Subject:
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Re: Hogwarts vs. Leo's Breezeway (was: HP sale at Myer? BAD NEWS)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.loc.au
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Date:
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Wed, 31 Oct 2001 07:47:54 GMT
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Viewed:
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592 times
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> For reference
> Set <set:4709> <set:6098>
> Peices 682 524
> Figs 9 (counting the armour) 8 (counting the Skelly)
> Hogwarts includes the moving panel seen in 6098 (as a stained glass window).
> Admittedly the window is a funky peice. Hogwarts has two plastic sheet
> roofs(1), KLB has a cloth rear wall. I think (I don't have Hogwarts, yet)
> that KLB stands taller and deeper than HogW. They both have around the same
> number prefab walls/BURPs. KLB is grey/dk grey with random touches of red,
> blue, brown, tan and black. HogW is Mostly tan/grey with random touches of
> dkgrey, black, brown, and sand green. Both Castles are modular in design.
> All in all the castles are pretty even in comparison, but Hogwarts comes out
> ahead because of the larger numbers of basic peices used instead of the base
> used in the breezeway to bulk the set up. The colours are better too. The
> only drawback is Hogwarts comes with four schoolchildren instead of castle
> figs... can't have everything.
I have them both.
The plastic (or is paper?) roof is *very* disappointing on the Hogwarts
Castle. I will be adding a real roof onto mine!
Also worth noting is that the Hogwarts Castle is not one big building but
three separate structures. The three structures are (based on my reading of
the books) the dining hall, the Griffindor tower-and-library (which is two
pieces hinged together), and the lakeside entrance portal. Annoyingly, these 3
structures do not join together. Indeed, it is quite difficult to make them
join together, as the parts used (tall wall pieces and so forth) cannot be
trivially swapped to incorporate a hinge or Technics-hole-brick. Lego could
have sold this as three separate sets! Indeed, it would have been nice if all
the sets based on the Hogwarts school could have been designed to join
together in some way (horizontally or vertically) into one big castle. Looking
at the pictures in the instructions, I saw a picture of what appeared to be
the Final Challenge built on top of Snape's Dungeon, and indeed, it's an easy
modification to make (and you end up with a spare green tower roof as a
bonus).
KLB stands higher because of its moulded base plate. Hogwarts is actually
quite tall (in the dining hall and Griffindor tower sections) and uses those
large bricks as bases and does not have any baseplates at all.
The Hogwarts Castle has a lot more emphasis on interior detail compared with
KLB. HC has various "moving parts" but these are not the
"thing-flies-through-air" style of KLB. Instead HC goes in for "hidden"
things, which you have to turn around or open to see. You can also make the
library books fall from the shelf, which I presume is intended to represent
Peeves at work (incidentally, you find Peeves hiding in the chimney of the
dining hall). I suspect that the King Leo Castle theme was probably more aimed
at boys whereas I think Harry Potter series may be trying for a larger female
marketshare (based on my perceived sex stereotyping of other Lego themes).
Against this, the only female HP minifig appears to be Hermione, and there are
a lot more female characters in HP (Mrs Weasley, Ginny, Cho, Professor
Gongallon, Mrs Pomfrey, Moaning Myrtle, the Divination teacher whose name I
forget). I guess the Fat Lady gets to make an appearance, but obviously not as
a minifig.
Also, I think the pieces in the Hogwarts Castle are more generally useful than
the pieces in KLB, which tend to be more castle-specific.
Having said all of the above, I question if it is valid to compare these two
sets. Although Hogwarts Castle is called a castle, HP is nonetheless a
school/magic theme and not a castle theme. Whereas KLB is part of a castle
theme. So that is why KLB is more "castle"-y than Hogwarts Castle, IMHO.
Similar comments apply to the Hogwarts Express which is a train in a
school/magic theme rather than a train in a train theme.
Kerry
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