brickbride Posted January 21 Posted January 21 (edited) 9 hours ago, Accio Lego said: The Chamber of Secrets takes up A LOT of space and is subterranean. The Slytherin common room is also subterranean. Are you sure that LEGO care about the latter? From the way things are going I wouldn't be surprised if the Slytherin Common Room were now up somewhere in the East Wing instead of a classroom or something. Both the Ravenclaw and Gryffindor Common Rooms are supposed to be located in towers, yet neither of them are in this version of Hogwarts. That said I would also be surprised if we got more than one ghost with the East Wing, so either Myrtle or the Baron (who likely comes with the Slytherin Common Room), not both. Edited January 21 by brickbride Quote
BacktoBricks Posted January 21 Posted January 21 8 hours ago, brickbride said: Are you sure that LEGO care about the latter? From the way things are going I wouldn't be surprised if the Slytherin Common Room were now up somewhere in the East Wing instead of a classroom or something. Both the Ravenclaw and Gryffindor Common Rooms are supposed to be located in towers, yet neither of them are in this version of Hogwarts. I get what you are saying as Lego is clearly not sticking to the definitive placement of all castle rooms, but I do think they have stuck to to the general jist of the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw common rooms being on higher levels and the Hufflepuff common room being on a lower level. The fact that the Slytherin common room is in the dungeons is quite known so I would expect it to be subterranean in placement if it appears. Quote
Virginia_Bricks Posted January 21 Posted January 21 8 hours ago, brickbride said: Are you sure that LEGO care about the latter? From the way things are going I wouldn't be surprised if the Slytherin Common Room were now up somewhere in the East Wing instead of a classroom or something. Both the Ravenclaw and Gryffindor Common Rooms are supposed to be located in towers, yet neither of them are in this version of Hogwarts. Both the Ravenclaw and Gryffindor Common Rooms were placed in towers in this modular wave. Sure not completely in the Tower because the model isn't big enough for that, but both are in upper parts of their modules that have tower pieces. Quote
brickbride Posted January 21 Posted January 21 (edited) Sure but neither of them are in a tower. By the same logic Slytherin could be on the ground floor or even first floor and still count as "dungeons-adjacent". I could see them putting it on the ground floor of the East Wing for example, which would be close to the Chamber of Secrets but not, you know, in a dungeon. Moreover the last underground common room we've had (Hufflepuff) was by far the worst of the three we've got, a pitiful-looking pull-out module with next to no defining features (you might as well rename it the Teacher's Lounge or A Teacher's Quarters and Office or whatever). I think Slytherin deserves a little more care simply because of its relative story importance, so it would actually make sense for them not to go the same route as with Hufflepuff. So far we haven't had any dungeon modules that looked good. The lack of walls is a distinct disadvantage - at least the upper modules like the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw Common Rooms had the roof to work with. I'm already worried about what the Chamber of Secrets will look like; I can't see the pull-out module system conveying a sense of its grandeur (something the 2002 set managed very well). Edited January 21 by brickbride Quote
BrickBob Studpants Posted January 21 Posted January 21 (edited) Turns out the number of the AC (76340) was correct after all, but of course it’s a Marvel one ^^ The HP one has yet to be confirmed! Edit: Looks like there‘s no HP AC this year! Edited January 21 by BrickBob Studpants Quote
BacktoBricks Posted January 22 Posted January 22 2 hours ago, BrickBob Studpants said: Edit: Looks like there‘s no HP AC this year! What exactly does 'Retailers no longer need to carry Harry Potter Advent Calendars and wonder why they aren't selling' mean? Does it mean that in the future the HP Advent Calendars will be a Lego exclusive or is it a comment on retailers having been surprised that the HP Advent calendars have not sold well. Quote
Virginia_Bricks Posted January 22 Posted January 22 1 hour ago, BacktoBricks said: What exactly does 'Retailers no longer need to carry Harry Potter Advent Calendars and wonder why they aren't selling' mean? Does it mean that in the future the HP Advent Calendars will be a Lego exclusive or is it a comment on retailers having been surprised that the HP Advent calendars have not sold well. It’s a comment on how advent calendars don’t sell well and now retailers don’t have to put them on discount because there won’t be one. Really obscure way to phrase it Quote
