Alas, earwax! This past week I was reminiscing about the old Pottermore’s format.
I may be in the minority here, but I really did enjoy visually going through each chapter of the book, searching for clues, and discovering new information written by J.K. Rowling. All these things had to be completed prior to moving forward to the next chapter. The more you discovered or accomplished the more points you received for your house. Let’s not forget about the Sorting Hat system, I understand it’s not a perfect science, but neither is the Sorting Hat system at Hogwarts. I can’t imagine an 11 year old kid is going to have the same thoughts and personality when he’s 17 years old, even more so when he’s a full grown adult. You get into the world you learn more things, you adapt and change. But maybe there’s some magic beyond the Sorting Hat where he knows past, present, and future so his decision is final. Probably not though.
Sorry let’s get back to old Pottermore, yes the system is flawed, but for what it is, it’s not that bad. I was hoping for Hufflepuff (R.I.P. Ced!), but got sorted into Gryffindor, to assuage my disappointment I’ve been told, “you have too big of a personality to be in Hufflepuff, if something’s going down you’re going to be apart of it.” Therefore, I accepted my place in Gryffindor and went about my business. Discovering your wand was a perfect treat, as was the addition of discovering your Patronus (brown hare) and Ilvermorny house (Pukwudgie). Quizzes and tests are always fun, we hope to include some at Of Blades and Kings down the road.
However, the most unique aspect I miss most about the old Pottermore was the interactivity. As I said before, you went through each chapter of every book discovering new clues, finding potions ingredients, collecting Bertty Bott’s Every-flavor Beans (They mean every flavor! There’s chocolate, peppermint, spinach, and tripe. George swears he got a bogey flavor once!) sorry couldn’t resist, and every now and then you’d run into new background information written by J.K. Rowling. You could brew potions for more house points, I believe there was even a dueling option near the end of it. There was a common room area where you could see your house points and who had the most points for your house. You had your own username (AsphodelCentaur137) that allowed you to add friends and chat. That aspect was tricky, but it was cool to add friends that I encouraged to sign on and see how they were doing. Spoiler alert, I was the only one in that group consistently participating. There was even a House Cup, at the end of the year the house that had the most points won. It was truly a unique and wonderful website to be apart of, and now unfortunately, Pottermore is a website focusing on blog content. Which I can surely attest, if you make the time for it, anyone can do. The new Pottermore’s lost all the creativity and uniqueness that made it special. Perhaps the change was our doing, as fans, maybe we didn’t voice out our appreciation for it, and so Pottermore had to decrease their bandwidth. They never finished the books series in the old format, they only reached The Order of the Phoenix, I can’t really remember if they even finished that one. Perhaps they got to The Half-Blood Prince, but I’m sure it was never finished. Or perhaps I’m wrong. I could’ve stopped logging on, therefore, becoming apart of the problem. How disappointed I am, in myself.
Amidst the endless sea of blogs, old Pottermore, you really stood out.
Thank you for your time and remember, not all those who wander are lost!
– AsphodelCentaur137 a.k.a. The Wandering One
Of Blades and Kings 