Why are *all* Muggles so tolerant of their wizard chi...

[jodel at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 47372

Short answer; They're not. We only see or hear about the ones who are.

I'm one of the people who is convinced that the Hogwarts letter gets hand 
delivered to Muggle-born students by a Ministry employee whose job it is is 
to explain and demonstrate that their kid has a rare talent which should be 
trained. 

If they agree, this person also sets up an appointment to take the family to 
Diagon Alley and shows the child how to let them in. Gets a wand and 
continues as "native guide" through the first purchase of school supplies.

I they do NOT agree, s/he obliviates all knowledge of the letter and the 
visit from everyone in the family, and passes their name and address on to 
the Accidental Magic Reversal office to set up a monitor on the child.

It is possible that some form of "sleep training" will be set up (either 
then, or later if the child has a history of breakthrough magic) to give some 
help in controling the tendency to channel magic unconsiously. But there is 
no canon to support this. It is also possible that there are "remedial" 
training facilities for magical people who are not trained as children and 
the child will be contacted later by another representitive when s/he is no 
longer a minor. (Or possibly the Kwickspell course is a Ministry-supported 
program.)
Note: The WW may be unclear on the concept of democracy, but bureauocracy 
holds no mysteries for them.

In any event. In most cases, the typical family will not have excessive 
resistance to training the child to control his magic. The Dursleys and 
religious nuts are extreme examples. So far, the most likely candidate for 
voicing the reaction of the typical "Muggle on the street" is probably Frank 
Bryce. "You mean he was a *real* wizard? He *killed* me!". The WW has spent 
the past 300 years encouraging Muggles to believe that magic is all just 
storybook foolishness, good for entertaining children and perhaps for 
illustrating archtypes but nothing to do with the real world. The ingrained 
horror and hostility of the Dursleys only comes fron actual awareness that 
magic *is* real.

And from that point of view, the Ministry rep has a number of cards to play. 
First, the shock value that magic *is* real, and is nothing like the 
green-skinned representations in the popular media, the understanding that 
their kid is "Special" in a VERY rare meaning of the term, the posh value of 
being offered a place at a Scottish boarding school (I'm sure there is a 
system of student loans to cover fees and materials available -- the Creevy 
kids will be paying theirs off through their twenties). In short, an outright 
refusal to allow the kid to attend Hogwarts is very rare. What is more likely 
is that some Muggle parents may try to pull thir kids out of Hogwarts after a 
year or two over concerns about the lack of solid academic teaching. That's 
the point that the Ministry reps have to put themselves out to get across the 
concept that Muggle academic subjects are not particularly applicable to the 
requirements of a wizarding professional.

-JOdel