The Magiarcheologist @the-magiarcheologist - Tumblr Blog

HL cut content: The Dale family

Ok, my previous post about cut content did better than I was expecting! So I think that's a sign for me to share more Hogwarts Legacy cut content I’ve found. And boy! I’ve been bursting at the seams wanting to talk about some of this stuff for more than a year! Let’s go!

I’ll start today with all things related to the Dale family because that’s some of the more ‘complete’ cut content I’ve found. We’ll start with just a funny little tidbit and then we’ll delve into the real mystery!

Ilse Dale

Ok, so I present to you, Ilse Dale, President of The Glacius Art Society!

It’s unclear exactly how Ilse Dale is related to Samantha Dale, but I think from the last name it’s obvious he’s somewhere in the family tree. But let’s examine what this Glacius Art Society is!

In the SQL files I found some traces of what they call a ‘World Event’ or WE called ‘Ice Garden’. Other World Events are, for exemple, all the dead NPCs we find in the Highlands, some with notes on them to explain their death. Anyway, it looks like this Ice Garden thing would have been some ice statues we would have been able to find throughout the Highlands, left there as a very… questionable form of wizarding art!

#hogwarts legacy #samantha dale #marmaduke dale #HL cut content

The HL game that never was

I’ll try something a bit of a different today.

I’ve dug deep into the HL game files during the last 2 years but I don’t usually post any of the things I find in there (unless it’s directly linked to some theory I have from the official game’s story). It’s mainly because I always hesitate to bring up and discuss stuff that’s obviously been cut from the game and therefore is most likely completely irrelevant now.

But, personally, I’m fascinated with finding all these little clues about the game that could have been, or all the different possibilities for story and gameplay that the devs explored on their way to creating the final game we have today. And since lately I’ve seen a bit more discussion start around unused game data (see here and here, there might be other posts I haven’t seen) I though I might give it a shot and post some of the things I’ve found interesting.

Starting today with some screenshots lefts by the devs in some "tutorial" folders that show earlier builds of the game UI and menus and give us a glimpse into other gameplay features that were cut.

Here we have an early version of the gear menu! This image is quite small and blurry but I can’t do anything about it, it’s just how it is in the game files.

Few things I find interesting here: it looks like we could ‘equip’ beasts, beyond just the beast mounts. Like, here, it looks like a puffskein and a phoenix are ‘equiped’, or at least selected. I wonder what they did. Do the equipped beasts give buffs?

If you zoom in and squint we can also see in the different menu tabs above a tab called ‘schedule’. Does that mean they experimented with a class schedule? Some other data in SQL files suggest that they indeed tried implementing some type of schedule for activities but it’s nice to see they even tried out some UI interface for this.

We can also see that, at some point, they had some rings we could equip instead of gloves. I wonder if those had special properties.

Now some screenshots of the old conjuration UI. They apparently tested a way more complex resources system (with timber, yorkstone, galena, rubies in addition to the moonstone we have in-game). I have to say, I’m not mad they got rid of that. Collecting all of these different resources seems tedious and needing to have resources to conjure an object does not fit with wizarding world lore. But being able to collect different types of stone or ore (like galena) would be interesting for things like alchemy for instance.

And now onto nurturing plants!

We can see the use of aguamenti to water our plants. It also looks like plants could give more than one resource. I also note the little blue icon to the left that looks like a bed. I wonder if it appears when the character lacks sleep. We know from the SQL files data that they experimented with some buff/debuff system when the character was well-rested and well-fed.

In the second screenshot we have a whole knowledge level system for the chomping cabbage that we’ll see also with potions. Maybe something like: you first had to discover the plan, then you could harvest it, then plant it yourself? It’s not very clear. We get a bit more info about this system for potions.

First of all, we see two different health potions: skele-gro and the wound cleaning one. We can also see what looks like different knowledge levels that reveal different sorts of ‘secret ingredients’ that can apparently be added to a potion once it’s already brewing. Maybe to give the potion some special effects?

In the SQL data we can find a lot of data tables for a knowledge system that applied to all sorts of things (including astronomy, beasts, spells, conjurations, Hogwarts and more)

I do wish they’d kept some sort of progressive knowledge system. I think it would feel much more rewarding to progressively have to grow the character’s knowledge. The existing plant and potions system feels much too simple.

