Harry Potter fans' protest reroutes UK power cable from Dobby's 'grave'

A massive undersea power cable project in Wales has been rerouted after a passionate outcry from fans of the Harry Potter films. The Greenlink project, a 430 million pound (approximately 823 billion won) initiative by British energy firm National Grid to connect the UK and Ireland, initially planned to run its route through Freshwater West beach in Pembrokeshire.

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We've had literally hundreds of phone calls.

This beach is famously the filming location for the scene where Harry Potter buries the house-elf Dobby, a beloved character who dies after helping Harry. Although the movie set was removed, fans created a memorial for Dobby by stacking stones inscribed with messages like 'Here lies liberated elf Dobby' and 'Rest in peace, Dobby.'

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Who's Dobby?

News of the power cable's potential path through the Dobby memorial sparked a wave of protests. Project manager Simon Ludlam reported receiving hundreds of phone calls. He admitted to initially being unfamiliar with Dobby, asking a colleague, "Who's Dobby?" upon hearing the memorial was directly in the cable's path. His colleague emphasized, "No, it's a really, really important issue."

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No, it's a really, really important issue.

Ultimately, National Grid redesigned the route to bypass the Dobby memorial. Ludlam noted that while the new path is closer to actual Bronze Age ruins, the Dobby memorial was successfully avoided, much to the satisfaction of many. The National Trust, which owns the beach, also agreed in 2022 to preserve the Dobby memorial. However, they have requested fans refrain from leaving items like socks, which are associated with Dobby's liberation in the books, to protect the local ecosystem.

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The rerouted path has come quite close to actual Bronze Age remains, but we have avoided Dobby's grave. A lot of people are happy.