by 
The only true morality Hogwarts Legacy To takeS that animal abuse is wrong. One of the main types of enemies you’ll face are poachers, the quest will take you to fight dragons that will be terrifying, and Poppy Sweeting (bless her) is a Hufflepuff apprentice determined to free every animal on the hillside with your help . A bunch of cute pets that you can coo and go crazy for in various places in the vast world doubles the game’s one heartfelt approach: animals are good, guys.
Read more: RPG elements in Hogwarts Legacy Challenge his magic
But Hogwarts Legacy it manages to undermine even that lukewarm attitude with quirky mechanics baked into the game that go against basic animal rescue principles (like adopting pets instead of buying them from breeders or pet stores). There are so many weird things this game asks you to do with animals that I can’t help but feel gross. Why do I feel like I’m kidnapping them? Why do I use their by-products after saving them? Why the hell do I have to breed Thestrals?
Care of Magical Creatures from Harry Potter?
G/O Media may receive a commission
The Hogwarts Legacy marketing materials waved animal society carrots before the game was released and naturally people ate that shit (though the creator of the Can You Pet the Dog Twitter account he said that being “swallowed up by the marketing machine benefiting disgusting TERF” was “a new bottom”). Magical animals that you can feed, brush and visit in your personal sanctuary are certainly appealing and I was quietly thrilled to have the chance to have my own pouf as I have the mind of a small child and am a person who speaks in an awful childish voice to every animal I meet on the sidewalk.
But the way you save these animals is strange to say the least. After completing the Beast Class and completing a few key quests (including the one that gives you access to your own Room of Requirement), you’ll receive a side quest centered around the house elf Deek, where the tiny slave will teach you how to use something called a Nab-Sack to catching magical creatures.
You are then released into the world to threaten magical creatures by unleashing Nab-Sack on them which acts as Ghostbusters a spirit vacuum that sucks unwilling creatures (they run away from you) into a sack when your character promises them they’re just trying to help. Seriously, you need to hit fast events to keep Nab-Sack pressed against the creature, and if they’re particularly fast (it’s hard to catch a fucking hippogriff), you can cast freezing spells on them to make it easier.
Does that sound like an ethical way to capture an animal? Chasing him around his natural habitat, cordoning him off from the group, then sucking him into a bag while he protests loudly? Sure, you can take them back to the vivarium in your Room of Requirement and let them roam the magic fields, but basically you’ve just kidnapped the creature and are gathering the same materials the poachers killed them for – and if you don’t, immediately go back to your vivarium or is the poor thing just shaking in your Nab-Sack while you do other tasks?
If you catch too many animals to fit in your vivarium (each biome can hold 12 beasts at a time, but each can only hold three different species) you can just, you know, sell them. Yes, there’s a woman in Brood and Peck who will buy your excess beasts for 120 Galleons, meaning you’re supposedly turning yourself into a poacher by catching animals all over the world, quickly traveling back to Hogsmeade and unloading them on this woman, who will sell you their feathers and fur without batting an eyelid.
While I never sell my pets to Brood and Beak, I do go there to see where they would end up if I did. It’s a small space, with no visible yard or playpen outside. I can’t help but wonder as I watch the one Diricawl and the lone Jabbernoll staring across Brood and Peck, where the hell have all the animals he buys gone.
Real Animal Rescue vs. Real Life Hogwarts Legacy
Before continuing the discussion Hogwarts Legacyback are involved in animal rescue, it is important to note my background.
I am an animal rescue volunteer and a cat mom of three certified in a New York cat colony management practice called trap-neuter-return or TNR. TNR involves humanely trapping feral cats, fixing them so they can’t produce more feral cats, vaccinating them against common feline diseases, and if they can’t be socialized and adopted, sending them back to a colony location. While it’s not ideal (we’d like every cat to get a home), it’s the only way to effectively reduce the number of feral cats in New York City, a place that is particularly hostile to them.
I volunteered for several bully dog rescues, taking the dogs for walks, staying at home, and helping them find forever homes. I was in favor of repealing race laws on Long Island. I have a tattoo of my late Staffordshire Terrier, Lucy.
TL;DR: I know a lot about saving animals. This is why HeritageThings about animals are so weird. Sure, it’s just a game, but capturing creatures is also a major mechanic, so it’s hard to ignore how Hogwarts Legacy represents what makes you do.
Valued Puffskeins pedigree
At one point in my playthrough, Deek catches my attention when I’m thinking about the Room of Requirement because he has an idea he wants to share with me. I think he’s suggesting I change the layout a bit, maybe put more house elf heads on the wall as a clear reminder of his place in this fucked up universe, but no, it’s way weirder than that.
“Deek thought you might want to learn how to build a breeding pen so you could raise beasts,” he says. I sigh and look around the room for my three cats, all of whom have been found roaming the streets. We don’t breed in this house. “Rescuing and breeding the beast go hand in hand. Young beasts are especially vulnerable to poachers,” continues Deek, clearly excited by the idea. He then instructs me to capture a male and female Thestral and obtain a plan of the breeding enclosure.
I’m disgusted to say the least. Kidnapping these animals and then breeding them like those folks in more rural areas of the country who keep blood charts for their Golden Retrievers and sell their dogs for thousands of dollars not only seems incredibly odd, but Deek’s logic is shaky at best. Baby beasts are especially vulnerable to poachers – good, so why not just save existing baby beasts? Why am I making more of them? It goes against everything I know, everything I’ve learned as a lifeguard. we do not want more animals, we want to secure and protect those that exist.
Perhaps if Heritage sold some of this animal stuff as more like a zoo for endangered species, I’d be less inclined to find it all disgusting. Perhaps if the game hadn’t included unicorn hair and pouf fur in clothing upgrades, made capturing these animals a bit brutal, or implied that farming them was the best way to save them, I would have less of a problem with my vivarium full of bongo-eyed moon calves. But as someone who has been doing it for ten years, I can say that Hogwarts Legacy doesn’t know shit about saving animals.
If you want to help animals in real life, consider volunteering at your local animal shelter, adopting when you’re ready for a pet, and/or donating to United States Humane Society.
