Alexandrina

I like this! Making full use of the various log-printed tiles for what I presume is the attached woodshed? And olive green for the grass is a perfect choice.

Let's keep some optimism!

Unless I missed something, we haven't had a picture of the Quidditch pack leak yet. Cho's face colour might not be an issue this time.

At the moment we don't even know that Mythica is a theme. If it is, and it had minifigures like Hidden Side, it could be a nice crossover between Scooby Doo and Tolkien, which would make for an interesting theme.

Unfortunately, I suspect that's what we'll get. Hannah last year was a reused face.

You've genuinely lost me here. Inflatable pool?

Denim jacket, jeans and a beanie? It might not be the height of contemporary fashion but it's far from uncommon right now.

The only thing I would say is that Terence Higgs has more to do in the films than Roger Davies - he's the main antagonist of Harry's first Quidditch match (Quirrell aside) and gets a chunk of screen time.

I'd hardly call her 'hipster'. Not medieval, definitely, but that's a perfectly reasonable outfit.

What would a Lego hipster look like?

I would have assumed Lego would go for a gender balance. I was expecting/hoping for Roger Davies instead of Cho, but then you can't have a gender balance without Cho (there are no known female Hufflepuff or Slytherin players, and no other Ravenclaw players). Still, Zacharius over Cedric would be a welcome surprise.

The colours definitely pop together. Nice one! Now, who's been leaving croissants in the bread basket?

Is that what the statue in the third floor is supposed to be? I always wondered.

This is a nail-meeting-head comment, imo. I wonder if it's a case of the dearth of Castle themes causing people (myself included, I must admit) to jump the gun and latch onto anything that has even the slightest hint of being Castle-related even long after it becomes clear that it's not the case. A few months ago we got a logo, and I think that gave people time to build up expectations in their head as to what 'Mythica' might be. I know for me it took a few minutes for the pictures of Mythica to fully override my mental image of what it could have been, and in that time I combined the two mentally. It's possible that Mythica becomes more Castle-like as it comes out, but that looks a bit unlikely. (Sidenote: I haven't been to a Legoland park in over a decade. Would there definitely be some indication of knights in the Mythica pictures if there were knights associated with the concept?) I suspect - especially if Mythica does become a fantasy-inspired theme of sets - that the result will be either no new Castle for a while, or a Castle with no fantasy grounding whatsoever.

It's been a while since I read it, so it could be wrong, but as I understand it Zoe Wanamaker insisted on a higher payment for her role in Philosopher's Stone than the other actors. Eventually, they accepted her demands and gave her a higher wage... but never included her in subsequent films, since she'd proven a pain to deal with. So she ended up getting far less for being Hooch than other cast members got who bided their time and got to see out the series. Having seen Hooch, I'll definitely be picking up this set. It's an improvement over the 2010 Hooch in every way imaginable, so I'm excited for it.

Odd, I scrolled for a while but couldn't find it. Cheers!

Am I looking in the wrong place, or have the images been removed?

Aren't there two major female characters in Hidden Side? In any case, what Lego has done in the past should not bind them to what they can do in the future.

True, although the bricks without tubes and the waffle-plates might be harder to come by too.

I'm mid-sort, but I've got a load of plastic tubs from the Range, two big pink plastic tubs from a job lot I bought, and a repurposes custom-built shelving unit, each filled with plastic food containers; as well as a set of eighteen school trays I acquired years ago. As far as I'm concerned, anything that will hold all my Lego and allow me to divide it to my liking is perfect.

"Mummy, why is there a giant book at the end of Diagon Alley?" "You see, Lego made anniversary sets..."

Surely that's a good thing, given what we know of this year. I would rather have no Gringotts this year and wait until 2022 then get Gringotts this year but in such a way that I need to lower my expectations!

Not even slightly. Again, I was engaging with your points and the wider topic of the thread, using your post as a springboard. I could have looked up all those races, yes - but one small point I was making is that Lego needs to have a wide market to sell lots of sets. Most people know very little fantasy, so it stands to reason that having loads of different races that are unfamiliar to the general public would put some potential customers off buying in. On the contrary, I was "attacking" your points - and more accurately I would say I was responding to your points - as part of the ongoing discussion. Do I personally want to see exactly the same things as you? No. But that's neither here nor there. I could have talked about the structure of a TV show without quoting anybody, but I prefer to engage specifically with other users - otherwise the thread becomes people talking past one another and just wishlisting - which I know is part of the original post, but it doesn't need to be the extent of the thread. And yes, I disagreed with a number of the things you said, at least in my comment. Part of that is playing Devil's Advocate for the sake of conversation. It adds more interesting dimensions to the thread. Equally, when I put suggestions out there, I expect and indeed welcome opposing views and counterpoints. It's part and parcel of online discussion. To go back to the original crux of the topic, I think the potential of a great story driven theme is exciting - but it's also more risky than a standalone theme. If the series were done well, the sets would sell, but if the series were to flop it could take the sets down with it. Whatever comes, I just hope it brings good historical parts.

That's not an idea I've seen before or thought of, but now you've mentioned it, it seems a no-brainer. How else do you satisfy the crowd who want human-on-human conflict and the crowd who want fantasy creatures? And the beauty of Lego means that if you so chose, you could have the human factions unite against the fantasy creatures.

It's possible, definitely. Not sure anything like that'll be on the cards for 2021 though - there's already a Hogsmeade set for Harry Potter, and I don't think any other current Lego licenses are particularly wintry. Maybe in the future though. (Personally, I'd adore a Winterfell/Castle Black set, but Game of Thrones is profoundly unlikely)