The Scale of Things

[grey_wolf_c]

No: HPFGUIDX 43357

"jferer" wrote:
> Grey Wolf, describing Catlady's Multiple Campus Theory:"So, I think 
> it's time to bring back a theory of a fellow listee that adresses 
> this problem quite satisfactorily: Catlady_de_los_Angeles is the 
> author of the theory, which I normally call "Multiple Campus Hogwarts
> As you've probably guessed, the theory says that Hogwarts School of 
>  Witchcraft and Wizardry is divided on a number of campuses and 
> hidden in diverse places all over Britatin. This division makes 
> sense, since a big concentration of magic and wizards at one point 
> always causes trouble, and is easier to hide (say) four small schools 
> than one big one. At this point, people against the theory point out 
> that the place Harry goes to is designated as *the* Hogawarts, but 
> this is no big deal: in my experience, the main campus is always 
> refered to with the name of the whole school, while the other 
> campuses receive lesser names."
> 
> The problem with this theory is there is no, absolutely no, evidence 
> for it whatsoever - quite the contrary.  I don't think it's credible 
> that we would have heard nothing of these campuses before.  JKR has 
> stated that Hogwarts is the only wizarding school in Britain; to 
> stretch that into allowing multiple campuses is just like saying that 
> the University of California [system] is one school.

No, it's like saying that my university, with 6 campuses scattered all 
over the geography of my country, is one school. And you know, it is. 
Each of the campuses runs like an independent entity, with exclusive 
teachers and with it's own library, psicological service and else. Yet 
it is still one and the same school: there is a man (I assume he's a 
man, but I don't know him/her) at the top of it all, and our money is 
paid to the same place. Appart from that, we have no contact between 
the campuses, and we never mention them at all - in fact, it has taken 
me three years to discover that one of the campus is two streets from 
mine. It's simply unimportant whether there are or not, because I'll 
never visit them, or have anything to do with them.

Besides, in this case, the theory is not a case of being mentioned in 
the canon, because I freely admit that there isn't any, but a case of 
eliminating the impossible until only the possible, albeit umprobable 
remains. I like the multiple campuses theory because it works, while 
all other possibilities simply don't.
 
> On the one hand, we're saying here that JKR's own pronouncement that 
> there are 1,000 students at Hogwarts "contradicts canon," largely 
> because JKR hasn't mentioned other students in Harry's year. We're 
> taking that as proof more students can't possibly exist, but we're 
> willing to believe in entire campuses that JKR hasn't seen fit to 
> mention or suggest.

Let's take a closer look at that affirmation. 1000 students means 143 
students per year. We know that, in Harry's year, there are twenty 
students if you add up Gryyfindor and Hufflepuff (by the number of 
ear-thingies in the greenhouse) and another twenty between Gryffindor 
and Slytherin (by the number of brooms in Hooch's flying lesson). Since 
we know there are ten people in Harry's Gryffindor and year (five named 
boys, three named girls and two unamed girls that get a chance against 
the boggart), that means Slytherin and Hufflepuff also have ten. 
Normally, it is assumed that Ravenclaw would have yet another 10 (maybe 
a few more, 15 or maybe 20, doubling in number the other houses of the 
year). By the 1000 figure, we get a Ravenclaw house with 113 students, 
which I think we can safely assume that is not the case. So this 
approach is impossible (or at least, highly unlikely, and in that case 
I would still pick the campuses theory).

There are, of course, other posibilities, mentioning that Harry's year 
is especially low in body count: that year they're 40, but normally 
they would be many more, and the other years are normal. Let's see 
where that takes us: (1000-40)/6 = 160 students/year. Which means that 
there are normally 40 students per house. Again, this seems highly 
unlikely (I can accept maybe a reduction of half the number, and that 
would be hard to believe, but a quarter?).

Finally, someone (a long time ago) mentioned that maybe there were 
multiple groups of students in the same year and the same house. We 
need 100 groups of ten people, so about 14 per year, getting three or 
four different groups in each's year's house. Now, if you find hard to 
believe that Harry hasn't heard of other (distant and lesser) campuses 
of Hogwarts, I hope that you find even harder that there are tw other 
griffyndor groups of his same age that he hasn't ever mentioned. There 
is no need, however: canon refuses this point right off: Snape is the 
only potions teacher. He teaches four hours of class per week to every 
two groups: 50 pairs * 4 hours: 200 hours of class/week (a week only 
has 168 hours). He'd have to use time turners even to sleep, and he'd 
definetely would have no free time to look for Harry as he always seems 
to be doing.

