The mobile game Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery has been out for a short time now and I’ve enjoyed playing it so far. The storyline has gotten me wondering if the content within the game is canon in the Harry Potter world, so I decided to research it.
First I turned to several of the Harry Potter Facebook groups that I go to and asked what other people thought about this. Many good points were raised arguing for and against. My personal favorite point against canon was mentioned by someone who said that it isn’t because Severus Snape takes away house points away from Slytherin students in the game.
Given that we never saw that happen in the books written by J.K. Rowling I think we can safely assume that it didn’t happen, though it might have (yeah, right!). With the Hogwarts Mystery game, however, there are certain things that have to happen so that the game can progress based on a player’s choices, including Snape taking away points from Slytherin. I can overlook things like this in regards to the game and it possibly being canon.
Someone else said that she thinks it’s pseudo-canon. Some things that happen are not, such as the above mention of Snape, while others are, like when a prefect says that Filius Flitwick is a master dueler. I like this way of looking at the game, but that does not give me the answer I’m looking for.
There’s only one way that we can know for sure if this game is now part of the official wizarding world and that’s if Rowling herself was involved and provided information. So, was she?
In a word, no.
Pottermore has confirmed this on their site, in at least two articles as of this writing. This article says, “Although the game is not written by J.K. Rowling herself…, the game has been lovingly honed to emulate the Hogwarts experience so you, the player, can create your very own Hogwarts story.”
The second article, which you can see here, says, “…[The game] will draw inspiration from J.K. Rowling’s original stories to create new gaming experiences that put the player at the centre of their own Wizarding World adventures.”
Having said that, someone named Tylor wrote the following, and I really like this way of looking at it. He has given me permission to share his opinion here:
[Hogwarts Mystery] is a third level canon game. First level is Jo wrote it by herself. Second level is Jo and someone else made it. Third level, her representatives signed off on it, but she had nothing to do with it. ~Tylor A. S.
The bottom line is, no matter how much some of us might like to think that there really are cursed vaults and more in the Hogwarts castle created by Rowling, there aren’t, although an argument could be made that they are third level canon. What do you think about this? Let me know in the comments below.
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