Holiday gift guide: $25-$50
Posted by Huw,
Today's recommendations in the $25-50 price range come from Zander and JuneThird, who writes about a Marvel set after the break.
Any Harry Potter fan would be delighted to receive 75967 Forbidden Forest: Umbridge's Encounter.
It comes with minifigures of two protagonists, Harry Potter and Hermione Granger, the baddy Professor Dolores Umbridge, two centaurs and a brick-built innocent Grawp the giant. It also has parts for a tree with a secret compartment. Everything is included in this set to recreate the scene from the film or book in which Dolores gets her just desserts!
Grawp, the centaurs and the versions of Hermione and Dolores are unique to this set so will appeal to completist adults.
The Grawp brick-built giant is well articulated for its size and has hands that can grip both minifigures such as Dolores and accessories, providing lots of roleplay opportunities for kids (8+). At 5” (13 cm) tall, it is also big enough to impress.
The set comes with plenty of accessories to keep kids busy: wands for each of the wizards, bows and quivers of arrows for the centaurs, a bicycle handle and bell for Grawp, and a lantern and chicken leg.
For those who aren’t into Harry Potter but interested in the fantasy genre more broadly, this set still has much to offer. Few LEGO sets contain giants or centaurs and none do in the natural colours included here.
76143 Avengers Truck Take-down is a good holiday gift for any marvel fan young or old. For KFOLs it has some pretty cool functions, like the fact that you can pop open the roof and pull up the machine gun or you can put weapons in the robotic arms to help in the fight. Unfortunately the roof easily falls open during play.
For army builders you get two AIM agents with unique weapons and armour. For collectors, Captain America and Hawkeye are unique to this set in 2020.
For AFOLs it would be good display piece by itself or in a fight scene. Overall Marvel fans and KFOLs would enjoy it while AFOLs might like the characters.
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8 comments on this article
I always thought this Harry Potter scene was a bit odd. Aren’t centaurs known for being rather sexually aggressive? They just carry Umbridge away into the woods, never to be seen again..? Yikes.. amirite? I do like the giants belly button jumper plate though!
@Royweeezy said:
"I always thought this Harry Potter scene was a bit odd. Aren’t centaurs known for being rather sexually aggressive? They just carry Umbridge away into the woods, never to be seen again..? Yikes.. amirite? I do like the giants belly button jumper plate though!"
The kids are likely too young to think of those implications. Pretty sure the scene here could easily just be portrayed as them going into the woods on a field trip and getting into some hijinks, sorta like the sets with the spiders.
There are no sexual implications in the centaur scene in the book or the movie, so whatever connotations you have for centaurs in general do not apply here, and doesn't make the set unsuitable in any way.
My seven year old cousin absolutely loves the Avengers truck, so it must’ve done its job well.
I don't collect Harry Potter, but I definitely want the Forbidden Forest set. So Zander's last comment is spot on.
@J0rgen said: "There are no sexual implications in the centaur scene in the book or the movie..."
Except for there being actual centaurs there.
I love having centaur minifigs, but it was still a really odd choice for a Lego scene to depict.
@Royweeezy said:
"I always thought this Harry Potter scene was a bit odd. Aren’t centaurs known for being rather sexually aggressive? They just carry Umbridge away into the woods, never to be seen again..? Yikes.. amirite? I do like the giants belly button jumper plate though!"
I mean Umbridge does show up again (at least in the films) in Deathly Hallows working for Voldemort's ministry... but yes if you follow mythological tradition the implication is still there.
With that said, Harry Potter in general is kind of a sanitized and re-imagined take of many of its source myths, so its likely the centaurs were far more tame in that regard than their original stories were. If it were say a grittier fantasy world such as The Dresden Files I'd agree the implication was not an accident, but in the case of Potter it probably was not intended.
Amazon currently has this set for $24 USD. I bought 3! :D