Accio Lego Posted January 22 Posted January 22 1 hour ago, Virginia_Bricks said: It’s a comment on how advent calendars don’t sell well and now retailers don’t have to put them on discount because there won’t be one. Really obscure way to phrase it That can’t be right. The Harry Potter advent calendar always sells out before most of the others on Lego shop@home. But has there ever been a Lego or retailer exclusive advent calendar before? Quote
BrickMatit Posted January 22 Posted January 22 (edited) 4 hours ago, Accio Lego said: The Harry Potter advent calendar always sells out before most of the others on Lego shop@home. Maybe in US and UK, but in EU the last Advent Calendar was available also after Christmas, with a 50% discount. Edited January 22 by BrickMatit Quote
BacktoBricks Posted January 22 Posted January 22 (edited) 10 hours ago, Virginia_Bricks said: It’s a comment on how advent calendars don’t sell well and now retailers don’t have to put them on discount because there won’t be one. Really obscure way to phrase it Okay thank you. Yes that is an obscure way: maybe something got lost in translation. Well yes I agree the advent calender didn't sell so well this year as others, but I think that is entirely the fault of the content not the theme. Were the jumpers cute? Sure and I don't blame the designers for trying to do something fun and novel. But are they canon representing movie or book designs? No. As such I know a lot of collectors had no interest because they didn't feel there was a place for them in their display. I myself got the calender but in the end I haven't put them in my display and they probably won't even come out at Christmas. And the other part of the calender being buildable objects and characters again shrunk it's appeal to a lot of adult collectors. From my observations, the calenders that have sold the most seem to be the ones based around Christmas scenes from the movies. The 2022 calender with the buildable objects and a weirdly dark selection of characters (Azkaban Sirius, Voldermort, crying Myrtle) also sold particularly poorly from what I could see. And I don't think 2021 with it's mini builds but not so Christmas characters was as well received either. On the other hand, the 2019, 2020 and 2023 calenders based respectively on a Hogwarts Christmas, the Yule Ball and Hogsmeade were better sellers I think. Those calenders balanced fun minifigures for children with designs collectors wanted to complete their collections. And sure, there may be a small amount of HP fatigue going on due to the theme having been running years again now, but I think if the calenders returned to the traditional format of Christmas scenes it would boost sales. And there are plenty that could still be done. Edited January 22 by BacktoBricks Quote
Vindicare Posted January 22 Posted January 22 The Calendar was the weakest so far to me. I like the torsos & even more that we got two. The builds just weren’t neat. The real world items were fun & could make for some good photos, but I liked them far more when we got scale builds to make a scene or enhance the castle interior. Quote
Accio Lego Posted January 23 Posted January 23 10 hours ago, Vindicare said: The Calendar was the weakest so far to me. I like the torsos & even more that we got two. The builds just weren’t neat. The real world items were fun & could make for some good photos, but I liked them far more when we got scale builds to make a scene or enhance the castle interior. They used the same buildable props gimmick in the 2018 Friends calendar, which was similarly unpopular, so I’m not sure why they’d repeat that known mistake with Harry Potter years later (or why it would kill the theme’s annual advent calendar). Quote
brickbride Posted January 23 Posted January 23 (edited) Around here there's plenty of HP advent calendars still available after Christmas, and I agree that this one was particularly bad. Though I don't think we've had a truly "good" one unless you count "removing characters and features that really should be in the set, then putting them in an AC so that people have to buy both" as "good". (Such as: Parvati in Yule ball robes who really should have been in the Clock Tower set, the fireplace for the Great Hall that really should have been in the EUR 200 Great Hall set, and so on.) Still I think there's something else at play here. The Disney AC sold very badly in 2024 (even LEGO discounted it on its own web site along with the Marvel one), yet Disney got another AC in 2025. Marvel did not (Minecraft did instead), but that might have more to do with the fact that they got their own Spiderman CMF series in 2025 (and the poorly-selling 2024 AC was Spiderman-themed as well), so LEGO might simply have wanted to avoid flooding the market in order to prevent buyer fatigue. Marvel are now set to get another AC even though the last one (2024) didn't sell well. The first Minecraft AC in 2025, on the other hand, seems to have been well-received but reportedly there won't be another in 