Beater Talk

It was Christian's last year at the school making it his last year as quidditch captain, and leader of the Students Appreciating Quidditch Club. He wanted to make this last year a good one, but he had never been a good leader and this year was no different. He had a co-leader this year but between the two of them they couldn't come up with a show stopping topic. Having the impatience of wanting to finally graduate now he didn't really care what the topic was so he went with the easiest topic that they could come up with. He thought it was actually better than some of his previous years.

For his final time the teen walked out in front of all the members of the club, only this time he had Marie-Laure next to him. "Alright everyone welcome to another meeting of SAQ. I'm Cerisier quidditch captain Christian D'Angelo and this is my co-leader Marie-Laure Sylvian the soon to be Montagnard quidditch captain. Today we are going to discuss what the most important position on the team. We have already talked about the seeker position but what about the other ones? Some are particle to say the chasers are the most important but what other positions are highly valued on a team?" He said as a lame introduction. He figured he would let his co-leader handle most of this so that she could get used to running things when he was gone.

Marie-Laure felt she was actually beginning to make an impact on the school. Captaincy next year and co-leadership of a club this year. It would have been daunting for a less confident witch. She, however, did not believe in false modesty. She knew she was good and would do very well in both leadership roles next year. This year, though, she would just allow Christian to choose which topic to discuss in SAQ.

"There are only two others to choose," from Marie-Laure interjected. "As Christian said, we've already discussed the seeker and he just mentioned Chaser as important." She paused as she considered choosing her next words wisely. Really, there was no nice way of saying it and it wasn't like her Captain could do much to her since he was graduating and she was taking over next year. "What about beater? Is that position really important? Maybe we could do without anyone hitting iron balls around the place which really serves no purpose other than to distract the players."

Quidditch appreciation club was always nice, especially in Osmund's early days as a quidditch player and new captain, for it gave him some insight of how to do his job. However, as the years passed, and the club meetings rolled by, he was starting to find it a nuisance, especially with the topic placed today. He gave Christian credit for running the club on his own for awhile and having to choose topics with only himself to consult, this year being the exception, however he didn't appreciate his own position being questioned.

Osmund scoffed and shook his head at the comment. No doubt the comment was said with the thought in mind that it would, indeed, offend the one beater in the room, but that didn't mean he was going to let it slide. "Maybe the beater doesn't do much more than aid the quaffle to chasers who get can their quaffle back on their own. And maybe the seeker shouldn't be part of the game because the snitch is worth so many points, it often renders all goals scored by the chasers useless. But imagine a game of quidditch with just chasers and keepers. Sounds no different than a game of football, really, only 'cept we're on brooms, right? So maybe we could do without positions like beaters and seekers and still play a game of quidditch, but it'd be boring. Beaters and seekers are what makes quidditch truly unique and I believe they are what define the game of Quidditch." He sat back in his chair after saying his piece and almost allowed the conversation to carry on until he felt the need to add, "And I don't just think that because it is my position in the question." He scoffed again. "As if a small group of kids in a dusty room would change the rules of an ancient game just by talking about it." He wasn't exactly being threatened with his position. If people thought he useless, they would just have to sit with their thoughts because it wasn't like they could just remove beaters from the game.

Since this was Payton's first meeting, he decided to sit back and wait to see what everyone said about the topic. He wondered what the prevous meetings were about, he knew one had to be about seekers since that was stated by the other members. He had to agree that the snitch's points were a bit unfair to the other players of the sport. But he enjoyed his spot on the team, even if he was having terrible luck at catching the snitch this year.

"I think the beater position is important," he stated, he was sort of quiet about it at first. He was probably the last person his team wanted to hear from. "Each position helps each other out, I think we're all equally important."

Osmund may have had a point but Marie-Laure still wasn't one hundred percent convinced it was as important as he or anyone else in the room claimed it was. She refocused on Payton. "So just how important is the seeker if the other team's points are more than 150 ahead and that's the moment they catch the snitch? Other than end the game." Marie-Laure hadn't forgotten the argument Osmund had used but she would get back to him. The important thing was to keep the discussion going.

"Oh I don't think any of us plan to take on the establishment," Marie-Laure retorted. "The purpose of this meeting is to get you thinking about the finer aspects of the game." Just like last year's meeting and any other meeting held in this room. "And you can't know if the game would be boring without beaters without actually trying to play a game without them. That's just an assumption." Probably based on his ignorance regarding muggle games. Marie-Laure believed it was highly unlikely he'd ever played football or any other muggle sport. However they weren't here to talk on the virtues of any muggle games. "There are some in this school who believe it is boring regardless of whether there's players hitting iron balls at other players."

"There's a difference between analyzing the game of Quidditch and pointing fingers at players, saying they're useless. This conversation is getting close to being the latter, which could easily destroy connections between players, something that is dangerous to a team," Osmund warned. He learned a thing or two from being captain and though he was never the sweet, encouraging captain it appeared Montagnard longed for, he was still good at keeping everyone together and not once had his team been at war within itself.

"Of course there will always be people who couldn't care less about the sport, but that is their own loss," Osmund tossed in his two cents, keeping himself involved in the debate. "Some people just don't like sports and there is nothing anyone can do to change that. Removing beaters or adding dragons to the game won't make any difference to them," Osmund mused.

Christian wasn't usually the best at comprehinding things that had to do with feelings, actually he was pretty sure he was the worst at it, but even he could tell there was a lot of tension in the room. Well looks like he is going to go out with a bang with this topic. He knew that he should say something to diffuse the tension but he didn't know what so he just listened, the results of this meeting didn't affect him anyways.

Finally he spoke up. "The point of this debate is not to attack certain positions because obviously they are all important or they wouldn't have been around for centries. This point of this is to realize that all the postions are equally important. Without the chasers no one is scoring. Without the keeper scoring is too easy. Without beaters there is no one to player proper defense with the bludgers. And without seekers there isn't that unique element that makes quidditch quidditch, and as I can attest they sure do provide motivation for the chasers to hurry." He said with a chuckle at the end trying to lighten the mood.

Payton didn't think his answer would cause a reaction like the one Marie-Laure gave, it wasn't a bad comment but it was a strong one. He knew what her opinion was, it seemed like she made sure of that, and respected her opinion. But he still didn't think she liked him very much and didn't like the seeker position. "Do you not like the seeker position or do you not like me?" There, he had said it. He was sure that the comment would make her upset and get on his case next year, but he didn't care. He just wanted to know and it seemed like an innocent enough question. Payton had picked up a hint, or maybe just imagined it, that she didn't like him all too much. He hoped he was just imagining it and that she'll deny the accusation.

This point the meeting, Payton was going to remain quiet. He had nothing left to say about anything anymore. He was just willing to listen to what everyone else had to say.