That’s the grade I’d give Professor Quirrell’s protection for the Stone. Why? Because, it’s bogus! It’s just a waste of space!
As I mentioned in the Comments to the previous post:
He had a way with trolls, so he planted a troll in order to get past it easily. Since his method for getting past it meant knocking it out, he basically allowed anyone who came after him to get past the troll as well. So Quirrell, I don’t think, really counts.
And so that means that the next task we’ll discuss is…
Professor Snape’s Logic Puzzle!
So here’s a little question I have for all of you. Is there any remotely canonical visual representation of how the bottles should be arranged – size and all? Is it possible to recreate the bottle presentation by means of the poem? Is it possible to figure out the answer to the Logic Puzzle without the visual aid of seeing the bottles?
Please let me know in the Comments thread.
Thanks!
Expecto Patronum! 
I’ve actually tried this before. We don’t know the sizes, but I’ve managed to conclude that it want something like:
Poison, Wine, -, -, Poison, Wine, Back.
The blanks are either Poison or Forward. I can’t figure out which.
Unless I totally didn’t get the meaning of “Nettle wine’s left side.” XD
No, I think you’ve got the right meaning of “Nettle wine’s left side.” XD
I later redid the whole puzzle, this time using the other meaning, and it’s basically the same solution, except with the two Wine/Poison pairs switched. So it wouldn’t have been a fatal mistake.
What was the other meaning? I’m trying to figure out what kind of other meaning there is for “Nettle wine’s left side.”
Okay, I’m going to count the positions from the left: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Does your other solution have poison at 2 and 6? (those would be the same but could look different). I suppose you still have “Backward” at 7. So regardless, the positions that are in question are still 3 and 4 – correct? And one of those has to be poison, and the other has to be “Forward.” And you’d have to be able to tell by looking at them.
“What was the other meaning?”
That would be me taking it literally. When I read “nettle wine’s left side,” my mind automatically believes that to mean on the left side from the POV of the bottle (that is, if you were on the other side of the table, looking at the observer).
And yes, you’re correct, poisons at 2 and 6, and 3 and 4 in question.
Ah yes. Thanks for reminding me of that scenario! Funny how it slipped from my mind. When I was thinking about the bottles the first time, I was wondering whose left. This time, I completely forgot the bottles’ perspective!
But what I find interesting about the puzzle is that no matter what you do with the wine/poison combination (poison on your left or the wine’s left), you still end up with 3 and 4 in question – and 7 as “backwards.”
So it’s basically a choice between:
Poison – Wine – ? – ? – Poison – Wine – Backward
or
Wine – Poison – ? – ? – Wine – Poison – Backward
Is that what you’ve got?
The key is that 2 and 6 have to be identical. And they can be identical with either Wine or with Poison.
Yeah, that’s what I got. :)
:clap: Then I think we’ve solved it as far as it’s possible to solve it without actually seeing the final two bottles. :)
That’s what I’ve got too. Of the two you leave blank, one is poison and the other is the one that moves you forward. Judging by the poem, there would be a visual clue as to which was the correct one to drink – either dwarf or giant. (We know from the text that it’s the dwarf).
So basically, it seems solvable to the point of narrowing it down to the position of the last two bottles – but we don’t have the visual clues to tell us which of these two bottles it is.
I don’t know about a picture of the bottles, but someone went through and figured out the riddle IS solvable, depending on the placement of the smallest bottle, the link is ” http://www.hplex.info/essays/essay-potionriddle.html ”
It’s a very long explaination, and I’m no Ravenclaw, so rephrasing it in my post would be a bad idea. But no, you cannot determine all of the different potions without the bottle placement, unfortunately.
Thanks for the link! I’ll have to take a look at it before writing my post.
Iggy and I have the same solution – at least in terms of narrowing it down to two bottles. I assume that the visual clues from the bottles tell the rest of the story. :)
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