Our second and final review of the new LEGO® accessory packs of minifigures features characters from the Harry Potter universe, as Erik H. from HokayBricks explains. These sets are released 1 June 2020 and Brickset estimates they will cost US$12.99/£11.99 but this is unconfirmed. Editorial note: Although views expressed by Harry Potter's creator do not align with that of New Elementary, we continue to cover HP sets. Read about our stance here.
This minifigure accessory set features the updated packaging style that was first introduced in 2019. My assumption is that this packaging style is more cost-effective and the minifigure clamshell makes the set stand out more compared to previous iterations. I also imagine this change was made with The LEGO Group's planet promise in mind, as the back of the package states it is made from responsibly sourced materials.
The front of the package shows off its contents: four minifigures and a bookshelf build. The back of the package features the four named characters, their accessories (with special attention being drawn to the exclusive Marauder's Map printed tile) and plenty of legal mumbo jumbo.
Minifigures in 40419 Harry Potter Accessory Set
This accessory set is essentially a Harry Potter battle pack, though instead of an army builder it's more of a student body builder! Here's a quick rundown of the minifigures.
- Harry Potter features a Gryffindor torso, standard Black legs, a Light Nougat / Light Flesh head that was introduced in some of the 2019 Harry Potter sets, and a hairpiece that's by no means exclusive. But 2020 will be the first time it's ever been used for the character!
- Draco Malfoy features a Slytherin torso, standard Black lets, a Light Nougat head that has been used in three sets since it was introduced in 2019, and a new color for an existing hair piece. (More on that later.)
- Hannah Abbott features a Hufflepuff torso, standard Black legs, a Light Nougat head that has been used in four sets since it was introduced in 2019, and a relatively uncommon Cool Yellow / Bright Light Yellow ponytail hair piece.
- Cho Chang features a Ravenclaw torso, standard Black legs, a relatively common Black hair piece dating back to 2008, and a new and exclusive Nougat / Flesh head!
Of the four minifigures included, only three of their pieces are new and only two of them are likely to remain exclusive to this set. Malfoy's hair piece is new in Cool Yellow, but thanks to the official reveal of the June 2020 wave of Harry Potter sets we know that this same hairpiece will be used for Draco in 75969 Hogwarts Astronomy Tower.
The other two new pieces both come from Cho Chang, and are slightly updated versions of her head and torso from the 2018 Harry Potter Collectible Minifigure Series.
The Ravenclaw torso in this set features a very slight change to the placement and angle of the wrinkle mark on the left (or Cho's right), and if you look closely you can see that the blue and gray stripes on the right side of the neck tie are swapped.
The head included for Cho is exclusive as well. On one side it features a face print that uses the same graphic as the CMF version, but has been printed with noticeably crisper lines. On the other side is an entirely new face featuring an exaggeratedly worried or concerned expression.
The accessories included for these characters are a nice touch, but not very noteworthy overall. Draco gets a Bright Green apple, Hannah gets a Warm Gold / Pearl Gold lantern with Transparent Yellow / Trans-Yellow 1x1 round brick, and Cho gets a Reddish Brown book assembly with a Brick Yellow / Tan 1x2 tile.
Conclusion
This set features relatively few exclusive parts, and the characters are either commonplace or inconsequential, but I think that's actually the point of the set. Most customers won't be buying it for characters, but rather to amass more Hogwarts house torsos. Up to this point the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw torsos had only each appeared in a large set or a now-retired CMF, respectively, so this accessory pack is by far the most cost-effective source for an AFOL to grow their student body. Aside from the minifigures, the Marauder's Map tile is certainly the standout piece, and I'm sure there will be fans who buy the set for that piece alone!
So here's the part where I say that I am so excited that LEGO is releasing this set! Back in 2018 when LEGO released the first ever official Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw torsos I was so excited to see that they were both gender-neutral and flesh-neutral. I hoped that someday there would be a Hogwarts "battle pack" to help us amass a large enough collection to actually create a student body without breaking the bank (or in this case, Gringotts). I am so grateful to LEGO for creating this set!
