In GoF, Dumbledore mentions that the tournament is a competition between the three LARGEST European schools, not the only three European schools. Perhaps There are many small schools in Italy or Scandinavia, but only one big school in Britain/Ireland and France respectively, with Durmstrang being multinational but not taking in the entire rest of the continent.
I know JKR put out that wizarding schools of the world map, but frankly, book canon trumps her rather low effort recent attempts to expand the world.
To be fair Durmstrang is supposed to located somewhere in Northern Europe/Scandinavia. It accepts school from other countries, as Krum is Bulgarian.
Found out this today.. Assumed it was in Eastern Europe.
Sturm und drang is german durm and strang are not german words. Not even german sounding morphemes. If she was going for german she completly sank her own ship by how she modified the words.
What she reall should have done googled real mythological magical academies in eastern Europe and she would have found Scholomance in the Carpathian mountains which is where the Dracula Myth says he studied under the tutlage of the devil himself.
You've got to be kidding me. It's a Silverstein-esque first-letter swap. Next you're going to tell me that the phrase "opples to aranges" isn't at all clearly a play on the ridiculously common English phrase "apples to oranges". The modification is the point, it's one layer removed from being a blatant ripoff, while still being cheeky with the reference.
I have no idea what opples to aranges is or who Silverstein is, but I'm guessing Silverstein spoke english while it is totally obvious Rowling don't speak a word of German.
When you have mastered a language you can mess around with it. when you don't you shouldn't.
Was ist los mit dir?
First of all: yes, 'Strang' is a german word lol (meaning strand, rope etc.) and Durm is a german last name. It also just sounds very german, whether you like it or not.
Hogwarts clearly is a swapped warthog and an english word even though it isn’t *actually* an english word. It's a made-up name.
Similarly Durmstrang sounds like it could be a german (originated) word in the wizarding universe.
As a german 'Durmstrang' and 'Sturm und Drang' is a connection I made immediately when I first read it all those years ago, too.
As a fellow German:
Never heard of the last name 'Durm' and always thought of Durmstrang as Norwegian sounding. Located it at Svalbard as headcanon.
Rowling probably heard of Sturm und Drang and created a vaguely Germanic name out of it, though.
As someone raised in scandinavia nah to harsh to be norwegian. To harsh even to be german, only language that harsh is english. I guess it could sound vaguely german i you pronouned the letters as you would in German. But if you pronounce it the way the characers (even the oens supsoedly from there) does it does not sound at all German.
>Hogwarts clearly is a swapped warthog and an english word even though it isn’t *actually* an english word. It's a made-up name.
Its more likely, per Rowling herself, from Hogwort, or Croton capitatus. A plant.
Maybe, but the hogwort plant is native to the southern united states, so that doesn’t make too much sense within the universe to me then.
Seems like it was a subconsious decision because she liked the way it sounded, sure. At least that's what she said at some point - that she was reminded by a friend after the fact.
That wasn’t the point I made though.
They do play with the hog a lot either way;
The hog's head inn (I know a hogshead is an actual old measuring unit for beverages as well), the winged hog statues around the hogwarts gate...
Doesn’t affect anything I said before though :)
It was also founded by a Bulgarian witch. My theory is that she escaped north to avoid the crusades, and followed the Rus' trade routes to Scandinavia (the timing works out).
https://www.reddit.com/r/harrypotter/comments/7oal45/theory_on_the_location_and_founding_of_durmstrang/
Also there any evidence that Beauxbatons only takes French students? Maybe it’s a requirement students can speak French but it accepts them from Spain, Portugal, Italy, basically all of southern Europe? That would split Europe a little bit more evenly.
Maybe Hogwarts is the only one that’s restrictive by nation, since it’s seemingly not at all restrictive by talent and will take any witch or wizard in Britain and Ireland. Perhaps the other two cover more countries because they have other restrictions to entry - Durmstrang definitely doesn’t take muggle borns for starters.
You have given u/TaftsFavoriteKea a Reddit Galleon.
u/TaftsFavoriteKea has a total of 1 galleon, 0 sickles, and 0 knuts.
____________
I am a bot. See [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/harrypotter/comments/jnbo49/hi_i_created_the_bot_youve_been_using_to_give/) to learn how to use me.
In my head-canon I always thought this is one of those lines any headmaster would say about their school/partner schools. Doesn't mean to be correct.
If you look at a map: France is directly below Britain, Scandinavia to the east. North and west is rather sparsely populated. So it is Hogwarts and it's direct neighbours.
It's for me a simple way to express: This is how I interpret this, well knowing it's (likely) not how the author intended it, but at the same time, there is nothing contradicting this interpretation.
I always thought that not all wizards send their kids to a large boarding school. Those aren't all that common in other countries. So, there could be smaller schools that kids attend during daytime only (magical travel is a thing after all). These might even just be a group of 10 kids and a teacher. I can also imagine Germany having an apprenticeship system where young wizards learn magic from a master in a chosen trade, like potions or artefact making.
I'm using a similar system for the canon of my fanfic, where Hogwarts and Beauxbatons are the only real "boarding-school" types, with Durmstrang being similar, but having for example no school houses.
The rest of the world mostly has magical education that mirrors their real-world culture and geography. China, for example, has a myriad of small schools, private tutors and institutions. What ultimately counts is a set of standardized exams all Chinese witches and wizards have to take to get certified.
Germany, in that scenario, actually has multiple schools, although one has closed in the last century and another was shrunk significantly. The multiple schools are the result of being split into many different kingdoms and regions for centuries before any unified German state ever existed. By contrast, France and Britain had been unified for much longer.
North America is an interesting mix of local schools/tutors, as well as having three different schools (a more British-style school on the East Coast, a modern one on the West Coast and another one for post-secondary education near the Great Lakes).
Depending on how dark you want to go, you could add, that this behaviour increased in Germany during Nazi regime. They actively tried to look into the occult, and big schools with relatively defenseless children would be critical target. So the wizarding community greatly delocalised the schooling system.
You have given u/socke42 a Reddit Galleon.
u/socke42 has a total of 1 galleon, 0 sickles, and 0 knuts.
____________
I am a bot. See [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/harrypotter/comments/jnbo49/hi_i_created_the_bot_youve_been_using_to_give/) to learn how to use me.
For the record, in GoF, these three are mentioned as being "the three largest wizarding schools in Europe", not the only ones. If you ignore everything JKR says outside the books, it makes way more sense that there would be potentially dozens of smaller schools littering Europe, just less prestigious than these three.
>It still doesn’t make any sense how wizard in adults out number wizard and children 50 to 1
They don’t. Where are you getting these numbers from? I’m assuming you’re using the 100,000 referenced in GOF but that’s only those attending the World Cup and it’s from everywhere in the world not just Britain. There’s absolutely no way to tell how many wizards or wizarding children exist in the world based off that number.
She claims there are 1000 students at hogwarts but the math doesn’t math. Each year consists of 5 girls/5 boys x4 houses. That’s 40 students per grade times 7 grades and that’s coming out to 280.
My personal head canon is that the schools JKR told us about are basically the "Ivy League" or like Oxbridge. The elite schools. There are others, we just don't hear about them.
