$580M undersea cable rerouted to avoid the grave of Dobby the House Elf

rrbanffy about 3 hours ago 54 commentsRead Article on tomshardware.com

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gempir•about 2 hours ago

> The National Trust, which owns the land, has previously warned pilgrims not to do so, as the area is ecologically sensitive, but it seems that people still do so.

Ah okay, laying a few stones is ecologically sensitive, but if a billion dollar company wants to dig up the entire beach for a cable, that's not a problem.

throw0101a•10 minutes ago

> Ah okay, laying a few stones is ecologically sensitive, but if a billion dollar company wants to dig up the entire beach for a cable, that's not a problem.

The billion dollar company is monitored by ecologists and other professionals to make sure they build things according to environmental impact laws and follow their permits (e.g., after digging, restoring the top soil, etc).

Randos moving and stacking stones, especially in large numbers, may alter habits for (small) animals and cause erosion:

* https://www.ausableriver.org/blog/leaving-no-trace-rock-stac...

* https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/conservation...

* https://www.nps.gov/articles/rockcairns.htm

wbl•41 minutes ago

Beaches are extremely dynamic environments and can heal in ways that other areas can't.

lukan•24 minutes ago

Still, people laying stones seems way less invasive, then digging it all up. So yes, people will continue to be there and the digging is once, but the impact seems literally deeper.

ceejayoz•about 1 hour ago

Maybe the company has at least made committments to restore it to the way it was after?

bpodgursky•about 2 hours ago

I have literally never heard anyone associated with the environmental movement say:

"This area is ecologically insensitive. I'm not too worried what you do here."

Until they define some map or scale of what "ecologically sensitive" means, I put zero weight on that statement. It's meaningless. They say it about everything because it is their job to do so.

literalAardvark•about 2 hours ago

I'm guessing you also haven't asked. All places are very much not the same degrees of sensitive and important.

cjbgkagh•about 2 hours ago

A common trick in mining is to send surveyors to an area they don’t want so the various interests just so happen to decide that the area being surveyed is the one with historical / ecological significance. After that has been established they send surveyors for the area they do want.

bpodgursky•about 1 hour ago

OK. What are some ecologically unimportant places in England? Somewhere I could throw up a nuclear power plant without anyone raising a fuss.

mhb•about 2 hours ago

There is some skepticism about the veracity of this. Of course, be skeptical of the skepticism.

https://bsky.app/profile/dsquareddigest.bsky.social/post/3ms...

amiga386•about 1 hour ago

What we can say for certain is that the sole source of this claim is the project director for Greenlink, Simon Ludlam, and he made the claim as an anecdote on a podcast this week. The project's public consultations were in 2019.

The anecdote starts at 16m55s: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/can-we-connect-the-wor...

Non-British people might also like to know that the UK news media is in what's called the silly season, where they run any old nonsense as news because Parliament is in recess, the MPs are on their holidays, and there's a dearth of serious announcements to cover: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silly_season

rcxdude•about 1 hour ago

It would not surprise me if it came up at some point in the long and tedious process of public consultations and planning permissions that such projects need to go through (basically anyone can write in to comment/object on such things for any reason), and it stuck in his mind enough to mention it, even if it didn't actually weigh into the decision about where the cable went.

amiga386•43 minutes ago

If anyone wants to read dozens of PDFs, here is Greenlink's planning application for where the cable comes onshore at Freshwater West, including all responses made to the planning committee:

https://planning.agileapplications.co.uk/pcnpa/application-d...

drcongo•about 1 hour ago

The whole story is absolute nonsense.

Lx1oG-AWb6h_ZG0•about 3 hours ago

> The fans’ resistance to having Dobby’s “grave” desecrated seemingly prevented the undersea cable from going through the area. It was instead rerouted in an area that was close to some Bronze Age remains and urns, which, ironically, are associated with human burial.

Swizec•about 2 hours ago

> instead rerouted in an area that was close to some Bronze Age remains and urns

To be fair, in the UK (and much of Europe) bronze age remains are everywhere. But there’s only 1 fictional Dobby grave.

Like farmers will regularly dig up a bronze age thingamabob while plowing a field. For example [1], [2]. There’s a story like this every couple of years.

[1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/12/23/farmer-bronze-ag...

[2] https://allthatsinteresting.com/rhubodach-scotland-bronze-ag...

nkrisc•42 minutes ago

Since it’s a fictional grave, you can build it anywhere you want, as many times as you want.

yehoshuapw•about 2 hours ago

while I do agree with this point, I want to point out that this isn't quite a fair comparison.

every single entity has (normally) a single (real) burial site. Us grouping many unknowns in one group, and comparing to a single specific one is not quite fair...

there is only one burial site of many other fictional characters including some other well known and beloved ones.

dofm•about 1 hour ago

There’s another!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd1l6vm84d0o

Rebelgecko•about 2 hours ago

TBF, human burial sites are a dime a dozen. There's relatively few locations associated with house elf remains.

tgv•about 2 hours ago

None, to be precise.

rcxdude•about 1 hour ago

They didn't say the location contained them, just that it was associated with them, which obviously it is for at least some fraction of the population.