That’s it for today. A quick and easy post!

But if people are interested about HL cut content, there is much more that I could post. Including more info about the Dale family, all sorts of fun speculation about the Sanguine Circle, possibly more info about the Oakes family (??), more secret mermaid artifacts from the prefects’ bathroom (follow-up on Nerida’s quest ??), maybe more info on the portrait near Fig’s classroom (that people at some point thought could be an ancestor of Sebastian because they look similar) and all sorts of other fun and mysterious stuff!

#hogwarts legacy #HL cut content #HL gameplay

superconductivebean

#1760: devs' commentary on missions

@the-magiarcheologist I've been digging the game files with Fmodel and DB viewer at last. I've found the devs' commentary on missions. The file in question is: CSV_MIssionList_Phoenix (Content -> Data -> Mission).

@phinik @girl-named-matty @espressoristretto-patronum @akiyamacho look

Some findings (excuse the formatting, it's a very lengthy cvs file):

We were supposed to learn Oppugno at the very beginning of the game:

"OLI_01_Natsai, OLI_01_Seb",Welcome to Hogsmeade,VS 1D,Hogwarts,Main,Weasley 2,Reparo,2,"UNLOCKED: Spell_Oppugno, *AM Meter + Finishers, Aim Mode (after completed), Dark Arts Combat Challenge (Deluxe and Collector's Editions - after completed)

So goblins do interrupt trade:

Villager asks player for help clearing out a couple of goblin camps interupting the supply of goods to her village.

Very sudden bit of lore about the butterfly lady:

" Clementine Willardsley has a fascination with butterflies and a controlling husband who won't let her pursue her interests. Player must locate and follow the butterflies - and see where they lead.

the-magiarcheologist

The fact that they call Isidora a shamed Keeper is soooo interesting!!

It further cements my theory that the name "Keeper" means something else than just guarding Isidora's repository! They did not become Keepers after Isidora died, they were already Keepers much earlier than that, probably before Isidora even started messing with the pain magic. Isidora was also a Keeper, until something happened and she broke from the group.

In the game files, there is also a json file with all the in-game UI text (like all the descriptions of objects, quests etc. that we can find in our field guide). It includes some text describing the Keepers (called Sanctum Guardians) that I don't think we can actually access from our field guide. But about Percival Rackham, it says:

Percival Rackham recognised the problems that would arise from the wizarding world having access to powerful magic and gathered a team to address them.

The 'problems that could arise' could be Isidora mis-using the ancient magic but, in-game, Percival had already gathered the other Keepers before they met Isidora so I wonder if there was something else the Keepers were fighting against and trying to stop, something that had nothing to do with Isidora.

The descriptions of the other Keepers are also interesting:

Charles Rookwood was a Keeper.

This one is pretty boring 🤣

Twig was an adept student at Hogwarts who was enlisted by Percival Rackham to help address the problem of ancient powerful magic.

Yes, Niamh Fitzgerald was originally called 'Twig' 😂 and she might have originally been much younger than her final version.

San Bakar was a pilgrim who ended up at Hogwarts, and was enlisted by Percival Rackham to help address the problem of ancient powerful magic.

A pilgrim!

Isidora is called "Isidora the Bold" and her description reads:

Isidora is a fierce and powerful witch who was enlisted by Percival Rackham to help address the problem of ancient powerful magic.

And yes, in the game files the Map Chamber is called either the Sanctum or the Haven, which is super interesting also! Why did they internally use these names to refer to the Map Chamber? It makes it seem like there is more to the history of the Map Chamber than what we learn in-game...

Also I have whoooole post to write about the stuff regarding "Percival Tower". It's not just in the game files, in the Art and Making Of book they released with the game there is a picture of the Tower Tunnel dungeon from that mission in Marunweem and it's described also as "Percival's Tower Dungeon" in that book. And if that castle/dungeon belonged to Percival then it kickstarts all sorts of theories like why did Isidora have one of her secret labs there...

Anyway, I had skimmed that csv file and never read it fully but your post made me realize I missed a lot in interesting info. I went back to have a look at it and I also saw this:

The description for the restricted section mission reads:

The player and Sebastian sneak into the restricted section, and due to their skills with ancient magic, the player is able to find Fig's missing book.

