Mudbloods (and Marriage), wizard attitudes

[Elizabeth Dalton]

No: HPFGUIDX 30581

Regarding the lack of laws against marriage, a friend has commented to me (based
on my descriptions of the books) that the wizard world seems to be close to an
anarchy. I think he has a point. There's a Ministry of Magic, but they can't
even strictly control who runs Hogwarts. (A board of 12 governors does that. And
how are they selected?) There are "laws" against enchanting Muggle artifacts,
but the laws are routinely flouted (even by those supposedly enforcing them,
e.g. Arthur Weasley). What we seem to see in the books is a society consisting
of a number of competing, struggling factions, and whatever we might expect in
terms of prejudicial laws in the Muggle world may not apply. We really don't
have much to go on, though-- we don't even know how the Minister of Magic is
chosen, much less how laws are passed.

Eric Oppen suggested that many wizards may have a condescending attitude toward
Muggles, even "good" ones like Arthur Weasley. I think that is true of some
(possibly many), but AW strikes me as being not so much prejudiced as
uninformedly fascinated. He knows that Muggles have different ways of doing
things than wizards, hence his fascination with plugs, batteries, and
"ekeltricity", but he doesn't really seem to think these ways are inferior,
inherently. His motivation in his job seems to be genuinely protecting Muggles
from threats they wouldn't recognize or be prepared to defend themselves
against. (I think it's safe to assume that he wouldn't be allowed to distribute
magical safety literature to Muggles at large, despite what I wrote about
anarchy, above.) I find this no more prejudicial than the behavior of people who
write antiviral software, to protect the rest of us from those few with the
skill (and malice) to write viruses. 

He does act a lot like some Americans I know who've never been to another
country and are still amazed by "foreign" practices. But he still expects
Muggles to act like normal "civilized" human beings despite this -- he couldn't
have looked so shocked at the Dursley's treatment of Harry at the beginning of
GoF otherwise. And to me this means he does essentially think of Muggles as
"people," despite their foreigness, not some kind of inferior species. He's
passed this attitude on to the younger Weasleys, as well-- at least so much that
they are able to explain the problem of shrinking keys and the like to Harry,
and sound like they mean it. Even Gred and Forge seem to think tormenting
Muggles is off-limits (except for Dudley, and that's because of Harry).

This doesn't excuse Ron's opinion about giants, IMO. That's a much more clearcut
case of prejudice. And note how quickly even Hermione picked up the prejudice
against Parselmouths.

> It would be interesting if Lord V's downfall came from underestimating
> Muggles, or the talents of a Muggle-born like Hermione, wouldn't it?

It would surprise me if JKR *doesn't* use this plot device. Though I think
Voldemort is ultimately going to self-destruct... probably from "forgetting"
some crucial fact. Must be a side-effect from all those dangerous
transformations he's undergone....

Elizabeth