I can’t be the only one who, having seen the movies, still doesn’t have a CLUE about
the layout of Hogwarts.
There are a few recurring features, yet even these seem to change every movie- and there
are various blogs covering this phenomenon.
I’m sure the optimistic answer to why all these changes occur is ‘magic’.
But I suspect what actually happened was that the director would occasionally look at a
shot, and decided it would look better if there was a view of Hogwarts in the background,
and doing this every scene resulted in a place that really couldn’t exist.
But the game, Hogwarts Legacy, tackles these difficult decisions, and attempts to lay down
a definitive vision of Hogwarts and its surrounding features.
Let’s see how it stacks up to the movies.
We’ll start at the very beginning: with Harry and co arriving at Hogsmeade Station
in the Philosopher’s Stone.
Oh sorry: SORCERER’S stone for all you Americans!
There are a few differences between the one in the game and the one in the movies- the
game’s one only has 1 train track, compared with 2 in the movie.
And the stone bridge from the game is swapped out for a metal one.
But considering the game took place 100 years before the movie, we can just say it got renovated
at some point between.
What I LOVE about the game is that it bothers to accurately chart the route from the station
to Hogwarts.
If I raise my stick you can see Hogwarts in the distance, bearing a striking resemblance
to how it appears in the movies when they first arrive.
But don’t worry: we’ll get a better view than this.
First of all we have to figure out how they got from the train station to the lake.
I doubt they went in a straight line, since there are cliffs and stuff in the way and
unless Hagrid wants the blood of hundreds of first years, splattering to the sandy shores
far below like lemmings in a Disney documentary, I suspect they took the stairs instead.
This would have led them through a bit of woodland, past a few magic mushrooms, and
onto this bit here which veers around and down to the boat… station beneath.
Now I don’t think they took a direct route to the castle from here.
Instead, it seems they veered around to the left, perhaps to dodge the scary octopus,
since the view from the shore further around was the closest I could get to recreating
what is now perhaps the most iconic view EVER of Hogwarts.
Peaked early, didn’t it
Try to ignore that invisible person in the bottom left corner for now, and appreciate
just how much these two depictions match up!
And sure, there are many differences between them which I’ll be going through, but the
first impressions are good, with the game remaining surprisingly faithful to the original
movie’s positioning of stuff, and also to their SCALE.
Take a look at the grand tower.
That’s the big girthy one that pokes off the top of the screen.
I’d say the two versions look similar in terms of size and floor-count.
Although I will say the bit poking out the side looks a bit more impressive -and RIDICULOUS-
in the game.
The Grand Hall is down here next to it.
Which looks about the same in both versions.
But one area in which these are very different is this bit- there’s no viaduct courtyard
in the first movie, although it does show up in later ones.
It’s just the grand hall building, leading right up to the edge of the cliff.
The second movie clearly shows the path going down to the boathouse, which leads straight
on from the end of the building.
But then, as if by MAGIC, Hogwarts grows a new courtyard, which is seen in a number of
the movies!
And then in the last movie, this courtyard grows even more by adding THIS extra bridge
just here, which reaches from the viaduct courtyard to the outside world.
In the original movie this would have looked a bit like THIS.
And we can see in the game that if this bridge did exist then it wouldn’t make any sense
and I’m not sure where it would connect up to.
It’s just odd that when it comes to the last movie, this was the clear main entrance
to Hogwarts, and from where everybody attacked from.
I guess people had had enough of reaching it by boat every time.
Or from the back entrance which I’ll touch on in a bit.
The boathouse down here is in roughly the same spot, though the game uses the more elaborate
style that’s seen in later movies instead.
Anybody still lamenting Snape’s death can REJOICE!
For you can relive that moment, step by step.
You probably don’t remember cos the movie was dark as hell, but Harry and the others
traversed a very long and sprawling set of stairs, in order to get down to reach the
boathouse.
The game devs must have had a hell of a time trying to see what they were trying to recreate…
but they managed it.
ENHANCE!
And here’s how it looks in-game, again made difficult by the controlling camera angles,
which forbid you look up or down.
And I thought this was a free country.
But if I freeze it right here, and compare it with the movie, then you can see that it
looks mightily similar.
Great job, Legacy.
And the boathouse itself has its backside faithfully touched up to look similar, though
the game has a few extra fire-y thingies either side since this was clearly back in the days
before health and safety.
The best view I got inside the boathouse was from this behind-the-scenes shot- and clearly
this was the one that the game devs must have based their version on cos it’s virtually
identical, though again, the game has a few extra fires, and doesn’t yet have the lifebuoy.
And you just know that some terrible things must have happened down here in order for
these changes to have been made!
Just you wait- a no snakes policy will be next.
This bridge that can be seen in the movie version can’t be seen in the game’s, though
it is still there somewhere, tucked out of sight.
I’ll just quickly fly on over there to prove that.
Yeah, that’s close enough.
And as for the rest of Hogwarts, this load of buildings here takes up roughly the same
area but appears ‘pointier’ in the game, again borrowing from the later movies where
the style of Hogwarts gets more gothic and depressing.
Sort of like a place you wouldn’t want your kids going.
As opposed to the earlier movies, which still wouldn’t pass an ofsted inspection, but
hopefully wouldn’t murder your child.
There is a courtyard right slap-bang in the centre of Hogwarts, shown in this fly-through
from the second movie.
And here it is in the game!
