krimimimi

I stuck to your naming convention for that reason, too. 😉 It's a good point about the golden minifigs being largely irrelevant, but on the flip side, we have the choices of Patronuses here. Of the eight we believe to know, it's 50 / 50 students vs. teachers, includes a wolf I don't think we ever see (Lupin avoids casting the corporeal form as he doesn't want people thinking about him in conjunction with wolves), or McGonagall's cat, and arrayed against them, very few students' actual Patronuses, just the Golden trio and Luna. Maaaaaaybe Ginny's will yet pop up somewhere, although I wouldn't count on it.

When it's unclear like that, which day, I just assume it's a time zone issue. (Oddly, I also thought you were "here" and not "there" 😆, no idea why.) The first is a bank holiday here, so I also didn't think they'd stick someone with the job of flipping the "go live" switches then, not that midnight Saturday morning should be much better, but I'd assume the 01 May pay is higher.

ONE (OR TWO) MORE DAY(S), GIVE IT UP FOR ONE (OR TWO) MORE DAY(S) TILL THE EAST WING IS REVEALED!!!!! 🎉🥳 (Did we ever figure out if it was the first or second May?)

I don't think we can argue that anyone "needs" most of the Patronuses either, especially not if lego do actually go the route that includes something like Ginny's horse in one of these sets. Most of the Patronuses barely feature at all, a couple that do weren't even shown in the films, we don't even have the wedding tent / celebration as a set, so if we're thinking of it in terms of re-enacting scenes, surely that must be the more significant roadblock than the existence (or not) of a Patronus. That said, I think the stag and doe are the most significant of the bunch, and while it's nice that the stag is in an affordable playscale set, it will be annoying if the doe is gated behind a pricey set that isn't part of the castle. As decisions go, that is very much in keeping with putting a full third of the collectible golden minifigs and their display stand in an expensive D2C art build, however.

and as @Accio Lego pointed out "Assuming there is only one – as we’ve discussed before, the Hogwarts Icons set did include three golden minifigures." I know I had purchased sets I might not have if it weren't for the collectible golden minifigures in the 20th anniversary series, pleased to have gotten them all, only to have them put three in the D2C I was never going to buy. I'm still satisfied with myself that I didn't let that coax me into its purchase, but annoyed with lego that they continued the series past what seemed to be the end point like that with no prior notification. Maybe I'm still salty, but I fully expect them to do it to us again. 😕 As for Harris / Gambon Dumbledores... two possibilities I haven't seen discussed (but may have missed), this could also just be a preliminary piece of advertising and the Dumbledore minifig might not be the final version, or this could be another one of those AI errors we've seen creeping in to their print work in recent years. I think the likelihood of both of these possibilities increases because the "phoenix" Patronus also feels sort of off in this shot. If it isn't the Dreamzzz raven, it doesn't feel distinct enough to have been worth this as a new mould, and if it is, it's a strange choice, especially as a flying Fawkes has such an important appearance in the CoS and the two pieces could have justified doing it properly.

I don't think the very blurry shot of the East Wing means the Patronus has to be from it. It's further out of focus than the other sets. I could absolutely see them including two Patronuses in the book nook to help make it more of a draw. As is, we're not really getting it on sale, and it's less of a must have, because you don't "need" it to complete your already very pricey castle. The EW could just be decorative, like the bookshelf, or the Phoenix Patronus could be in the EW with Fawkes and no Dumbledore. It's not like it's a rule that we have to have the caster. Or we get a Dumbledore there too. Plus if they went with Harris in one and Gambon in the other, suited to the scenes, that would also help with the appeal for collectors.

Could they just use a recoloured Bambi (from the Walt Disney tribute) for the doe, or would it strike people as too small? I don't think I'd mind it being visibly smaller than the stag, and I'd certainly prefer having one to not regardless of size.(https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=104729pb01)

@brickbride, Hidden Side! Thank you! I knew I was too salty for it to have only been the two failed digital products recently, so here we have a third. I have a number of Hidden Side sets, and while I wasn't particularly fussed about the digital aspect, I still had to pay higher prices for the lego I acquired, due to a gimmick they failed to properly support. If I weren't so used to licensed theme prices, I'd have likely balked. Boo. So I finally stopped sitting on my brains and image searched the "new" Hogwarts castle design posted up thread. Turns out - without the text - it dates back to at least 2017, so I think we needn't worry about it being the new castle design overmuch. It's surprising how much of a relief that was. I guess I like my Hogwarts classic. I'm excited to see their actual promotional material.

