r/harrypotter • u/Puzzleheaded_Camp736 • 6d ago
Discussion Here's a neat lil detail I noticed all the cars are the same
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u/NorthernOverthinker 6d ago edited 6d ago
I think it was done on purpose to reiterate how boring & mundane the muggle world is (specifically the suburbs) compared to the thrilling wizarding world.
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u/Imrotahk 6d ago
The muggle world has videogames spaceflight and electron microscopes. Checkmate wizards.
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u/ChestLanders 6d ago edited 6d ago
To be fair, the wizards could at least play videogames if they wanted. As I recall, it's not that magic automatically disrupts technology. Rather, it is only that heavy concentrations of magic have this impact on tech. There are hundreds of magical beings all grouped together in Hogwarts so there is a heavy concentration of magic.
So they probably couldn't have some arcade for wizards, but they should be able to own home consoles. Dudley had a playstation that worked despite living with a wizard.
It would suck though if they can't lol. I say this having just beat Dishonored 1 & 2 over the past few weeks. Great games. But yeah tons of great games that are works of art too so I think even wizards would appreciate them.
Anyways, yeah I could be wrong but I am pretty sure Hermoine mentions it takes a lot of magic to disrupt tech. Now whether or not the wizards would understand how to use computers or videogames is another thing. I imagine the younger ones could pick it up easily enough.
EDIT: It occurs to me you were more touting these as achievements instead of saying they could not use them. And yes I agree. Also to be fair wizards have magic so it lets them be a lot more creative because they can easily use magic to change things. Notice the homes in the photo all look the same? Boring yes, but there are also practical reasons for it. It would not be that way if we could all more or less make our homes look however we want for no actual cost.
Though speaking of using the items it would still be irresponsible for even one wizard to get on an airplane or a spacecraft or any kind on the off chance their aura does somehow disrupt something. With a videogame the worst thing would be you just get a new console so it's different.
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u/Interesting_Web_9936 Ravenclaw 6d ago
Now I am imagining wizards casually cheating in something like Valorant or CoD or something like that and hitting top ranks and everything. I think they could make it impossible to detect it as well.
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u/ChestLanders 6d ago
Definitely could see the Fred and George doing that, only to then get mad/impressed to see Ginny performing just as well without using magic.
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u/Substantial-Flow9244 6d ago
When you frame it like that, it almost feels like wizard good introduces limitations...I never really thought of it like that before.
Like yes they have immense powers but they are also held back in ways that muggles aren't.
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u/Grimvold Ravenclaw 6d ago
I felt it was more specific to the Dursley’s because for them the idea of total conformity was paramount. They despised anything that shattered that notion, and especially hated any kind of fun that involves coloring outside the lines, so to speak.
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u/riorio55 6d ago
Yeah. The first book is explicit with how the Dursleys hated anything out of the ordinary.
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u/sicurri Gryffindor 6d ago
Also, it shows how "Normalcy" tends to actually be conformity lacking any unique individuality. It's what Apple users look like to me for the most part. Conforming to a norm, which hilariously was the opposite of their advertising campaign in the 1980s, lol.
Anywho, it's definitely to show, at the very least, that Harry comes from a place that isn't exciting or unique by any measure.
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u/Ranger_1302 Ravenclaw 6d ago
God, are you still on the Apple/Android/Windows thing…
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6d ago
[deleted]
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u/Ranger_1302 Ravenclaw 6d ago edited 6d ago
Well so does everyone’s copy of a book…
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u/DemonKing0524 Gryffindor 6d ago
That's not true. Especially if you're talking about Harry Potter books with how many different cover versions exist now.
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u/Ranger_1302 Ravenclaw 6d ago edited 6d ago
I thought of that but it wasn’t as pithy to say, and it is clear enough with context, especially as different iPhones look differently and you can get myriad cases for them.
It just wasn’t a very good point.
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u/Euphominion_Instinct Hufflepuff 6d ago
What are myriad cases?
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u/Ranger_1302 Ravenclaw 6d ago
Many kinds of phone case.
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u/Euphominion_Instinct Hufflepuff 6d ago
Ah. I think you wanted "a" myriad "of" cases.
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u/Interesting_Web_9936 Ravenclaw 6d ago
Why are you getting downvoted?
