Friday 13 October 2023

MAGICAL OBJECTS TO PLAY SOME GAMES IN HOGWARTS

Today, The Grandma has been reading about some games that you can play in Hogwarts.

Exploding Snap

Exploding Snap is a wizarding card game in which the cards spontaneously explode during games

The game is popular with Hogwarts students. 

In Chamber of Secrets, Harry and Ron are held back from investigating why spiders were fleeing Hogwarts because Fred and George delayed them with this game. Ron later singed his eyebrows while building a card house with Exploding Snap cards. 

In Order of the Phoenix, Lee Jordan is punished by Dolores Umbridge for saying that she cannot tell them off for playing this game, as one of her Educational Decrees states that teachers can only talk to students about the subjects they are paid to teach. In Cursed Child, Ginny remembers playing this game with Harry following the events of Chamber of Secrets and notes that it helped her to recover from the trauma (all the other students avoided her after learning the truth).

Gobstones

Gobstones is one of the many magical games played by young wizards in the books, along with Wizard's Chess and Exploding Snap. 

Gobstones is similar to the games of marbles and pétanque, except that in Gobstones, the balls spit, or gob, a foul-smelling liquid in the face of the opposing player when they lose a point. Hogwarts students are seen playing Gobstones throughout the books, and there is even a Gobstones Club at the school. It is also noted in the Harry Potter series that Eileen Prince (Snape's mother) was captain of Hogwarts' Gobstone Club, as a student, at age 15.

Quidditch balls

The Quidditch balls consist of a Quaffle, a large red ball (and the only one not bewitched to fly on its own) which the Chasers need to get through the three hoops on the field, gaining ten points each time this successfully occurs; two Bludgers, which fly around attempting to disturb the game and knock people off their brooms, and which the Beaters hit away from teammates and towards the opposing team; and the Golden Snitch, a very fast and difficult-to-see golden orb the size of a walnut with wings, which the Seeker on each team must capture to finish the game and gain 150 points. The Quidditch players wear gloves, leg pads, padded head guards, and occasionally goggles.

Self-Shuffling Playing Cards

In Chamber of Secrets, a pack of Self-Shuffling Cards is mentioned as one of the various objects littering the floor of Ron's room in the Burrow.

Wizard's Chess

Wizard's Chess is played with pieces and a board identical to Chess. The rules are also unchanged. The pieces are magically animated, and they violently attack each other when performing a capture, by knocking the captured piece out and dragging it off the board. The players order the pieces to move using algebraic chess notation.

Ron has a wizard's chess set left to him by his grandfather, and Harry first plays with pieces borrowed from Seamus Finnigan, which kept shouting him advice because they did not trust him. Harry later gets a set of his own during his first Christmas at Hogwarts.

During the 16th chapter of Philosopher's Stone, Harry, Ron and Hermione become human chess pieces in a life-sized game of Wizard's Chess, which Harry wins thanks to Ron's advice and sacrifice as a piece. In the films, the chess pieces are depicted using replicas of Lewis Chessmen.

More information: Wizarding World

That's chess!
You've got to make some sacrifices!
I take one step forward and she'll take me
-that leaves you free to checkmate the king, Harry!

Ron Weasley

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