Thanks, guys. You have perfectly summed up my suspicions and fears. I have a non-trivial amount of vidiyo parts flying about, and before that I think it was the video making software that became unsupported. While I appreciate exploring new possibilities, and in fact have welcomed it (see vidiyo), their track record with supporting them longer term just isn't good, and I am not looking forward to more of the same planned obsolescence. On the safe side, give me my ABS plastic; what you have in hand remains. What I might wish to see if we can't avoid it... Downloadable effects that can expand over time or as the story perhaps changes with the new series. Sound: spooky noises as the minifigs creep through the castle. (Frankly we need Peeves.) Potions exploding. Dragons roaring. Maybe Dementors or a laugh tack for the Boggart. Lights: again, exploding cauldrons. Flickering torches. Flashes of light as they battle on the Viaduct. The glow of Patronuses. If it's sound activated, the ability to Lumos and Nox. I could picture using the castle builds as a nightlight, with the ability to cast your own spells to turn it on and off. But most of all I want this to work five, ten years later.

Particularly as the individuals making the decision on its allowability are closer to the gentlemen behind the Paramount deal, as I understand it. So I'm curious, as HBO (Max?) would be part of the Netflix deal, does that mean even as things stood they would have (likely) been part of the licensing deal between WB and lego? (I didn't even realise they were in the same hands.) Or were they separate entities? I've been uncertain to what extent we can (likely) expect lego to orientate themselves towards the new material (or to contractually have to), or if we can expect to continue to see the OG cast reflected. I know lego are often required to include new material in theme lines, and seem to recall something like that discussed here wrt the number of FB sets. On the other hand lego do seem to go back to original material, I imagine when the new version is less successful. Like no Grindelwald sets, or how Ariel was only a POC for a year and a half and has now been returned to the original version. Has something similar happened with other themes? Similar concern for the castle as a character. Also, I've been trying to ignore the Smart Brick stuff, having been burnt twice by lego in recent years. They keep starting tech things, charge you more for a feature they need to develop and finance, fair enough, but then cease supporting the tech, meaning that's potentially wasted money (unless you got enough out of it, I guess), so I wan't following this new development as I was expecting more of the same. Still am, but it looks like you're right, if we stick with HP, we're unlikely to be able to avoid it. Or is this an independent thing, like a light or sound brick? Can someone give me a (very short) summary of what it is / it's supposed to be able to do, and what sorts of applications would you expect / are you hoping for for the HP lego series specifically? How does it "bring the magic"?

Have you gotten to the instructions to look at the Ravenclaw bookcase yet? With that depth to the tower, I can't imagine there isn't a hidden space behind it. That would be such a nice callback to the OG HP sets.

I also like the new Potions classroom. It's a nice physical space and captures the room and class well, with a decent selection of characters. I like the inclusion of two uniform skirt pieces and stockinged legs and the Slytherin uniform is very much needed in the set and voila, present! The exploding potion piece and the new flask are also very welcome. It's a little expensive, but the build is more robust than many similar ones, so it's not (entirely) unjustified. Aragog and the Anglia were also quite good. I think for me the small set that comes closest to being perfect remains the Polyjuice Potions Mistake from the 2021+ castle. Brilliant. It's a room with actual building facade, it appears a couple of times in the series, it has four minifigs, five characters, gives us some much needed Slytherin uniforms while still including the trio in case you're gifting it, includes the absolutely iconic cat!Hermione head... Chamber of Secrets access play feature, easily modded for the troll's bathroom scene... All of that for a reasonable price, and of course it did what I expected from a modular castle, acting as a module, which most of the rest of the 2021+ series somewhat inexplicably didn't. Very nearly perfect. If they'd given us Myrtle instead of golden!Harry it would have been my idea of a perfect set.

@Gorilla94 I think they have to stretch it out some, because releasing the "most detailed" Hogwarts ever in a shorter time period would price it out of a good chunk of people's budgets. As it stands now, we have no idea what it will end up costing us, which probably also helps their sales. If people knew from the outset the sets so far would cost them about 780 EUR, would they have started collecting them? And we're not done yet. That's two years out of at least three years, at this rate it'll be close to 1.2 k by the end of 2026, and if it goes into 2027?

