Accio Lego

Honestly, I think that more modern interpretation of composite mythical creatures is what Lego is going for here. Plenty of modern media has been eschewing the classical ‘the human part looks entirely human’ depiction in favor of going more bestial. The Harry Potter movies centaurs and merpeople are a good example I can think of off the top of my head, and I’ve seen plenty of artwork that goes even more extreme than that. I think it’s prudent to remember that the Harpy can be MOCed into something more classical by switching out the head and torso, while the official design gave the Lego artists a chance to have fun and go all out with her ‘human’ half. And remember, people were complaining about the exact opposite problem with the centaur woman in series 21.

Perhaps the Medieval Town Square features a goat with brown patches like the original? This one is solid white after all.

It probably is - my knowledge of different weight types is ridiculously limited

Definitely an Afghan hound, the long flowing hair is too distinctive to be anything else

The gamer girl that a lot of people have wanted for awhile! Looks like she’s got a custom keyboard and mouse with metallic printing. So the list looks like: 1. Noir Detective with Red Herring and Magnifying Glass 2. Champion Gamer Girl with headphones, keyboard, computer mouse, and trophy 3. Basil the Bat Lord with new Helmet and Axe, Shield and Cape 4. Paralympic Gold Medalist with double prosthetic legs, gold medal and first place plinth 5. Medieval Goatherd with White Goat, walking stick, rucksack, and goat cheese tile(?) 6. Mushroom Costume Girl with new hat, white skirt, and blue, green, and black butterfly 7. Female Weightlifter with water bottle and dumbbell 8. Triceratops Costume Guy 9. Harpy 10. Train Costume Boy (not sure what’s going on with the right eye of his glasses) 11. Barbarian Warrior with an new sword (I think it might be Celtic, but that portion on the page has a lot of glare in the picture) 12. Dog Groomer with scissors and new Afghan Hound

Good catch, I didn’t even notice those - too focused on trying to see what the interior exhibits look like. And it’s fairly common for natural history museums to have exhibits of stuffed/mounted specimens or even exhibits of small local wildlife (I know my local one has both) so it’s not impossible that we could see something in there.

Personally, I’ve also got my fingers crossed for the Niffler piece showing up again in the upcoming Forbidden Forest: Magical Creatures set. It’s a preexisting part and Nifflers show up during CoMC classes in the books and Hogwarts Mystery mobile game (and I’m not into Legacy but I assume they make an appearance there too). They’re pretty popular in their own right so it would make sense for one or two of them to be included in the set alongside the rumored Buckbeak to justify the pluralization of ‘CreatureS’. (And I’m still salty that Lego didn’t take a chance and give us a SoD Hog’s Head when they had the opportunity. What are the odds we ever get that building now, considering the advent calendar designers evidently decided it would be safe to use Aberforth as an exclusive this year?)

Llamas and alpacas differ in more than just size though. Llamas have proportionally longer necks that bow a bit and longer, straighter hair, while alpacas necks are shorter and straighter and they’ve got fluffy wool that noticeably frames their faces. Thus, the Friends animal is an alpaca.

I still contest that those Friends ‘llamas’ look a lot more like alpacas

Yes, after all, one of those promising Harry Potter sets is a Hagrid’s Hut that’s reported to include Fang - a mastiff in the movies. That means a new big dog mold that could easily feature in one of the police or fire rescue sets (lego introduced the bulldog by releasing it in two different colors in separate larger set simultaneously, so such a move wouldn’t be without precedent). As an aside, I think it’s kind of funny that people are saying that the upcoming winter City set names ‘don’t seem that promising’ when several of them are fire rescue sets and last year those were the ones that literally gave us kittens.

Exactly. From what I’ve seen, there’s a whole bunch of search and rescue and fire rescue sets. The winking owl (new color and print) and kittens (new mold in three colors) were introduced in fire rescue sets, and any wilderness rescue set could have an animal included as part of the setting. And while the police sets usually don’t give us anything more interesting than the common shepherd dogs, it’s worth noting that the only appearance of the white bulldog was in a large police station set, so new animals aren’t impossible there either. The only ones we can pretty sure of not getting any animals in are the space ones.

Ugh, the quidditch trunk capes have disappeared from PaB. Hopefully as a precursor to being listed properly as a multipack and actually being in stock. Fingers crossed.

Not gonna lie - if they made a coelacanth mold I’d absolutely need it despite having no interest in Animal Crossing

I feel like you’d actually have to be trying to make something more ridiculous than katanas-for-legs!Aragog - great idea for a monster in a trashy horror flick, not so great at representing a realistic spider But yeah, I think that was the strongest of the enclosed SS/CoS style huts from before the theme reboot - I’m actually curious to see what next year’s offering will look like in contrast

Yeah, there’s a decent number of Easter eggs in the set. The instruction booklet specifically points out the bat in the upper level of the Magical Menagerie, but there’s also the Roman numeral set numbers, a diagram of the mine cart from the original Gringotts set, a portrait featuring one of the original molded goblin heads, the pair of owls, and I suspect the concealed spaces under the floor and the central dome of the roof could be considered references to the original set.

