[HPforGrownups] Dumbledor/government/population size (was Snape's Hate)

[Morag Traynor]

No: HPFGUIDX 17045

Amanda wrote:

>Morag Traynor wrote:
>
> > Harry does suspect that Dumbledore has stepped in to prevent Snape
> > from actually failing him (presumably unjustly), so he does draw the
> > line somewhere.  Having said that, I'm not surprised D gets daily owls
> > complaining about his methods.  Neither Snape nor Trelawney could keep
> > a job in a real school,
>
>You mean a Muggle school. We have a good bit more bureaucracy than the
>wizarding world yet enjoys. And I still think "life studies," i.e, how
>to deal with the realities of life, is a better way to educate children
>than insulating them from those realities and teaching them only ideals.
>They need both.

Yeah, OK, a Muggle school! :)  I think reality pretty much gets thrown in, 
whatever the ethos of the school.  I'm not taking the whole thing *too* 
seriously, and I adore Dumbledore (now there's a bumper sticker!) but, if I 
were a Hogwarts parent, I might think he was the tiniest bit too "hands 
off".  As a reader, I think he's just right.
>
> > and now a student has actually died under his care.
>
>No, a student has died in the Triwizard Tournament, as a result of a
>totally unforeseen attack by the most powerful Dark wizard in many
>years. The tournament is, in large part, outside the normal functioning
>of Hogwarts as a school.

Well, I was kind of expecting this point to be made *bg*, but, having 
unwittingly employed Crouch jr, he must take some responsibility.  There's a 
difference between holding someone responsible and blaming them.  Perhaps 
the MoM should have taken security more seriously and given him some back up 
(not that I'd expect them to be very useful!).
>
> >  But then, wizard government seems to be rather haphazard at best, and
> > wizards (including D) seem to take rather a robust view of life.
> > Given Fluffy, the giant squid and Aragog, Snape is not the worst that
> > Hogwarts students have
> > to deal with :)
>
>Except for poor Neville.  <g> And I don't think wizard government is
>haphazard, so much that it is still a small enough population to be
>effective on a more informal level. It is not yet to the size where,
>simply to function, individuals *need* to be numbers or otherwise
>impersonalized; there's still room for personality.
>
>--Amanda, former state government employee
Ah, you know whereof you speak *bg*!
Excellent point.  I think that's the charm of it.  Interesting you say it's 
not *yet* to that size - my impression is the wizarding community is either 
static or declining.  Doesn't Ron say wizards would have died out if they 
hadn't married Muggles?  And the fact that they seem to be in widely 
scattered enclaves (Knockturn Alley in London, Hogsmeade in Scotland, the 
Weasleys have no very near wizarding neighbours etc) gives me the impression 
they are fewer now than they once were.

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