It’s got a few more roof terraces dotted around it, and a few more trees inside it,
but this is most definitely the same area, with the Defence Against the Dark Arts building
to the left, and the first of six Gobstones hidden on the roof just here… spoiler alert.
Now most of Hogwarts is shown from the front angle, presumably because it’s the most
impressive.
But what’s behind?
This area that separates front from back is the greenhouse area.
You first get a good look at this place in the second movie when they uprooted the mandrakes.
But whereas the movie depicts it as a bunch of standard-looking greenhouses around both
sides of this corner of Hogwarts, the game condenses it all down to a single, much larger
greenhouse with a fancier design.
Which I prefer.
Just around from this is where people learn to ride their brooms.
I say this because it’s where you learn in the game, and sort of makes sense in the
movies as well even though this part of Hogwarts looks very different in later movies.
Rewatching this scene they’re careful to not show what’s beyond these walls- presumably
because there isn’t really Hogwarts behind these walls, and they couldn’t be bothered
to rotoscope it all in!
Gasp.
But yeah, I’m fairly confident by how this is portrayed in the game with all these people
grabbing their shaft right here that it’s where it’s meant to be in the first movie,
where Draco’s all mean and stuff.
Time to zoom out and to take an overview of this area.
From left to right: this is the greenhouse where Neville fainted from a plant screaming,
this is the courtyard where Neville fell off a broomstick and broke his arm, and this is
the rickety walkway where Neville singlehandedly defended against the forces of darkness.
This ‘behind section’ of Hogwarts is a part that I don’t think was fully fleshed
out until the third movie.
And that ruined a lot of logic here.
For instance: it’s Whomping Willow time!
It’s incredible that this game has only been out for a week or so and yet the google
is already full of people asking where this tree is.
Spoiler: it isn’t, because it wasn’t even planted when this game took place.
I mean that’s their excuse but I still think they should have added it in.
But why the hell would you plant something like this on school property.
The movies cannot agree where this thing is.
In the 2nd movie it’s shown within Hogwarts’ walls.
Which I put as being roughly HERE on the map.
Just a flick of a boomstick away from where the 11-year-olds are learning to fly.
But I guess SOMEBODY at Hogwarts thought this was a bad idea, cos unless there are 2 of
these things, in the 3rd movie it’s moved further away from Hogwarts.
Sensible choice.
Although it still manages a 2-0 KD ratio against Harry, and a rare victory over Hermione- making
it perhaps the most formidable adversary in all of Harry Potter.
But I digress.
Where is Hagrid’s hut?!
The game matches up with the 3rd movie’s depiction almost perfectly.
You leave Hogwarts over the rickety bridge, out of a small stone building at the end,
and then it’s immediately downhill from the surrounding circle of rocks that you now
find yourself stood inside.
But look beyond the hut, and that’s where the sources start to deviate.
In the game, it’s right next to the lake that Hogwarts is sat on.
But in the Half Blood Prince movie- I can’t see what’s going on, it’s too dark.
But in the Prisoner of Azkaban, there’s clearly no lake nearby to speak of- it’s
situated on the outskirts of the forbidden forest.
But in the game, as you can see from the world map, the Forbidden Forest is on the exact
other side of Hogwarts from Hagrid’s hut!
What gives?!
Of course, I’m not too Sirius.
The makers of Hogwarts Legacy have done a spectacular job of trying to piece together
-not just the movies- but also the books’ rendition of Hogwarts.
That must have been like trying to piece together 3 different jigsaws, knowing that they won’t
be able to please everybody all the time.
But I’d be surprised if anybody was disappointed with what they’ve achieved in this game,
and if they didn’t find at least a few places that make them feel warm and fuzzy inside.
And it's helped me: cos I’ve already learned more Hogwart’s layout from a dozen hours
spent in this game, than I did from the years I spent watching the movies.
But there’s one last, burning question that every true, passionate fan of Harry Potter
has.
A thought that has been on our minds ever since we saw that magical scene: When Gandalf
gets PONED by Snape in the Half Blood Prince, from where does he get fatally blasted from,
and where does his mangled corpse land?
Those, my friend, are the two million-dollar questions.
That adds up to about $2,000,000, or about £10,000,000 the way this country’s headed.
And those two questions are NOT easy ones to answer.
So the first one: where did he fall from?
Well, he fell from the Astronomy Tower, which is -of course- THE tallest tower at Hogwarts.
Because he wanted his death to be STUNNING.
But the crime scene itself does not make any sense.
Put it simply: Dumbledore, Snape, evil cronies.
Harry.
PUT IT SIMPLY: IF Snape had murdered Dumbledor the way that Harry claimed happened, then
he would be blasted straight through THIS window, on the far left of the observatory.
THIS window, from outside.
Now… watch this.
Doesn’t look much like this, does it.
Plus, it’s the middle of nowhere.
No one would have heard his body crumpling to the ground through the thick walls of Hogwarts.
His body in this position would likely go unfound for days.
Weeks, maybe.
BUT.
Say Dumbledore was hit by a second avada kedabra, at the exact same moment as the first.
One that struck him from the side and from below.
Follow me down from here.
Bingo.
This side: courtyard.
The other side: no courtyard.
This side: courtyard.
Harry.
He’s seen what the Elder Wand can do.
He knows the killing curses, and that none of his friends would suspect him.
Motive, means and opportunity.
Now I’m not saying it was him.
But… something just doesn’t add up, you know?