Entertainment

This 'Harry Potter' Fan Theory About Hogwarts Will Totally Break Your Heart

by Anna Menta
Warner Bros

I have very conflicting feelings on this "Harry Potter" fan theory.

On the one hand, it totally lets JK Rowling off the hook for getting her math so wrong, which I appreciate. On the other hand, it's tragic AF, which I do not appreciate.

If you'll recall, in an interview, Jo once said there were about 1,000 students at Hogwarts.

But, if you think about the number of students in Harry's year, at least going by characters mentioned, there were like... way fewer students than that at Hogwarts.

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In fact, BuzzFeed did the math and found out Harry's class was about half the size that it should have been to align with that 1,000 number.

Most of us diehard fans just assumed JK Rowling isn't the best at math. It's OK, she's good at a lot of other stuff, like writing the most successful book series of all time, you know?

But this Tumblr user came up with another, much sadder explanation for the small class size.

So, there you have it! Harry's class was small because his parents' generation was fighting a deadly war, and those adults were maybe dead or too depressed about the world to have children! Yaaaaaay!

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Personally, even though I'd like to think JK Rowling thought this through, I'm not sure I buy it. I mean, what about what Mrs. Weasley said about the war making couples get married young?

And they certainly didn't have trouble having babies.

This has been your tragic "Harry Potter" thought of the day. Tune in tomorrow to think about how tragic the life of Remus Lupin was!

Citations: Fan theory suggests a depressing reason Harry Potter had so few classmates (The Daily Dot), This Sad “Harry Potter” Theory Explains Why Hogwarts Class Sizes Are So Small (BuzzFeed)