#obv idk if that's true its just what she said haha. contrasted with men's football where speed and force are more key

[seriousbrat]

quidditch and class

Okay originally this was a tangent in the tags of my last post but I started thinking about it more and it got too complex haha.

While thinking about quidditch as a sport, we see many very prominent, very talented female players like Ginny, the other Gryffindor Chasers, Gwenog Jones/the Holyhead Harpies, Mullet, Moran. (Notably, Katie, Ginny, and Demelza are all explicitly better than Seamus and Dean. And Ron haha.) As as a sport it's seemingly equal between genders and therefore played in mixed-gender teams, and this is likely explained by the fact that speed is controlled by an external object, the broom. So while what we value in sport and athleticism in the real world has been heavily predicated on what we consider the biological 'advantages' of (cis) men, in Quidditch this is not so much the case.

It may be that certain positions (Beater) are generally more suited to cis men, but it may also be that women excel specifically as Chasers and Seekers, which are after all the key positions on a Quidditch team. If everyone is capable of achieving the same speed (and therefore force) on a broomstick, other factors might come into play, such as flexibility, dexterity, endurance, strategy.

However, the importance of the humble broomstick also means that the sport would be strongly influenced by class. Who can afford the best broom, basically.

It's wild that broom choice in pro quidditch isn't (as far as we know) standardised, but essentially a wealthy team/nation like I guess Ireland lol would have an advantage against a less wealthy team or nation, who couldn't supply Firebolts to all its players. In the case of Ireland I suppose the British Ministry of Magic also possibly governs them (I think? rip? ?) so Ireland would have funding from Britain, presumably.

And to be clear this happens irl too, less obviously perhaps, but wealthier nations will be able to dedicate more resources, better equipment, and better training to their athletes. This is why the US wins so many Olympic medals, not because its people are inherently better or more athletic than other countries with comparable populations, whatever American Exceptionalism would have you believe.

Harry's good without his Firebolt but also it's a little unfair haha. To be fair Ginny's just as good, maybe better than him, with whatever the Weasleys can afford for her. And it's also true that in CoS Malfoy/the Slytherins are still worse than Harry and the Gryffindors, even with better brooms, as I think Wood points out. So it could be that broom choice doesn't matter quite as much as it seems, in the sense that at least the talent of the athlete is the predominant factor in how well any given broom functions. In the flying lesson in PS we see that brooms do respond to some sort of innate talent in the user, so this would make some sense.

Still, in a situation with two equally matched players in terms of talent, the determining factor would likely be broom quality. So it is still important. I assume that JKR just didn't think about this lmao. Which whatever, maybe if HP was a series about sport, not delving into this question would matter more (and by her own admission she designed Quidditch to not make sense.) I'd have to reread Quidditch Through the Ages but it really should have been mentioned there lol. Oh well, not sure how realistic it is for 'Kennilworthy Whisp' to have a class-based analysis of his favourite sport anyway lmao.

For the purposes of worldbuilding I think it's fine for this to be the case, since the WW is not supposed to be a fair, perfect utopia, and like I said this very much happens in real life too. It's interesting to think about though.