Pottermore

Pottermore (aka Pottermoar) is a semi-vaporware website designed to keep the Harry Potter franchise alive until Hollywood inevitably reboots the movies in the year 2023. Pottermoar features a scavenger hunt game for five-year-olds, a Farmville-esque potion brewing game ("You left your computer for more than two hours; Your potion is wrecked"), and "dueling" (a.k.a. Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing 2: Electric Boogaloo).

O NOES, MY POTION!1

	“	Reports of Harry Potter-related events, products and personalities are everywhere. Like football supporters, Harry Potter fans seem to have an insatiable desire for more news, chat and retail opportunities related to their enthusiasm. They're standing in a monsoon screaming: "I feel so dry!" while the rest of us are getting soaked.	„
	—David Mitchell, The Guardian

July 31, 2011: The Magical Quill Challenge

Enjoy jumping through those hoops.

Users were allowed to register for the site's beta by answering challenging Harry Potter trivia questions, such as:

	“	What is the number of the chapter in which Professor McGonagall cancels the Quidditch match between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff? Multiply this number by 42.	„
	—True Harry Potter fans instantly know the answer.

There were seven days of registration, with the most die-hard fans snagging all of the invites on day one. The Pottermore web site stated that access would be first-come, first serve, but that turned out to be a load of shit.

	“	So far, the order they send that email appears to be random. It definitely has nothing to do with what day you got in, as people from all days have gotten their emails.	„
	—pwnd

You Have Been Accepted Into Pottermore Please be patient

	“	"Anyone else playing it? Slytherin master race here even if I sorta like Gryffindor more." "I haven't gotten my invite yet, asshole. Can you describe it to me?"	„
	—Typical Pottermore conversation on Internet forums

Hundreds of thousands of users were supposed to gain beta access in early August 2011, but only a few hundred were let in every day. People in various forums were quick to blame the delay on Superparty London '11, ignoring the possibility that Pottermore may have been designed and built by a gaggle of tards. Either way, the net result was massive amounts of butthurt among millions of loyal fans. Many fans feared leaving their computers for five minutes because their Pottermore access email might arrive and they would miss it.

	“	Here we are, two days away from September. Another tweet went out this morning about welcome emails, and I'm still staring at an empty inbox. None of the placating tweets, emails, blog updates, or explanations have made me feel any better about not getting into Pottermore yet, which I thought I'd be happily exploring a whole month ago. I have to admit, it's starting to feel like my Hogwarts letter will never come.	„
	—BAAAW

House Sorting

Ah, the proud houses of Hogwarts. Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Slytherin and Hufflepuff.

Irrefutable argument.

How house sorting works.

Fans who did get in were very excited to be sorted into their Hogwarts houses. In Pottermore, house sorting is accomplished by taking a multiple-choice test - you know, something EVERY homemade Quizilla quiz was doing about ten years ago.

JK Rowling, in a brilliant troll move, designed the test so that everyone would get sorted into the "wrong" house. Evanna Lynch, a.k.a. Luna Lovegood of Ravenclaw, tweeted about her Pottermore sorting hat experience:

	“	I'm in Gryffindor. #Pottermore #confusion #shock #pride #happiness #LUNADONTLEAVEME!!! I don't know what to do. I feel like Jo just told me I'm a man. I'm SO utterly confused.	„
	—Luna Lovegood, Gryffindor

The best part is once you are sorted into a house, that's it; You can't go back and retake the test. Because of this, every user who was sorted into Hufflepuff immediately stopped playing.

You're fucked.

	“	The sorting hat put me in Hufflepuff :( I have never been so humiliated in all my life. Hufflepuff. I am surrounded by fuggos and retards. I want nothing more than to be in Ravenclaw or Gryffindor, even Slytherin would be a step up. Is there any way I can be resorted?	„
	—New Hufflepuff student

	“	I was actually so disappointed that I decided to delete my account and wait a month until October rather than be untrue to myself.	„
	—Doesn't matter how many times you do the test, once a Hufflepuff, always a Hufflepuff.

	“	Now I love Hufflepuff. Who cares if we’re always in the last place? Who cares if we’re not doing as great as the other houses? It doesn’t really matter to us. Because we are Hufflepuffs, what’s important to us is that we don’t hurt other people and we do what is good for all. We will always protect our friends and loved ones. We never boast ourselves about the things we’ve done. We are trustworthy and loyal, and we are what you call TRUE FRIENDS.	„
	—Future lolcow.

Previous Quote | Next Quote

The House Cup

An artist's impression of the four houses, locked in battle for the House Cup.

Losing to Hufflepuff? Shit, Ravenclaw, get it together.

The face of every Slytherin, having been told that they'd just lost the House Cup to Gryffindor.

After you are sorted into your house, you can brew potions or duel other students to gain points (read: gold star stickers) for your house.

The first House Cup was won by Slytherin, who ran away with the victory by racking up 71,815,917 points.

Since then, many players have gone all out to make sure their house wins the House Cup, up to an including creating fake profiles, intentionally trying to get sorted into Slytherin, challenging their other accounts to duels, and then losing on purpose.

On the 22nd of November, 2012, when Slytherin looked like, once again, they had victory within their grasp, victory in the second House Cup was instead awarded to Gryffindor, who scored a vast number of points at the last minute, causing a tremendous amount of butthurt for all the Slytherins who'd been playing who felt sure that they'd win again.

