Let's talk about Durmstrang
Jan. 19th, 2015 11:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anemonenLet’s talk about Durmstrang
Yesterday when I was researching Viktor Krum for my portrait of him, I came across a statement from JKR that Durmstrang is situated somewhere in the north of Norway or Sweden. This really surprised me. Based on Krum being from Bulgaria and Karkaroff presumably also of Slavic origin based on his name, I assumed that it would be maybe somewhere in the mountains in Romania or in the Ural Mountains or maybe even in the Alps since the name is derived from German. So, weird as I am, I lay thinking about this yesterday when I was trying to sleep.
Well then, let’s assume that Durmstrang is based on some sort of Eastern-Central-Northern European cooperation that decided that the north was a good place for a secret school (which do make sense, because there’s far between people up there). But then, based on the fact that the school is in Sweden/Norway, the likely main language is German and they have students from Bulgaria, they get students from an incredibly vast area. At least the size I showed in the map.
This makes me puzzle a bit at the fact that Durmstrang is smaller than Hogwarts, according to Krum. Germany alone is bigger than UK and Ireland put together, so even taking in account that D doesn’t accept Muggleborn students (let’s say that’s about ¼ of the students), it should be a lot bigger than Hogwarts. Or maybe it’s some sort of elite school for rich kids (seeing as Lucius wanted to send Draco there), or maybe there are lots of other schools in the area as well, as the Muggleborns would need a school to attend as well. Maybe some parents were sceptical to D’s reputation for dark magic or against the fact that Muggleborns weren’t accepted. What do you think?
Another thing I was thinking about: Say Snape was in fact the master of the Elder Wand when he was killed, would Voldemort have gained its allegiance? Would having Nagini kill Snape truly defeat him? I’m curious.
Yesterday when I was researching Viktor Krum for my portrait of him, I came across a statement from JKR that Durmstrang is situated somewhere in the north of Norway or Sweden. This really surprised me. Based on Krum being from Bulgaria and Karkaroff presumably also of Slavic origin based on his name, I assumed that it would be maybe somewhere in the mountains in Romania or in the Ural Mountains or maybe even in the Alps since the name is derived from German. So, weird as I am, I lay thinking about this yesterday when I was trying to sleep.
Well then, let’s assume that Durmstrang is based on some sort of Eastern-Central-Northern European cooperation that decided that the north was a good place for a secret school (which do make sense, because there’s far between people up there). But then, based on the fact that the school is in Sweden/Norway, the likely main language is German and they have students from Bulgaria, they get students from an incredibly vast area. At least the size I showed in the map.
This makes me puzzle a bit at the fact that Durmstrang is smaller than Hogwarts, according to Krum. Germany alone is bigger than UK and Ireland put together, so even taking in account that D doesn’t accept Muggleborn students (let’s say that’s about ¼ of the students), it should be a lot bigger than Hogwarts. Or maybe it’s some sort of elite school for rich kids (seeing as Lucius wanted to send Draco there), or maybe there are lots of other schools in the area as well, as the Muggleborns would need a school to attend as well. Maybe some parents were sceptical to D’s reputation for dark magic or against the fact that Muggleborns weren’t accepted. What do you think?
Another thing I was thinking about: Say Snape was in fact the master of the Elder Wand when he was killed, would Voldemort have gained its allegiance? Would having Nagini kill Snape truly defeat him? I’m curious.
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Date: 2015-01-19 05:57 pm (UTC)And you're sadly right. I mean, India alone would need almost twice as many schools as all of Europe. So assuming H, B and D are the only schools in Europe (which doesn't make any sense), there would have to be 5-6 schools in India and around 17 in Asia in total. So unless there are som ridiculously massive schools around the world that serves huge areas, JKR must have made a big mistake here somewhere.
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Date: 2015-01-19 06:21 pm (UTC)