Except as @brickbride points out, they haven't been too fussed about locations. They can always make the other rooms in such a tower... whatever. Something still missing and possibly from another book. Umbridge's office, as a for instance... Binns would cover ghost and obscure teacher in one. (I'm hoping... ) Pixies, Neville, and Lockhart in DADA are one scene that comes to mind. Another is Filch and Mrs Morris, or discovering the writing on the wall. I couldn't help noticing Ariel the Little Mermaid was a mermaid of colour exclusively only for 2023. By 2024, it was about half and half classic!Ariel and the new one. By 2025, it's strictly back to the classic version. I find people are generally resistant to change, so I remain curious to see what happens here. It's a pity we don't find out what's in those agreements. I don't think, generally speaking, they pivot that quickly, and this would account at least for the main summer set and a side castle set. I doubt they'll waver either way with something that substantial to the theme. That said, is this remotely normal, taking so long to produce a television show? It all seems unusually protracted. Your use of "minor room" has me thinking. lego knows better than anyone how the sales of the Flying Lesson are doing, a somewhat lacklustre "minor" set. I can't imagine they're great, especially as it basically doesn't go on sale, and we still don't know where it goes in the castle. So I have to wonder if shifting Ravenclaw to this set might be part of an effort to increase its appeal. I could definitely see that being part of the motivation.

Looking at the blurry Hospital Wing box image, it looks like we're getting Hermione in the pink hoodie. I think we've had that in three versions and four sets before (2022 Sirius' Rescue, Hospital Wing, Shrieking Shack, and 2019 Hagrid's Hut), and I'm wondering about its inclusion in this set. She uses the Time Turner in the Infirmary in that outfit, except it's with Harry, and the reason they're there is Ron with his injured leg, and neither of the boys have those outfits. * What are your guesses as to why she's in the hoodie (what scene and / or builds are likely), and * what do you think its presence here means for scenes / sets we're likely to see (or not see) in sets in the near future?

Aside from the fact that the castle layout morphed from film to film, we didn't have many dungeon locations in the stories - Slytherin, Potions Classroom, Chamber of Secrets, the PS tasks, Hufflepuff - and that last one we never even saw in the films. I figure it was a given if they made a set with cliffs, which I appreciated, they would need to stuff things in there that didn't actually belong. As long as the sets look ok, I'm satisfied.

So if you don't count the grounds sets (although I'd be inclined to include Hagrid's), there are ten total "Hogwarts Castle" sets so far, with another due in January. One of those ten was a Gift With Purchase (GWP), which kind of sucks, because it's unavailable except for ebay or bricklink etc. Of the rest, six are castle buildings (two of which are retiring - Owlery and Boathouse), three are modules (1 GWP retired, 1 retiring - Potions classroom), and 1 is a sort of swappable piece of furnishing (the duelling club, which goes into the Great Hall) and also retiring. With retiring sets, I'd recommend picking them up this year if possible, but also holding out for sales as those prices really drop on sets going end of life (EOL). You can check a site like brickmerge.de to see how the prices evolve historically over time to get a feel for when you're better off buying, but ideally you'd want to pick a site like that that reflects your local prices. Brickmerge happens to reflect mine. If it were me, I'd skip the GWP Room of Requirement because you're going to get soaked, pick up the Owlery, Hagrid's, Potions Classroom, the Duelling Club and probably Aragog, all on sale and only if on sale, but then I also watch those sales like a hawk.... NOTE: with the "EOL" it's expected, but not guaranteed to retire. Every now and again they change their minds, but if you want it, don't count on it being available after December.