And later it says

The player returns the book to Fig.

It's interesting that they refer to the book as belonging to Fig. Like it's a book he lost and asked to player to retrieve. They changed that slightly in the final version of the game where it's never implied the book belongs to Fig in any way.

Also, at the very end, when the player goes to Ollivander to prepare the ancient magic wand to access the repository it says:

The player asks Olivander to repair a special broken wand he needs to defeat Ranrok. While on the journey the player must defeat Victor Rookwood in a battle to the death

In the final version of the game, there is no broken wand to repair, is there? He just crafts and entirely new wand I think. I wonder if this 'special broken wand' is the one we find in the Ravenclaw mission with Jackdaw, the one that Jackdaw stole from Ollivander and that we find near his corpse. If so, it's interesting that the Ollivander family possessed a wand linked to ancient magic and to the Map Chamber and the Keepers.

Soo many interesting things in the game files but, as you say, things changed and such info might not apply to the current version of the game. Still, fascinating to see how the story changed and how we got to the story we have now!

superconductivebean

A PROPER YAP NOW!!!!!!!!!! (what's that file btw?)

They did not become Keepers after Isidora died, they were already Keepers much earlier than that, probably before Isidora even started messing with the pain magic. Isidora was also a Keeper, until something happened and she broke from the group.

The concept art of the Map Chamber – used to be referred to as the Sanctum or Haven, aye – implies Isidora used to be part of the group:

And was a part important enough to still be put amongst the rest.

In my opinion, narratively, that's far more interesting than banishing Isidora and putting her memory, knowledge and skills to oblivion, because – ohno – she's evillllllllll. She was not evil, she was not really a mistake of her own (she was that of Percival's), she deserved to be on that wall.

It implies the rest of the Keepers did acknowledge her as well; the secret they kept was not something simple either.

I doubt it's any of that or that we should mix two concepts together like this, as HL-at-release and HL-as-a-concept feel like two vastly different things.

The problems that could arise – powerhungry muggles, military men, muggle royalty, powerful curses and magical contamination, etc, to name a few. And if Isidora had been the part of the Keepers, it wouldn't be her to cause all that, I think?..

In-game, we see Percival and the rest as not the Keepers but as a bunch of Hogwarts Professors at first (who I assume were friends of Percival so had, no issue joining him). They became Keepers in response to later events, after Isidora created the repository (see below:).

"Guardian1_10484": "We also realised that until they [repos] could be destroyed, the magic used to create them was a danger to wizardkind.", "Guardian1_10485": "Hence, we became Keepers. Keepers of an unfathomable secret. We knew that – some day – one with the ability to see traces of ancient magic might be seduced by its power.",

It's very interesting that the OG cause for the Keepers to assemble was to:

address the problem of ancient powerful magic.

That does not say it was a different kind of magic as may seem from everything Fig falsely claims (in-game, AM is an ability of sorts: "Guardian2_10216": "Your ability to see what others cannot will not be enough, Percival.", ).

All it says in the OG bit is that that particular manifestation of magic was ancient and likewise troublesome.

And if that castle/dungeon belonged to Percival then it kickstarts all sorts of theories like why did Isidora have one of her secret labs there…

Oooooooooh, yeah, then it makes total sense! If these secret areas were supposed to be a sort of shared space of all the Keepers – who were not as entangled originally.

It's interesting that they refer to the book as belonging to Fig.

I've noticed that the .csv I was reading was written haphazardly.

It could be an in-door way to call objects like the book, but I won't say it can't be the other way around!

If so, it's interesting that the Ollivander family possessed a wand linked to ancient magic and to the Map Chamber and the Keepers.

I like that idea!! It makes total sense for the oldest wandmaker family – one of the oldest – to have some links to the most peculiar and rare manifestations of magic. Including the ability to sense it better than most. Or any other ability or sensibility to magic or anything of the sort.

the-magiarcheologist

I know that in the final version of the game, the Keepers tell the MC that they become Keepers to protect the repositories but... I just don't believe them!

In several of her journal notes, Isidora calls them "Keepers" too, and that's before she even had the idea for the repositories!

