Quidditch or Pro-Bending season tickets

[Zor]

In this scenario, ROB decides to be a nice give you a set of five Season passes to one of two sporting events in one of two alternate universes.

The first of which is the the British and Irish Quidditch League, it comes with a special MoM "Authorized Muggle" badge usually reserved for family members of Wizards to view the event without incident. All that Voldemort stuff was sorted out in 1997.

The second of which is the Republic City Pro-Bending League in beautiful Republic City. This is after Amon.

Each one also covers concessions for the event as well as a few Sickles/Yuans of swag per visit. You can teleport to an event once a weak, in each case will arrive at the event about an hour ahead of time and be returned to your home universe at the conclusion of the event a few minutes latter for our universe.

Which do you choose?

Zor

[Eternal_Freedom]

Since I don't know what pro-bending is, I'll go with Quidditch.

[Iroscato]

Quidditch for me, mostly as I grew up reading the HP books and have long yearned to see it for real

[Crazedwraith]

Pro-Bending does not make most of the team almost entirely pointless. So For that for the win.

[Mr Bean]

Pro-Bending does not make most of the team almost entirely pointless. So For that for the win.

Also Pro-bending seems much more fast paced and with fewer pauses. Plus WWE style staging even if the Quidditch world cup might be interesting to attend as a sport to watch I'd pick bending.

[Zor]

Since I don't know what pro-bending is, I'll go with Quidditch.

here you go

Zor

[Eternal_Freedom]

Thanks, but I think I'll still take quidditch.

[bilateralrope]

Pro-bending matches run on a timer. When the time runs out the match ends.
Quidditch has no timer. It runs until the snitch is caught. However long that takes. Quidditch games have been known to last for months.

That alone makes Pro-bending the more appealing one to watch because I know that it's going to just be one evenings entertainment per match.

I expect that I would also have trouble following the Quidditch game. Especially the snitch, given that it's small and flying around some distance from me. A pro-bending match is in a small area, meaning that even if I get some bad seats, it's viable to use binoculars to watch the match.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Yeah that's true. But ultimately, I'm not really interested in the game, but rather the universe I can temporarily visit.

[Iroscato]

Yeah that's true. But ultimately, I'm not really interested in the game, but rather the universe I can temporarily visit.

Indeed. The world of Avatar is amazing, but I'd be keeping whatever security they have there nice and busy as they foiled my various, cunning attempts to escape the stadium and visit the rest of the wizarding world

[Batman]

The rest of the wizarding world is real world Earth (after a fashion). You're not going get access to the wizarding subset of it by simply sneaking out of the stadium.

[Iroscato]

The rest of the wizarding world is real world Earth (after a fashion). You're not going get access to the wizarding subset of it by simply sneaking out of the stadium.

Plenty of wizards nearby that I can take hostage though. See, where there's a will, there's a way.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I wasn't gonna suggest taking hostages. Just talking to them could be invaluable. Granted, I have a skewed view since I'm looking for a healer that could fix me. Even if they can't, just talking to actual witches and wizards would be an incredible scientific opportunity.

[Batman]

The rest of the wizarding world is real world Earth (after a fashion). You're not going get access to the wizarding subset of it by simply sneaking out of the stadium.

Plenty of wizards nearby that I can take hostage though. See, where there's a will, there's a way.

]Given that a lot of them seem to be even stupider than comic book superheroes, this might actually work.

[Simon_Jester]

Sticking to the two sports as sports, competitive elemental manipulation appeals to me more than flying around on broomsticks trying to catch a ball. Even if it didn't, the two points made earlier stand.

One, I can be reasonably sure the game will end before someone files a missing-persons report on me for having disappeared long enough to watch it.

Two, well. There are a number of problems with this particular Harry Potter fanfic, but it is genuinely amusing and interesting in other ways, and I pretty much agree 100% with its stance on Quidditch:

"So let me get this straight," Harry said as it seemed that Ron's explanation (with associated hand gestures) was winding down. "Catching the Snitch is worth one hundred and fifty points? "

"Yeah -"

"How many ten-point goals does one side usually score not counting the Snitch?"

"Um, maybe fifteen or twenty in professional games -"

"That's just wrong. That violates every possible rule of game design. Look, the rest of this game sounds like it might make sense, sort of, for a sport I mean, but you're basically saying that catching the Snitch overwhelms almost any ordinary point spread. The two Seekers are up there flying around looking for the Snitch and usually not interacting with anyone else, spotting the Snitch first is going to be mostly luck -"

"It's not luck!" protested Ron. "You've got to keep your eyes moving in the right pattern -"

"That's not interactive, there's no back-and-forth with the other player and how much fun is it to watch someone incredibly good at moving their eyes? And then whichever Seeker gets lucky swoops in and grabs the Snitch and makes everyone else's work moot. It's like someone took a real game and grafted on this pointless extra position so that you could be the Most Important Player without needing to really get involved or learn the rest of it. Who was the first Seeker, the King's idiot son who wanted to play Quidditch but couldn't understand the rules?" Actually, now that Harry thought about it, that seemed like a surprisingly good hypothesis. Put him on a broomstick and tell him to catch the shiny thing...