Ok, so the castle builds themselves are as follows (two are already retiring this year): 76430: Hogwarts Castle Owlery (2024) - RETIRING 12/2025 76426: Hogwarts Castle Boathouse (2024) - RETIRING 12/2025 76447: Hogwarts Castle: Flying Lessons (2025) 76445: Hogwarts Castle: Herbology Class (2025) 76435: Hogwarts Castle: The Great Hall (2024) 76454: Hogwarts Castle: The Main Tower (2025) the swappable module builds 40770: Hogwarts Castle: Room of Requirement (2025) - GWP (gift with purchase) - RETIRED - only available on the aftermarket 76431: Hogwarts Castle: Potions Class (2024) - RETIRING 12/2025 76442: Hogwarts Castle: Charms Class (2025) the extra and grounds builds 76428: Hagrid's Hut: An Unexpected Visit (2024) - RETIRING 12/2025 76432: Forbidden Forest: Magical Creatures (2024) - RETIRED 30677: Draco in the Forbidden Forest POLYBAG (2024) - RETIRED 76424: Flying Ford Anglia (2024) 30706: Quidditch Lesson POLYBAG (2025) - RETIRING 12/2025 76434: Aragog in the Forbidden Forest (2024) - RETIRING 12/2025 76440: Triwizard Tournament: The Arrival (2024) - RETIRING 12/2025 the extra furnishings and knick knacks builds 76438: LEGO Harry Potter 2024 Advent Calendar (2024) - RETIRED 76441: Hogwarts Castle: Dueling Club (2025) - RETIRING 12/2025

How wide or narrow in scope do you want the list? Like just the castle bones, the swappable classrooms, sets that could be on Hogwarts grounds... If you look at the nano-scale Hogwarts castle and grounds set, it includes things like the Ford Anglia and the Durmstrang Ship, both of which exist as sets. If you're being generous in the definition, that's up to about 19 sets in the 2024+ system.

Exacerbated by the Wibbly Wobbly bridge. Millennium Bridge. It's in the name. Would it have been too hard to not focus a scene on it?

That's ok, she's white. If you've seen the pictures I did, the one with the direct side view and what appears to be a grey Hedwig also has a dividing line on it and the view above the line is a slightly off centre frontal shot. Between the boys' shoulders, Hedwig is visible and you can see she's white plus her face print. But I did say you weren't going to like her... * can't fly without brooms

A buildable Hedwig is included, she can be seen in the rear of the car. I can confidently say you're not going to like her though. She appears to have a printed dome piece for a head and from the angles pictured looks like a Star Wars droid.

Oooo, with a Grim just sort of discernible in the ball on the rear side, and a class with poufs, low tables, tassels, curtains, and teacups in the interior. Yes, I can see the potential there. Great idea.

We can't seriously run around complaining there aren't enough girls on the one hand (which I definitely do; the Main Tower was absurd) and then insist they have a Victorian chaperone not even vaguely provided for in the source material, and frankly I'm a little out-McGonagalled. She pops up in far more sets than I think her screentime / scenes warrant, and will be there again in the Sorting set. When I think Hogwarts classes, it's mostly Snape and Hagrid, some Slughorn, some Trelawney with a side of Flitwick's Wingardium Leviosa and Sprout's earmuffs, plus the periodical DADA lesson. McGonagall's class for me is mostly just an unspectacular "you're late." This winter required a Snape, and if the set had been with Draco, or Seamus or whomever, I for one would have screamed about the ongoing lack of female character representation. Plus everything you're picturing isn't canon, in a series that has Harry alone with Umbridge in her office with the canonical torture quill (I still want that set...) and which - in contrast to days past when Myrtle died - blithely kills Cedric off and petrifies several students all while school remains open, NBD, both of which exist in sets. An instructor hired by Dumbledore - fully cognisant that he's a fraud - literally hospitalises Harry with his poor magic (Lockhart) and ultimately attempts to memory wipe him, to say nothing of Harry's home life he can thank Dumbledore for. Also: the TriWiz as a whole (dragons? kidnapping??) and Quidditch. Abuse, physical and mental, runs riot in the series, often played for comedy; we really needn't invent extra. Considering the Polly Pocket Hogwarts goes for EUR 65 when not reduced , I guess they've positioned themselves alright price-wise. It still feels like the interior / playability is a good deal less in the cauldron set though, and I'm not sure a better exterior sufficiently compensates. That said, the Polly Pockets wouldn't tempt me, but the cauldron does. Is the drip on the cauldron's side iridescent?

@BacktoBricks thanks! It sounded like they may have made a new motorcycle mould? I guess we'll have to wait and see. For a line aimed nontrivially at children, though, I don't think they can afford to never revisit things just because they've done it well in the past. It seems like, given time, it will be released again at some point or another.