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Big up to our 'Vibrant Coral' patrons: Iain Adams, Geppy, Chris Cook, London AFOLs, Gerald Lasser, Big B Bricks, Dave Schefcik, David and Breda Fennell, Huw Millington, Neil Crosby, Antonio Serra, Beyond the Brick, Sue Ann Barber & Trevor Clark, and Kevin Gascoigne. You're all awesome!
Products mentioned in this post were kindly supplied by the LEGO Group. All content represents the opinions of New Elementary authors and not the LEGO Group. All text and images are © New Elementary unless otherwise attributed.
I'm ecstatic to see Draco's apple finally get the recognition it deserves from LEGO.
ReplyDeleteHah! I just realized a major problem with this set. People had already complained about the selection of minifigs, with the ubiquitous Harry, fairly common Draco, and repeat of the only uniformed Ravenclaw minifigs. Well, it gets worse. In the latter case, by including Cho Chang, they've made it so the only two Ravenclaw torsos have darker hands. For AFOLs, this isn't that big an issue, but official LEGO policy is that the hands are permanent. They may be fully aware that AFOLs will pop those suckers out without a second thought, but they will expect kids to leave them intact. So, while the other three houses have white-exclusive House sweaters, the only Ravenclaw House sweaters have minority skintones. It would have been better if they'd included a white Ravenclaw and picked one of the other slots for a minority character. Dean Thomas already has a minifig, but given that Gryffindor is already overrepresented compared to the other three Houses, that would have been a better pick. One of the Patel twins would have been better.
ReplyDeleteForgot to mention, there are a few other differences with Cho's torso. The body of the tie is more evenly split between the two colors, and the neckline is clearly different (check the number of divisions above where it meets the tie, plus how the upper edge ends at the top of the torso). The hem also looks like it might be different, but without lining the bases up it would require manually counting all those tiny divisions to see just how different they are. Either the 2020 lines are spaced farther apart, or they just seem that way because they're printed thinner.
DeleteI'm wondering more about why Lego decided to pick the Nougat color for Cho Chang in the first place. Her Asian skin isn't particularly darker than the white characters. I guess it partly could be since Lego though exaggerated cartoon Asian features otherwise could be seen as racist, avoiding something like the Short Round minifig from Indiana Jones. Rose Tico's head features are so toned down, she doesn't look Asian at a first glance.
DeleteWhere yellow was meant to be universally representative, they seem to be firmly attached to the idea that Light-Flesh is for white people. If they look white, nobody will know they're minorities.
DeleteAnyways, maybe listing her as Cho Chang was in error. Padma Patil is also Ravenclaw.
I had a theory at work today. There's no way they could release a cheap pack of House students, make them all white, and not expect some grief for it (that may have been more socially acceptable 20 years ago when HRH and Draco were the only four students in most sets, but society expects different these days, and with an expanding character roster they don't really have an excuse to do otherwise). So, they probably decided that at least one of the four needed to be a minority student. The tricky part is, they treat each torso assembly as a single element...and they already have House torsos for the other three Houses that come with light-flesh hands. Ravenclaw was the only House left, as the CMF deco is typically off-limits to other themes. There are only three Ravenclaw students who feature prominently in the film series, which are Luna, Cho, and Padma. So maybe they originally intended to make this Padma, and then decided that would be awkward if they didn't also include her twin sister, Parvati. Can't do that, or you can't give Harry the Marauder's Map. And we ended up with a second Cho.
Your talking about the rarity of Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff torso but the Slitherin one was also only in Great Hall and nowhere else
ReplyDeleteBut there were several Slytherin minifigs (plus Harry and Ron in Crabbe and Goyle disguises) back in the original run. Ravenclaw's only student representative prior to Wizarding World was Luna Lovegood in civvies, and Hufflepuff never even got a student minifig until Wizarding World.
DeleteNice to see the little details LEGO adds to not reuse the exclusive CMF torso print.
ReplyDeleteCould you add pictures of the backside of the bookshelf, please. I am interested how they assembled it.