Why the Malfoys Are This Way, Female Characters, and Sociology

[southernscotland]

No: HPFGUIDX 33455

I have a little theory (please be gentle and use candles instead of 
flames!) about why the Malfoys might not like muggles. They are 
afraid of them (us).

Perhaps the ancestral Malfoys had a relative, or more than one, who 
might have been burned at the stake back in the bad old days (could 
have been here in the U.S.).  

And to get really non-politically correct, it might explain why some 
women in the Potterverse aren't maybe as assertive (yet) as women in 
the muggle world are. Seems to me that since females were often 
the ones persecuted and even put to death, that would be pretty 
fearsome (for the women who were left) to deal with. It might take 
them a few centuries to get over, in a culture. 

I promise I'm not trying to be sexist here (am a female myself).  

I'm sure the fear factor has been hashed out much better than I could 
have put it. Some of it seems to be alluded to in the books, but not 
a lot. I'd love to find the sociological studies in the Archives. 
I've been to the Lexicon. 

Another point I've wondered: why haven't the wizards in the 
Potterverse simply taken over the muggle world, as they easily could 
have? Just because they don't like our world and are afraid of it? 

Instead of retreating, they now could easily run everything in our 
muggle towns and cities, everywhere, with all their powers. I know 
they have laws to prevent it, but why? Why haven't they developed 
into the ruling peoples of the earth?

(I have often thought the same things about Elves and Middle-Earth, 
but that's off-topic.) 

Anyway, maybe the Malfoys have some deep-seated fears, horrible 
stories about muggles persecuting and/or killing their wizard family, 
that they pass on from generation to generation. That would serve to 
keep their hate and fear of us mudbloods alive.     

It's kind of flattering, in a perverse sort of way, to think that the 
Malfoys, and others like them, might fear us more than all the wizard 
world's monsters and fabulous beasts.


lilahp