Rumors persist that the House Cup is actually rigged so that every house wins it at some point, thus destroying any actual incentive anybody might have for playing Pottermore's stupid anti-fun minigames. These rumors seem to be supported by the fact that now, despite Slytherin and Gryffindor both scoring ridiculous numbers of points for their houses every day, nobody can now seem able to keep up with faggot house, Hufflepuff. Fucking Hufflepuff.

True to Harry Potter canon, the house that wins the House Cup receives no prize or honor, yet nobody seems to notice.

Brewing Potions

90 minutes well-spent

Positively the worst activity invented, Brewing Potions is a minigame that goes like this:

1. Crush ingredient into powder.
2. Sprinkle X dashes of crushed ingredient into cauldron.
3. Heat your cauldron and stir clockwise X times. Don't overheat the cauldron or it will fucking melt.
4. Wait 85 minutes then come back. If you wait too long your potion will be ruined.
5. You have exactly three minutes starting now GO.
6. Crush more ingredients and add to cauldron. Stir cauldron clockwise exactly X times. Make sure you make big mouse movements or your potion will be ruined.
7. Run out of time before you can wave your wand over the cauldron. Your potion is wrecked.
8. Optional: Go back to step 1.
9. Rage-quit
10. ????
11. PROFIT!!!

The genius of this game is its ability to be simultaneously boring and nerve-racking. The gameplay was clearly designed in the spirit of early 90's educational games for the Macintosh LC, and yet three minutes is barely enough time to go through the steps.

Players are willing to endure this because every successful potion will net your house 5 points.

Failure > Success

But wait! It turns out that fucking up your potions over and over is was better than doing it right.

	“	As soon as you get into the potion making session, wave your wand. You'll "fail" to make the potion, but will still be awarded 1 house point. This takes a minute (or less). If you take 85 minutes of doing one "attempt" per minute, you will earn 85 house points, 17 times as many points as you could possibly earn in that same amount of time by brewing the potion correctly.	„
	—A rather large man

As of mid-September 2011 players no longer get points for failing.

Dueling

Nobody knows what Dueling is. Pottermore's dueling feature has been offline since late August; more than half the site's lifespan.

	“	This section of the site has proven to be immensely popular and we’ve been making a number of improvements behind the scenes to ensure that it runs as smoothly as possible. We just need to finish making and testing our changes.	„
	—Posted September 1 2011

Initial User Impressions

	“	Pottermore is getting boring, there is not much to do. I wanted to give my account away, but none of my friends are into HP ;_;	„

	“	Pottermore dueling is down. And Book 2 is locked. What am I supposed to do now? Waiting another hour for this stupid potion and I can’t even interact with my unique experience I was so pumped about. I’m so UGH I can’t even. Jesus people. Get this going before I have a nervous breakdown just looking at these Slytherin colors.	„

October 1, 2011: Pottermore now open for registration

Lol, just kidding. In a move nobody saw coming, Pottermoar's grand opening was delayed for another month.

	“	We’ve decided to extend the Beta period beyond September.... From the end of October, registration will be opened to everyone and we’ll be giving access to registered users in phases. Access may be granted quickly, but please note it could also take some weeks or months, depending on demand.	„

	“	What has Pottermore learned so far from Beta users? They’ve been been incredibly active, interacting with the site far more intensely and frequently than we thought they would. We’ve been making modifications and improvements to accommodate the way Pottermore is being used, and we’ve also made the decision to stagger the process of giving new users access so that we can ensure that everyone on the site has the best possible experience.	„
	—Pottermoar Insider

Reactions

Just as only a time traveller could predict the delay of Pottermoar's public launch, the Internets' reaction to the news was equally unforeseeable.

	“	FUCK YOU POTTERMORE IT IS OCTOBER THE FUCKING THIRD THANKS I WAITED TWO MONTHS YOU MOTHERFUCKER	„
	—A super cool girl who has the whole world figured out

	“	Fuck you pottermore, fuck you. I don't need your fucking online potions and actually finding out my house. You say everyone has there letters now. I FUCKING DON'T. And you're so up your own arse's you can't even check your own email to see that I sent you a letter asking where mine is or even reply to it. I have spent the who of September checking my emails every fucking day in hope that I might actually see the letter, do you understand who happy I would be? But now, you can shove your fucking email up your arse because I couldn't give a fucking shit anymore. Fuck you. I'd rather feel like a squib than go on that website that you can't even let the members access because of your shitty beta.	„
	—Some bitch who thinks bright-cyan text on white BG is legible

October 28, 2011: Pottermore now open for registration, for real

LOL APRIL FOOLS

	“	After looking closely at all the information that we've gathered, we have decided to further extend the Beta period so we can improve Pottermore before giving more people access. This means the site will not be opening to new users in the immediate future, but please know that we will open registration as soon as we can.	„
	—"Making Pottermore even better"

Somebody should have told Rowling

The Harry Potter 7 Part 2 Blu Ray disc, released for the Christmas 2011 season, opens with a promo video for the Pottermoar site. JK Rowling ends the video by saying, "Pottermore is open for registration."

Pottermore On PS3

Last Thursday, J.K. Rowling announced that a new version of Pottermore would be available to play on the PlayStation 3 by utilizing the system's PlayStation Home feature that nobody likes.

See Also

• Harry Potter
• Hufflepuff

External Links

Unique Online Harry Potter Experience

Pottermore Insider

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