Hey everyone,
Welcome to another installment of Harry Potter Theory.
Today, we’re going to be discussing wizarding prisons.
A few months back I broke down all of the known SCHOOLS in the international wizarding
community, and today, similar to that, I’m going to be pivoting to international prisons.
Everyone knows Azkaban, but do you know the other 7?
Let’s dive in to it.
Nurmengard
Known by some as the home base for Grindelwald’s operations during his tyrannical regime spanning
the early 1900s, and known by others as the castle that ended up keeping Grindelwald as
its prisoner, Nurmengard is, after Azkaban, probably the most famous wizarding prison
in Harry Potter.
Located in the Austrian Alps, Grindelwald built Nurmengard to:
1.
Act as his base of operations for him and his followers
& 2.
Hold his enemies and prisoners of war
Sitting on the edge of a mountain, the stone fortress had massive tall walls and boasted
an impressive tower with a cone-shaped top- presumably serving as a kind of watch tower.
The grounds of Nurmengard were nothing to scoff at either, featuring a gated courtyard
from which you could sit and look at the beautiful scenery all around.
That is, if you weren’t distracted by the prison bars on either side of the courtyard
that were used to keep the less powerful prisoners captive.
Inside is where the prisoners that he felt were a REAL threat were kept.
Inside of the prison was just as spectacular as the mountains around it, at least, while
Grindelwald was still in power.
It was outfitted with tall windows, velvet carpets and long corridors- the perfect prison
for a bouji villain like Grindelwald.
And If at first it wasn’t completely obvious that this was Grindelwald’s fortress, the
massive "For the Greater Good" slogan carved over the prison's entrance would be a good
reminder.
Ironically, Grindelwald ended up being imprisoned in Nurmengard himself, the primary reason
being that Grindelwald had ties to Austria.
That, and the fact that the wizarding authorities thought it would be entertaining to imprison
him inside the walls that he built.
If Nurmengard didn’t exist, then I’m almost certain that he would have ended up in Azkaban.
Years later, it was reported that Nurmengard had deteriorated significantly.
It no longer had the upkeep of Grindelwald’s acolytes, and it simply served as a prison-
which it grew to look like more and more as the years passed.
Eventually, Nurmengard was nothing more than a giant towering building made of black rock
that can only be described as ‘grim’ and ‘ominous’.
Azkaban
Azkaban was built in the 15th century and began being used as a detention facility in
the year 1718-housing some of the most sinister witches and wizards to have ever disgraced
the wizarding world.
The name ‘Azkaban’ is a mixture of the world ‘Alcatraz’, which refers to a famous
muggle island-prison, and ‘Abaddon’, which is a hebrew word that means ‘place of destruction’.
Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?
At one point in time, before the fortress was built, Azkban was just an island, but
when it’s first inhabitant, Ekrizdis, found the island, he decided to transform it in
to his own little dark arts experiment.
Ekrizdis was a dark wizard that practiced the worst forms of dark magic, and he was
known to lure sailors to the island, then torture them.
Before he got there he was crazy, but after spending a considerable amount of time there
he went completely bonkers.
While Ekrizdis lived there, he placed concealment charms on the island so that no one would
be able to find it, and after he died these concealment charms were finally lifted.
This is when the British ministry of magic first discovered the island.
The investigative team from the ministry who first went to Azkban refused to discuss their
findings, other than the fact that the island was infested with Dementors.
Over the course of its history, Azkaban has been the home to many witches and wizards,
including Percival Dumbledore, Bartemius Crouch Jr, various Lestranges, and various gaunts,
just to name a few.
Though it was under much scrutiny initially, when the ministry recognized that they could
utilize the island to imprison evildoers, they capitalized on this, and began sentencing
people to Azkaban.
The Ministry of Magic felt that the smaller, existing wizarding prisons that were scattered
across the country posed a considerable security risk, and put citizens in danger.
Azkaban serves as the ultimate prison, due to it’s remote location, and the sea of
dementors that make sure the prisoners are in check.
Escaping from Azkaban before your sentence is over is punishable by a fate worse than
death, a Dementor’s kiss.
The island itself is located in the North Sea, but the island is said to have never
appeared on any map, muggle or magical.
It’s suspected that the island was either created, or enlarged via magical means.
I’m thinking that Ekrizdis was probably responsible for that.
The north sea is a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean located between Great Britain, Denmark,
Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and France.
