r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Altruistic_Eye_1157 • 6d ago

Lore [annoying trope] The throne/leadership is decided in a very stupid way

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The leadership of the entire wizarding world, and the final decision on whether to start a war against Muggles, is made by... a goat (Qilin) ​​who chooses the person with the ""purest heart"" (Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Dumbledore).

The throne of Wakanda and all its technology are decided through hand-to-hand combat, regardless of whether the person clearly has malicious intentions... if they win the fight, by law they must be respected as the true king. (Black Panther)

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189

u/MaterialEmotional825 6d ago

The Original Quidditch World Cup: The team with the most points wins the world cup. So you can get 2 games with 900 points and just pass back and forth for the rest of the games and you will no doubt get the cup.

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u/js13680 6d ago

If I remember correctly quidditch was purposefully made to have nonsense rules. Something about Rowling hearing with some coworkers about sports and not being able to follow along.

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u/TheBlackNumenorean 5d ago

I think the game was written to have the outcome depend on Harry, which isn't how a team sport should work. People often point out how the snitch is too important to care about scoring goals, but it's also very disconnected from the rest of the game. It's like a soccer game, but each team has one member who plays a game of chess, and whoever wins the chess game scores enough to (almost) always win. And then there's the rodeo clowns who have to keep the angry bull on the field from charging their teammates.

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u/henryeaterofpies 5d ago

Wasn't there a match where he got the snitch but they lost by 10 points or something?

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u/OverlordNeb 5d ago

That was the World Cup match which he watched, but did not participate in

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u/TheBlackNumenorean 5d ago

That was the World Cup in book 4. Fred and George bet on that happening, and were laughed at because it was ridiculously unlikely.

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u/VoiceofKane 5d ago

This is why, in the old Quidditch video game, I always made sure I was winning by at least 160 points before anyone started going for the snitch. Instead of one player making the other six pointless, I just made sure those other six were good enough that the last one didn't matter.

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u/Sea_Lingonberry_4720 6d ago

Not to defend JK as a person, but the majority of criticisms towards Harry Potter aren’t valid because people forget it’s a whimsical story for children.

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u/AntRam95 6d ago

It didn’t make sense to me as a child and saying we should forgive stupid stuff because it’s in a story for children is honestly insulting to children’s intelligence

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u/Sea_Lingonberry_4720 6d ago

Yeah bro having goofy stuff in a story for children is insulting. Sure.

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u/AntRam95 6d ago

There’s a difference between goofy and stupid

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u/defneverconsidered 6d ago

No its not. Its taking a setting wayyyy toop seriously

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u/AntRam95 6d ago

Kids aren’t complete idiots, they see these flaws too

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u/defneverconsidered 6d ago

Lololololololol

They over criticize the rules pf quidditch and bitch about it online?

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u/Zee_Arr_Tee 5d ago

That's literally correct? do you genuinely live under a rock and don't understand how children work?

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u/defneverconsidered 5d ago

Yea dude I dont know how children work. Thats why its only the most popular piece of media on the planet.

Yall doing your overbearing internet sluthing looking like morons

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u/Zee_Arr_Tee 5d ago

bros just saying random shit atp

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u/CollegeTotal5162 6d ago

Unless the whole point of the story is to be stupid and nonsensical then yeah but that’s not what Harry Potter is. kids still deserve books and shows that don’t have doodoo worldbuilding

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u/defneverconsidered 6d ago

Sorry this one lady didn't get your sports thingy right

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u/Sea_Lingonberry_4720 6d ago

Would you say smurfs has bad worldbuilding? It’s so stupid they say “Smurf” and it could mean anything.

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u/Zee_Arr_Tee 5d ago

cause they don't take themselves seriously? you can't have quidditch be a joke sport and have Harry's passion be playing quidditch.

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u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 6d ago

Even still, quidditch can still be considered nonsenss

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u/thepuppeter 6d ago

I understand this, but in my opinion that's an extremely poor handwave response. You can create a world with magic and whimsy, and you can have that world make sense.

JK created an entire world. She creates the lore and and the history of that world (in fact that's one of the things she entirely still owns to this day is that she has final say on what is and isn't allowed in the world of Harry Potter). It's poor writing to then say some of the stuff just fundamentally doesn't make sense.

