you still get 10 points per goal, if you can get a 16 goal lead on the opposing team, then you can win even if the snitch is caught by the opposing team. So not leaving an empty goal + having to deal with the bludgers (which can attack your seeker) then you suddenly don't have as much resources for the snitch.
Additionally the game can be ended by mutual agreement between the teams, so a blowout in scoring can result in an effective surrender/resignation of the other team.
It's actually an interesting mechanic when you think it through, since it means a pretty delicate balance of team resources need to be spent between seeking/assisting the seeker, defending, and having the ability to score in the case that the other team focuses too heavily on the snitch.
Delicate my ass. Put two chasers on defense, a chaser on snitch finding duty, and a beater dedicated entirely to hospitalizing the opposing seeker. The 3 on defense just need to park their asses in the goals, and as long as you either find the snitch first or concuss the other seeker, you win. Your second beater can move as necessary.
I think it's reasonable to assume that there are minutia rules in place that would prevent or discourage disengaging play.
Similar to icing rules or offsides in hockey and soccer, or how players can't enter the crease without the puck in hockey, goaltending rules in basketball, or pass interference and holding in American football.
Every sport is filled with rules like that in order to encourage dynamic and engaging play and I'm willing to bet we don't know those rules for the same reason nobody poops it's boring and not relevant to the story.
Besides you can counter that play by running a light defense and heavy attack on the opposing seeker, since defending against one chaser will be significantly easier, or having the seeker come off of snitch duty in a power play like scenario, making a 4 man offense with both beaters attacking the chasers acting as defenders (who would get demolished since they parked at the goal, keepers can't get hit, but the chasers are just psuedo keepers in this scenario), that would allow you to dunk on the now hamstrung opposing team.
I think every sport seems stupid or broken until you put tweaks on the rules.
Edit: I just saw your play involved no offense, which means the entire opposing team's offense can attack the goal as a counter, effectively making a 6 (or 7 if the keeper gets involved and they go open net) v 4, which makes it incredibly likely that the attacking team can just massively out score the opposing team, so your team would either have to draw back, or get extremely lucky and catch the snitch before the score snowballs. It could be an effective strategy, but it would for sure make you lose games against teams that have a stronger focus on scoring vs seeking.
Because then Harry isnt the constant hero saving everyone all the time.
it would be fine if the snitch gave maybe 50 points instead of 150. Then a significantly better team could push their opponents to end the game to safe face, or get them to try to regain points before being back in race to win.
That's the point of the post.
Well that's just silly. I'll keep my head cannon in place, lol.
Adding also that canonically there have been games where the snitch is caught but that team still loses.
Ah, so a typical match of tennis