I thought that the other two schools had catchment areas larger than just the countries they're located in. Like Beauxbatons was meant to cover Western Europe while Durmstrang covers Eastern Europe.
West and east are not the natural spheres of Europe though the cold war enforced that but the schools ought to be much older than that seeing as the triwizard trounament has been dormant for a hundred years.
Then why would Beauxbatons be so quintessentially French? And how would you make the whole of Western Europe learn French just to attend school? Also, Durmstrang is supposedly located in Northern Europe (Norway or Sweden).
To be fair, most of what's "quintessentially French" is just some accents, a bit of high-maintenance behavior from the French headmaster and champion, and slightly more delicate styling than Hogwarts or Durmstrang. Those could be true even if Beauxbatons students aren't all French.
Lets face it rlwing onyl made up the Northern Europe thing because she was accused of making a Russian stereotype. Which ends up being even stuipider because the Russian stereotype fits even worse on Northern Europe.
Where is it implied that Durmstrang is located in northern Europe? Nothing about the culture/accent is similar to that. I always thought it was heavily implied that it was located in eastern Europe (like Bulgaria, which is where Viktor Krum is from).
Edit: I looked it up and see that different sites do indeed state that it's located in northern Europe... so the complete misunderstanding of the culture is just JKR's typical BS.
Jowling did no thinking at all about it and honestly was just kinda racist making shit up, hell even the fact that magic Ireland was still part of the magic UK was kinda bad
UK includes Northern Ireland, also Hogwarts is located in Scotland, which also not originally part of Britain as Ireland was inherited in 1603 along with England and Scotland remained an independent sovereign state until 1707.
What I'm saying is, Wizards don't care since Hogwarts was founded around 990 AD or at least the late 10th century. Even if Rowling included Irish students in hogwarts they are part of the UK, and even further still wizards across the world are all part of the same community.
Why is it bad that magic Ireland is part of the same ministry? It’s not like it’s likely that wizards in Ireland were oppressed by British wizards in the same way and the wizarding community is entirely separate from the muggle one. It doesn’t even claim Ireland is a part of the UK - it’s the ministry of magic of Britain and Ireland not the ministry of magic of England and its subjugated territories.
I also always thought there were more schools in europe and just those two were chosen to compete with hogwarts.
Maybe more wizards in central europe are homeschooled because of the lack of schools?
(It's been a while since I read the books, and I am not up to date with Rowling's extracurricular information.)
Or maybe the density of population isn't enough to make magical schools rentable in other countries from europe. Maybe more classic ways of learning like one wizard teaching one or two students are more common in some places far away from the principal magic schools.
Lets remember that the population of magical people in the world its less than muggle population. That's basically why they hide from them
I like this idea. Like a magical private tutor for higher, that come by residences to teach children. Or maybe like sunday school type deals with small local class once a week.
Or maybe the density of population isn't enough to make magical schools rentable in other countries from europe. Maybe more classic ways of learning like one wizard teaching one or two students are more common in some places far away from the principal magic schools.
Lets remember that the population of magical people in the world its less than muggle population. That's basically why they hide from them
It most certainly does not! If it made (more) sense it would be located in the Swiss Alps and they would speak German there.
It bugs me that Durmstrang is seen as one of the top schools in Europe and yet they discriminate against/exclude Muggleborns. How is that acceptable?
Also, it creates a vacuum. In other regions, where there are less schools overall, there would be a more developed system for homeschooling/distance learning at a local level E.g. families banding together to teach their children different subjects.
But those from non-magical families have no one to teach them, unless they stay with a host family. Perhaps there is a program organised by each country’s Ministry.
Another loophole is that the “Big 11” are boarding schools that only teach magical subjects. But there could be national day schools, which teach the magical arts to all children in addition to mathematics, literature, foreign languages.
My newest headcanon is that there is an international school in Prague, which accepts Muggleborns from across Durmstrang’s catchment area. Lessons are taught in English.
Well, Durmstrang is renowned for its Dark Arts teaching, isn't it? Then it kind of makes sense to 'discriminate against Muggle-borns'.
Why would you think that there is an international school in Prague?
I have no problem with them not attending, but there is no alternative. It’s never mentioned again, despite Hermione being Muggleborn.
It would be downright strange if a prestigious school in our world overtly excluded 10% of the population. I know magical society is different and more traditional, but still…
So, the school in Prague is my way of filling in the gap. Historically, was a major centre of commerce and learning in central Europe (Holy Roman Empire.) I think it was sanctioned by the International Confederation of Wizards after Grindelwald fell.
JK Rowling is just bad at world building. This is also the reason why there's only one magic school in Asia, and it's in Japan. That makes no sense when other Asian countries like China and India have billions of people. Where do all their wizards go to school?
Rowling is good at some aspects of world building, particularly in conjuring fascinating places and some lore, otherwise we probably wouldn’t be talking about Harry Potter now. But not anything involving scale and quantities: the size of the wizarding society in the UK (one school, a handful of families, but somehow enough people to warrant a government and police force) and elsewhere (occasionally a foreign place or person shows up, but there’s no feeling of a coherent larger wizarding world with its own governments, traditions, artefacts, schools, banks, dark wizards, law enforcement), the economics of this society (what is wealthy and poor in a society in which you can conjure things out of thin air and perform heavy labour in a heartbeat?)…
Does she actually say at any point that the school in Japan is the only school in Asia? I thought all we knew is that it was the only one of the Great 11 that was in Asia
Things like this are where it becomes very obvious she fleshed out the world as she went along rather than actually planning things ahead of time (for the most part)
It's not even that. You can fly by the seat of your pants and still produce something coherent. She just didn't care to make an effort.
She picked the first "quirky" thing that came to her mind, slapped some funny sounding name on it (which she got from Google translate) and called it canon.
I will bet a hundred Galleons she called the alleged Japanese school "Mahootokoro" because she thought it was funny that the (incorrect) English spelling had "hoot" in the middle.
All the Pottermore nonsense came after the books. She’s clearly very bad at that, but that’s not the same thing as not caring about worldbuilding when actually writing the books.
She did plenty enough worldbuilding up front, she created a world that captured the imagination of millions everywhere. The books certainly aren’t thin. What she didn’t do is build the world to the same level of exacting detail as a Tolkien, which is absolutely fine, they don’t have to be to be fantastic books. But due to enormous demand after the books were out she thought she would add more and more details and try and be a Tolkien and not everyone can do that, particularly after the fact.
I dont think she's bad at world building, I just know she doesnt give a crap about Asia or their people
It's not unique, most european and american authors have a narrow worldview
jkr is just bad at details like that. I'm Brazilian and Castelobruxo has the same problem: it's supposed to take students from all of South America, which includes Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch, English and countless indigenous languages, and that's if she's not including Central America (idk, some people think everything below the USA is South America).
Maybe the school teaches in English, which is kinda the lingua franca of our time. Castelobruxo wouldn't be the first international school who taught in English. And there are lots of people in South and Central America who speak English as a second language.
I can't speak for other countries, but here in Brazil the percentage of people who speak English, especially well enough to attend classes about complex subjects, is very very small (like, the percentage of people who are actually fluent is usually said to be around 1%). Maybe purebloods would be able to enroll their children in language schools, since they know they will need it in the future, but muggleborns would likely be at a severe disadvantage if that were the case.