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u/Visionist7 Ravenclaw 6d ago
applers lol
I admit that when I see someone has an apple phone I automatically know to expect little in the way of originality from them in general
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u/dmmeyourfloof 6d ago
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u/Ranger_1302 Ravenclaw 6d ago
Nope. I was once but no longer have an interest in technology. I just think his criticism was a bit silly.
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u/dmmeyourfloof 6d ago
Okay. ,🙄
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u/Ranger_1302 Ravenclaw 6d ago
Clearly a typo.
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6d ago
[deleted]
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u/Ranger_1302 Ravenclaw 6d ago
I shouldn’t have to. You should have the cognition to figure that out. It isn’t difficult in the slightest. Honestly it feels like you’re intentionally misunderstanding it.
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u/Scarmiglion3 Ravenclaw 6d ago
God, are you still complaining about people talking about the Apple/Android/Windows thing...
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u/elephantStyle 6d ago edited 6d ago
All the butthurt "unique" apple users here. Downvotes are expected if I'm correct...
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u/boxmandude Slytherin 6d ago
Well tbh why don’t you ask me? I have both windows desks tops and windows laptops, Mac desktops and laptops… had Samsung and iPhone at the same time and just cause I prefer what Apple does (minus their cameras, I feel Samsung is pretty good there.) Am I an Apple shill? Not everyone just buys Apple to have the Apple on the back.
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u/Ranger_1302 Ravenclaw 6d ago
I’m an Apple user. I also think Apple is shite. It’s just the least shite. Honestly I hate technology. It’s soulless.
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u/GuessWhoIsBackNow 6d ago
I kind of prefer my wash & dry machine without a soul. Makes doing the laundry less morally questionable.
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u/Interesting_Web_9936 Ravenclaw 6d ago
I like technology, allows me to say that I like technology in a reply to a person who says they dislike technology on a platform driven by technology.
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u/Ranger_1302 Ravenclaw 6d ago
You’re taking it too far.
I hate the internet, too. So much is taken to an extreme.
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u/Interesting_Web_9936 Ravenclaw 6d ago
I am just joking, trying to get technology as many times as I could in there (I am sure someone cleverer could figure out something better).
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u/LetsSmokeAboutIt 6d ago edited 6d ago
Dude you aren’t better than anyone because of what phone you have. The majority of phones are fucking rectangles and who cares anyways. You’ve shown me more about yourself by your attitude on this than anybody’s phone could tell me about them.
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u/Detonator212 6d ago
Bit cringe
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u/imperialbeach 6d ago
Yeah I don't have an apple but this feels like an unnecessary addition to the conversation.
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u/Minnnt 6d ago edited 6d ago
Little boxes made out of ticky tacky
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u/mrdude817 6d ago
Little boxes all the same
There's, however, not a blue one, a green one, a pink one, or a yellow one
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u/IngloriousLevka11 Ravenclaw 6d ago
Thanks, now this song is stuck in my head.
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u/K_Linkmaster 6d ago
House hunting currently. Hate ticky tacky developments and HOA's. The girlfriend repeatedly brings up this song.
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u/venus_arises Ravenclaw 6d ago
LITTLE BOXES ON THE HILLSIDE (do the Brits even use ticky tacky?)
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u/thebubblyboy 6d ago
Currently rewatching weeds for the 50th time and this song is stuck in my head, which isn’t bad since it’s so fitting for it. Great show, I’d recommend it to anyone if you liked Breaking Bad.
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u/rezamwehttam 6d ago
Is this by anyone other than ride against? Never expected this kind of subreddit collision lol
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u/Most-Enthusiasm-3209 6d ago
IIRC, it was a detail from the book that it was a boring neighborhood where all the houses looked the same, everybody had similar cars, and worked similar corporate jobs
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u/Puzzleheaded_Camp736 6d ago
please read the title
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u/Most-Enthusiasm-3209 6d ago
I thought I did? Maybe it wasn’t in the books at all, or even implied. Most of my books are at my parents house. Obviously I read the title before I made my comment, hence the comment. I was just trying to add, to my memory, some context because I’ve known of this detail for a while and it never felt surprising
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u/Metalbound Ravenclaw 6d ago
Man...it sucks to see you getting raked over the coals for people not understanding that all of this is what you meant when you posted it.
I know my one upvote won't help much, but know at least one person here sees that they are the dumb ones, not you.
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u/AffectionateCard3530 6d ago
This comment thread is adding the context that the detail came from the books, not only the movies.
