For a magical school surrounded in danger, it’s only natural that LEGO has finally made a Hospital Wing!
LEGO 76398 – Harry Potter – Hogwarts Hospital Wing
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RRP AUD $79.99 – CA $64.99 – EUR €49.99 – UK £44.99 – USA $49.99
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540 pieces
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Available from LEGO.com and LEGO Stores from 1st March 2022.
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As the LEGO Harry Potter sets provided are designed by a LEGO designer based on a piece of a fictional film, we are treating the product as the work of the LEGO design team in relation to the film – not JK Rowling herself.
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About This Set
It was only a matter of time before LEGO expanded the Hogwarts castle to the Hospital section. I mean, the school is to the brim with death and danger.
Sticking strong to the modular building style of the Harry Potter Castle builds, how does yet another expansion hold up? Is this a worthy addition? Does it hold up on its own? Read on!
Hogwarts Hospital Wing
LEGO Harry Potter’s modular building style has been the strongest selling point for the theme over the last few years. Priding itself on being able to chop and change the layout of the castle at a moment’s notice. This also gives kids and collectors the opportunity to build a large expansive castle setup.
That does leave me with a few concerns though. More on that later…
The Hospital wing is made up of three almost-identical dioramas. Three beds, two beside tables, two roof pieces and one central tower. The hospital diorama is quite accurate to the films, with the aesthetic style of the beds and the privacy screens really tying it all together.
Continued
I like the addition of the patient chart at the end of the hospital bed. The inclusion of a small table with ominous potion bottles on top. Including the infamous Skele-gro from the Chamber of Secrets (which raises some concerns about the addition of a new child-skull part).
Outside of these, there aren’t many significant parts to talk about that make the build really stand out to me. The play feature of having the clock tower rewind time is a nice touch, but admittedly has been done before. Don’t get me wrong, I like it, but if this is the major play feature, I’m concerned.
This is where things get a little nit-picky.
The hinges that bend the rooms don’t admittedly make sense. The hospital room in the films was never an angled room, and always a rectangular shape. LEGO compensates for this with an optional bar attachment that is common throughout all LEGO Harry Potter sets. Simply attach it on, and now it’s modular!
Which highlights the problem with the roof designs and the tower. It’s half done. The tower overhangs on one side, the rooftops don’t actually feel like a roof. Throw in to the mix that the sides of the tower are open and it reveals the set for what it is. A castle extension. This isn’t a set that someone is going to get display on its own, it’s a part in a larger puzzle. An addition to something more.
Minifigures
Harry Potter
Harry Potter’s outfit in this set could easily be mistaken as an outfit in a previous set, but this time round, Harry’s outfit is a bit ruffled up and dirty. It’s great to see a bit of progression with some of the character’s outfits that make them different from other Prisoner of Azkaban Minifigures, but it begs the questions as to if this was actually needed or not.
Hermione Granger
As above, Hermione suffers from a similar problem as Harry – her outfit is an older outfit and a lot more roughed up, which is a nice addition, but it might have been better to get a different figure or something else. I’m also quite disappointed that the Time Turner is nothing more than a printed round tile, which is not something that Hermione ever really held in her hands at any point other than winding it back…
Ron Weasley
Ron is definitely one of those characters who belong here in the Hospital Wing, and the use of a half-white half-grey leg assembly does the no fail in highlighting what the injury is.
Madam Poppy Pomfrey
The saving grace of minifigures, Madam Pomfrey is probably the main reason that Harry Potter fans will gun for this figure (in additon to the Skele-gro). Her hair/hat combo is a new, beautiful mould, and her torso and dress printing is fantastic. I really enjoy this figure and she’s the highlight of this set.
Verdict
Look, I have been considerably harsh in relation to views on this set. This is the point where I sort of backtrack and put things in perspective to nicely round out the review.
But I’m not doing that. It’s time to get really critical.
It is good that we finally got a hospital wing for the castle. But the execution is way, way off. It, unfortunately, feels like a huge cop-out to have the set focus so much on the modular aspect of it all that it doesn’t feel really completed. If the tower was more enclosed, or even half walled-up, there would be enough context to understand that this is a tower. But it’s far too open.
The hospital beds are repetitive, which makes sense for a hospital set, but it isn’t encouraging for play. It really needed something to balance it out, which the clock mechanism doesn’t make up for.
The movie choice could have worked a lot better too. When I think of Madam Pomfrey, I think of the Chamber of Secrets, Harry from the bludger accident, and her work at un-petrifying students.
A petrified Hermione, a recovering Harry, Dobby and Madam Pomfrey would have been a more favourable minifigure selection. Heck, even Pomfrey in a CMF series would have been great!
But the best parts about this set really come down to two things. Madam Pomfrey and the Skele-gro. And that is something that would have been much better as a CMF and not a mid-range LEGO set.
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