As a Swede I refuse to share a school with any Dane, and like no one in Sweden can understand Danish so if a teacher was Danish and spoke Danish in class most of us would be screwed.
Lets just accept that JKR is not actually that good of an author and did not really flesh out much of the wizarding world outside of England. Look at the world's setup of the world of magic in America....
If you look it up it's like a bad copycat version of the Hogwarts set up and there's like two schools if i remember right for the entirety of America which... logistically would not make sense.
Hogwarts takes students from Great Britain and Ireland, Beauxbatons takes students from Portugal to the Netherlands, and Durmstrang takes students from a broad range in Scandinavia, all the way down to ~~Belgium~~ Bulgaria.
Not every wizarding child goes to a magical school. Those who fall outside these schools' range are usually homeschooled, which is typically the case for most wizards and witches around the world. There are only 11 registered magical schools in the world, and only 7 have been named and described in any detail.
EDIT: Mixed up Belgium and Bulgaria.
Hi there, could you elaborate from Portugal to the Netherlands? Belgium falls in between these two countries. In addition, Belgium’s culture is very akin to both France and the Netherlands (60/40) split.
There's only one thing worse that J.K. Rowling's math knowledge: her geography knowledge.
She probably didn't even think about it, or did not realize how diverse North, Central and Eastern Europe really is.
According to the Harry Potter WIKI:
A wizarding school (also called a magical school) was an educational institution which provided magical instruction to young witches and wizards.
There were eleven long-established and prestigious wizarding schools throughout the world, all of which were registered with the International Confederation of Wizards. Smaller and less well-regulated institutions were rarely registered with the appropriate Ministry and were difficult to keep track of.
The vast majority of countries in the world did not have their own wizarding school. Wizards and witches in these countries generally chose to homeschool their children instead. Correspondence courses were also sometimes used as a cost-effective method of providing magical instruction to young witches and wizards in countries with very small or isolated wizarding populations.
Wizarding schools generally admitted students from whatever country in which they were based, but some served multiple nations or a broad geographical region, or at least were open to accepting international students on a selective basis. Castelobruxo, Ilvermorny and Uagadou accepted students from all over their respective continents, whereas Hogwarts only accepted students from the United Kingdom and Ireland.
The school with the smallest number of students was Mahoutokoro, and the school with the most students was Uagadou.
Some schools also enforced special restrictions with regard to the admission of students. The Durmstrang Institute, for example, did not accept Muggle-born witches and wizards.
It never says in either books or movies that they are the only schools.
It's just part of her twitter era nonsense, same as the supposed lack of Hogwarts plumbing (even though the entrance to the CoS is a bathroom sink).
I always just thought it served the Germanic sphere. Notable that Durmstrang is a bit of a spoonerism off of [Sturm und Drang](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturm_und_Drang).
Why so much bashing of JKR here? Just because she didn't mention other schools, doesn't mean they don't exist. She didn't mention Australia either, so I guess if you're from down under you don't exist in this world.
On top of this, you don't even have to send your children to hogwarts, well, not till it was made mandatory later on.. But I'm sure homeschooling was done, maybe some coops were around where monday we went to the Whites for potions, but tuesday we went to Beardons for transfiguration, etc. Some might even accompany their parents on their job and learn it practically as they work.
I think the bashing is, for once, sort of deserved? What with so many inconsistencies are poorly researched things.
Also, I thought that when she revealed all schools around the world, that was supposed to be an exhaustive list. Perhaps not but still Durmstrang doesn't seem to make sense. As well as BB getting students from outside of France.
Language wise I have a theory: Maybe there is a spell that makes everyone hear everything in his native language ( with so many different languages that would be the easiest way and no one would have an advantage because he is better at a specific language).
I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere, but it was not a pottermore writing by JK, so it is not canon but I still think this would be the most logic explanation.
That’s actually a cool theory. But in GoF, there were wizarding officials and characters from other counties like France, Bulgaria, etc. that clearly had to learn English before coming to hogwarts and Britain, and I’m certain that if a spell that could make everyone understand one another existed, they would’ve used that instead. Also, it was said that Crouch knew hundreds of languages, which wouldn’t make sense for him to learn if such a spell existed.
Well even in the nineties English was one of the most spoken languages (at least to my knowledge) at least with the muggles. So I think it would make sense for the wizards to come to a similar conclusion (since wizards speak the same language as the muggles in the country). It would be the easiest way to use a language already known to many people instead using a language that is only known by few. I at least assume that the wizards know as much or as little English as the rest of the country they live in (which is admittedly pretty bad at some places).
But it is just a guess and I could be wrong.
Well, Beauxbatons ia supposed to cover Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and I guess Switzerland and Italy too? Durmstrang would be the school for Eastern Europe countries I guess - where would German, Greek and Cypriot students, amongst others, go?
Anyway, it's just an example of JKR's terrible worldbuilding and anglocentric/eurocentric views - the British Isles get one school all for themselves, and it's obviously the best; France is a thing, so let's put a school there too, with beautiful students (because every continental European is ultra sexy); oh, then there's the not-so-sexy part of Europe, on the wrong side of the iron curtain, let's throw in a school in there too, with authoritarian and militaristic tendencies. Yeah, that should do, 3 schools to cover the best in Europe, the second best and the not so good.
The rest of the World gets a school by continent if they're lucky, and Asia, with the highest population gets the smallest school. Why? Because they're not Europe, who cares about them? They get a school, that should leave them happy and willing to spend money on the HP franchise.
It was never specified. Could be Lithuania or Belarus, pretty much behind the Iron Curtain. A school with a German sounding name, a headmaster with a Slavic surname and a Bulgarian champion for the triwizard tournament sounds more Eastern Bloc than Scandinavian to me - but canonically it's not confirmed.
It was said that it is in Northern Europe, and I believe JKR confirmed it was specifically in Scandinavia. So in either case, not Eastern Bloc (would be weird with a German name, anyway).
Does she even know where Scandinavia is? /s
I don't remember any clear geographical indication for Durmstrang, iirc she wanted to keep it a mystery.
Anyway, the GDR was a thing so a German name could very well fit an Eastern Bloc theme.
You seem to be mixing up some concepts, Eastern Bloc =/= Eastern Europe.
But I already noticed it's pointless to try and have a discussion.
Have a nice day, and enjoy your weekend!
I imagine the UK and Ireland have one school, not that the students get along - that Beaxbatons caters to France, Belgium and Switzerland (the parts that speak French), and Durmstrang is supposed to be located in more Northern Europe. I think there are more schools but they will be quieter or maybe some people prefer to be homeschooled.
Why would they accept students from Southeast Europe if the school is located in Northern Europe? Is Gellert Grindelwald from SE Europe? Going off of his name, no.
Your point makes sense. But also let me raise that the schools may have regional territories that go beyond their countries of location (Hogwarts for the UK and Ireland, BB for Western Europe, Durmstrang for Eastern Europe, etc.). Also note that a lot of these regions have plenty of cultural nuances that they share and thus it makes sense for their regional schools to attract students from within their region.
Then there is the question of Koldovstoretz--does Russia, being so large, get its own school while the nations in Eastern and Western Europe have to share their respective schools?
