Quidditch is coming to Howard County and I am...nonplussed.
In case you do not know, Quidditch is a purely fictional competitive sport created by author J.R. Rowling in the Harry Potter book series. Descriptions of Quidditch play provide some exhilarating reading in the books. I can certainly see why Harry Potter enthusiasts would want to recreate the thrill of that experience.
There’s just one problem. Quidditch requires magic. It requires being able to fly on broomsticks and the existence of a moving object called a Snitch which has a magical mind of its own. Many superficial details of the game can be recreated but these cannot.
Am I a purist or a curmudgeon? Hard to say. I simply can’t understand calling anything without both flight and magic Quidditch. Perhaps for a Harry Potter-themed game at a children’s party. But for full- scale competitive play? I am perplexed.
And yet, there it is. And it does not need my permission to exist. I do not condemn it. You may be excited and looking forward to attending the Major League Quidditch Championship. It is, as one commenter on Twitter remarked, “so Howard County.”
What are we going to do when the folks lobbying for more cricket pitches have to compete with a new surge in requests for Quidditch grounds? The next Columbia/HoCo culture wars?
Perhaps.
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