beatitudes, timeturner, Wizard Government

[Elizabeth Dalton]

No: HPFGUIDX 31064

Eileen did a great job on the Beatitudes. I especially like the comments about
Dumbeldore being a peacemaker. I think Hermione may have been persecuted for
righteousness' sake-- from her treatment of Rita Skeeter, to her campaign for
the house elves, she's probably the most obviously "righteous", and it does seem
to cause her grief.

Regarding the timeturner (I'm still digging through the second digest of the
day), most of the other times when we'd like to see someone use a timeturner,
it's too late. Evidently magic operates on a Heisenburg-like principle: as long
as nobody saw what happened, you can go meddle with time, but not if there's an
observer who can say you didn't. There are too many witnesses who know about
James' & Lily's death by the time Dumbledore could send a hit squad back to stop
Voldemort. Harry saw himself the first time around, so it's ok that he is seen
by himself the second time.

BTW, I believe Crookshanks is another being who sees Harry on the second pass
through time.

Susanna/pigwidgeon37 posted extensively on the shortcomings of Wizard
government. Thanks, Susanna. I wrote earlier that it was an anarchy, but your
description is much more accurate: a dictatorship. I'd like to see this get
improved as one of the outcomes of the events coming up. And I have to wonder if
Rowling consciously wrote it this way, or just over-simplified because she
didn't want to have to go into detail about the governmental structure. I'm
hoping for the former. (Either way, I wonder how this angle gets translated in
languages like Chinese? I know the first three books are fully translated, at
this point, and maybe even GoF by now. Has this political criticism been missed
by the PRC government, or have the books been censored? What about in Russia, or
any of a variety of Latin American or African countries? I assume the books have
been translated into Arabic-- are they widely available in many Middle-Eastern
countries?)

Elizabeth