Breaking Down The Worst GDI Clubs: The Quidditch Team

Rob Fox11 years ago

In college, there are a variety of clubs and activities. Many people join fraternities or sororities. Many more, however, do not. The people who do not join fraternities or sororities often find other clubs to join, clubs whose existence is as inexplicable as their ability to find willing participants. This is an analysis of one of those clubs.

Quidditch used to be a fictional sport. Then, as if someone found the government’s secret portal to Imaginationland and brought back with them the most useless thing they possibly could, Quidditch became a reality. Well, Quidditch sort of became a reality. You can’t actually play Quidditch in real life, not at all. Quidditch involves flying brooms, magic pissed off bowling balls, and a golden, winged walnut that is as elusive as it is fucking stupid.

The version of Quidditch that isn’t played by wizards who casually date rape each other (love potion = date rape) is not played in the air, but rather on the ground. Don’t worry though, there are still brooms because…BECAUSE! However, instead of flying on them, since flying brooms don’t exist thus eliminating what is arguably the most appealing and interesting part of the sport, players hold the broom between their legs and run around like that kid you grew up with in your neighborhood who went to a special school and never really understood the rules of the games the other kids were playing, but merrily participated to the best of his ability anyway.

“No Stevie, I’m playing second base and Kyle is playing shortstop.”

“Then I shall be SHORT BASE! Huzzah!”

“Stevie, where are you going?”

“To get my shortbaseman’s cape!”

“Fine, whatever. Let’s start playing before he gets back.”

How in the hell does anyone find playing this game appealing? What about running around with a stick between your legs is fun? It’s POINTLESS! If the fucking broom doesn’t fly then just get rid of it for fuck’s sake! Run around like normal human beings. You know your sport is flawed useless when its main component is impossible to accomplish, so it’s instead replaced with an infinitely less exciting and ultimately failed alternative that is essentially there to aesthetically please its players while amusing and/or infuriating all casual onlookers.

All of that is to say that running around with a broom between your legs is fucking stupid. Also stupid? Quidditch in general. Fun fact: J.K. Rowling, the woman who invented Quidditch, doesn’t even like Quidditch.

To be honest with you, Quidditch matches have been the bane of my life in the Harry Potter books.

That’s a quote from a 2005 interview with J.K. Rowling. The inventor of the sport thinks the sport is stupid. Also important to note: the inventor of the sport is an artsy British woman. There might not be a less qualified demographic to invent a sport than “artsy British women,” and it shows. The scoring makes NO sense, not in the Harry Potter books, and not in real life either. JUST CATCH THE SNITCH! Literally, nothing else matters. In the real life version of Quidditch the snitch is only worth 30 points (instead of 150 points, like in the books), but capturing it still ends the game. Everyone who isn’t a seeker is basically just jacking off until someone catches the snitch. It’s like playing a game of soccer while a tennis match is going on and calling it one sport.

The snitch, by the way, is the best part of this nerd-fest. Since golden Ping-Pong balls with wings, much like flying brooms, don’t exist in this universe, Quidditch players had to get creative. Their solution? Make some kid wear all yellow, tie a tennis ball to him, and make him run around campus like a dickhead while two dudes straddling brooms chase after him. God, I hope that somewhere there isn’t a wildly bottom tier fraternity who makes their pledges act as snitches during their intramural Quidditch practices.

I find it hard to believe that most people who partake in Quidditch have the athletic capability or stamina to run around for more than fifteen minutes at a time. If I were a seeker I’d just wait until whichever lonely, pudgy kid who “volunteered” to be the snitch, because not even the Quidditch teams wanted him, had an asthma attack and fell to the ground gasping for air. At least that snitch will die happy, thinking he has friends. If you currently volunteer to be the snitch at your university’s Quidditch matches, reevaluate your life. All of it. Don’t end it or anything, just do a total overhaul. Buy new clothes, move to a different city, give yourself a nickname, whatever you need to do. It needs to be like a full on “90s romantic comedy” complete life makeover, because right now, you’re doing it wrong.

The only redeeming quality of Quidditch is that it could possibly open the door for other fictional sports to become real. My greatest hope is for Pokemon to develop into a thing. By that, I of course mostly mean making cock fighting legal, so long as you paint the roosters neon colors and shout, “PIDGEOTTO, I CHOOSE YOU!” before you toss your rooster into the ring. A lot of Pidgeottos in that Pokemon league. Now that’s a club I would join. Think of the possibilities! Dress a pledge up like a ninja, call him Hitmonlee and make him fight a Doberman (Dobermon?) or something? Fuck yeah. Also funny, making Hitmonlee pledge fight a plant, or a fat pledge you deem Snorlax. WHY ARE THERE NOT POKEMON CLUBS!?!?!

Alas, all we have is Quidditch, and it’s fucking stupid. Please, Quidditch players, take the stick out of your ass and at least go play handball, it’s pretty much the same Goddamn thing.

And to the UCLA Quidditch team, this is awful.