Harry Potter fans won: A multi-hundred million pound project in the UK was moved because of Dobby
A 430 million pound electricity project was planned to pass near the site where the scene of Dobby's death was filmed. Hundreds of inquiries from Harry Potter fans caused the planners to divert the cable.
The BBC reports that "Harry Potter" fans have succeeded in causing the diversion of a multi-hundred million pound electricity project between the UK and Ireland, after complaining that it could damage the "memorial site" of Dobby, the house-elf.
The Greenlink project, costing 430 million pounds, connects the UK's national electricity grid to Ireland via a cable about 200 km long between County Wexford and Freshwater West, a beach in Pembrokeshire where the scene of Dobby's death was filmed in the "Harry Potter" movies.
The project manager, Simon Ludlam, told the Energy Revolution podcast that the original plan was for the cable to "go right through" the memorial site, until fans began flooding his company with "hundreds of calls". "We were actually going quite close to some real Bronze Age remains, but we avoided Dobby's grave," he said.
Dobby is one of the most beloved characters in the successful book and film series, and fans have a habit of making pilgrimages to the site and placing stones on which messages are written in his memory. Ludlam, founder of Etchea Energy, said that an interview he gave to BBC News about the project turned into a PR nightmare after the fans realized what was about to happen.
Ludlam said that before the route change, one of his colleagues explained to him why they were receiving so many inquiries and told him that "it turns out we are about to go right through Dobby's grave". "I said: 'Dobby? Who is Dobby? I don't know Dobby'. I said: 'He is a fictional character in a fictional book, the whole thing is fictional, what are you talking about?'".
Ludlam said that he then discussed with the planners the question of "how exactly to divert the cable so that we don't get anywhere near Dobby's grave". According to him, "a lot of people were very happy with that, and now the project is moving forward and Dobby is happy". Ironically, Bronze Age remains that passed near the cable route were mentioned in the Pembrokeshire Council planning documents regarding the project.
According to the documents, archaeological excavations near the underground cable route found "the rim of an inverted pottery vessel, the material of which indicates that it is likely a Bronze Age vessel, from around 1700–1500 BC, of a type usually associated with human burial". This is not the first time that "Dobby's grave" has been saved.
Fans were specifically asked not to leave socks on the makeshift grave, which consists of stones on which messages to Dobby were written, because the beach is considered an environmentally sensitive area.
As recalled, last March, after years of anticipation, HBO revealed the first teaser for the "Harry Potter" series - and the reactions did not take long to arrive. Alongside the promise of a broader, more faithful, and deeper television adaptation of the books, the discourse on the networks is focused mainly on one choice - the casting.
Unlike initial teasers that are content with atmosphere alone, here clear glimpses of the main characters are already revealed - which immediately ignited a wave of intense reactions. Some viewers complimented the new and more mature look, but many others expressed doubt and even disgust at the new interpretation of the characters.
On social media, phrases like "it looks like cosplay" or "Temu version of Harry Potter" were repeated again and again - not necessarily as a criticism of the production quality, but of the gap between the expectation for the iconic characters and what was seen on the screen.