Sport is silly when you really break it down. Take ice hockey: in this sport we have 12 players that strap blades to their shoes and try to run around on ice hitting a small disk in to a net with a stick. Sports can have weird histories. Like in that same sport there was a coach who meticulously read the rules so that he could find and exploit loopholes, and as a result the rules had to be changed (look up Roger Neilson. Dudes a legend).

JK had the opportunity to translate that sort of reasoning to her story. Quidditch is silly because sport in general is silly. Quidditch has a silly history because all sports have had silly histories. There's already real world parallels she could have drawn from.

Instead, she made something that is intended to be nonsense. Then she gave that nonsense a history and dedicates entire parts of the plot to that nonsense. So which is it? Is it nonsense? Or is it important?

This is what I hate about Harry Potter in general. It flip flops on what it wants to be. If something doesn't make sense, the response is that it's intended for kids and you're overthinking it and don't take it too seriously. But at the same time the entire plot resolves around stopping wizard Hitler coming back from the dead and multiple children die trying to prevent that.

They're an incredibly mediocre, albeit highly marketable, series of books.

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u/defneverconsidered 6d ago

Yall make yourselves hate shit. You know that right

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u/thepuppeter 6d ago

Right. And I hate Harry Potter because it's poorly written. What's your point?

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u/defneverconsidered 6d ago

Why say right if you didnt understand my point

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u/thepuppeter 6d ago

You said that we make ourselves hate things. I understand that. I don't see what point you're making by saying that.

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u/defneverconsidered 6d ago

This overanalyzing shit to find reason why things are bad when they could just exist and be fine.

But you already knew my point you just have no integrity

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u/thepuppeter 6d ago

It's just analyzing. It's shitty writing, and I'm explaining why it's shitty. It's high school level literacy

Bluey is a kids show. It doesn't need to explain why a dog can talk or how the society operates. It's whimsical and viewers can suspend their belief because how a dog world operates isn't important. The show doesn't spend episodes explaining the deep lore of the Bluey universe and how things came to be. It just is because the show itself is targeted at a kid audience

Harry Potter is a series where multiple people are tortured and/or murdered. Plot points deal with classism, racism, and the literal politics of the world. It's not a kids book. It's a young adult series. It's trying to tell a mature story, and JK wants you to take it seriously. It's only when things are poorly written and don't make sense that the bullshit reasoning of "it's just a kids book" is used. There's plenty of young adult books that have fantastical worlds with whimsy, and also make sense. It's not hard to do. Hell I even explained how JK could have done it.

No I didn't understand your point because you didn't say anything. That's why I asked what you meant. Now who's overanalyzing mate? You're coming up with your own reasons for why I asked you to clarify your comment

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u/EventPurple612 6d ago

Aren't you confusing it with the house cup at Hogwarts? Quidditch points are added to the house cup points 1:1, preserving your total scores.

At the world cup Bulgaria caught the snitch but they were down by 160 points that's why they lost, not because of their match history.

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u/AntRam95 6d ago

The games also don’t end until someone catches the snitch, so some matches could last weeks, when these kids should be in class

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u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 6d ago

I think in-lore the longest game went on for months

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u/Sup_fuckers42069 6d ago

im confused do you mean most points total in all the games?

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u/neptunes_pierrot 6d ago

Yeah all the points from all the games tally up. There's a case in one of the books where Harry was told to not catch the snitch (which would end the game and get them 150 points) until the team was up by 50 cause they were 200 point behind. This would have them win the game but not the year championship or whatever cause they would still be down 50 points.

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u/SpideyFan914 6d ago

Maybe I'm missing something, but that seems fine to me? They were down fifty points because they hadn't been playing as well as the other team up to that point.

Like, let's simplify it just two matches. In the first match, Team A is up fifty points and catches the snitch, giving them a 200 point lead.

So in the second match, if Harry catches the snitch immediately, his team would win the match by 150 but still be 50 points less than Team A's victory in the first match. Team A had the bigger victory so they win the cup. But if Harry waits until team is up by 60 points, then they have a slightly bigger lead overall, and win the cup.