Exactly, which means any OotP themed advent calendar wouldn’t feature any references to the Nagini attack that immediately proceeded the holiday season, and therefore not dark at all. Which is how Funko got away with doing OotP themed Harry Potter Pop!s a couple years back (including mini versions for their own AC). It would also be a great place to have, say, Kreacher as a repeat minifig, and I can’t help but think it might be the best format to give us Mundungus Fletcher since we’re getting Aberforth this year.

True, but Arthur is also wearing a rather large paper crown in that scene as well, so I imagine the focus would be on Sirius and the kids anyway

You joke, but Arthur’s injuries as shown in that scene are pretty mild, I don’t think they’re any more graphic then stuff lego has done before. The fact is that last year we got the ghost of a murdered child and her murderer in the same advent calendar - not to mention Hedwig representing DH1 despite that being the movie she was killed in. Lego’s proven they don’t have any qualms about general associations with the darker aspects of the series - so I’m not sure they’d have any problems making calendars based on OotP or DH1 (just without Nagini).

Sure, but there’s a part before that where Harry and Hermione are visiting the Potters’ graves that’s fairly tame, and Lego has shown a willingness to skirt around these things before

So - since we’re discussing it here’s a list of all the Harry Potter movies’ Christmas scenes. 1. SS - featuring Ron’s chess set, Weasley jumpers, and Harry getting the invisibility cloak and finding the Mirror of Erised 2. CoS - the polyjuice scene, featuring the transformed trio, Harry and Ron hiding behind the Architect’s statue to knock out Crabbe and Goyle, the Slytherin common room, and Myrtle in her bathroom 3. PoA - the movie skips actual Christmas, but in the book Harry’s first visit to Hogsmeade coincides with holiday shopping and there are visual clues of this being the case in the movie as well 4. GoF - the Yule Ball 5. OotP - Christmas at Grimmauld Place 6. HBP - A. Slug Club Christmas Party B. Christmas at the Burrow 7. DH1 - Christmas in Godric’s Hollow (DH2 does not cover Christmastime) Pretty much all but the OotP and DH1 scenes have been covered in some capacity - although only 1, 3, and 4 have had fully themed advent calendars. I don’t think #2 on this list will be made in advent calendar form anytime soon either, since it’s been pretty thoroughly covered piecemeal over a variety of forms, including parts of advent calendars and small sets. That leaves Christmas at Grimmauld, the Slug Club Christmas Party, Christmas at the Burrow (pre arson), and Christmas on the run in Godric’s Hollow (pre Nagini) for options in the near future.

True enough, but I think when you consider their significance to the greater franchise outside the movies their chances get a little better. Especially Charlie, who has a small but not insignificant role in the books and heavily features in the Hogwarts Mystery mobile game - a decent number of people will want him just to fully complete their lego Weasley family (especially once the inevitable Bill minifig shows up).

Let’s not forget James and Lily Potter, who really only appear in photos, the mirror of Erised, and as specters for very short scenes in GoF and DH2. The adult Lily also has a couple short flashback scenes, but not adult James. It’s a little more than those who’ve only appeared in photos, but when taken with the founders and mug shot Sirius I don’t think we can fully discount characters that were only shown through photos, especially characters that showed up and had small but significant roles in the books.

Hard to say whether it’s not a major seller, or it’s just not selling as well as Diagon Alley (which lego will want to keep on shelves longer thanks to the new Gringotts expansion). Each theme only has so much ‘shelf space’ work with, so some things are going to have to retire to make more room. But I wouldn’t consider it surprising that something marketed as a ‘Collector’s Edition’ has a more limited shelf life than a set that pairs with the theme’s latest offering. Even if they sold the exact same number of copies it would still make more sense to retire the Hogwarts Express first in this situation.

That would be nice. Bowtruckles, like nifflers, were covered in CoMC class in the books but cut for time in the movies. An actual bowtruckle piece might be to delicate, but there was a printed bowtruckle on the cmf series 1 Newt minifig and I think a 1x2 clear tile with a bowtruckle printed on it could easily climb and perch all over a tree built with that in mind and be very cute. And, well, if lego wants to add more creatures to a CoMC inspired set - Nifflers and bowtruckles are probably the most recognizable ones canonically covered in the books (other than unicorns which wouldn’t fit in the set) thanks to the Fantastic Beasts movies.

Well we’ve already got a molded hippogriff confirmed. There’s also a piece count of only 172 for this set, and in order to be ‘Forbidden Forest: Magical Creatures’ instead of just ‘Magical Creatures’ it presumably needs some tree builds. So I think it’s likely we’ll be seeing molded creatures since that low piece count just wouldn’t be enough for trees, minifigs and accessories, and brick built creatures - they have to be molded to explain that piece count (and that price alongside it).