Lego 76434: Aragog in the Forbidden Forest

195 pieces. Took me maybe 15 minutes to build? I haven't played with Legos in 15 years or more. By the end of it, my fingertips were sore, a familiar Lego feeling.

I had some compunctions about buying this, because I don't want to support Harry Potter or Joanne in any way. I asked the Lego store people for the biggest spider they had, and this was it. I'm not sold on my decision either way; I knew I would regret it, if I bought it or if I didn't. But this way I also get the fun of the thing.

My partner has been in India for the last month, so I plan to surprise her by hiding the spider in a corner. Hopefully she's see it and freak out.

On to the set.

Lego has become much slicker in the past 15 years. For instance, now they have the pieces divided in separate numbered bags, and they tell you which one to open when. This is a great improvement from an organizational standpoint. In my youth I would just dump all the pieces on the floor and hunt around until I found the right one.

Numbered bags

There's a little Harry Potter on the bottom of the instruction booklet, walking from left to right, showing your progress through the build.

Harry progress meter

As expected, the instructions are clear and wordless. Sometimes I had trouble identifying the part shown, but I could always figure it out within 10 seconds.

You get two figures, Harry and Ron (ugh). The figures are bog-standard Lego guys. No need to iterate on perfection.

Harry figurine. His head rotates to show an unhappy expression too

Amazingly, you also get spare parts. I was really grateful for that, because I immediately lost Ron's wand. I don't think my old Lego sets had spare parts, and I actually hunted around a bit, in case I had missed an instruction, when I realized I had extra.

Spares. Not all the choices make sense, but spare wands is a great call

As a child, I usually followed the instructions unless I had a sharp desire to make my own thing. I particularly enjoyed seeing how bizarre abstract objects turned into real entities. For instance, who knows what this thing is?

An abstract object

Well, turns out it's still nonsense when you've finished building it. Just filler to bump up the parts count I guess.

A mound? Or something

There are a lot of bespoke parts here, which surprised me. As a child I had enjoyed seeing how interchangeable parts built up something unique. Now there are a lot of unique parts.

Parts manifest. Some really wacky stuff here

Anyway, here's Harry, Ron (ugh!), and the "mound" with spiders on it:

Ron is unbalanced holding the lantern. It has to be set on the ground or he tips over.

It's not great. There's very little opportunity for dynamic play. You might as well have given me Harry, Ron (ugh!), and some little spider guys.

Luckily, we're not here for Harry, Ron (ugh!), the little spider guys, or the mound. We're here for the big boy, Aragog. And he doesn't disappoint.

He's big. His joins are segmented and movable. He's balanced properly so he actually stands on his legs. He has movable mandibles and pedipalps. His abdomen and his cephalothorax can wiggle independently. A+ spider, no complaints.

My spider hiding spot

I'm hiding it in a corner of the living room near an under-used bookcase. If she glances to the side while walking to the couch, she'll see it in her periphery. I'll let you know how it goes.