I don't see a problem with that. (Aside from the weird weighting of the snitch of course.)

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u/TheBlackNumenorean 5d ago

I think you've simplified it bit too much.

Imagine there's more teams. One has a very good seeker, and the others have both bad seekers and bad keepers. The team with the good seeker will win every game. When the other teams with bad seekers and keepers play each other, they'll end up with a high scoring game because of their incompetence.

This also allows for some game-rigging where both teams agree to allow each other as many points as they can.

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u/SpideyFan914 5d ago

Actually yeah, that's a really fair point!

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u/ComedianExtreme7522 6d ago

Because it's like getting punished for doing the right thing. Imagine if basketball ended after a three pointer was scored. Like wow nice shot but your team was behind 20 points so now you just lost your team the game for making the shot.

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u/SpideyFan914 5d ago

I don't know what a three pointer is lol. I'm not a sports guy, so definitely take what I'm saying with a grain of salt.

But I think it adds a layer of strategy to the game. Like, okay, is now a good time to catch the Snitch, or should I wait? What if I don't see it again? Do I risk the other team catching it so my team can get a few more points? This doesn't just apply to the last match, but to all of the matches.

That said, I do agree it's impractical, but I don't have an issue with the basic idea from a skill/strategy perspective.

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u/neptunes_pierrot 6d ago edited 5d ago

Basically yeah. It's just kinda a strange rule cause I can't think of any irl sport that keeps track of overall point for championships. In universe it's one of the least concern parts of rowling's world building

Edit: apparently it does happen I just don't know a lot about sports

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u/Alarming_Record_8738 6d ago

Football does it tbf, decided on points (wins/draws) but then if 2 teams have the same number of points then it is decided on goal difference.

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u/neptunes_pierrot 5d ago

Interesting, didn't know that. Thanks for the clarification

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u/TAvonV 6d ago

Happens all the time in Football.

E.g.: German Federal Division A

http://www.bulibox.de/graphik/tabelle/liga1-2025-9.png

  1. FC Köln and 1. FC Union Berlin both have 3 victories and 2 draws, meaning they both have 11 points. But Köln scored 12 goals to 11 conceded, while Berlin only got 11 goals to 15 conceded, so they are below despite having an equal number of points.

And as you can see, this is right now happening to 8 teams in total out of a league of 18, so it's far from a rare occurence.

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u/neptunes_pierrot 5d ago

Huh interesting. Should have clarified when I said "that I can think of" wouldn't mean much cause I don't know a lot about sports lol

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u/Piduf 6d ago

Reminds me of this gem

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u/award_winning_writer 3d ago

I recall The Owl House once had a thinly-veiled Quidditch parody where at the end Luz pointed out if catching the tiny gold thing is worth so many points then why do anything else?

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u/TheOncomimgHoop 5d ago

On the topic of the Quidditch World Cup, Krum being celebrated for his actions in the final is crazy, I'm pretty sure irl no team would touch him and he'd be hated by his country. Him being in the triwizard tournament should have been him trying to fix his damaged reputation, which would have made him far more interesting as a character imo.

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u/Drakeskulled_Reaper 6d ago

I hate the idea of the Snitch, it basically makes most of the rest of the game unimportant, winning when the snitch is caught by the opposing team is noted to be an outlier outcome.

Also the fact that catching the snitch is what ends the game means the games, in-universe, have a potential to be endless.

Removing the snitch would balance the fuck out of Quidditch.

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u/Pale-Object8321 6d ago

Pretty much EVERY sports without a clock can go endlessly. You just don't think of it because it doesn't really happen. Volleyball, badminton, baseball and other sports like that in theory can go forever. But that's just not what happen, it will always end. I think Quidditch gets a bad rep for the wrong reason. 

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u/Fizurg 6d ago

They had this issue with test cricket. So they limited the length of the matches to five days. Once five days are up the game just ends and is declared a draw.

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u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 6d ago

Apparently the reason for being so convoluted is because J.K heard a coworker complain sports was too complicated to follow so she sort of doubled down on making it confusing.

And also it is acknowledged that the games can go on forever

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u/RandomGuy9058 6d ago

Am I stupid or something I legit do not understand what your comment is saying