Journal entry #5 is the first time where she calls them "Keepers":

In journal entries before that, she calls them "the others" or "my professors" but after she comes back to Hogwarts as a professor (and she does the demonstration of healing her father) she starts calling them Keepers.

Back then, she already had the idea to store the magic but had not started experimenting with Goblin Silver to make the repositories. The Keepers had only just barely started telling her to stop using that spell, I doubt they had already created a whole identity for themselves, with a mysterious name and everything, just off the basis of one risky demonstration from Isidora.

In her final note (after she takes pain away from Niamh and the Keepers realize she hasn't stopped her experiments with pain magic) she even has a whole paragraph about them calling themselves "Keepers".

So, clearly, what the Keepers tell us in-game is a lie.

What we read from Isidora's note is more coherent with what we see in concept art or old game design files: the name "Keepers" means something else than just guarding Isidora's repositories and this group was not created because of anything Isidora did. It existed before. And if Isidora knew the name, it's likely because they had revealed some of the secrets to her, might have asked her to join them too.

So, yeah, I understand that this is all early game development stuff and likely most of it was changed or abandoned and might not fit the released version of the game but, right now, in absence of any sequel or further narrative, I can't help using this info to try to fill the gaps left in the narrative by the first game.

And this is coherent with Isidora having one of her labs in a tower that might have belonged to Percival (an info that is not just in the old game files but in the official, published Art and Making Of book). When the MC runs through the Tower Tunnel (aka Percival's Tower Dungeon) they even comment aloud to Sebastian:

"playerfemale_33504": "This place can't have belonged to only Isidora."

Like... that sounds to me like a not so subtle hint from the writers!

It would also explain why Isidora had several secret labs. She already had the Undercroft and the other place in the Overlook Mine in the north east of the map. Why also have another lab in that dungeon? Maybe because she was working on different things. Some things she worked on with the Keepers, other things she did not want the Keepers to know and had other labs.

This (the weirdness of her having multiple labs all over the map) is actually something the MC also comments on, while they're exploring the Overlook Mine with Sebastian:

"playerfemale_35191": "But if she was using the Undercroft – and the cellar beneath her manor in Feldcroft – why would she create this space?"

Anyway, I'll stop my babbling there but I'm just convinced there's more the the relationship between the Keepers and Isidora than what the MC is shown/told in-game. It feels like they writers of the game left some hints for some plot twists or revelations that could come if they continue the story... or perhaps I'm just delusional 🤣

#hogwarts legacy #isidora morganach #the keepers

superconductivebean

#1754: Loading Screens – Dungeons

superconductivebean

#1760: devs' commentary on missions

@phinik @girl-named-matty @espressoristretto-patronum @akiyamacho look

Some findings (excuse the formatting, it's a very lengthy cvs file):

We were supposed to learn Oppugno at the very beginning of the game:

So goblins do interrupt trade:

Villager asks player for help clearing out a couple of goblin camps interupting the supply of goods to her village.

Very sudden bit of lore about the butterfly lady:

" Clementine Willardsley has a fascination with butterflies and a controlling husband who won't let her pursue her interests. Player must locate and follow the butterflies - and see where they lead.

the-magiarcheologist

The fact that they call Isidora a shamed Keeper is soooo interesting!!

Percival Rackham recognised the problems that would arise from the wizarding world having access to powerful magic and gathered a team to address them.

The descriptions of the other Keepers are also interesting:

Charles Rookwood was a Keeper.

This one is pretty boring 🤣

Twig was an adept student at Hogwarts who was enlisted by Percival Rackham to help address the problem of ancient powerful magic.

Yes, Niamh Fitzgerald was originally called 'Twig' 😂 and she might have originally been much younger than her final version.

San Bakar was a pilgrim who ended up at Hogwarts, and was enlisted by Percival Rackham to help address the problem of ancient powerful magic.

A pilgrim!

Isidora is called "Isidora the Bold" and her description reads:

Isidora is a fierce and powerful witch who was enlisted by Percival Rackham to help address the problem of ancient powerful magic.

Anyway, I had skimmed that csv file and never read it fully but your post made me realize I missed a lot in interesting info. I went back to have a look at it and I also saw this:

The description for the restricted section mission reads:

The player and Sebastian sneak into the restricted section, and due to their skills with ancient magic, the player is able to find Fig's missing book.