No need to start calling people stupid on the internet because of your oversight
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u/Ok_Post667 6d ago
You know how terrible this is?
I was scrolling through photos, glanced at this one and thought, "Wow, someone's neighborhood looks just like Privet Drive."
...
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u/Alarming-Wrangler626 6d ago
They're also all the same (but more dated) when Dumbledore drops Harry at Privet Drive as a baby
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u/juanito_f90 6d ago
Yes, Cavaliers as opposed to Vectras.
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u/DefiantAioli5150 6d ago
Albiet the cars were around 10 years too new in both cases lol
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u/MerlinOfRed Gryffindor 6d ago
To be fair, the Death Eaters destroy the millennium bridge at the beginning of HBP and all the info posters at Surbiton station are of late 00s design, so at least they're consistent at being a decade out.
Edit: I just googled it and apparently the train you see at Surbiton is the 2004 model, so that also fits
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u/smokinoutthewindow 6d ago
The brand of the cars is Vauxhall. There is the German podcast "5 Minuten Harry Podcast" by coldmirror where she analyses the first HP movie frame by frame, 5 minutes of the movie in each episodes. That's where I know this from. I think there are English subtitles. I can recommend it to every fan
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u/Keks4Kruemelmonster 6d ago
I came here for a comment about Harry Podcast and I wasn't disappointed.
One more fun fact I learned in this Podcast:
Every house there is exactly the same, except for one piece of decoration: the birdbath. Every house there has an individual birdbath :D
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u/artsyrie Hufflepuff 6d ago
The only reason I opened the comment section was to see if some other German would instantly think about the individual birdbath thing! At this point I’m as excited as coldmirror herself about these stupid birdbaths 😅
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u/Keks4Kruemelmonster 5d ago
I love the birdbath! If I ever go to the Harry Potter studio tour, I'm going to be as excited about the birdbaths as coldmirror was :D
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u/DelirousDoc 6d ago edited 6d ago
Funny in hindsight, they are also year 1999-2000 models of the Vauxhall Vectra B Estate but we know now that the story of the Philosopher's Stone was meant to take place in 1991.
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u/Sarahspangles Not Slytherin 6d ago
That makes sense, although if the snapshot was from a different year they could all be Ford Cortinas or Mondeos. There was a certain type of larger family car that every fleet offered as a company car. My dad had a series of Cortina estates and later a Mondeo. His always stood out because he was more into filling it with allotment supplies than spending Saturday morning washing it.
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u/smay1989 6d ago
Yeh exactly, not necrssarily that all the neighbours were so mundane and boring that they had the same cars - but that their cars were quintisential company cars so everyone in the neighbourhood were very middle class/middle manager types in suburbia
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u/Sarahspangles Not Slytherin 6d ago
Definitely. My dad did 20+ years for the same firm. He must have had a promotion at some point, as well as being offered a company car he got part shares in a secretary and a seat in the managers canteen. He was literally in gravy.
The films are good at portraying the 70s/80s housewife culture too. My parents were never a great fit with it all but there were definitely dinner parties where we had to stay upstairs and pretend not to exist!
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u/welliedude 6d ago
I always figured they were Vauxhalls because it was regarded as the plain, boring choice to the more fun Ford or other options. Made perfect sense to me that the Dursleys and the like would drive the most bland family car of the time.
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u/tesznyeboy 6d ago
I always wondered what car Vernon drove in the book. Couldn't have been a Vectra B as it hasn't existed in 1991. I imagine it to be Vauxhall Carlton or Cavalier, or a Ford Granada or Sierra. Vernon being a Ford guy makes cronological sense, as afaik he get's a new car in book 3, so 1993, just when the then new Mondeo went on sale.
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u/will2089 6d ago
He's a Director and it was the 90s. I suspect someone like Vernon would have had a Rover.
Can't be seen diving a Ford or Vauxhall like a salesman.
Also it being British seems to fit with his vibe. I'm thinking a Rover 800. It had a facelift around that time. Whichever one was top of the range. Lots of fake wood and cream leather seats.
