Question about Harry Potter.

[conuly]

What are the wizards so afraid of?

They've got law after law to keep them from being discovered, but why? What are they scared will happen? They make a point of teaching that muggle attempts to kill witches fail because muggles can't recognize witches (and anyway, witches and wizards can't be killed by muggles), so they're in no danger. Hagrid's idea that "well, then everybody would want magical solutions to their problems" doesn't ring quite true. So what if everybody wants a magical solution to their problems? Shouldn't it be up to the individual witch or wizard to decide if they're going to sell it? And if you don't want to give magical solutions to your problems, okay. Don't. End of problem. In fact, a substantial number of muggles already know about the wizarding world, it doesn't seem to have caused any real problems.

I don't see how the muggle world is a threat to the wizarding world, but because of this fear we've got: you can be arrested for using magic where a muggle can see, or if you're underage (I think this almost *must* be related, and I have a separate rant about this as well). There's a non-insignificant market of charmed muggle objects, this would probably be smaller if muggles knew enough to be wary. And there's an entire department or two of the government devoted to keeping people hidden.

Remember McGonagall's words in PS/SS? About how "it'd be a fine thing if the muggles found us", something like that? Well, what if they did find out about wizards and witches? What would happen?

The first, most obvious thing is that a lot of people would lose their jobs. Not only had they failed miserably at hiding the wizarding world, but it's all a moot point now anyway.

Secondly, muggle science needs some dramatic rewrites.

Third, society changes drastically.

Okay. I can see how this would be a problem, but where's the inherant harm in any of this? A little upheaval, and then we're all back to normal, business as usual.

Comments

[teratologist.livejournal.com]

There's also the small but real possibility that the textbooks are about as accurate and evenhanded as the American History textbooks approved in Texas - i.e., the muggles actually had some success in killing wizards and witches, but it is not Wizarding Politically Correct to admit this to the kiddies nowadays (either because it will make them afraid of and therefore hostile towards muggles, or because it will cause them to think of their ancestors as weak), so they slant the narrative in the textbook to focus on a few relatively anomalous survivors.

Don't mind me, I'm just wandering through, but the conversation intrigues me.

[conuly]

I definitely believe in the "biased textbooks" theory, though that's usually not how I see the bias.