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Maybe it was simply a production issue in terms of quantity, so Lego decided to delay release. Annoying to see that Stan doesn't have his ticket machine printed on his torso so the minifigure seems like another downgrade from the previous version. I don't get why they'd do that when it would cost no more than accurately representing his torso.

Yes so would I to be honest, but I'm guessing they will go for something that expands, and therefore promotes, the new flagship castle line.

If we do get an advent this year, then I'm thinking they might circle back around to the Yule Ball again as this would be something they could market as interchangeable with The Great Hall. Or if The Main Tower does have the Gryffindor Common Room in, then maybe they might do some figures relevant to a Christmas scene there.

Oh don't tell me this is how we get SM-33. Guessing it will probably be BB-8, but it could be an IG I suppose or maybe a simple battle droid. A Magna Guard would fit with the current Clone Wars obsession, but I mean these things apparently sell so well, they might just get lazy and give us a good old gonk.

It's even more disturbing that they include the dalmatian puppy in the set together with Cruella and that spotted dress ... I mean, the puppy's fate is literally screaming out in black and white dots. If you look at the way the Cruella minidoll is posed in the front box art as well, they couldn't do more to emphasize the fact. Never ever can the excuse be that Lego doesn't include something in a set because it's 'too dark'!

It's the existing Friends dalmatian puppy piece.

I'm sure it will come down a bit at some point on Amazon which is more than I guess will happen for Lego unless it does come down in one of their random sales, but they are so unpredictable. I'd say for this year it will be the only Castle module exclusive, but over the entire life of this new castle line perhaps not. That being said, Lego seems to have a thing for making castle flying lesson modules exclusives.

In the UK it seems to be a Lego and Amazon thing at the moment.

He has a Beater's bat because this is the scene in the movie where Wood takes Harry out onto a lawn at Hogwarts and shows him the different Quidditch balls. Before releasing a Bludger, Wood hands Harry a Beater's bat and when the Bludger comes racing towards them, Harry hits it and manages to make it fly straight through the middle of a statue's crossed swords. In this scene, Harry doesn't have a broomstick. So the polybag is accurate to the movie depiction, apart from the fact that the statue should be high on a castle parapet and Harry should be wearing a blue jumper and not a black one that is exactly the same as Wood's.

Wood's jumper = the new Gryffindor Quidditch torso

The playscale Hogwarts Express was on the 2024 EOL list, but it has been extended to end of 2025 from what I've read. The Flying Ford Anglia was also down on the 2024 EOL list when it came out, but has also supposedly been extended to 2027, which makes a lot more sense to me considering it pairs so well with the D2C Burrow and is just a great little cheap set for kids to pick up regardless. The last sets of the previous Hogwarts Castle line are no surprise. From comments I've seen in various places, having different modular castle systems on shelves at the same time does cause consumer confusion, so a fresh start there really is needed. I can also understand Expecto Patronum and the Quidditch Trunk. Expecto Patronum was always on sale and the Quidditch Trunk was also an overpriced gimmick. I don't know if either have sold particularly well. It's a shame about the D2C Hogwarts Express because it's a beautiful set, just so hard to display with length, which probably put off a lot of buyers. WWW and the The Black Lake are a bit more puzzling. I would have expected WWW to stay around for another year to allow people to get caught up in creating a new modular Diagon Alley as there would have been three sets on shelves by this summer, but alas it would seem not. Same with The Black Lake, as the Durmstrang Ship and Beauxbatons Carriage set is currently set to retire at the end of next year and the two sets pair very well, not to mention I think The Black Lake was well received. As for the Forbidden Forest set, I wonder if it was just a way of them getting rid of surplus Buckbeak and baby thestral stock with an easy set? Duplicated minifigures, but a creature battlepack probably made an easy design and easy sell. True discontinuing breaks up a forest module line as it doesn't look like there will be any more forest sets this summer, but it screamed filler set from the start considering the ages of Hermione and Ron didn't match the creatures. The 'forest' in the Aragog set is also so negligible as to be insignificant so that set can just sell on the basis of the spider. It is true though that there doesn't seem to be much stickability with the HP theme considering how many times we've changed castles, and now the DA modules not sticking around for long.