Now, let's take a look at the canon *against* 1000 students at Hogwarts 
(campus). One is teachers: there are 14 teachers that we know of 
(unless there are many like Sybil that don't attend the banquets, which 
I doubt). With the 280 figure, some of them already have trouble to 
teach everyone every week. If you quadruple that number and get 1000 
students in the same place, some of the teachers have to use 
Time-turners constantly just to be able to teach everyone, which is 
even *more* against canon than the campuses theory.

Another thing is the sorting hat: 143 new students to sort, two per 
minute, 70-odd minutes (an hour and ten minutes). Making it faster, 4 
per minute (one every 15 seconds, which is hard to believe), takes 35 
minutes. Yet, in PoA, they manage to do it in a short conversation 
between McGonnagal, Harry and Hermione, which could have taken, max, 15 
minutes.

There are, IIRC, more canon aginst it, too: check the lexicon, the 
essay about the number of students (most of what I've put here comes 
from there, anyway). At any rate, it seems highly unlikely that JKR's 
1000 student figure fits if Hogwarts is all there is to it.

Besides, there is the fact that the few times Harry actually *sees* 
1000 students in the same place are special ocations: quidditch 
matches, balls, etc. Just as if *they came especifically for that*.
 
> Several of us have, using different approaches, extrapolated the 
> 1,000 student figure into a possible 20,000 wizard population for 
> Britian. That's enough, but barely, to support a kind of wizard 
> society. That we each got to approximately the same place in 
> different ways makes the 20,000 figure more credible.

I am not attacking that number! I don't know enough about population 
ratios and minimun number of people for society to work to do anything 
but accept those numbers. I'm only pointing out that, if you want to 
start those calculations in the 1000 figure, you're going to need some 
sort of explanation of how the figure fits canon -because the 1000 
students, right now, fits very poorly.

> JKR is the creator and ruling deity of the Harry Potter Universe. If 
> she says there's 1,000 students, then there's 1,000 students. I think 
> that creates a lot of problems for imagining a viable wizarding 
> society, but there it is.  We have to stretch that 20,000 population, 
> if that's how many wizards there are, to a large bureaucracy (MOM), 
> industry (Everything from Bertie Bott's to Firebolts), arts, 
> literature, entertainment, academia and sports. Everybody must have 
> two jobs or something.  

This is metathinking for all it's worth, and everyone who's been on the 
list for some time knows how I feel about it, but I'm taking a shoot, 
this time: JKR does NOT give the 1000 figure in hard canon: she gave it 
in a chat interview, which is quite lower than that. From canon, the 
best estimate is: 40 people in Harry's year. From what we see in the 
common room, about 10 people in other years, 280 students in total. 
THAT's the canon for number of students, basing ourselves in the only 
figure that repeats itself throughtout the books so far: 10 students 
per house per year. IIRC, someone made the necessary calculations for 
the wizard population from the 280 students, and got about 5000 people, 
and declared that it was not enough to keep the industries running.

> What I know is that I can't explain it all, since I'm not willing to 
> totally make stuff up.  We have to work with what we can find in or 
> reasonablly extrapolate from canon.

And Catlady's theory of multiple campuses is a rasonable extrapolation 
from canon, which in this case means that makes all the numbers fit, 
without stretching too much the possibilities, and basing it in RL 
situation: how schools and Universities break up their students into 
managable numbers by creating different sites all over the place, and 
running them as different institutions under a single head. Of course, 
if you don't want to believe it, it's up to you, you're free to think 
whatever you want (that's basic!). I've been in the list a long time 
now, and it's the best theory so far. Maybe you can come up with a 
better one, in which case this could be a very interesting discusion, 
but the easy way out (it is so because JKR said so, or shortly: 
metathinking) is not good enough for me.

Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf, who'd like to know what he can call "jferer", since this 
screen name is somewhat impersonal.