Harry Potter: 10 Unnerving Facts That Make No Sense About Azkaban, The Legendary Prison

The prison had us all scared when we first watched the movie or read the books. It sounded and looked terrifying, especially in Harry Potter And The Prisoner of Azkaban. The thought of the kind of torture Sirius Black must have gone through was a tough one. Before seeing it on the big screens, the books were no different in painting a horrifying image of a dark, isolated prison with Dementors all around. However, looking back on the movies and stories, we realize that it is not the most logically conceptualized prison and has some loopholes. Here are Harry Potter: 10 unnerving facts that make no sense about Azkaban.

1. For every type of crime, we have seen the criminal to be sent to Azkaban. Even if the crimes are petty and quite forgivable, the prisoner has to suffer harsh punishment.

2. The Dementors could not leave initially until the Ministry of Magic spotted them. And they are employed by the Ministry as guards purely out of fear of their retaliation. However, that still leaves us wondering if Azkaban was destroyed, they would retaliate, so why didn’t they leave sooner?

3. In the book’s fifth chapter, the prisoners of the Azkaban ate the food which Dementors brought them. However, the mystery still remains how the food was prepared and the evil beings, who obeyed no one, delivered the food to them. 

4. In the third movie, Sirius Black breaks out of prison after 12 years. While escaping, he uses his animagus form. If that was how he had planned, why did he wait for 12 years? The reason portrayed in the books and the movies- Peter Pettigrew’s picture in the newspaper- is not convincing enough.

5. There are a lot of issues with the Azkaban’s size and location. Neither the movies nor the books give us an accurate description of how big the place is. The only reference image we have is its image on the book’s cover page, and it looks pretty small. If such is the case, how are all the prisoners supposed to fit?

6. House Elves are powerful yet nasty. Some of them, like Dobby, are on the good side, but what about the evil ones? If they were put in Azkaban, it would have been effortless for them to break free from there.

7. We saw in the books and the movies how scared Harry was about being sent to Azkaban after performing underage magic. Someone like Tom Riddle, a mass murderer, maybe would receive something more than expulsion.

8. Dementors were too scary and didn’t quite seem like someone you could trust, definitely not with prisoners. Although it is mentioned in the books that wizards have a way of communicating with them, they are still evil, which makes them not trustworthy.

9. Since it wasn’t very hard for Sirius to escape Azkaban, it seems like the place cannot contain powerful wizards, like Voldemort perhaps.

10. The Ministry of Magic realizes after the Second Wizarding War that Dementors are, in fact, very dangerous and probably not the best choice as “guards.” They then make them go away after facing the worst.

These were Harry Potter: 10 unnerving facts about Azkaban that makes no sense. What do you think of these? Let us know!