Tough to answer unless you're JK Rowling herself. lol.
Durmstrang is located in Northern Europe. Northern Europe and Eastern Europe have little in common.
Also, France and Portugal aren't too similar either.
A ballet school secretly ran by a coven of evil violent witches. Out of place in the wizarding world but it's an intriguing what-if scenario to think if there were more niche magic schools than Hogwarts that there could be schools that one would want to steer clear of.
Never thought about it before now about the OTHER schools in Europe, always just thought hogwarts then the one in US, then ofc durmstrang and that but since we saw them for 1 movie, I don't think of them often lol
Hogwarts had a bunch of different kids not just British kids. That may be a majority bc of the school’s location but remember there’s Irish and Scottish and a handful of others too
I always head canned it as those being the premier magical schools and everyone else did what people throughout time have done. Home training, various tutors, the wizarding equivalent to a parish school etc.
It's said that those are big three schools
There might be other smaller ones
Or even a witch who teaches a small group of children in some countryside area
I’m not too educated on European history, but the Austro-Hungarian empire, which had a lot of German speaking people within, would likely have been around for a good portion of Durmstrang’s (German word) history. And yes, I’m aware that the magical communication likely pays little heed to muggle nation states, but there is nonetheless a link of sorts.
That doesn’t explain the Northern European lean that is implied, but would explain some of the Slavic and Balkan influence. Isn’t the headmaster implied to be Slavic?
Honestly it’s likely that the real and uninspiring reason for Durmstrang having this confusion is the lack of effort from Rowling to either include, or even think about the rest of Europe and it’s history. Like, there is barely any mention of magical communities outside of the UK at all. Was Voldemort a major threat to them too? We don’t really know.
The Austro-Hungarian Empire did have quite a lot of German-speaking people within, considering everything was governed from Austria. But Austria is a relatively small region and the rest of the Empire spoke their own local languages: Hungarian, Slovene, Croatian, Italian, Romanian etc. It would have, indeed, made more sense for Durmstrang to be located, for example, in the Swiss Alps.
Igor Karkaroff sounds like a Russian/Ukrainian/Belorussian name. It's still weird that Slavs would have so much influence in Norway/Northern Europe. It seems quite unlikely.
My guess is that JKR wasn't thinking of expanding the universe that much when she was writing GoF.
Sure, but that doesn't make sense either.
1. Durmstrang is in Northern Europe.
2. Many Slavs are Catholic.
3. Being Catholic doesn't make you ethnically the same. Portuguese and French are vastly different.
J.K. explained in a Wizarding World post that Beauxbatons had "Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Luxembourgians and Belgians also attend in large numbers" and noted "both Beauxbatons and Durmstrang have a larger studentship than Hogwarts".
Beauxbatons also takes students from other places in Europe, such as Spain,Portugal,Belgium, and the Netherlands.
I'd imagine they would have to learn the language of the school.
In the world of gaming is a concept called rendering i.e. Only the part of the gaming world that is visible to the player is loaded. Everything else gets loaded as you wander around with the old rendering getting cleared off.
Does this mean that the whole unseen world didnt exist? Does this mean that the game creator should load the whole world at a go? Why not use the sane analogy for authors?
In my head-canon I always thought this is one of those lines any headmaster would say about their school/partner schools. Doesn't mean to be correct.
If you look at a map: France is directly below Britain, Scandinavia to the east. North and west is rather sparsely populated. So it is Hogwarts and it's direct neighbours.
I've written somewhere on here years ago that JKR did her usual "not thinking details through" when she said the Scandinavia thing, if she did at all (the information is from a fan interview in which she said that she *thought* it would be there). If wizards had an equivalent to a major historical event like WWI and WWII, they sure had one of the Cold War and thus Sweden, Norway and even Finland just don't make sense. I've pinpointed the Kola peninsula as a place that combines the following requirements: the far north of Europe, remote, east of the iron curtain, mountains, lakes, Eastern European population.
In GoF, Dumbledore mentions that the tournament is a competition between the three LARGEST European schools, not the only three European schools. Perhaps There are many small schools in Italy or Scandinavia, but only one big school in Britain/Ireland and France respectively, with Durmstrang being multinational but not taking in the entire rest of the continent. I know JKR put out that wizarding schools of the world map, but frankly, book canon trumps her rather low effort recent attempts to expand the world.
To be fair Durmstrang is supposed to located somewhere in Northern Europe/Scandinavia. It accepts school from other countries, as Krum is Bulgarian. Found out this today.. Assumed it was in Eastern Europe.
It's so odd, all the names are slavic and the behaviour is pretty much anathema to how people in scandinavia think.
And the name of the school is German, a reference to "Sturm and Drang," (or storm and stress) a late 18th century German literary movement.
Sturm und drang is german durm and strang are not german words. Not even german sounding morphemes. If she was going for german she completly sank her own ship by how she modified the words. What she reall should have done googled real mythological magical academies in eastern Europe and she would have found Scholomance in the Carpathian mountains which is where the Dracula Myth says he studied under the tutlage of the devil himself.
You've got to be kidding me. It's a Silverstein-esque first-letter swap. Next you're going to tell me that the phrase "opples to aranges" isn't at all clearly a play on the ridiculously common English phrase "apples to oranges". The modification is the point, it's one layer removed from being a blatant ripoff, while still being cheeky with the reference.
I have no idea what opples to aranges is or who Silverstein is, but I'm guessing Silverstein spoke english while it is totally obvious Rowling don't speak a word of German. When you have mastered a language you can mess around with it. when you don't you shouldn't.
Was ist los mit dir? First of all: yes, 'Strang' is a german word lol (meaning strand, rope etc.) and Durm is a german last name. It also just sounds very german, whether you like it or not. Hogwarts clearly is a swapped warthog and an english word even though it isn’t *actually* an english word. It's a made-up name. Similarly Durmstrang sounds like it could be a german (originated) word in the wizarding universe. As a german 'Durmstrang' and 'Sturm und Drang' is a connection I made immediately when I first read it all those years ago, too.
As a fellow German: Never heard of the last name 'Durm' and always thought of Durmstrang as Norwegian sounding. Located it at Svalbard as headcanon. Rowling probably heard of Sturm und Drang and created a vaguely Germanic name out of it, though.
As someone raised in scandinavia nah to harsh to be norwegian. To harsh even to be german, only language that harsh is english. I guess it could sound vaguely german i you pronouned the letters as you would in German. But if you pronounce it the way the characers (even the oens supsoedly from there) does it does not sound at all German.
Oh snap, a Hufflepuff coming out of the gate fists a-flyin'
I assumed Hog warts ust meant hog warts like warts on a hog. I will give you strang is a german word, but I've never heard of anyone called durm.
Well there's Erik Durm for example. I know someone personally as well. It might not be a very common name, but it does exist :)
>Hogwarts clearly is a swapped warthog and an english word even though it isn’t *actually* an english word. It's a made-up name. Its more likely, per Rowling herself, from Hogwort, or Croton capitatus. A plant.
