I was late to the whole Harry Potter thing- I first read the series when the Deathly Hallows book was released in 2007- but I love them just as much as the next Potterhead.
I am that nerd that went to the museum exhibition and got a scarf, can quote all the best lines, signed up to Pottermore and will proudly tell people I’m a Hufflepuff even though I’m secretly salty I wasn’t sorted into Gryffindor.
If Harry Potter is on TV I will watch it, no questions asked. On that note, picture this: me, lounge-room, bored, Friday night watching a re-run of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and living my best life.
I was having a very in depth conversation with my brother about how the professors using house points as gratification for troublesome behaviour is problematic (“10 points for doing exactly what we told you not to do- go you!”) just as Harry, Ron and Hermione were fighting off the troll in the girls bathroom.
That was when I saw it:
Harry dodges the troll’s club by sitting up while he’s being held from the ankles like it’s a totally normal thing to do. It’s not.
That kind of core strength is not normal for a ten year old. Hell, it’s not normally for an adult. I workout frequently enough and I can barely do a pull up let alone an upside sit up.
I need to know how Harry did this. Is it some magic we didn’t know was happening? Is it cinema magic and Daniel Radcliffe had wires assisting him? Did he just hit the gym between takes to build up those adolescent abs? Can he teach me how to do it?
To be fair, our body weight as children tends to be a lot lighter and our body composition more muscular. Children are also more fearless, which is why they can climb trees and do monkey bars more freely than fully grown adults.
But Harry doesn’t just sit up once, he sits up twice. That requires strength and stamina. Plus he’s talking while he’s hanging there which is a whole added layer of difficulty.
I’m putting this one down to some kind of sorcery because it’s too unrealistic to believe. Plus it makes me feel a lot better about my poor core strength.