I think it all depends on how long this Hogwarts line continues on for. Harry Potter has far less locations and continually expanding content than other perennial themes like Star Wars to draw from, so inevitably at some point most of the movies' scenes will have been covered. That being said, Lego could keep remaking the same locations and sets every few years and each time hit the next lot of kids who are interested in Harry Potter and were too young to appreciate or buy those sets even a couple of years before. The only trouble with that is that adults too are clearly purchasing a lot of the Harry Potter Lego and whilst each wave might capture new adults into the market, there are also a lot of us who have been interested in this theme for years and won't keep buying remakes. I collected the first castle line for instance, then the second, but am now only purchasing the minifigures from the new line. As detailed or interesting as it might be I have hit a fatigue when it comes to Hogwarts castle sets and can't bring myself to collect another line, even though I no longer have the first two lots of castle waves. So I suppose it will all depend on how popular both Harry Potter and Lego content remains and whether it is viable for Lego to keep producing sets. Like you, I think the compromises and cost cutting in sets in this line has become glaringly obvious if you've been interested in the theme for even a little while. To get a minifigure like McGonagall in the Boathouse set in one wave, means that another minifigure like Filch in the Owlery gets a downgrade and loses his printed legs. Again, there are quite a few minifigures in the new Malfoy Manor set, but Draco is literally a rehash of old and reused parts rather than the more specialised face and torso provided in the Room of Requirement set. When you know a minifigure can be done better then there is literally only cost to account for the lack of printing or downgrade in parts. Those standards though are not the designers' faults and I think the quality of sets in general has remained pretty consistent with some sets definitely improving when remade. This year's Ford Anglia and Aragog for instance were notable improvements for me and I will be interested to see how next year's Privet Drive turns out. As far as I know, the Bloody Baron as a minifigure is just pure speculation based on the fact that Lego has now given us not only the ghosts with dialogue in the movies with Nearly Headless Nick and the Grey Lady, but they also have now made the Fat Friar. Completing the house ghosts therefore doesn't seem that improbable or as potentially distant as it did when the line was first restarted and there was a plethora of characters more likely to be produced. Does Lego follow our logic when it comes to what they produce though? Often not. We've had Crookshanks twice now, first as Hermione's accessory in the first Harry Potter CMF series and then as a brighter orange cat included in the Grimmauld place set. That being said, I wouldn't mind a remake using the new CMF cat mold so we have a fluffier Crookshanks. The new wolf mold looked perfect for the Grim though to me, but Lego is still using the skinny smooth thing for the Grim in the Night Bus, so if Crookshanks does appear again at all it will probably still be the basic cat mold. I think Lego has committed to Luna and Lucius having bright yellow hair so I can't see that changing, but I would like there to be more variation in the child faces used for all the various students. No matter what the skin tone they are all smiling serenely or comically sad clones.

The mods make the year threads and a mod said recently on the Star Wars forum that they've changed the concept of yearly threads to being that they start at the beginning of each year rather than the next year's thread gets opened and you have to discuss the sets from that year in that thread. So 2025's HP thread should theoretically be opened at the beginning of January.

I'm going to go with your first option as I find it unlikely that they would go to the trouble of producing the supposedly most detailed Hogwarts ever and yet cobble together some random tower that fits nowhere. I can understand the owlery as it's a separate structure in the source material, but I'm guessing it's more likely the Flying Lesson is meant to be used in connection with another yet unreleased set. I really hope so at least or it would show very little forethought and care and I think the designers know there are a lot of Lego HP fans that have been following the brand through the past two castle iterations and are looking for something more cohesive.

Maybe we won't get a D2C this year as the Main Tower is basically straying into that territory in terms of price and we still have five D2Cs on shelves after this year: Hogwarts Icons, Diagon Alley, Hogwarts Castle, Gringotts and The Burrow. The first two will supposedly retire at the end of next year and then the last three supposedly not until the end of 2026. Only the Hogwarts Express is set to retire this year, so the shelves are pretty saturated right now. I'd personally be totally okay with them skipping the D2C this year, but I do hope there will be an Advent Calendar as they can be a great cheap-ish way to provide character variants.