Steve Kurtz points to Tom Franck’s indictment of the game:
In even a casual introduction to the game of quidditch, its flaws are so obvious and so great that it strips JK Rowling naked and reveals just how divorced she is from our world of muggle sports. . . .
The general idea of a broom-riding basketball/hockey/soccer game is not unsound. The problem is introduced with the position of seeker and the hunt for the golden snitch. The objectives of having chasers get the quaffles into the goals and the seeker catching the golden snitch are completely unrelated to one another. It’s as if two separate games have been clumsily welded together. . . .
A quidditch game only ends once a seeker catches the golden snitch. It also gives his or her team an additional 150 points. (Quaffle goals are worth 10 points each)
If you were an avid quidditch fan, your most common feeling would be one of non-satisfaction. Essays by sports columnists attacking the rules would be commonplace. The better team would often lose and the winning team would often have hollow-feeling victories. There would be numerous tales of the seeker who lost the game for his team when he foolishly caught the golden snitch, not realizing his team was down by more than 150 points at that second . . . .
The NBA finals are upon us. Bring a friend over, turn on the TV and each pick a team. Then pull out a chess board and play while the game is going on. If you win the chess game, give yourself 150 points and add it to the score of whichever NBA team you picked. If that total score is greater than the number of points of your opponent’s NBA team, you win! The marriage of the two contests into one makes just as little sense as quidditch . . . .
Objections, counterarguments, curses, etc. should all be sent to Franck, not to me.
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