My Personal Analysis of the dimensions and measurements of the Basilisk from HP: Chamber of Secrets
So, when I am writing my HP fanfic I like to be as descriptive and detailed as possible so my readers can easily visualize what they are reading. For me to be able to write as descriptive and detailed as possible, I have a to be able to visual what it is I am trying to convey. I like my visualizations to be as vivid as possible so that my writing can be to the best of my abilities. My most recent atruggle of visualization based of the description of the HP books is the basilisk from Chamber of Secrets. I DO NOT rely on the movie visuals as they can vary greatly in comparison to the book. The Basilisk, as glorious of sfx and a puppet it was, was over TWO TIMES the size of the basilisk from the book (I believe this change made for a grander cinematic event is also why the pipe in Myrtle's bathroom was given a grander visualization and larger size).
At first I just looked up the length of the basilisk in the book, which is about 20 feet. But eventually, the length wasn't enough for me to get and proper visual of the basilisk. So I searched for the book's description of the basilisk. It was with this search that I began delving into finding the measurement of the basilisk. What I discovered during this research motivated me to write this post. You see, I have found that one of the three descriptors given to us in the book actually negates the size in which the basilisk is given based upon the other two descriptors.
The first descriptor is the length, which I have already discussed upon. The second descriptor, the circumference, will be discussed later. The third descriptor, the size of the basilisks fangs, is the descriptor which negates the previous two. At first, I hadn't realizes the third descriptor caused any problems in properly sizing the basilisk. The book describes the basilisks fangs as being as "long and thin as sabers". Believing that sizing the fangs before circumerence would be the easier task, I researched the length of a saber. More specifically a fencing saber. The length of a fencing saber is approximately 88cm (34.64in), not including the handle. My first thought to this was that the basilisk would have to be HUGE to fit fangs like that in its mouth. Then I realized the basilisk would have to be about or a tad bit smaller than the basilisk in the movie. I thought that I perhaps had researched the wrong saber, which resulted in me discovering that there was the cavalry saber and the modern fencing saber. The modern fencing saber is quite different from its predecessor. And with the cavalry saber having a flat blade, compared to the fencing saber's rounder blade, I came to the conclusion the book was in fact comparing the basilisk's fangs to that of a fencing saber. This is when I began to understand that this descriptor could possibly be preventing myself and other readers from properly visualizing the Basilisk. And so, I placed my research of fencing sabers aside and began my search on the circumference.
Finding the circumference of the basilisk was the longest part of all of this. I began with searching for the circumference of an of an oak tree, which google gave me nothing I was really looking for. So, I searched for the diameter of the oak tree so I could do some simple math. But what I thought would be simple research turned into an unnecessary rabit hole I dove into that ended up being completely useless (I'll spare you the details). The usefull research began after I hit a dead end of confusion and frustration while searching the whole oak tree measuring thing. I finally remembered the pipe in Myrtle's bathroom. It can be concluded from Myrtle's story on how she died that she saw the basilisk in the same pipe Harry, Ron, and Lockhart use to get the the Chamber. The book describes the pipe as being "wide enough for a man to slide into."
I realized then, all I needed was the average circumference of a man and match that to the basilisk. At this point, I have also realize that the saber fang description negated everything else. So I just said, screw it, and discarded it (mostly). I know just visualized the fangs as looking like smaller sabers, much like the ones of a python. After more reasearch, I eventually found my way to finding the average shoulder width of a man. The shoulders are typically the widest part on the human body and the shoulder width would serve as the diameter in the circumference formula. I used a recent article from April of 2023 which used CDC based on 7,476 American men to find the average width. However, the average width depended on age because the data showed that the men's shoulder widths shrunk with age. Lockhart is 28, I believe, so I used the average shoulder width of the men in the same age category: 16.3 inches.
After basic math, the circumference is about 51.2 inches.
After all this research, I liked to visualize the basilisk as being visually similar to an above average anaconda. The descriptor for the fangs was pretty much forgotten. The final measurments I came up with are:
Length: 20ft
Cirmcumference: 51.2 in
Diameter: 16.3 inches
For those who would prefer a visual of the measurements, I later plan on posting a scaled down image comparing Harry and the basilisk. 1in=1ft