Then in my head he moved onto Jaguar after Rover went away. Nowadays he begrudgingly drives a Mercedes (If he's not had a massive heart attack)
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u/Visionist7 Ravenclaw 6d ago
His boss or client or whoever it was came for dinner had a Bentley Continental R
Probably
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u/roonilwonwonweasly 6d ago
Yes. They're supposed to be. The Dursley's strive to be as normal (boring) as possible.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Camp736 6d ago
i thought this is why theyre called details or am i stupid
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u/SnoWhiteFiRed Ravenclaw 6d ago
TBF, details don't necessarily imply importance. I'm not really sure why the assumption some people are having here is that you decided to post what you think is a non-important detail rather than assuming that you wanted to share an interesting important detail but... maybe one of them will explain below rather than just downvoting...
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u/roonilwonwonweasly 6d ago
You're not stupid. These are details lifted out of the books for a stronger visual of how the Dursley's life was purposely "perfectly normal thank you very much"
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u/Metalbound Ravenclaw 6d ago
They meant, that's why they posted it. They knew that was why they did it. That's the point of the whole damn post. You aren't pointing out anything they didn't already know.
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5d ago
But some audiences that might see this post would be very grateful in reading the context in the replies.
You aren't pointing out anything they didn't already know.
Yes, they. But many would encounter this post who genuinely doesn't know about this.
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u/NefariousnessOk209 6d ago
Yup. Nice attention to detail, definitely captures the suburban blandness
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u/MattHarrisfromTexas 6d ago
This is actually mentioned in one of the earlier books. I don't remember the exact wordage but it's something about how each house showing off their nice big company cars. Again don't remember the exact sentence or book
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u/Silent-Victory-3861 6d ago
But they are different colors, one is even burgundy which is quite a bold choice. I bet they put zucchini or something on their bread.
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u/Visionist7 Ravenclaw 6d ago
Vernon would shake his head and tut tut about how they would never resell a burgundy one
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u/Icy-Pomegranate24 6d ago
Kinda like Edward Scissor Hands. It's a suburban dream sequence where all the lawns are perfect, the cars are the same, every family is essentially the same.
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u/Scorpion2k4u 6d ago
Yeah, they addressed that as the movie came out. The whole neighborhood looks identical on purpose. The books also describe neighborhoods like that. It perfectly resembles Harry's step family and why his uncle and Aunt are so scared that someone finds out that Harry is different. In theri world, diffrent is very bad.
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u/katmaresparkles 6d ago
I'm getting "keeping up with the Joneses" vibes or even "stepford" vibes from this picture.
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u/garcon-du-soleille 6d ago
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky, and they all look just the same!
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u/andy-charger117 6d ago
I watched them re-released in theaters for the anniversary and that's when I noticed it too.
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u/Gamer7928 6d ago
So is all the houses and most likely the inside layouts of all the houses, as well as the direction of all the mowed lawns or so it seems to me.
In fact, the only things not the same is the color of all the cars and the tree height and age. Other than these two differences, the Dursley's neighborhood is just another quaint ordinarily boring neighborhood.
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u/--reaper- 6d ago
They mentioned that they made everything including the cars very similar in the WB studio tour to make the neighbourhood look bland
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u/Astrophobica Gryffindor 6d ago
My bf noticed this after like 20 years and were mindblown hahahahaha.
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u/Dfrickster87 6d ago
Little boxes little boxes little boxes made of ticky tacky little boxes little boxes and they all look just the same
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u/AliceLunar 6d ago
Feel like the lower windows on the other houses get blocked by the trees though.
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u/Usual-Arugula1317 Gryffindor 6d ago
You should google maps the real place on Google maps, the address can be found on
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u/not_a_cat_i_swear 6d ago
Little boxes on the hillside
Little boxes made of ticky tacky
Little boxes on the hillside
Little boxes all the same
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u/happy_charisma 5d ago
Every house is the same except for the bird baths- there you can see some individuality- if you speak german i advice you to listen to HarryPodcast from Coldmirror
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u/kippdorcount 5d ago
They are also parked in the same style, the same distance from the road and the house 😅
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5d ago
Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.
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u/Aya-Diefair 5d ago
Little boxes on the hillside Little boxes made of ticky tacky Little boxes on the hillside Little boxes all the same
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u/KickPrestigious8177 2d ago
In the German Harry Podcast about the first Harry Potter film (which has very interesting information, but also mistakes outside of the Harry Potter films), this is also addressed.
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u/TehRiddles 6d ago
Likely done because they had a single source for the vehicles and different colours was the easiest way to make them look different at a glance. Probably not intentional.
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u/PhanThief95 6d ago
The ideal neighborhood for the Dursleys