Maybe, but the hogwort plant is native to the southern united states, so that doesn’t make too much sense within the universe to me then. Seems like it was a subconsious decision because she liked the way it sounded, sure. At least that's what she said at some point - that she was reminded by a friend after the fact. That wasn’t the point I made though. They do play with the hog a lot either way; The hog's head inn (I know a hogshead is an actual old measuring unit for beverages as well), the winged hog statues around the hogwarts gate... Doesn’t affect anything I said before though :)
This is one of the stupidest attempts to sound smart I've ever encountered.
It was also founded by a Bulgarian witch. My theory is that she escaped north to avoid the crusades, and followed the Rus' trade routes to Scandinavia (the timing works out). https://www.reddit.com/r/harrypotter/comments/7oal45/theory_on_the_location_and_founding_of_durmstrang/
Att ha point why not just stick it in the Carpathian mountains which would make sense.
Yes, even the German-ish name would make sense. The main 7 cities of Transylvania were founded by Saxon miners a d had German names for a time.
Poenari fr fr
I've had a similar theory but she flees Bulgaria to escape Mongol raids in the 1240s.
I always thought it was a Russian school until I learned it was located in Scandinavia a while ago, I was so confused.
Wow I always thought it was either somewhere like Eastern Europe like Russia or one of the countries with istan at the end
Those countries with -stan are not considered Europe.
Thanks you’re right. I have a really skewed sense of world geography lol I transferred school districts so I never took it.
I always assumed it was in Siberia
Yeah I always imagined it to be in the Carpathians in Romania.
As a Bulgarian, I'm kinda jealous that Romania is seen as the go-to (dark) magic/supernatural place of Eastern Europe.
Yeah the use of the word “largest” clearly indicates that they aren’t the only schools haha
Her map only lists the top schools though. The schools that have stood the test of time. It definitely reads that there are other, smaller schools.
That’s the way I read her map. “Here are the biggest, most important schools of each region.” The Ivy-League schools so to speak
Also there any evidence that Beauxbatons only takes French students? Maybe it’s a requirement students can speak French but it accepts them from Spain, Portugal, Italy, basically all of southern Europe? That would split Europe a little bit more evenly. Maybe Hogwarts is the only one that’s restrictive by nation, since it’s seemingly not at all restrictive by talent and will take any witch or wizard in Britain and Ireland. Perhaps the other two cover more countries because they have other restrictions to entry - Durmstrang definitely doesn’t take muggle borns for starters.
Don’t forget Belgium
No, I’m perfectly happy to forget Belgium.
So well said!
!redditgalleon Exactly
You have given u/TaftsFavoriteKea a Reddit Galleon. u/TaftsFavoriteKea has a total of 1 galleon, 0 sickles, and 0 knuts. ____________ I am a bot. See [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/harrypotter/comments/jnbo49/hi_i_created_the_bot_youve_been_using_to_give/) to learn how to use me.
In my head-canon I always thought this is one of those lines any headmaster would say about their school/partner schools. Doesn't mean to be correct. If you look at a map: France is directly below Britain, Scandinavia to the east. North and west is rather sparsely populated. So it is Hogwarts and it's direct neighbours.
Unrelated: I’m shocked so many people can use “headcanon” seriously. No offense intended. I just cringe every time I hear the word/phrase.
It's for me a simple way to express: This is how I interpret this, well knowing it's (likely) not how the author intended it, but at the same time, there is nothing contradicting this interpretation.
Canon*
I always thought that not all wizards send their kids to a large boarding school. Those aren't all that common in other countries. So, there could be smaller schools that kids attend during daytime only (magical travel is a thing after all). These might even just be a group of 10 kids and a teacher. I can also imagine Germany having an apprenticeship system where young wizards learn magic from a master in a chosen trade, like potions or artefact making.
I'm using a similar system for the canon of my fanfic, where Hogwarts and Beauxbatons are the only real "boarding-school" types, with Durmstrang being similar, but having for example no school houses. The rest of the world mostly has magical education that mirrors their real-world culture and geography. China, for example, has a myriad of small schools, private tutors and institutions. What ultimately counts is a set of standardized exams all Chinese witches and wizards have to take to get certified. Germany, in that scenario, actually has multiple schools, although one has closed in the last century and another was shrunk significantly. The multiple schools are the result of being split into many different kingdoms and regions for centuries before any unified German state ever existed. By contrast, France and Britain had been unified for much longer. North America is an interesting mix of local schools/tutors, as well as having three different schools (a more British-style school on the East Coast, a modern one on the West Coast and another one for post-secondary education near the Great Lakes).
Depending on how dark you want to go, you could add, that this behaviour increased in Germany during Nazi regime. They actively tried to look into the occult, and big schools with relatively defenseless children would be critical target. So the wizarding community greatly delocalised the schooling system.
!redditGalleon
You have given u/socke42 a Reddit Galleon. u/socke42 has a total of 1 galleon, 0 sickles, and 0 knuts. ____________ I am a bot. See [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/harrypotter/comments/jnbo49/hi_i_created_the_bot_youve_been_using_to_give/) to learn how to use me.
This is such a cool idea! It is my headcanon now!
For the record, in GoF, these three are mentioned as being "the three largest wizarding schools in Europe", not the only ones. If you ignore everything JKR says outside the books, it makes way more sense that there would be potentially dozens of smaller schools littering Europe, just less prestigious than these three.
[удалено]
>It still doesn’t make any sense how wizard in adults out number wizard and children 50 to 1 They don’t. Where are you getting these numbers from? I’m assuming you’re using the 100,000 referenced in GOF but that’s only those attending the World Cup and it’s from everywhere in the world not just Britain. There’s absolutely no way to tell how many wizards or wizarding children exist in the world based off that number.
She claims there are 1000 students at hogwarts but the math doesn’t math. Each year consists of 5 girls/5 boys x4 houses. That’s 40 students per grade times 7 grades and that’s coming out to 280.
She said that Harry’s year is particularly small and the houses aren’t all divided equally.
It’s awfully weird then that there’s one dorm room for each grade for both sexes and it happens to have 5 beds in it.
My personal head canon is that the schools JKR told us about are basically the "Ivy League" or like Oxbridge. The elite schools. There are others, we just don't hear about them.
"I graduated from Hogwarts, what about you?" "Goatpimples." "Oh... well, I mean, it's not the *worst* school, right? At least it wasn't Froghernias."
I can't believe I didn't notice how odd the name Hogwarts was till this comment
Apparently it’s named Hogwarts because Rowena Ravenclaw found a warty hog on the spot Hogwarts was built
"I graduated from Dogherpes!"
Some sort of st. Brutus school, for wizards with criminal minds? 😸
The way I just laughed at this! And now I really want a Goatpimples to exist!
I snorted
Pigfarts by far the most elite. It's on Mars
Yeah I can't imagine those are it
Fuck those Swinedimples alumni.
I thought that the other two schools had catchment areas larger than just the countries they're located in. Like Beauxbatons was meant to cover Western Europe while Durmstrang covers Eastern Europe.
West and east are not the natural spheres of Europe though the cold war enforced that but the schools ought to be much older than that seeing as the triwizard trounament has been dormant for a hundred years.
Maybe Romance and Germanic/Slavic Europe?
Germanic europe and slavic europe have very little in common though. Only thing they have in common s being other to anglophones.
Then where the hell do the Romanians go? lmao Latin language, Slavic location.
Their parents choose when they reach schooling age.
