Royal Family only for muggles?/ Spelling spells

[heiditandy]

No: HPFGUIDX 40860



I wrote: 
> > 
> > The book [QTTA] more-than-implies that until the 1600's wizards 
and 
> muggles interacted with some regularity. The split certainly post-
> dates the time of Merlin and King Arthur's reign, which actually 
also 
> predate the founding of Hogwarts, and iirc, comes not long after 
the 
> ascent of the Stewarts and the end of the Tudors.
> > 
> > It's clear, though, that the split between muggle and wizard 
> culture does not go back more than 500 years
> > (more next)
> > 

Then davewitley wrote:
> OK, there are two questions here.  First, the royal family.  It 
seems 
> pretty clear that the wizarding world is politically fairly 
closely 
> aligned with the Muggle one.  

I'm not sure I would say "closely" but there definitely is an 
alliance and information sharing. I wonder if it's closer to the way 
the US and USSR shared information back during the cold war (i.e. 
not very happily) or the way the US and UK share information these 
days (am in mind now of how Tony Blair was given the task of 
publicizing the evidence tying Bin Laden to the 9/11 attacks). But 
that's my idle curiousity and further discussion might be better on 
OT-Chatter.

> The split between Muggle and Magical worlds is 
> therefore not complete even at the time of the books.

Well, there is clearly synergy between the two, but there seems to 
be a pretty solid split among kids who grow up in wizarding 
households and kids who grow up in Muggle households. And like 
others have wondered these past few days (and years!) - does a witch 
or wizard have more contact with the magical world than with their 
families? These kinds of things, like weddings for Muggle-borns, or 
even childbirth and education (especially university level 
schooling) have been explored in many fanfics, including Trouble in 
Paradise (AngieJ) and Lori's Paradigm of Uncertainty. 

> Second, the history of the split.  I remain to be convinced that 
QTTA 
> supports the notion of an early integrated world followed by a 
> sharply split one, even assuming the split was not sudden.  


I do agree. I have my own doubts that the magical and Muggle worlds 
have been integrated much over the last thousand years as a general 
rule, but it's true that in QTTA, there was a discussion of why 
brooms were the transportation of choice in Olden Days, and the book 
noted that it was so that witches and wizards wouldn't have 
obviously magical devices hovering around when a Muggle came to 
borrow a cup of mead. In contrast, I think it's unlikely that the 
Weasleys worry about the nearest Muggle dropping in for some sugar. 


> --- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Lucy Austin" <lucy at l...> wrote:
> >...edit... The counter to the Stunning Curse 'Stupefy', is the 
word
> 'Enervate' to bring the victim back round. 
> ... edit .....
> ... the English word 'enervated' ..., means to deprive of vigour 
and
> vitality. ... it should create an even deeper Stun, rather than 
waking
> them up? 

B_boy wrote: 

> Just a guess but maybe it is depriving the SPELL of vigour and
> vitaltity, rather than depriving the victim.

That certainly works if you want to presume that she used the word 
simply for that purpose. However, if you consider that she possibly 
chose that word BOTH for the reason B_boy posted above and because 
the word sounds like a combination of "energize" and "invigorate", 
rather than simply for the dictionary definition of one word alone, 
that is equally likely to be accurate.

I mean, simply put, *she is making up the language*. These are words 
that *she* is using to mean different things. She gets to make the 
rules and the definitions. Are we now going to start concluding that 
because the word "muggle" has, in times past, meant marijuana, that 
JKR was using it improperly in the HP books, or are we to believe 
her when she says that she coined it by extending the word "mug", 
which in the UK means "fool"?


heidi