Our Totally Normal School: Hogwarts!!

 Now that I've completed our latest building, we can begin filming our next episode!!

The new building is the kids' school -- Hogwarts -- which is accessible from the Seilbahn Bergstation!! (If you don't recall what that is, please see my earlier post.)

I would like to start right off the bat with an apology to the trans community. Hogwarts has been a key part of Totally Normal Town since the first episode in 2018 -- long before J.K. Rowling decided to devote her life (and giant platform) to being the world's biggest spokesperson for transphobia.

At the time of this writing, Rowling is currently being sued for having spread the false claim that a women's boxing Olympic gold medalist is a man (she is, in fact, a cis woman) -- a claim that could potentially endanger her life if vigilantes in her native Algeria believe it.

Also problematic is the fact that Rowling has specifically pointed to the continued popularity of the Harry Potter franchise as evidence that people agree with her bigoted transphobic rhetoric. So, even though I built this new castle mostly from parts from two old sets from 2011 and 2019, I'm still potentially bolstering her claims by including Hogwarts in this new 2024 build.

I would counter that the lion's share of what makes Hogwarts fun is the atmosphere created by the set design and music, not to mention that nearly all of the best British actors have played roles in the film series. Here's an example:

Snape is a good character, but Alan Rickman's Snape is a great character.

For this build, I found that I had lots of spiders and spider webs (largely from various Spider-man mini-figs), so I decided that this incarnation of Hogwarts should start with potions class in the dungeon.

This is the first time I've included a light brick in an original build of mine. I thought it would look cool to add red light coming from the stand under Snape's cauldron, and I was right.

Of course the most important Hogwarts professor for Totally Normal Town is Professor Trelawney -- she's the one who repeatedly (and accurately!) predicts the destruction of Totally Normal Town!

In this build, Professor Trelawney and her sister "Trofessor Prelawney" share the open terrace floor that connects by stairs with the Seilbahn station. They also have owl (and other bird) perches, plus space for crystal balls and tea sets.

For Hogwarts and the restaurant/station next door I built backs that open so that they can potentially be photographed from all sides. Since these two buildings are up against the back wall, this isn't really necessary, but it adds to the fun of the build.

The room at the top of the tower is a common room, including all of the various pets, plus Slughorn disguised as a chair.

We had so many wands that I thought it would be funny to put bins and barrels and chests of them all over the place. We'll see if Nico adds a joke to the script about why there are so many spare wands.

The main floor has a dining hall.

This was a really fun build to make, and I like having Hogwarts as a part of our Totally Normal Town -- even though I already had serious reservations about the Harry Potter universe even before Rowling became the queen of the transphobes.

...But that should perhaps be a separate post.

Let's close with the two trams -- since this incarnation of Totally Normal Town is a transit paradise!!

You can probably see that these two trams follow the same design as the trams from the Christmas version of Totally Normal Town.

All these photos are certainly going to make this post take forever to load, so if you've made it this far, congrats and thanks for your attention!