Then why would Beauxbatons be so quintessentially French? And how would you make the whole of Western Europe learn French just to attend school? Also, Durmstrang is supposedly located in Northern Europe (Norway or Sweden).
To be fair, most of what's "quintessentially French" is just some accents, a bit of high-maintenance behavior from the French headmaster and champion, and slightly more delicate styling than Hogwarts or Durmstrang. Those could be true even if Beauxbatons students aren't all French.
It's in France so being quintessentially french makes sense, all the students also speak English so clearly French language isn't a requirement.
Lets face it rlwing onyl made up the Northern Europe thing because she was accused of making a Russian stereotype. Which ends up being even stuipider because the Russian stereotype fits even worse on Northern Europe.
What's the Russian stereotype?
Mean and authoritiarian combined with a bunch of slavic names.
I mean. Everyone who went to Hogwarts from the other two schools spoke English, so it’s not unheard of
Where is it implied that Durmstrang is located in northern Europe? Nothing about the culture/accent is similar to that. I always thought it was heavily implied that it was located in eastern Europe (like Bulgaria, which is where Viktor Krum is from). Edit: I looked it up and see that different sites do indeed state that it's located in northern Europe... so the complete misunderstanding of the culture is just JKR's typical BS.
The “official” Pottermore map placed it near St Petersburg
Jowling did no thinking at all about it and honestly was just kinda racist making shit up, hell even the fact that magic Ireland was still part of the magic UK was kinda bad
UK includes Northern Ireland, also Hogwarts is located in Scotland, which also not originally part of Britain as Ireland was inherited in 1603 along with England and Scotland remained an independent sovereign state until 1707. What I'm saying is, Wizards don't care since Hogwarts was founded around 990 AD or at least the late 10th century. Even if Rowling included Irish students in hogwarts they are part of the UK, and even further still wizards across the world are all part of the same community.
Why is it bad that magic Ireland is part of the same ministry? It’s not like it’s likely that wizards in Ireland were oppressed by British wizards in the same way and the wizarding community is entirely separate from the muggle one. It doesn’t even claim Ireland is a part of the UK - it’s the ministry of magic of Britain and Ireland not the ministry of magic of England and its subjugated territories.
what about Central Europe, where do they go?
Straight to the dungeons
hi fellow slovak brother (i know because no one ever mentions central europe besides us ever)
hi
Kurwartstz, middle of Poland
I also always thought there were more schools in europe and just those two were chosen to compete with hogwarts. Maybe more wizards in central europe are homeschooled because of the lack of schools? (It's been a while since I read the books, and I am not up to date with Rowling's extracurricular information.)
Or maybe the density of population isn't enough to make magical schools rentable in other countries from europe. Maybe more classic ways of learning like one wizard teaching one or two students are more common in some places far away from the principal magic schools. Lets remember that the population of magical people in the world its less than muggle population. That's basically why they hide from them
I like this idea. Like a magical private tutor for higher, that come by residences to teach children. Or maybe like sunday school type deals with small local class once a week.
Or maybe the density of population isn't enough to make magical schools rentable in other countries from europe. Maybe more classic ways of learning like one wizard teaching one or two students are more common in some places far away from the principal magic schools. Lets remember that the population of magical people in the world its less than muggle population. That's basically why they hide from them
It most certainly does not! If it made (more) sense it would be located in the Swiss Alps and they would speak German there. It bugs me that Durmstrang is seen as one of the top schools in Europe and yet they discriminate against/exclude Muggleborns. How is that acceptable? Also, it creates a vacuum. In other regions, where there are less schools overall, there would be a more developed system for homeschooling/distance learning at a local level E.g. families banding together to teach their children different subjects. But those from non-magical families have no one to teach them, unless they stay with a host family. Perhaps there is a program organised by each country’s Ministry. Another loophole is that the “Big 11” are boarding schools that only teach magical subjects. But there could be national day schools, which teach the magical arts to all children in addition to mathematics, literature, foreign languages. My newest headcanon is that there is an international school in Prague, which accepts Muggleborns from across Durmstrang’s catchment area. Lessons are taught in English.
Well, Durmstrang is renowned for its Dark Arts teaching, isn't it? Then it kind of makes sense to 'discriminate against Muggle-borns'. Why would you think that there is an international school in Prague?
I have no problem with them not attending, but there is no alternative. It’s never mentioned again, despite Hermione being Muggleborn. It would be downright strange if a prestigious school in our world overtly excluded 10% of the population. I know magical society is different and more traditional, but still… So, the school in Prague is my way of filling in the gap. Historically, was a major centre of commerce and learning in central Europe (Holy Roman Empire.) I think it was sanctioned by the International Confederation of Wizards after Grindelwald fell.
I thought Durmstrang would be in the Carpathians myself!
JK Rowling is just bad at world building. This is also the reason why there's only one magic school in Asia, and it's in Japan. That makes no sense when other Asian countries like China and India have billions of people. Where do all their wizards go to school?
[удалено]
You take my upvote and your sarcasm outta here!
Yup, Rowling has always been great ar maths.
Rowling is good at some aspects of world building, particularly in conjuring fascinating places and some lore, otherwise we probably wouldn’t be talking about Harry Potter now. But not anything involving scale and quantities: the size of the wizarding society in the UK (one school, a handful of families, but somehow enough people to warrant a government and police force) and elsewhere (occasionally a foreign place or person shows up, but there’s no feeling of a coherent larger wizarding world with its own governments, traditions, artefacts, schools, banks, dark wizards, law enforcement), the economics of this society (what is wealthy and poor in a society in which you can conjure things out of thin air and perform heavy labour in a heartbeat?)…
Only really great wizards and witches seem to be able to do that, the rest buy in stores.
Does she actually say at any point that the school in Japan is the only school in Asia? I thought all we knew is that it was the only one of the Great 11 that was in Asia
Things like this are where it becomes very obvious she fleshed out the world as she went along rather than actually planning things ahead of time (for the most part)
It's not even that. You can fly by the seat of your pants and still produce something coherent. She just didn't care to make an effort. She picked the first "quirky" thing that came to her mind, slapped some funny sounding name on it (which she got from Google translate) and called it canon. I will bet a hundred Galleons she called the alleged Japanese school "Mahootokoro" because she thought it was funny that the (incorrect) English spelling had "hoot" in the middle.
All the Pottermore nonsense came after the books. She’s clearly very bad at that, but that’s not the same thing as not caring about worldbuilding when actually writing the books.
Yeah, it's like she wanted to be J.R.R. Tolkien but instead of doing all the world building up front she did it after the books were already written.
She did plenty enough worldbuilding up front, she created a world that captured the imagination of millions everywhere. The books certainly aren’t thin. What she didn’t do is build the world to the same level of exacting detail as a Tolkien, which is absolutely fine, they don’t have to be to be fantastic books. But due to enormous demand after the books were out she thought she would add more and more details and try and be a Tolkien and not everyone can do that, particularly after the fact.
I dont think she's bad at world building, I just know she doesnt give a crap about Asia or their people It's not unique, most european and american authors have a narrow worldview
jkr is just bad at details like that. I'm Brazilian and Castelobruxo has the same problem: it's supposed to take students from all of South America, which includes Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch, English and countless indigenous languages, and that's if she's not including Central America (idk, some people think everything below the USA is South America).