And later it says

The player returns the book to Fig.

Also, at the very end, when the player goes to Ollivander to prepare the ancient magic wand to access the repository it says:

The player asks Olivander to repair a special broken wand he needs to defeat Ranrok. While on the journey the player must defeat Victor Rookwood in a battle to the death

#hogwarts legacy #game data mining

superconductivebean

#1710: The Art from Scriptorium

It has been a long while since I have posted anything like this for HL, with some expressing that I have abandoned the game. I have not!!!!! I have been consumed by Hadеs 2!!!!!!!!!! and life, too.

I didn't cover the Scriptorium at all, besides, I think, this post from October of the past year. I should fix that.

As I have demonstrated before with the Undercroft's boards and boards from the Fig's classroom and have discussed with @the-magiarcheologist under the post about pages from the Keeper's Book where I think I've recalled this little post from 2023, seldom will you find imagery bearing a resemblance to medieval or ancient art that has been specifically created for the game.

It is rather underwhelming. I have qualms with it (re: Boards from the Fig's classroom post), but when the team behind the visuals is as big as just seven people, doubtless they should be cut some slack; they had to work with what they could find, and fast. But.

Their choices – the decisions that were made rather – do puzzle me.

This is the Salazar Slytherin's spellbook we find at the end of the Scriptorium. It is said to be as old as had been written in the 10th century AD.

But it bears a galdrstafir (the circular sigil). Galdrstafirs are not so old.

I must warn: under the cut is a wall of text with bits of graphic language, so beware.

#hogwarts legacy #salazar's scriptorium #cairn decorations #PhD level research!!#necromancy #katabasis #goetia

I've been really missing my HL theory-crafting days lately...

Everything is pretty quiet these days, understandably so as we enter the long wait for any news of HL2 so I've been quiet too but I'm still lurking around :)

Wanted to share a really well-written article I found a few weeks ago about the realism of the night sky in HL

As an astronomy professor, I’m always on the lookout for accurate depictions of physics, math, and astronomy in the movies I watch and video

It really illustrates the level of detail and realism in HL💙 (though juxtaposed with some baffling inaccuracies including the fact that the sun does not even rise in the east 😂)

Hope everyone is doing well!

#hogwarts legacy #hogwarts legacy astronomy #I suppose I will now have to get obsessed with Blue Prince to fill the deep lore and theory-crafting hole in my soul right now!

hollowed-theory-hall

Isn't it a bit funny that we know about the history of Salazar Slytherin more than we know about the history of Godric Gryffindor, the founder of the house that our beloved hero is sorted in? We don't even know if Godric had children or descendants, unlike the other founders of Hogwarts. I'd seriously love to know more about Godric. But Salazar's history and legacy really did fill the audience in more than any other history of the other founders.

Like, what we know about Salazar Slytherin is also questionable. Like, the Founders lived around the 990s, a thousand years before the books. If you ever read early medieval history you know there are a lot of unknowns in the information we have. Ancient authors that wrote histories in which they made shit up, heavily biased information, family genologies where people claim to be descendant of important figures to strengthen their claims even though that connection probably isn't real, people writing thri-hand accounts as if they've been to the even themselves. Historical writing from long enough ago can be a mess (not to mention the lack of standardized spelling and words with meanings lost to time that cannot be translated).

That being said, history in the Wizarding World is weird. We have Helena Ravenclaw and the Bloody Baron at Hogwarts, two people who knew the Founders, who probably spoke Old English (which begs the question of ghosts learning new languages). There might be portraits left behind from these times, which allow a mostly accurate (if filtered through personal bias) view of history. Many of the above problems I mentioned will still exist since you're basing your information on word of mouth and not archeological evidence, but it's way better and more extensive word of mouth than what we muggles can get our hands on.

I know you asked more about the narrative and the fact that the narrative doesn't go much into the founders (especially ones that aren't Slytherin), but I think this question of why JKR wrote one thing over another isn't as interesting as how historical research works in the WW. Since I personally prefer to do Watsonian analysis over Doylist.