If you’re going to get locked up, try your absolute best to avoid Azkaban.
Erkstag
First witnessed by fans in the new Secrets of Dumbledore film, The Erkstag was a wizarding
prison located in Berlin, Germany that was used by the German Ministry of Magic.
The Erkstag could be accessed via an underground tunnel system, and many believed that the
prison had been publicly abandoned.
However, as it turns out, and as we witnessed in the Secrets of Dumbledore, the German Ministry
were still secretly holding people at the facility by 1932.
At the entrance to the prison there was a prison guard - a warder- who would confiscate
each prisoner’s personal belongings upon their arrival.
The prison itself, which had a circular shape and spiralled downwards, was dark, scary and
certainly not the sort of place you’d want to end up, particularly as your chances of
getting out (at least from the way the film portrayed it) were likely quite slim.
From what appeared to be near the bottom of the endless spiralling prison structure was
a giant manticore that would devour prisoners as soon as their lanterns went out.
Dumbledore once referred to Erkstag as the Germany Ministry’s bed and breakfast.
Macusa Prison
Macusa, AKA the Magical Congress of the United States of America, was essentially the American
Ministry of Magic.
And just like the German Ministry of Magic, MACUSA too had their own prison directly linked
with their organization.
The MACUSA headquarters was located in the Woolworth Building in downtown New York City,
and the prison cells were located in the basement.
It’s entirely unclear how long these prison cells have existed, but provided that MACUSA
was founded in 1693, I’d wager it’s been a long time.
Yes, the Woolworth building was completed in 1913, but provided that the prison cells
were located in the basement of the building, it’s entirely possible that they were there
BEFORE the building had even been built, hiding underground.
Reportedly, the main cell room held hundreds of cage-like cells stacked on top of each
other- sort of like what you’d expect to see at a dog pound, and in the middle of the
main room there was a large staircase with iron bars on both sides that led up to the
rooftop of the Woolworth building.
Though the building was clean and relatively well-kept, it certainly didn’t mean that
prisoners there had a good experience.
In fact, prisoners were kept in strangely dark rooms devoid of windows, accessible only
through one ominous-looking iron door with a tiny sliding window- big enough only to
fit your eyes.
Dark Tower (Hogwarts)
A prison at Hogwarts?!
Yes, you heard me right.
Just near the Transfiguration Courtyard at Hogwarts you may recall a tall, narrow tower.
This ‘dark’ looking tower, aptly named ‘The Dark Tower’ was in fact used as a
prison at Hogwarts.
However, provided that this ‘prison’ was at a school for children, and given that there
were only a few cells, I’d probably call it more of a holding facility.
The tower itself was 7 stories tall and sported four gargoyles on each corner of the tower,
directing water away from it when it rained.
It has also been reported that the prison cells were NOT outfitted with any kind of
incantations, making it a lot less secure than other wizarding prisons we know.
While in the present day there may not be much need for a prison cell at Hogwarts, we
do have to remember that back in the day, before Azkaban, prisons were scattered all
across the country.
Having a holding cell, or at least SOMETHING at Hogwarts, a massive hub for witches and
wizards, probably made a lot of sense.
In the film version of the Prisoner of Azkaban Sirius Black is held prisoner in this tower.
However, in the books, he’s kept in Filius Flitwick’s office over in the West Tower.
New York Witches' Penitentiary
The New York Witches’ Penitentiary, first mentioned on a poster in Fantastic Beasts
and Where to Find Them, was a womens-only wizarding prison located in the state of New
York.
Past prisoners include Madame Miraforum, Eleanora Shanks and Matildus Heizenbert.
All of these women were highly dangerous criminals at large with crimes ranging from ‘no-maj
murder’ to ‘atrocities against the wizarding community’.
I feel like Bellatrix would have fit right in here.
And that pretty much concludes the list of the MAIN prisons.
The only other two wizarding ‘prisons’ (if you could call them that) that I know
of are The Abandoned Substation, which was used as a holding-facility for Snatchers to
hold Muggle-borns, and the Abandoned Nuclear Power Plant, which was used to Imprison enemies
of the Death Eater controlled Ministry of Magic.
These facilities appeared in the Harry Potter games and can be seen in the background of
some of the Harry Potter film promotional posters.
And that’s it for this video!
Did I miss any?
Had you heard of all of these prisons?
Leave a comment down below
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Until next time
Remember
It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live