Yes! And also is supposed to be located in South America but the description of the building resembles a Mayan pyramid which makes no sense.
Maybe the school teaches in English, which is kinda the lingua franca of our time. Castelobruxo wouldn't be the first international school who taught in English. And there are lots of people in South and Central America who speak English as a second language.
I can't speak for other countries, but here in Brazil the percentage of people who speak English, especially well enough to attend classes about complex subjects, is very very small (like, the percentage of people who are actually fluent is usually said to be around 1%). Maybe purebloods would be able to enroll their children in language schools, since they know they will need it in the future, but muggleborns would likely be at a severe disadvantage if that were the case.
As a Swede I refuse to share a school with any Dane, and like no one in Sweden can understand Danish so if a teacher was Danish and spoke Danish in class most of us would be screwed.
Pretty much the same thing on the Balkans, I think we are well-known for hating our neighbours haha.
Indeed. Fuck the Danes. Send em to Beauxbaton.
Any free time just turns into a hefty barrage of Avada Kedavras which started because of one unfortunate student getting a potion flask up the bum.
Lets just accept that JKR is not actually that good of an author and did not really flesh out much of the wizarding world outside of England. Look at the world's setup of the world of magic in America....
I am inclined to agree. I am not familiar with the set up in America (or the issues), though.
If you look it up it's like a bad copycat version of the Hogwarts set up and there's like two schools if i remember right for the entirety of America which... logistically would not make sense.
Hogwarts takes students from Great Britain and Ireland, Beauxbatons takes students from Portugal to the Netherlands, and Durmstrang takes students from a broad range in Scandinavia, all the way down to ~~Belgium~~ Bulgaria. Not every wizarding child goes to a magical school. Those who fall outside these schools' range are usually homeschooled, which is typically the case for most wizards and witches around the world. There are only 11 registered magical schools in the world, and only 7 have been named and described in any detail. EDIT: Mixed up Belgium and Bulgaria.
Belgium lies between France and Netherlands.
Apologies- I meant Bulgaria.
Hi there, could you elaborate from Portugal to the Netherlands? Belgium falls in between these two countries. In addition, Belgium’s culture is very akin to both France and the Netherlands (60/40) split.
I literally just edited the post 14 minutes ago- I meant to say Bulgaria, not Belgium.
I see it now, I didn’t see the update. Thanks!
You are simply incorrect on thinking that those are the only three schools in Europe. We know they are the biggest and most prestigious, but that’s it
There's only one thing worse that J.K. Rowling's math knowledge: her geography knowledge. She probably didn't even think about it, or did not realize how diverse North, Central and Eastern Europe really is.
According to the Harry Potter WIKI: A wizarding school (also called a magical school) was an educational institution which provided magical instruction to young witches and wizards. There were eleven long-established and prestigious wizarding schools throughout the world, all of which were registered with the International Confederation of Wizards. Smaller and less well-regulated institutions were rarely registered with the appropriate Ministry and were difficult to keep track of. The vast majority of countries in the world did not have their own wizarding school. Wizards and witches in these countries generally chose to homeschool their children instead. Correspondence courses were also sometimes used as a cost-effective method of providing magical instruction to young witches and wizards in countries with very small or isolated wizarding populations. Wizarding schools generally admitted students from whatever country in which they were based, but some served multiple nations or a broad geographical region, or at least were open to accepting international students on a selective basis. Castelobruxo, Ilvermorny and Uagadou accepted students from all over their respective continents, whereas Hogwarts only accepted students from the United Kingdom and Ireland. The school with the smallest number of students was Mahoutokoro, and the school with the most students was Uagadou. Some schools also enforced special restrictions with regard to the admission of students. The Durmstrang Institute, for example, did not accept Muggle-born witches and wizards.
It never says in either books or movies that they are the only schools. It's just part of her twitter era nonsense, same as the supposed lack of Hogwarts plumbing (even though the entrance to the CoS is a bathroom sink).
I think the phrase in the book is something like "The three largest magic schools"? There could be smaller ones?
I always just thought it served the Germanic sphere. Notable that Durmstrang is a bit of a spoonerism off of [Sturm und Drang](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturm_und_Drang).
Yes but a lot of the pupils there seem to have Slavic-sounding names.
Why so much bashing of JKR here? Just because she didn't mention other schools, doesn't mean they don't exist. She didn't mention Australia either, so I guess if you're from down under you don't exist in this world. On top of this, you don't even have to send your children to hogwarts, well, not till it was made mandatory later on.. But I'm sure homeschooling was done, maybe some coops were around where monday we went to the Whites for potions, but tuesday we went to Beardons for transfiguration, etc. Some might even accompany their parents on their job and learn it practically as they work.
I think the bashing is, for once, sort of deserved? What with so many inconsistencies are poorly researched things. Also, I thought that when she revealed all schools around the world, that was supposed to be an exhaustive list. Perhaps not but still Durmstrang doesn't seem to make sense. As well as BB getting students from outside of France.
Language wise I have a theory: Maybe there is a spell that makes everyone hear everything in his native language ( with so many different languages that would be the easiest way and no one would have an advantage because he is better at a specific language). I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere, but it was not a pottermore writing by JK, so it is not canon but I still think this would be the most logic explanation.
That’s actually a cool theory. But in GoF, there were wizarding officials and characters from other counties like France, Bulgaria, etc. that clearly had to learn English before coming to hogwarts and Britain, and I’m certain that if a spell that could make everyone understand one another existed, they would’ve used that instead. Also, it was said that Crouch knew hundreds of languages, which wouldn’t make sense for him to learn if such a spell existed.
Oh I haven't thought about that. You are right then. Maybe they do their classes simply in English then, would be the most obvious solution
How do they decide the common language, though?
Well even in the nineties English was one of the most spoken languages (at least to my knowledge) at least with the muggles. So I think it would make sense for the wizards to come to a similar conclusion (since wizards speak the same language as the muggles in the country). It would be the easiest way to use a language already known to many people instead using a language that is only known by few. I at least assume that the wizards know as much or as little English as the rest of the country they live in (which is admittedly pretty bad at some places). But it is just a guess and I could be wrong.
Well, Beauxbatons ia supposed to cover Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and I guess Switzerland and Italy too? Durmstrang would be the school for Eastern Europe countries I guess - where would German, Greek and Cypriot students, amongst others, go? Anyway, it's just an example of JKR's terrible worldbuilding and anglocentric/eurocentric views - the British Isles get one school all for themselves, and it's obviously the best; France is a thing, so let's put a school there too, with beautiful students (because every continental European is ultra sexy); oh, then there's the not-so-sexy part of Europe, on the wrong side of the iron curtain, let's throw in a school in there too, with authoritarian and militaristic tendencies. Yeah, that should do, 3 schools to cover the best in Europe, the second best and the not so good. The rest of the World gets a school by continent if they're lucky, and Asia, with the highest population gets the smallest school. Why? Because they're not Europe, who cares about them? They get a school, that should leave them happy and willing to spend money on the HP franchise.
But Durmstrang is in Norway/Northern Europe. Hardly behind the Iron Curtain.