scottLobster•about 2 hours ago

If anyone doubts that popular media has at least somewhat taken the place of religion, here you go

seki285•about 2 hours ago

And made the cable reroute through a Bronze Age burial site too...

rglover•9 minutes ago

We are not serious people.

mellosouls•about 1 hour ago

This is a rehash of the Guardian article (submitted here yesterday with no traction), which should the the link:

Harry Potter fans force relocation of £430m undersea cable to avoid Dobby’s ‘grave’

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/aug/10/harry-po...

wez_official•about 1 hour ago

Dobby dies?! Spoilers!

hollow-moe•about 1 hour ago

I'm so tired of needing technical workarounds because of human stupidity. Exact same thing as the "age declaration" bullshit we see all over. Dig that trench, bury the cable, put the sand back, end of the story. Here in France we use public money to pay "experts" to ensure building wind turbines won't disturb the "natural energy highways" or some other bullshit before delivering the permit, they may even propose alternative locations for the turbine to disturb less the energies, bunch of lunatics.

bestouff•about 1 hour ago

What are you talking about ?

hollow-moe•14 minutes ago

It's difficult to explain shortly and I think it's a very local problem to France, but basically: in some regions, local branches of gov mandates bullshit experts to make sure the new wind turbines won't disturb some imaginary natural energy network. They call it "geobiology".

Krssst•7 minutes ago

For the last point: https://www.franceinfo.fr/environnement/energie/energies-ren... (in French)

The associated pseudoscience has a wikipedia page too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geobiology_(pseudoscience)

dyauspitr•about 1 hour ago

It is predicted that Binface will win by a landfill.

OgsyedIE•about 3 hours ago

The cost of planning the alternative route hasn't been published anywhere yet AFAIK, although it's non-trivial to estimate.

ButlerianJihad•34 minutes ago

https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Dobby's_grave

  Many fans have visited the beach to lay painted rocks, several crosses, and many socks in Dobby’s memorial. However, as the memorabilia has had a negative effect on the environment, the beach asks that visitors just interact with the site by taking photos.[4]

Note: there is currently no indication of this controversy in the article. Anyone who holds an account on Fandom could check through the history and diffs, for any revision since 2019 that would indicate someone tried to add information about the undersea cable or the alleged row.

youngtaff•about 1 hour ago

If you every get the chance, go visit Freshwater West… it's a beautiful part of the world

dist-epoch•about 2 hours ago

Reminds me of this classic article from Michael Lewis:

> Alcoa, the biggest aluminum company in the country, encountered two problems peculiar to Iceland when, in 2004, it set about erecting its giant smelting plant. The first was the so-called "hidden people"-or, to put it more plainly, elves-in whom some large number of Icelanders, steeped long and thoroughly in their rich folkloric culture, sincerely believe. Before Alcoa could build its smelter it had to defer to a government expert to scour the enclosed plant site and certify that no elves were on or under it. It was a delicate corporate situation, an Alcoa spokesman told me, because they had to pay hard cash to declare the site elf-free but, as he put it, "we couldn’t as a company be in a position of acknowledging the existence of hidden people."

https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/2009/4/wall-street-on...

red_admiral•about 1 hour ago

I'm trying the imagine the scenario where the government official reports that elves have been found. On what evidence?

voidUpdate•about 2 hours ago

If it's a legal requirement to have the government check for hidden people before you do building, why do they need to hide the fact they did it? I'm not a Christian but I'm pretty sure I'd still need to deconsecrate a church before knocking it down

Freak_NL•about 2 hours ago

> I'm not a Christian but I'm pretty sure I'd still need to deconsecrate a church before knocking it down

What makes you think that? If you own it, it isn't a listed building, and zoning laws allow it, you can knock it down in most countries. I'm not sure that would be illegal anywhere.

Deconsecration is part of canon law for some religions. Whether you as an individual care about those or not is a personal matter. I doubt that there are many cases where the previous owner forgot to deconsecrate the church when they sold it off.

rcxdude•about 1 hour ago

UK law can be quite intertwined with the church in a lot of cases, so I wouldn't want to confidently say this wouldn't turn up somehow. And churches are also pretty likely to be listed, anyhow. (It could also turn up as part of the planning permission which you do need for demolishing a large structure in the UK)

yjftsjthsd-h•about 1 hour ago

> I'm not a Christian but I'm pretty sure I'd still need to deconsecrate a church before knocking it down

I am a Christian and it would not occur to me that that was a thing. It's just a building.

expedition32•about 1 hour ago

Catholics have a ritual for it I think.

Ofcourse the really old churches are turned into monuments and they come with free dead people under the building. Can't do much with those.

tonyhart7•about 1 hour ago

its undersea right, why would it matter ????

seeing the picture online seems that the grave would not be touched

jp_sc•31 minutes ago

its undersea until it arrives to the land it connects to

DonHopkins•about 2 hours ago

>According to The Guardian, project manager Simon Ludlam pointed out in a BBC interview that the cable would transition underwater at Freshwater West.

Nicely played, Simon. All those international trans-Atlantic fiber optics cables must really rustle JK Rowling's jimmies, yet she still continues to post ignorant bigoted abusive tweets over them.