Character Applied for: Oliver Wood
 
Description of Character's Personality: Oliver is, of course, completely and 
utterly obsessed with Quidditch. It is to the exclusion of anything else - see 
his unawareness of his team-mates falling asleep during his team talk in Chamber 
of Secrets, in addition to his bewildered reaction when Professor McGonagall 
gets 'a bit shirty' with him - and in fact, this is in reaction to his complete 
lack of caring toward his team-mate, with Quidditch being his priority above all 
else. 
 
He doesn't know or care about anything except Quidditch - see Prisoner of 
Azkaban where he's by himself in the Gryffindor common room, playing with 
miniature Quidditch models while around him everyone else does homework. And, of 
course, when talking about Quidditch he gets into his own little world and 
doesn't notice anything else at all: "As Wood launched into a speech about his 
new tactics, Fred Weasley's head drooped right onto Alicia Spinnet's shoulder 
and he began to snore." (HPatCoS, page 83-84 1998 UK edition)
 
Overall, we know Oliver's personality to be extremely Quidditch-obsessive (he 
takes the game far too seriously - after losing to Hufflepuff, Fred Weasley 
comments, "We think he's trying to drown himself.") and competitive (he is 
delighted to be first off the mark in Chamber of Secrets for training; outraged 
when the Slytherins turn up to the following practice). He is borderline-
sociopathic - he genuinely considers Quidditch more important even than his 
team-mates' lives (he 'waves aside' the information that Sirius Black, then a 
convicted murderer, may be after Harry as it's rather more important at the time 
that Harry has been given a Firebolt). 
 
Extrapolating from canon, I have taken him to be rather lonely, although he 
doesn't know it - from canon we see that Oliver has no idea how 'real people' 
operate (his reaction to Harry being rather disgruntled early in the morning in 
Chamber of Secrets), and we never see him interacting with anyone outside his 
team - see the earlier example, in the common room just alone with his figurines 
gives the impression that the rest of Gryffindor rather ignored him. Very 
obsessive and happy about it - he could think of nothing more logical than 
dedicating his life to Quidditch. (See: early in Chamber of Secrets; he has 
spent the whole of summer working on plays and tactic boards). He has an 
extensive, but rather useless, knowledge of Quidditch games and trivia from 
throughout history.
 
Important Backstory, if any: Oliver first made Keeper of the Gryffindor team in 
his second year, though the previous Keeper was only a sixth year. In his fourth 
year, he took over the helm of an extremely young and inexperienced Quidditch 
team including three second years - George and Fred Weasley and Angelina 
Johnson, as well as a Seeker and two Chasers who weren't quite known for their 
competence. Needless to say, they lost the Quidditch Cup that year.
 
In Oliver's fifth year, Harry Potter was put on the team as Seeker, and 
suddenly, Gryffindor, under Oliver's leadership, started to win. Though at the 
end of the year, Harry was in hospital and Gryffindor were steamrolled by 
Ravenclaw; another Quidditch Cup lost.
 
Oliver's sixth year saw the Quidditch Cup being cancelled thanks to the opening 
of the Chamber of Secrets. Finally, though, in his seventh year, he led the team 
to victory despite an early loss against Hufflepuff. This was, quite definitely, 
the highlight of his life to that point. 
 
His first summer out of school, Oliver was signed to the Puddlemere United 
reserve team. He worked at the games of the first-string team to get a small 
income, and lived with his parents still. At the end of the season, he was 
picked to go up into first-grade Quidditch, and has played there since. He's 
generally one of the top four Keepers in the British-Ireland League. 
 
Sample Journal Entry: You know, that last play in today's game from the Appleby 
Seeker reminded me a lot of the things I've read about the first Pride of 
Portree Seeker - or rather, Hunter, let's be correct about these things - to 
capture a Snitch - or, again, I should say a Snidget, in November of 1292. 
Obviously there weren't any omnioculars around then, but the London Quidditch 
Museum has a display up on late 1200s Quidditch at the moment and I spent some 
of yesterday there, reading all the game reports.
 
So the Appleby Seeker pulled off a sort of half-Feint, and pulled a hard left 
when he was halfway to the ground. I swear, anyone watching thought the Snitch 
had made a sudden quick, sharp movement. He was just that good at feinting. In 
fact, he was so good, that even our Seeker believed him and completely missed 
the Snitch when it was hovering just above his right shoulder. 
 
Appleby's Seeker had planned this all along, because while our bloke was diving, 
trying to follow his path and get the Snitch, the fellow for Appleby doubled 
back and captured the Snitch. Absolutely fantastic play for him, even if it 
meant we didn't get the Snitch - at the time, we were twenty-one goals ahead, so 
it just matters for our Snitch differential which is pretty good as it is. Our 
guy ended up distracted by the Snitch capture and ploughed into the ground, had 
to be taken to St Mungo's but the game was over so it didn't exactly matter. 
 
Glad we won, and it was definitely all worth it to get to see that play.