Becouse, for JKR, it was probably that the other founders weren't as important to the plot, or not as interesting. Which is a legit reason not to mention them. And, honestly, this is a hole in the world-building I don't mind. It doesn't disrupt the narrative and allows space for headcanons and fanon. Which is good for me. I don't mind when a story leaves some space for the reader to fill in blanks, especially when it's background details like this, which aren't actually all that important. And it's good for stories to leave out some stuff to the readers' imagination — that's part of the fun.

My best guess is that Gryffindor's name died out pretty early like Ravenclaw, who doesn't seem to have any heirs since Helena died. The Smith family are descendants of Hufflepuff. The Gaunts are descendants of Slytherin, but we don't really know about him much more than any of the other founders. Like, we don't even know if the purpose of the Chamber was really to kill muggleborns or if it's an intention that was attributed to him post mortem.

We know in the early Middle Ages the sentiment regarding muggles wasn't as negative as we see later on (after all, witch hunts wasn't a medieval problem, it's an early modern problem):

Shrewd enough to see that their Muggle neighbours would seek to exploit their powers if they knew their full extent, witches and wizards kept themselves to themselves long before the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy came into effect.

(QTtA)

Early medieval wizards and witches worried over muggles requesting magic from them and exploiting their good nature, not that they would be hunted down. That concern only appeared later in the Renaissance (which is when Beedle the Bard lived, btw). So there is some doubt regarding Slytherins' personal opinions about Muggles, muggleborns, and dark magic (since "Dark Magic" as a term is kinda weird. It's a legal term more than a magical one and most spells that the ministry considers "Dark" aren't so (creating Infri and Horcruxes is dark magic, but a jelli-legs jinx is not actually dark, come on). I mean, the Unforgivables only became such in 1717, so clearly, before then, public opinion was different about them and other curses).

But back to the more interesting question of how historians in the WW work. Like, do they question ghosts? Do they have archaeologists? How do they know what happened in the past? Binns isn't a thousand years old; he lived at least 500 years after the founders, so what is his source for everything about the Chamber?

Well, for this, Quidditch Through the Ages comes in clutch. The book includes an extensive section of the history of Quidditch and explains that wizard historians actually don't work that differently from muggle historians. And that their methods to find out history don't actually involve as many ghost interviews as I would've expected.

Records show that witches and wizards in Europe were using flying broomsticks as early as A.D. 962. A German illuminated manuscript of this period shows three warlocks dismounting from their brooms with looks of exquisite discomfort on their faces. Guthrie Lochrin, a Scottish wizard writing in 1107, spoke of the “splinterfilled buttocks and bulging piles” he suffered after a short broom ride from Montrose to Arbroath. A medieval broomstick on display in the Museum of Quidditch in London gives us an insight into Lochrin’s discomfort (see Fig. A).

(QTtA)

Early wizarding writings and paintings give us some idea of the games our ancestors played. Some of these no longer exist; others have survived or evolved into the sports we know today.

(QTtA)

The famous painting Günther der Gewalttätige ist der Gewinner (“Gunther the Violent Is the Winner”), dated 1105, shows the ancient German game of Stichstock.

(QTtA)

Scotland was the birthplace of what is probably the most dangerous of all broom games – Creaothceann. The game features in a tragic Gaelic poem of the eleventh century, the first verse of which says, in translation

(QTtA)

We owe our knowledge of the rude beginnings of Quidditch to the writings of the witch Gertie Keddle, who lived on the edge of Queerditch Marsh in the eleventh century. Fortunately for us, she kept a diary, now in the Museum of Quidditch in London. The excerpts below have been translated from the badly spelled Saxon of the original. [...] It is immensely interesting that there was a “big Scottish warlock” present. Could he have been a Creaothceann player? Was it his idea to bewitch heavy rocks to zoom dangerously around the pitch, inspired by the boulders used in his native game?

(QTtA)

We find no further mention of the sport played on Queerditch Marsh until a century later, when the wizard Goodwin Kneen took up his quill to write to his Norwegian cousin Olaf.

(QTtA)

These are some examples from the book and the methods for historical research are pretty much the same as we have. It's based on diaries, writing, paintings, and archeological evidence (the medieval broom). No one is asking ghosts who lived back then how Quidditch was played. No one is talking to magical portraits. They rely on physical or written evidence and speculation based on logic, just like we Muggles do.

