Alexandrina

I genuinely forgot about that. Sirius was pretty much a throwaway character after Prisoner of Azkaban (the worst book/film) anyway, wasn't he? I seem to remember him being sidelined for pretty much the entirety of the next few books.

I'm genuinely drawing a blank at what scene you mean. Is there a third Ministry scene in Order of the Phoenix?

I love the water there - I can feel the choppiness of the sea, and it's really conveying a modicum of the adrenaline coursing through Johnny

I'll log on and support that as soon as I remember my Ideas login! I love the model - especially the uneven shape of the red-brick house, which has that ramshackle Medieval feel. It's an almost modular design, too, it would be no hedache to put something between the two buildings if you needed to (and no doubt that will be a point for consideration if it gets to the review stage on Ideas). And even better, there's no goat, so there'll never be an explosion of outrage here when the 2023 Lego Ideas Medieval Butcher is revealed and the goat mould not revived! And is that eaves in the shape of cow heads over the butcher's shack? Genius.

"Harry Potter versus the Demogorgon". If the August wave was just Harry in different universes' worlds fighting their villains, that would be an unexpected wave indeed. Imagine Harry versus King Kong, Ronald Weasley and the Daleks, Philip Neville Longbottom and the Looming Spectre of Sarina Wiegman

But for some licensed properties (The Flintstones is a great example of this) the license is the only thing that's going to give the concept enough popularity to sell. The Flintstones is an iconic cartoon that has an audience. A generic "prehistoric-esque family in stone houses" without the Flintstones name would never get a look in unless the build was both genuinely innovative and only appropriate for that particular niche.

That torso's already pushing the realms of believability for a Medieval period. There'll be riots the whole subforum wide if it's used again, especially if we don't get any new torsos. I don't even know that we need a forestwoman. There's a far more burning need for general peasantry women - we've never had an escoffion, for instance, and appropriate torsos for Medieval women who aren't royalty or outlawry are few and far between.

Then hope and pray that half the minifigures are new Hogwarts students in their standard robes utilising old heads/hair, like with Hannah, so you can buy the parts cheaper than the whole figure!

That's definitely not a good thing. Doesn't help that either Lego or DPD have changed their shipping arrangement at some point in the last few months to no longer show live tracking. When I bought the Great Hall back in September I was able to watch my driver's progress through town, and wasn't housebound during the entire hour-slot. Purchases since the New Year haven't had that, which I suppose could be symptomatic of a general drop in the information they're giving us.

A million purses and wallets breathe a sigh of relief

That's fair enough, I guess I've been lucky to avoid issues like that. Not that I mind waiting for things (though it's nice to be able to get in touch with the merchant) - it takes me back to the good old days of ordering something and not expecting it immediately, and then a whole week of excitement every time the post came because "it could come today"

Yeah, mine did too. On the other hand, my Blacksmith was with me in about seven working days, and I had a copy of Skull Sorceror's Dungeons arrive about four days after I was told it had come of backorder, so I figured they'd got to grips with their issues

I assumed the climactic battle at the Ministry of Magic, since I don't think anybody's ever entertained the prospect of sets based on Harry's trial at the start of the book/film. That could be a false assumption on my part, though.

Have they been having issues recently with orders/deliveries? I know there was a backlog in January, but I was under the impression that normal service had resumed by now.

I had no idea there was a widespread backlash against it. I never saw it as a bad scene: to me it makes sense that Voldemort would come into play when he realised Harry was going for the Prophecy, especially given that he had specifically lured Harry to the Ministry in the first place. And it also makes sense that Dumbledore wouldn't actually kill Voldemort that early in the series, even without taking into account Horcruxes (which I don't believe had actually been mentioned by that point in the story). The only option is for them to have an inconclusive fight before Voldemort flees.

Agreed, I'd personally prefer normal minifigures with yellow heads (like with Star Wars, though with the current prints) rather than pearl gold - which I don't really like as a colour anyway. I'll likely get half of them anyway because I want the sets they're in, but golden minifigures will never be a selling point for me personally

I would rather have yellow heads tbh, gold figures are useless to me once the set has been displayed for a few months and gets broken down into parts

I didn't notice anything else when I was on the hashtag looking at the Harry Potter sets earlier, other than the usual glut of posts that aren't Lego leaks - and in some cases are neither Lego nor leaks.

And that's what I get for making assumptions without having bought the Clock Tower. I think my overall point still stands though: the time will likely be best for Madam Pomfrey to show up in a CMF series in September 2022 In fairness, the quality of Rosemary & Thyme is pretty much a joke by modern standards. Pam Ferris and Felicity Kendal and the production values of 1960s Blue Peter...

Forgive me if I've forgotten a set but I don't think we've had anything yet that would properly dovetail with a Madam Pomfrey. Obviously there's not been a Hospital Wing (if there had been, PP would have been a cinch for one of the figs, so her presence in a hypothetical future CMF series wouldn't even be a point of discussion) but her only significant scenes in the films - possibly her only scenes full stop, I can't remember if she was in anyhting else - are the various hospital wing scenes from Chamber of Secrets (most prominently the Skelegro/petrification of Colin, and finding the paper in Hermione's hand) and a brief appearance at the Battle of Hogwarts. We appear to be getting the Basilisk's victims this year, and no Deathly Hallows sets have surfaced yet. It seems to be that we're likely to get Madam Pomfrey in a 2022 series, because the new Great Hall set will still be on the market, and so will any possible 2022 Deathly Hallows sets - allowing people to actually use her. As for Marge, clearly the only way we can get her is to lobby for Lego to release a Rosemary & Thyme set for that sweet sweet Pam Ferris face. :p

I was determined to read through everybody's reactions before I sought out the pictures, and I was braced for something catastrophic... ...but I don't see the problem (aside from the abundance of Harry minifigures, but I doubt I'll ever get my wish of a year without any new Harrys). Sand green has always felt like a better colour for Hogwarts roofs than dark bluish grey to me - I think because it reminds me of the copper roofs on churches near to me. It's also a nicer colour (I despise dark bluish grey for anything other than BURPs and their ilk). The basilisk looks basilisky, the bathroom looks like a bathroom. All of these sets look like the sort of things I'd be compelled to buy for one reason or another, which hasn't happened yet in the Harry Potter theme. On the bright side, if everybody hates the sets I won't have to worry about them selling out on Lego.com before I can get my order in!

If you take any of the Hogwarts modulars and drop them from a small height, some bits will probably fall off (but not from too great a height, or the model will be completely kaput). If you leave the fallen-off bits loose on the model as rubble, you have a Battle of Hogwarts playset!

I figured as much. No idea why people immediately defaulted to "the sets are terrible, Lego have forsaken Harry Potter" as an extreme.

Something which I don't believe has been explored in Lego - not recently, in any case - but would absolutely be in keeping with the usual town sets is a milk float. It wouldn't be an expensive set, but it wouldn't need to be - just a small van with a milkman minifigure and a couple of glass bottles (maybe with a white printing to represent milk). If there was a need for an even bigger set, it could easily be expanded to include/released alongside a dairy farm, with a couple of farmers and some cows.

"Lower your expectations" doesn't necessarily mean "the sets are bad". There's a great big expanse of possibility between "bad sets" and "£250 Gringotts D2C".