Ron's face pulled into a scowl. "If you don't like Quidditch, you don't have to make fun of it!"

"If you can't criticise, you can't optimise. I'm suggesting how to improve the game. And it's very simple. Get rid of the Snitch..."

[bilateralrope]

Who was the first Seeker, the King's idiot son who wanted to play Quidditch but couldn't understand the rules?" Actually, now that Harry thought about it, that seemed like a surprisingly good hypothesis. Put him on a broomstick and tell him to catch the shiny thing...

It's worse than that

The back-story of the Snitch is the most elaborate of all the Quidditch balls, and its introduction (so it is described in Quidditch Through the Ages) came as the direct result of a game played in 1269 in Kent. By this time, the game had attracted a cult following, and large crowds regularly attended matches.

Barberus Bragge, the Chief of the Wizards’ Council, attended the 1269 game. As a nod to the sport of Snidget-hunting, which was also popular at the time, Bragge brought a Snidget to the game and released it from its cage. He told the players that 150 Galleons—then an enormous sum of money—would be awarded to the player who caught the bird. As the promise of such a large reward would suggest, the players thence totally ignored the game, and simply went off in pursuit of the Snidget, which was kept within the arena by the crowd using Repelling Charms.

A witch named Modesty Rabnott took pity on the Snidget and rescued it with a Summoning Charm, by the time she was caught she had released the Snidget and was fined 10 Galleons, meaning she lost her house. But the connection with Quidditch had been made, and soon a Snidget was being released at every game. Each team added an extra player—originally called the Hunter, later renamed the Seeker—whose sole job was to catch and kill the Snidget, for which 150 points were awarded in memory of the 150 Galleons offered by Bragge in the original game. The popularity of Quidditch led to quickly declining Snidget numbers, and in the middle of the 14th century it was made a protected species by the Wizard's Council. This meant that the bird could no longer be used for Quidditch purposes. The game, however, could not continue without a substitute.

Whilst most people looked for a suitable alternative bird to chase, a metal-charmer called Bowman Wright from Godric's Hollow invented a fake Snidget which he called the Golden Snitch: a golden ball with silver wings, the same size and weight as a real Snidget, enchanted to accurately follow its flight patterns. An additional benefit was that the ball was also charmed to stay within the playing area. The Snitch was also given a "flesh memory", allowing it to remember who touched it first in order to leave no dispute as to who caught it. The Snitch quickly became the approved replacement for the Snidget, and the game of Quidditch has remained largely unchanged ever since.

[Starglider]

Sticking to the two sports as sports, competitive elemental manipulation appeals to me more than flying around on broomsticks trying to catch a ball.

Yes, it would be much more varied, consistently exciting and interesting to watch. I dare say talking to fellow audience members is likely to be more interesting than the game for Quidditch.

[Darmalus]

Pro-Bending, as it sounds more interesting an exotic than yet another variation on chasing a ball around.

Can I film the events? It would make for an excellent youtube channel.

[Ahriman238]

Pro-bending, it's a combative sport with rock discs, fire and water.

[bilateralrope]

Does ROB say anything about air-benders in pro-bending ?

After Amon also means after the stadium gets rebuilt. The first full season after that is likely to have harmonic convergence happen before or during it. Which means airbenders, one of whom might want to take part in pro-bending. That should shake things up.

Pro-Bending, as it sounds more interesting an exotic than yet another variation on chasing a ball around.

Especially when the only important ball, the snitch, is something that the players have a hard time seeing.

Can I film the events? It would make for an excellent youtube channel.

Indeed it would.

[Batman]

The really stupid part is that catching the Snitch doesn't automatically win you the game. If you're behind on points by 150 or more catching the Snitch is something you seriously don't want to do.

[lord Martiya]

Pro-Bending. It's more interesting (even without the Snitch), and the former terrorists I could meet in the audience are less likely to kill me if they realize I have no special powers.

[Zixinus]

Pro-bending if for nothing else but that the rules are easier to follow. I can more-or-less follow along just with a good pair of binoculars.

With Quidditch, I don't remember the rules anymore except that there is a super-fast flying thing called the Snitch that exists so that Harry could be good at the game without having to be a team player.

[Darth Tanner]

I thought Pro Bending was from Bender in Futurama before reading this thread.

My choice remains to watch Quiditch regardless as not really sure what Pro Bending Avatar would be like considering the live action film is my only exposure to that world.

[bilateralrope]

My choice remains to watch Quiditch regardless as not really sure what Pro Bending Avatar would be like considering the live action film is my only exposure to that world.

A quick look on youtube found this clip which should give you some idea of what a match will look like, since one of the many things the live action film failed at is showing what a bender could do. The link Zor posted earlier goes over the rules.

It's basically two teams, each containing one earth, water and fire bender each trying to use their bending to push the other team backwards across the arena and then push them off the end.