I’ve been caught up with Tears of the Kingdom, so this is coming in late. But it’s just a temporary thing honestly. It’s part that and partly because today’s set, 30420 Harry Potter and Hedwig: Owl Delivery, sucks, and its hard to write about sucky things. Technically speaking, this was supposed to be yesterday’s set, for Thursday May 25th.

I really like the concept. The owl delivery was a great scene where Hedwig delivers a gift, the Nimbus 2000, from a mystery gift-giver to help Harry get an edge in Quidditch. And what you build is pretty representative of that scene but there are several factors that really make this set blow.

LOOSE THINGS. God I just love having loose things. Things like minifigs that have no place to anchor to. You’d think the bench seating for the table would have some studs for Harry to “sit”. Sit is in quotes because he’s using the short legs and thus can’t really sit but still. That 1×8 tile should have been a plate instead.

You can improvise and just have Harry stand on the table. Yeah, that’s not bad table manners or anything. Thankfully, the food on the table is anchored down.

Hedwig on the otherhand while functional in the sense it is doing exactly what it should be doing, only does what it should be doing while holding it in your hand. There are no stands made from transparent elements, no anchor or perch for Hedwig to land on. So you literally have to hold it in your hand to recreate what you see in the bag. Now, my ranting on this point may seem stupid since it is a toy and toys are meant to be held, but I’d argue that it is still dumb. It would only work if Hedwig holding the broomstick was exactly half of what you wanted to play with during any playtime leaving your other hand free to play with anything else. But if you wanted to do something else and had to put Hedwig down, where do you put it?

Here. This is where you put it, right here. Slide the broomstick handle between the two goblets, with Hedwig on one side and the broom head on the other. It’s not as secure as having it clipped to something or anchored to a stud or something, but it is secure enough that should you want to move the table Hedwig won’t go flying around. It’s only Harry you’d have to worry about. Unless you have him standing on the table as well:

And this is NOT what the scene was all about.

Does It Suck or Does It Rock?

This thing sucks. It could have been been completely turned around if the bench seating was made with a plate so Harry could actually be sitting on the table and if there was just some clip or something for Hedwig to perch on while still holding on to the Numbus 2000. Otherwise this thing is just dumb.

Sponsorship

There’s no sponsor this week, and with sponsorships lasting a whole week, you can get plenty of exposure for mere pennies. Pennies I say! Want to sponsor a review? Send me a message to admin@fbtb.net or hit me up on discord of the polybag set you have that you want me to review. If selected, in exchange for the set you’ll get a mention right here in the review post and a link to your website or social media account or just about anything else.. Nearly free advertising, so what’s stopping you?

You Can Win This And Every Other Polybag I Review This Year

I’ll be raffling every polybag I review this year in one big lot, all 260 sets (with the possibility of more). Each set will be individually stored in a ziploc baggie complete with the extra pieces, instructions, and the actual polybag bag it came in. The cost of a raffle ticket is just $1 USD and you can enter as many times as you want. Send a PayPal payment to paypal@fbtb.net for $1 USD for every ticket you want to purchase. DO NOT send one payment for multiple entries i.e. do not send one $5 USD payment for five tickets; five $1 USD payments must be made instead. Raffle is open to everyone in the world except where raffles are illegal. Be sure to put “POLYBAG RAFFLE” in the notes section of the payment in order to be entered successfully. Winner will be drawn sometime sometime in the second half of 2023 and contacted at the PayPal email address the payment was sent from to arrange for delivery. For a running list of all the sets that you can win, check this Google spreadsheet.