2026. And Friends gets an AC every year even though I've seen shops here have two of them on shelves at the same time (the then-recent 2024 one and right next to it the discounted 2023 one) indicating that they don't sell all that well either. And why doesn't Ninjago, which is hugely popular with kids, ever get an AC? I think there might be a lot of internal politics at work here (i.e. Marvel and Minecraft having to share an alternating slot for some reason? And Ninjago being somehow never considered?) and also a lot of making decisions based on the competition (i.e. there's plenty of other toy companies offering ACs for girls so if Friends and/or Disney don't get ACs LEGO's effectively conceding the field). Edited January 23 by brickbride Quote
Accio Lego Posted January 23 Posted January 23 13 hours ago, brickbride said: And why doesn't Ninjago, which is hugely popular with kids, ever get an AC? Uh… because the ninjas are culturally Japanese, Christianity is practiced by less than 1% of Japan’s population, and Christmas officially doesn’t exist in the Ninjago universe? Quote
Virginia_Bricks Posted January 23 Posted January 23 46 minutes ago, Accio Lego said: Uh… because the ninjas are culturally Japanese, Christianity is practiced by less than 1% of Japan’s population, and Christmas officially doesn’t exist in the Ninjago universe? Does Christmas officially exist in Star Wars? There is Life Day, but I didn't think Christmas was canon. It surprises me Ninjago doesn't get one with how popular the theme is. Quote
BrickBob Studpants Posted January 23 Posted January 23 50 minutes ago, Accio Lego said: Christianity is practiced by less than 1% of Japan’s population […] Xmas is popular in Japan regardless of actual religion. Never heard of the KFC Xmas dinner tradition over there? I‘m not making it up! Quote
brickbride Posted January 24 Posted January 24 (edited) 12 hours ago, Accio Lego said: Uh… because the ninjas are culturally Japanese, Christianity is practiced by less than 1% of Japan’s population, and Christmas officially doesn’t exist in the Ninjago universe? Does Darth Vader celebrate Christmas in-story by putting on an ugly Christmas sweater? Would Nebula of GotG ever wear an ugly Christmas sweater with Thanos' face on it in-story? And what the heck is that Gingerbread AT-AT with a Gingerbread Darth Vader figure even supposed to be, again in-story? We get all of those because the target group celebrates Christmas and wants Christmas-themed LEGO sets. Ninjago has a huge Western following, so there's no reason we couldn't have ninjas in ugly Christmas sweaters or a gingerbread temple instead. Actually an AC wouldn't even really have to be Christmas-themed, it could just be the ninjas doing winter activities like skating and building snowmen and the like. Edited January 24 by brickbride Quote
Accio Lego Posted January 24 Posted January 24 2 hours ago, brickbride said: Does Darth Vader celebrate Christmas in-story by putting on an ugly Christmas sweater? Would Nebula of GotG ever wear an ugly Christmas sweater with Thanos' face on it in-story? And what the heck is that Gingerbread AT-AT with a Gingerbread Darth Vader figure even supposed to be, again in-story? We get all of those because the target group celebrates Christmas and wants Christmas-themed LEGO sets. Ninjago has a huge Western following, so there's no reason we couldn't have ninjas in ugly Christmas sweaters or a gingerbread temple instead. Actually an AC wouldn't even really have to be Christmas-themed, it could just be the ninjas doing winter activities like skating and building snowmen and the like. At the end of the day, both Star Wars and GotG have both gotten Christmas specials (even if the holiday was renamed in the rather infamous Star Wars offering). Ninjago hasn’t, and after so many years as one of LEGO’s in-house evergreen themes, I’m assuming there’s multiple reasons why it’s never had an advent calendar before. (One of those reasons probably has to do with the fact that none of LEGO’s more specialized in house themes have gotten advent calendars since they started doing them regularly.) And none of this really has anything to do with the rumors that Harry Potter won’t have an advent calendar this year. Quote
BrickBob Studpants Posted January 24 Posted January 24 5 minutes ago, Accio Lego said: And none of this really has anything to do with the rumors that Harry Potter won’t have an advent calendar this year. Fair point. If another theme got a calendar for the very first time this year, you could argue it would replace the HP one (like the MC one replacing the Marvel one and vice versa), but they’ve also introduced new calendars before without sacrificing existing ones (like the Disney one), so such a decision would likely have little to do with HP Quote