I mean, magical portraits might have only been invented later, but it doesn't explain why ghosts aren't asked. I mean, Helena and the Bloody Baron were alive in the 10th century. They would be familiar with some of this history; they would know about 10th-century brooms, so how come no one asks ghosts? For that matter, why did no one ask Helena about the whereabouts of Ravenclaw's diadem until Tom Riddle in the 1940s?

And all these questions led me to two new headcanons/theories:

1. Magical portraits were invented in the 1400s or later. The fact that paintings from the early Middle Ages and into the 1100s are referred to as "paintings" and not "portraits" and implied to be non-speaking, suggests the talking portraits we see are a newer magical invention, and therefore history before the early modern period cannot be learned from portraits.

2. Ghosts are considered "unreliable" sources of history. My guess is that most ghosts are more like Binns than they are like Nearly Headless Nick. Binns doesn't know which class he is talking to, what the students' names are, and what year it is. He is stuck in his own unexistence. If most ghosts behave this way, it could explain why it's a frowned-upon practice among magical historians to use their accounts as evidence.

But if that's the case, it's even more bizarre that Binns is teaching history. But then again, teaching history isn't the point of these lessons, and he's been at his post so long, all the parents have been taught by him. Not to mention he isn't teaching his own experience, but that from books, so his own biases/memory issues that are the problem with getting history from ghosts are irrelevant. There would only be a few magical historians (like Bathilda Bagshot) who might object to his position, but most of the wizarding population probably doesn't care.

These are just some thoughts I had regarding how history is written in the WW, and how, therefore, all the in-world history we know is inherently flawed since it is based on surviving written/oral accounts and physical evidence. They clearly don't have any magical method to learn more about their history, and for some reason, no one is asking the ghosts. But this all is great, since it means their history can be taken with a grain of salt the way I usually treat their in-world history.

raenegade-accio

Interesting tidbits I learned in my recent HL playtime before the game crashed again:

Samantha Dale’s worst subject is Transfiguration

Besides the Ashwinders, there’s another dark wizard operation that call themselves “the Pack.”

Ronen once had his sandwich levitated by a student, but he didn’t mind and actually found it funny.

Kogawa and a then-curse-breaker Weasley first met in the Yokohama harbour

Evangeline Bardsley has some very consistently blood-purist voice lines. She casually expresses her disdain for Muggle-born students and admiration for Headmaster Black

Shah has been assisting M. P. N. Carneirus, an American wizard, in writing and publishing a book. It is likely the Atlas of Celestial Anomalies, which was published in the 1900s

There is an Alchemy Centre in Egypt

Samantha Dale is half-blood. She comes from a family line consisting generations of Ravenclaws, but she also practices lots of Muggle traditions from her mother’s side.

Black isn’t any better as a husband and a father than he's the headmaster. He's not abusive (as far as I could tell) he just doesn't bother to show his face at home, despite his wife talking about how much she and their younger kids miss him

juniperpyre

misconceptions about real world history and how they affect interpretations of wizarding world history

misconception of magic and witchcraft in western europe pre-modern era

application in HP world building a: inconsistencies in the text b: what this means for magical history (feat: Ur-Fascism by Umberto Eco)

#harry potter series #Statute of Secrecy #Interesting take!

eternalremorse

NEW and FREE update coming to Hogwarts Legacy on January 30th! PC Modding will now be officially supported with the release of the Creator Kit and in-game Mod Manager!

the-magiarcheologist

I spy with my little eye...

Don't know if that is a real mod they've made or just a little joke but it's dangerous for them to tease that and not deliver on the promise considering how many people have been asking for this!

#hogwarts legacy #hogwarts legacy mod support #gaunt estate

What happened to Mr. Morganach?

I want to try to do something a bit different today. I usually come in with some in-depth analysis of some details in the game. There is an element of speculation to everything I post but I usually try to stick as closely as possible to some canon events/elements found in the game to deliver an analysis that is as plausible as possible. And there will be in-depth analysis today too! We will be having a look at Isidora’s journal entries.

But I also have a theory. It’s perhaps a convincing theory or perhaps a completely crazy theory, hard for me to judge at this point because I’m so deep into it! So I want to try this: we’ll start with the analysis. All very reasonable and based on facts. And then we’ll plunge deep into the harebrained theory and I’ll see if you follow me or not.

