If you’re confused like me, a “punt” is a long, square, flat-bottomed boat used for navigating swamps and rivers, where the boat driver stands and pushes the bottom of the river with a long pole.
Never heard punt used for anything else but kicking my entire life. Also with how randomly crazy everything is there, it seemed like a perfectly logical action based on their world.
It’s the pitfall of nearly every setting where “because magic” is a valid explanation for really anything.
When magic is shown to enable, say, telekinesis, the immediate logical conclusion is that the same method should apply to mundane transport of goods and people. Then when you see the same people using horses, cars, etc. it absolutely necessitates an exploration of the limits of the magic and why it works in one situation but not the other.
I always associated small flaf bottomed boats as being “shallows rafts” or “swamp boats” depending on context. Im from Southern California though, we dont have water.
Even if you’d never heard of the boat type, it seems easy enough to just assume from context that “punting” was some weird British-ism synonymous with ferrying, rather than Filch drop-kicking students.
Frankly speaking Filch drop-kicking students is entirely in character. Also us Americans will 100% accept weird shit if it doesnt try explaining itself. We have to exist within the same environment as opossum and racoon after all.
In character, sure, but physically improbable. Maybe Hagrid would’ve been big and strong enough to drop-kick teenagers dozens of feet across a swamp, but not Filch.
If you’re confused like me, a “punt” is a long, square, flat-bottomed boat used for navigating swamps and rivers, where the boat driver stands and pushes the bottom of the river with a long pole.
In this context, it likely means “ferrying.”
Until reading this post, I hadn’t really considered that people wouldn’t understand that.
Never heard punt used for anything else but kicking my entire life. Also with how randomly crazy everything is there, it seemed like a perfectly logical action based on their world.
It’s the pitfall of nearly every setting where “because magic” is a valid explanation for really anything.
When magic is shown to enable, say, telekinesis, the immediate logical conclusion is that the same method should apply to mundane transport of goods and people. Then when you see the same people using horses, cars, etc. it absolutely necessitates an exploration of the limits of the magic and why it works in one situation but not the other.
I always associated small flaf bottomed boats as being “shallows rafts” or “swamp boats” depending on context. Im from Southern California though, we dont have water.
Even if you’d never heard of the boat type, it seems easy enough to just assume from context that “punting” was some weird British-ism synonymous with ferrying, rather than Filch drop-kicking students.
Frankly speaking Filch drop-kicking students is entirely in character. Also us Americans will 100% accept weird shit if it doesnt try explaining itself. We have to exist within the same environment as opossum and racoon after all.
In character, sure, but physically improbable. Maybe Hagrid would’ve been big and strong enough to drop-kick teenagers dozens of feet across a swamp, but not Filch.
Honestly my reading was moreso that he was kicking them to get them to move across the swamp, like using a stick to herd animals.
The fact that enough people assumed punt=kick without looking further into it kinda lends weight to the original point.