brickbride Posted January 24 Posted January 24 46 minutes ago, Accio Lego said: (One of those reasons probably has to do with the fact that none of LEGO’s more specialized in house themes have gotten advent calendars since they started doing them regularly.) City? Friends? Looking up 2025 sets on Brickset gives me 42 matches for Friends, 50 for City, and 48 for Ninjago. They're all themes with a narrow focus (City is like 99% vehicles these days) but a broad appeal. Quote
Bugbot20082 Posted January 24 Posted January 24 It’s been asked before but it’s almost February, will We have a 2026 thread? Quote
BrickBob Studpants Posted January 24 Posted January 24 15 minutes ago, Bugbot20082 said: It’s been asked before but it’s almost February, will We have a 2026 thread? We could theoretically create a new one, but only the mods can pin it and transfer comments, so it’d be kinda pointless. Guess we have to wait for @Clone OPatra to return! Quote
Gorilla94 Posted January 24 Posted January 24 1 hour ago, Bugbot20082 said: It’s been asked before but it’s almost February, will We have a 2026 thread? Is there a reason why it's important? Would anyone be interested in working together on modifications/expansions of the castle? Quote
Accio Lego Posted January 24 Posted January 24 Finally got my back ordered Lovegood house this week. A couple of fun things I noticed: We’ve finally got a new Quibbler cover print. It’s not super obvious since it’s tucked away in the printing press when the set is built, but there’s a 2x3 tile with a print of the unnumbered edition featuring a large multiheaded caricature (previous Quibbler tiles were always the iconic no. 240274 with the spectraspecs). It gets zero attention in the shop@home set photos, but there is a specialized tile+sticker to recreate Luna’s painting of her friends on her bedroom ceiling. This was a lovely detail from the books that never made it to the movies since they decided to cut out the part where Luna’s room is visited, so I’m really happy to see it on Lego form. The clear parts used for the projector feature are printed with the Deathly Hallows symbols, not stickers. It seems like a good fact to put out there since some people were probably worried about how well that play feature would work with their sticker applying abilities (or just stickers in general). Quote
Black Falcon Posted January 25 Posted January 25 On 1/21/2026 at 10:38 PM, BrickBob Studpants said: Turns out the number of the AC (76340) was correct after all, but of course it’s a Marvel one ^^ The HP one has yet to be confirmed! Edit: Looks like there‘s no HP AC this year! Totally not surprised about the first, as I´ve said it all along, that number could only be a Marvel Calendar (or another Marvel set) but surely not the HP one. That we are not getting a HP one at all is surprising though. On 1/22/2026 at 4:23 AM, Accio Lego said: That can’t be right. The Harry Potter advent calendar always sells out before most of the others on Lego shop@home. I would say it matters really on the contents of the calendars. This year the best received seemed to be the City and Minecraft ones but we also had years where the City one had leftovers, while HP was gone. Especially to adults the current one probably didn´t offer that much compared to other years, as the ugly sweaters might be fun, but aren´t really usefull for the Castle and other years really offered more with exclusive Figures, like the Carol Ghost or Aberforth, the other minifigs could be easily added to the castle (or Hogsmeade) and the objects could be used for decoration, while this year there were just upscaled builably objects and animals. On 1/23/2026 at 6:17 AM, brickbride said: And why doesn't Ninjago, which is hugely popular with kids, ever get an AC? The only reason I really see is that they already have two unlicensed calendars and the total number of Calendars is also pretty high already. Till 2011 we had max two calendars each year, 2012 they started with friends and when they introduced the Harry Potter one we already had 4 each year - 2021 Marvel (5), 2024 Disney (6) and I was always surprised that they increased the numbers of those calendars so much as most kids only get one anyways, since they are not exactly cheap. And if we wouldn´t have likely heard about it already I could have seen them skipping HP this year to make a Ninjago one for the anniversary. But as it is they are likely just cutting the number of those calendars down - or we will get another one for any new theme. 12 hours ago, brickbride said: City? Friends? He mentioned more specialized themes, so clearly meant themes aside of those. So actually maybe Castle and Pirates would be better to mention here, as Ninjago has taken their places as steady inhouse theme now. @BrickBob Studpantsif those don´t count for you either, how about clickits? ;) 2 hours ago, Gorilla94 said: Is there a reason why it's important? No and no idea why it is constantly asked, while every time it will just be the same answer anyways. Personally, I would just keep this thread. Quote
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.