The Plight of the Pokémuggle and the Magic of Gobloods

Sophie Chalmers
Jul 25, 2017 · 5 min read

Or, why HarryPotterGo captured the imagination.

Image Courtesy of PokémonGo Twitter

This PokémonGo Fest really gave me a taste of why there was such a whirlwind of wanting for HarryPotter Go. At least, the global event that followed it, since I live nowhere near the US.

For pokémuggles (those unaware of or inexperienced in the ways of pokémon or PokémonGo), a quick recap: Legendary Pokémon have become available to capture for the first time since PokémonGo was released a year ago, and the GoBloods (those of muggle background who have been inducted into the pokémon universe) are on the prowl.

I would be impressed if you’re reading this without knowledge of PokémonGo. For a very short description of just this event in particular, it goes something like: there are locations called Gyms scattered across the pokémon reality, and at these locations Legendary pokémon are emerging for a limited time (for now). If regular pokémon are domesticated tomcats, the Legendaries are the lions, tigers, leopards. The phoenixes to our pigeons. The Horcrux to our remembrall, if you will. So far they’ve only been available for two days, so pokégoers are on the prowl.

Which can be intimidating, for the Pokémuggle.

I’m personally a player, though I admit I considered quitting a number of times, the PokeGo Fest that introduced the Legendaries more than made up for the times I was forced to shuffle apps around on my limited phone memory to keep the game and walk my little monsters. It felt like the early days when players were genuinely excited to be out and about; enough to make mobs in parks at night. Enough huddles of youngsters that police found it suspicious.

Because of the Legendaries’ design, it is necessary that ten or more people try to capture it at once, or else the players are bound to fail. So, during that weekend in the CBD and around the university campus I saw droves of players moving in groups of up to twenty, sitting/standing/huddling in very specific corners, staring at their phone with the occasional grunt or groan or screams of joy/frustration/despair.

Our objects of said joy/frustration/despair.

As I myself greeted strangers and got almost pointlessly excited over capturing a fictional beast, I couldn’t help but notice looks from people who don’t play. It oddly reminded me of being on the receiving end of Vernon Dudley’s dubious stare, we being the witches and wizards from Philosopher’s Stone (or Sorcerer’s Stone for some) that oozed out of the woodworks to celebrate with each other, thankful for Voldemort’s defeat.

It was only then that I really appreciated why and how the development of HarryPotter Go (which was fake news) could capture the imagination of 40,000 people. This AR business gives a user access to another facet of reality, just like the HP Universe gave to Harry; a pokémuggle looks at a statue and sees a statue, but a Goer looks at a statue and sees an arena. Imagine magic shops accessible only by murals, walls you can leave hexed for unsuspecting fellow witches, charmed statues that give you messages from, I don’t know, Dumbledore? Why not?

Available as an App!

Your phone becomes your wand, the gyms can be school houses (though that’s a games-mechanic dynamite all its own), and instead of spawning pokémon, why not magical creatures or ghosts? I’m not a game designer so any more speculating from me would just be fanfiction, but it captures the imagination. You feel special, like part of the club. In this case, part of the wizarding community. And you don’t have to be born a wizard; you can join in with as little magic as a squib, and you’d still be part of the ‘magic’.

What’s fascinating is that the first Pokémon game was released in 1996, and Philosopher’s Stone was published in 1997; they’ve been around for about the same time, yet Pokémon is probably still more niche than HP due to the difference in choice of media. Pokémon has movies and merchandising galore, but it’s still very much a solely game-based franchise. HP on the other hand, is branching out into spin-off movies as well as the literary/cinematic/theme park franchise now, on top of the games and merchandise the movies produced. Despite the pervasiveness of Pokémon, some people (aka pokémuggles) are still feeling left out.

Considering the sheer number of downloads of the app, and as a lover of both Pokémon and Harry Potter, it seems strange that some people still feel left out, or don’t feel the magic. At least, in the West/English speaking world, because I can guarantee that between Pokémon and Harry Potter, Pikachu and co. outstrips Hogwarts in popularity by a landslide in Japan. Aside from the obvious reason that it’s the birthplace of Pokémon, it’s also because the movies are foreign to the Japanese audience; they’re either subbed or dubbed (probably terribly), and the books were (I heard) translated a little over its readers’ age (for the first three books or so, anyway). I don’t know the situation in other countries like China, Korea, Thailand, Singapore and others, but maybe Harry Potter just didn’t quite capture the non-European audience, at least not like Pokémon.

Either way, with this event coming to a close, I’m not sure the Legendaries will still be around. If so, great, if not, the pokégoers will probably bleed back into normal society and carry on as usual. At least, until the next major event.

And maybe, when the next hyped AR is created, who knows? It might be Harry Potter based.

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