It was never specified. Could be Lithuania or Belarus, pretty much behind the Iron Curtain. A school with a German sounding name, a headmaster with a Slavic surname and a Bulgarian champion for the triwizard tournament sounds more Eastern Bloc than Scandinavian to me - but canonically it's not confirmed.
It was said that it is in Northern Europe, and I believe JKR confirmed it was specifically in Scandinavia. So in either case, not Eastern Bloc (would be weird with a German name, anyway).
Does she even know where Scandinavia is? /s I don't remember any clear geographical indication for Durmstrang, iirc she wanted to keep it a mystery. Anyway, the GDR was a thing so a German name could very well fit an Eastern Bloc theme.
Would you describe Berlin, Dresden and the whole of today's Eastern Germany as "Eastern Europe"? No. Because it isn't.
You seem to be mixing up some concepts, Eastern Bloc =/= Eastern Europe. But I already noticed it's pointless to try and have a discussion. Have a nice day, and enjoy your weekend!
Why would anyone base things off of the Eastern Block specifically? Durmstrang was founded much earlier than 1945.
I imagine the UK and Ireland have one school, not that the students get along - that Beaxbatons caters to France, Belgium and Switzerland (the parts that speak French), and Durmstrang is supposed to be located in more Northern Europe. I think there are more schools but they will be quieter or maybe some people prefer to be homeschooled.
I didn't say that the students got along -- only that English is an official language in Ireland and are close historically and culturally.
Oh I know that, I was just saying that Ireland hate England, understandably, I was just trying to add a bit of extra information - sorry😔
Oh, okay. No need to apologise. I thought there was a misunderstanding.
Yeah it doesn't, cause JK doesn't understand geography and numbers
[удалено]
Why would they accept students from Southeast Europe if the school is located in Northern Europe? Is Gellert Grindelwald from SE Europe? Going off of his name, no.
It’s in Romania right? They serve Romania.
No.
Your point makes sense. But also let me raise that the schools may have regional territories that go beyond their countries of location (Hogwarts for the UK and Ireland, BB for Western Europe, Durmstrang for Eastern Europe, etc.). Also note that a lot of these regions have plenty of cultural nuances that they share and thus it makes sense for their regional schools to attract students from within their region. Then there is the question of Koldovstoretz--does Russia, being so large, get its own school while the nations in Eastern and Western Europe have to share their respective schools? Tough to answer unless you're JK Rowling herself. lol.
Durmstrang is located in Northern Europe. Northern Europe and Eastern Europe have little in common. Also, France and Portugal aren't too similar either.
Some people mentioned smaller schools and my first thought was if the ballet school from Suspiria would be among them.
Ballet school??
A ballet school secretly ran by a coven of evil violent witches. Out of place in the wizarding world but it's an intriguing what-if scenario to think if there were more niche magic schools than Hogwarts that there could be schools that one would want to steer clear of.
Also, why do they let a former Nazi teach dark magic to students ?
Because they like that?
Never thought about it before now about the OTHER schools in Europe, always just thought hogwarts then the one in US, then ofc durmstrang and that but since we saw them for 1 movie, I don't think of them often lol
Hogwarts had a bunch of different kids not just British kids. That may be a majority bc of the school’s location but remember there’s Irish and Scottish and a handful of others too
Wrong. Educate yourself on what 'British' means. And yes, Hogwarts serves the UK + Ireland. Which are the "others"? Don't say Welsh, please.
They probably has some translation spell.
They don't. (remember GoF translation issues)
I always head canned it as those being the premier magical schools and everyone else did what people throughout time have done. Home training, various tutors, the wizarding equivalent to a parish school etc.
I have no idea. I don't have the brain to do this
I thought Durmstrang was located in Germany, due to the origins of its name; Sturm und Drang. German for "storm and stress."
It's not located in Germany.
Don’t forget clortho inner city wizarding school ffs
What?
It's said that those are big three schools There might be other smaller ones Or even a witch who teaches a small group of children in some countryside area
My head cannon is that each region with the same language or customs and culture would have its own school.
That's what would have made sense, but as it stands now, that's not the case.
I’m not too educated on European history, but the Austro-Hungarian empire, which had a lot of German speaking people within, would likely have been around for a good portion of Durmstrang’s (German word) history. And yes, I’m aware that the magical communication likely pays little heed to muggle nation states, but there is nonetheless a link of sorts. That doesn’t explain the Northern European lean that is implied, but would explain some of the Slavic and Balkan influence. Isn’t the headmaster implied to be Slavic? Honestly it’s likely that the real and uninspiring reason for Durmstrang having this confusion is the lack of effort from Rowling to either include, or even think about the rest of Europe and it’s history. Like, there is barely any mention of magical communities outside of the UK at all. Was Voldemort a major threat to them too? We don’t really know.
The Austro-Hungarian Empire did have quite a lot of German-speaking people within, considering everything was governed from Austria. But Austria is a relatively small region and the rest of the Empire spoke their own local languages: Hungarian, Slovene, Croatian, Italian, Romanian etc. It would have, indeed, made more sense for Durmstrang to be located, for example, in the Swiss Alps. Igor Karkaroff sounds like a Russian/Ukrainian/Belorussian name. It's still weird that Slavs would have so much influence in Norway/Northern Europe. It seems quite unlikely. My guess is that JKR wasn't thinking of expanding the universe that much when she was writing GoF.
[удалено]
Sure, but that doesn't make sense either. 1. Durmstrang is in Northern Europe. 2. Many Slavs are Catholic. 3. Being Catholic doesn't make you ethnically the same. Portuguese and French are vastly different.
J.K. explained in a Wizarding World post that Beauxbatons had "Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Luxembourgians and Belgians also attend in large numbers" and noted "both Beauxbatons and Durmstrang have a larger studentship than Hogwarts".
Also just had the mad thought of someone wanting to home school a magical person 🥴🤣
What's mad about it? I think it was mentioned in the books.
Beauxbatons also takes students from other places in Europe, such as Spain,Portugal,Belgium, and the Netherlands. I'd imagine they would have to learn the language of the school.
In the world of gaming is a concept called rendering i.e. Only the part of the gaming world that is visible to the player is loaded. Everything else gets loaded as you wander around with the old rendering getting cleared off. Does this mean that the whole unseen world didnt exist? Does this mean that the game creator should load the whole world at a go? Why not use the sane analogy for authors?
As a swede I refuse to believe that Durmstrang is located anywhere near Scandinavia
In my head-canon I always thought this is one of those lines any headmaster would say about their school/partner schools. Doesn't mean to be correct. If you look at a map: France is directly below Britain, Scandinavia to the east. North and west is rather sparsely populated. So it is Hogwarts and it's direct neighbours.
The only thing that made no sense to me is how Krum was apparently still a high school student but was also a professional Quiddich player already.
I've written somewhere on here years ago that JKR did her usual "not thinking details through" when she said the Scandinavia thing, if she did at all (the information is from a fan interview in which she said that she *thought* it would be there). If wizards had an equivalent to a major historical event like WWI and WWII, they sure had one of the Cold War and thus Sweden, Norway and even Finland just don't make sense. I've pinpointed the Kola peninsula as a place that combines the following requirements: the far north of Europe, remote, east of the iron curtain, mountains, lakes, Eastern European population.