Let’s go!

(Also, a warning if you’re planning on clicking that "read more" button: this is a loooooong post. So be sure you have some minutes to spare!)

The Analysis

Ok, so, we find 7 excerpts from Isidora’s journal throughout the game and, if we read them all together, they tell a pretty clear story of where she went and what she did after she graduated from Hogwarts and how she came to be able to take someone’s pain away.

First journal entry

#hogwarts legacy #hogwarts legacy theory #crazy theories #isidora morganach #the keepers #percival rackham #charles rookwood #niamh fitzgerald #san bakar #ancient magic

ps-cactus

#Lol #But it's also interesting #And yet another instance of writers on HP related games that keep recycling similar plotlines and dialogue lines even!

Did you know about Angus Buchanan?

I was researching canon information about Squibs today and I came across the full story of Angus Buchanan, a Squib who wrote the bestseller book My Life As A Squib.

His story is very interesting but there is a particular detail which jumped out at me because it gives us pretty important information about the ‘canon’ location of Hogwarts Castle and yet I have never seen anyone bring this up in any analyses of the castle’s location that I’ve read.

I recommend everyone go read Angus Buchanan’s story but, quick summary, he was a Squib child in a family of 11 children living in the Scottish Borders. His brothers and sisters helped hide the fact that he was a Squib from their parents and his brother even went as far as taking him to Hogwarts on the first day of school when he turned 11. (This was before the Hogwarts Express existed so children would make their own way to the school and that’s why his brother was able to take him to the school on his broom). Angus therefore became the first and only Squib in history to actually go through the sorting ceremony and got the Sorting Hat placed on his head.

The Hat, however, declared to everybody that Angus actually had no magic and Angus, humiliated, left Hogwarts Castle crying. And here is where the interesting info comes in: he went home to his parents on foot!

#harry potter #hogwarts castle #location of hogwarts castle

aellestee

⊹ Day and night at Hogwarts ⊹

I think this is a very interesting video! It gives behind-the-scenes info into the work that went into creating HL. It’s an interview of Lee Neuschwander who was the gameplay designer on the team working on Hogwarts Castle and he gives some info on the development of different parts of the castle.

The most shocking to me is that the team working of developing the castle only had 7 people! I don’t know anything about games development but that seems really small! And to develop such a huge castle too! There were only 4 artists on that team (including one that only came in on contract) to create all the textures and model all the objects in the castle. And some of these artists also ended up working on Hogsmeade because the Hogsmeade team only had one dedicated artist! To create the whole village!

He also keeps saying how tight the budget was for the game. The Arithmancy puzzle doors almost got cut entirely because they thought it would not fit the budget and they only made it in after some of the team put in extra hours just to finish developing them. He mentions several time how devs had to work overtime just to get some cool features into the game because they were passionate about it.

I think this really puts things into perspective. I know there’s been a lot of discussion about all the things that should not have been cut from the game and all the things that could have been more polished, that could have been done better etc. And I’m including myself in this! I have expressed frustration that Ancient Magic is not explored deep enough in the main storyline, that some world building elements (like the hooded statues, like the crests, like the murals/symbols that can be found everywhere) feel meaningless, etc. But this video made me realise how difficult it probably was to bring such a massive world and story to life with so few people and a tight budget.

Hopefully they are going to expand the team for the sequel so they don’t have to compromise so much on quality, thoroughness and all the things they want to include in the game vs. the time and budget they have.

#hogwarts legacy #Youtube

happy new year ！ need hogwarts legacy Fandom have reasearch more in 2025 New year

Thank you! Happy new year to you too! 💙

I was very busy through all of December so I've been pretty inactive. But I'm really itching to start posting again! I have 2 or 3 posts at least that I've been wanting to write for several months now and I should finally have a bit more time now :)

Although I also feel like I've kind of done all the theorizing I could do based on the content we got so far. Any other theories I have are really more personal speculation and headcanons and not strongly supported by the canon events of the game.

At this point, I'm really hungry for any type of new content!! I'm really impatiently waiting for the definitive edition to come out because I'm hoping this will give us a better idea of where the devs are planning to take HL next (are they ever going to get deeper into ancient magic/Hogwarts' history/any character's story or is the story going to stay surface-level?)

#anon ask

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