The Brockdale Bridge was a bridge located in London. It crossed the River Thames; it stood where the Millennium Bridge stands today that had no reference to the Millennium Bridge prior to the film (the books neither mention the Millennium Bridge, because the timeline takes place in 1996, and construction of the ACTUAL bridge began in 1998, finishing in 2000, nor WHERE the Brockdale Bridge actually is. In fact, the book never even mentions the River Thames nor the City of London or any of its Burroughs in connection with the Brockdale Bridge. The bridge could be anywhere, maybe in a fictitious town called Brockdale, or over a fictitious River Brockdale, or anywhere else. Maybe it was originally conceived of as representing the Forth Road Bridge over the estuary of the River Forth (called the Firth of Forth) entering Edingurgh, the hometown of J.K Rowling). In fact, the only thing the book states about its location is, "the best experts were at a loss to explain why it has snapped cleanly in two, sending a dozen cars into the watery depths of the river below" (Chapter 1, page 2, lines 4-5) thus that it was connected to ROADS, not walkways, and spanned A RIVER, not mentioning which. Also it theoretically must be within spray/wind range of a sea or other body of salt water as it is mentioned on page 12 that muggle engineers expected that it was "rusty rigging and corroded expansion joints" that caused the collapse, and only salt can rust a steel structure such as this to create such devastating damage in such a short amout of time (~10 years), and unfortunately, the City of London, located in the Center of Greater London, is several miles away from a body of salt water, and surrounded by many tall structures and hills that would prevent any such salt spray from the North Sea from reaching central London. It was ONLY the movie which gave it this connection, the Millennium Bridge was chosen for destruction even though it happens to be a pedestrian only bridge. If David Yates wanted to be maybe a little more in line with the book, but still place it in London for dramatic effect, he should have picked ANY OTHER BRIDGE spanning the Thames, at least ALL the other bridges either have Auto "Car" traffic, or Train "car" traffic, maybe if he wanted to be dramatic, he could have chosen the Tower Bridge, or maybe Westminster Bridge, or (just go with the old song) the London Bridge (is falling down), or to be more exact (as only a dozen cars fell, thus not too busy of a bridge) take the Southwark Bridge, the least used bridge over the Thames, only a few hundred feet away from the Millennium Bridge. [1] It was built around 1985 and destroyed by Death Eaters in the Summer of 1996.[2]
History
The destruction of the Brockdale Bridge.
In the summer of 1996, Lord Voldemort ordered Cornelius Fudge to step down from his position as Minister for Magic, with the threat of a mass Muggle killing if he did not do so; Fudge refused to step down, and Voldemort had his Death Eaters cause the 10 year old Brockdale Bridge to collapse killing a large number of Muggles who were driving on the bridge at the time. Fudge was replaced by Rufus Scrimgeour soon after.
Notes and references
Appearances
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (First mentioned)
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (film) (First appearance)