Harry's imagination/which Twin is which/the Map/Wizard Populat'n/Mult-Campus

[catlady_de_los_angeles]

No: HPFGUIDX 43438

Amanda wrote:
<< Harry's experiences of people and interactions are hardly enough, 
in my opinion, to have allowed him to create such a rich world full 
of varied personalities whose function is to dispense wisdom he 
already, somehow, possessed. >>

I rejoice in the excuse to repeat my theory that Harry has learned a 
LOT from television. We saw in PoA that Uncle Vernon watches the 
morning news; I assert that Uncle Vernon also watches the evening 
news and professional sports, Aunt Petunia watches home-making shows, 
gossip shows (especially about the royals?), tear-jerker movies, and 
the popular game shows, and Dudley watches *everything* in search of 
sex and violence. And Harry sits in the back of the living room, 
because that way he is more convenient accessible to run fetch more 
snacks for Dudley or another beer or Vernon than if he were in his 
closet. 

Abigail wrote:
<< I will persist in my claim that the twins have no character depth 
whatsoever until someone points out a way of telling them apart.) >>

Actually Jana (george_weasleys_girlfriend) long ago wrote a long 
essay proving that George is the nice twin that originated as 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/16582 and I can't 
remember what website houses a more developed version.

Tabouli wrote:
<< If it had been McGonagall who demanded that it reveal its secrets, 
would the stored Marauders have recognised and insulted her too? What 
if it had been Dumbledore? >>
 
There was a thread on FAP suggesting what insults the Marauders might 
have "programmed" into the Map for other people trying to pry into it. 
http://www.fictionalley.org/fictionalleypark/forums/showthread.php?s=&
threadid=12598

My favorites are the thread-starting post, from Cat Feral:
<< Have you ever wondered if they rigged the map for anyone else?
What would have appeared if McGonagall, for instance, had caught 
Harry with it and tried to find out what it was? 

"Mr. Moony presents his compliments to Professor McGonagall and 
reminds her that curiousity killed the cat." 

"Mr. Prongs concurs and suggests that our Bonnie Highland Lassie go
transfigure something!" 

"Mr. Padfoot greets Professor McGonagall and wonders if she would 
like to be chased up a tree?" 

"Mr. Wormtail assures Professor McGonagall that he has no intention 
of putting himself in the middle of this!" 

Ok, ok, if she had any idea who these nicknames belonged to (and she
probably did) they would have to have had suicidal tendencies to put 
in some of those messages! Still it makes one wonder. Were there any 
special messages to Dumbledore, in case he ever found it??? >>

I imagine them getting very giddy, and whatever is the male 
equivalent of giggly, as they think up funny insults for everyone 
they can think of, for people whom they like and respect as well as 
people whom they hate and despise, for people whom they would NEVER 
dare to insult to their faces. Being intoxicated on their excitement 
over the map, the secrecy in which they are having this conversation, 
and their safety from being discovered by any of the insult-ees. 
Safety because 1) they don't expect any outsider actually will get a 
hold of the Map, 2) the outsider would think the Map was scrap 
parchment and chuck it out rather than thinking it a magic artifact 
and trying to activate it, and 3) the outsider would never recognize 
them behind their clever pseudonyms.              

Prefect Marcus wrote:
<< In today's culture, there are about 200 people in the population 
for every 1 student in a given year. Now assuming that wizards live 
twice as long as muggles, make that 400 to 1. >>

Prefect Marcus wrote:
<< So the 20:1 ratio is pretty consistent. >>

Prefect Marcus wrote:
<< Double that for longer-lived Wizards = 160:1 >>

I have only logic, not facts, but the way I see it is: the students 
in one grade of school are the babies born in one year: one year's 
crop of people. So if the population was stable, there would be the 
same number of people born each year and the same number of premature 
deaths leading to the same life expectancy. So the ratio of one 
year's crop of people to the whole population should be the ratio of 
1 to the life expectancy. So 1:200 indicates either a life expectancy 
of 200 years or more probably a rapidly decreasing npopulation, and 
1:20 indicates either a life expectancy of 20 years (and a lot of 
teen-age child-bearing) or a rapidly increasing population. 

Jim Ferer wrote:
<<  Madame Malkin's, for example, might sew robes from scratch (they 
don't appear to, since Harry and Draco are getting theirs altered) but 
there's no sign of a loom there. >>

Magic raises questions about raw materials and intermediate products 
... do robe-makers buy cloth or conjure up cloth? If the robe-makers 
buy cloth (probably from a middle-man, a jobber), is it cloth that 
was conjured up or Transfigured from raw materials by wizarding 
clothmakers, woven (perhaps on magical looms) by wizarding weavers in 
scattered homes or in factories, or woven by Muggles? If it was woven 
by wizards (whether Muggle-ishly, on enchanted looms, or simply by 
waving a wand over a pile of warp and woof threads), where did they 
get the raw materials? 

Asking where they get cotton and wool and silk fiber is similar 
to asking where they get food items: are there wizarding farms who 
grow grains, fruits, vegetables, and meat animals and sell at 
wizarding Farmers' Markets or to wizarding butchers and bakers and 
greengrocers? If there are no wizarding farmers (whose existence JKR 
could easily prove by Ron mentioning an uncle, aunt, and cousins who 
are a farm family), do they conjure up this stuff or do they buy it 
from Muggles? If they buy it from Muggles, what do they think about 
pesticides and synthetic chemical fertilizers and genetically 
modified foodstuffs?  

Grey Wolf wrote:
<< The other campuses would also be divided into the four traditional 
houses, since they are more recent than Hogwarts, and probably 
appeared when the wizard population got bigger. (snip) it's 
altogether possible, anyway, that the quidditch teams are formed 
with students from all the campus, >>

Thank you, dear Wolf, for publicizing my theory so well. You said 
many things right and nothing wrong, but you went a little further 
than I have about the Houses at the other campuses. Before now, I had 
absolutely no idea whether the other campuses had the same Houses or 
different Houses. 

It would be good if they had the same Houses, so adult life would 
have (at least) two partly overlapping Old Boys (and Girls) Networks: 
for example, the Old Ravenclaws, from all campuses, and the Old 
Woodcroftians, of all Houses. (Using my example that the hypothetical 
campus at Woodcroft could be *named* "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft 
and Wizardry at Woodcroft" and *called* "Woodcroft School".) 

However, the other campuses couldn't have the same Houses unless they 
had the same Sorting Hat. This Sorting Hat was made by the Founders 
themselves to choose the students they themselves would have chosen, 
and the wizarding folk wouldn't have dared to give the Founders 
students chosen in some other way. Of course, they could have the 
same Sorting Hat if each school started on a different day. Then the 
Sorting Hat could attend all their Arrival Feasts. Brought there by 
the Headmaster, who would speak at each Arrival Feast... He could 
also speak at each Leaving Feast (if they each were on a different 
day), but he couldn't attend all their Halloween Feasts.

I don't know if the wizarding population actually got *bigger* as the 
Muggle population did, or if the wizard simply got more interested to 
sending their children to wizarding school (instead 
of apprenticeship or Muggle school) as wizards grew separate from 
Muggles and as wizarding school became more famous.

I think each campus has its own separate interHouse Quidditch. I 
would like the winning House team of each campus to have play-offs 
(if there are four campuses, that would be semi-finals and finals), 
but even I admit that contradicts canon.

Tabouli wrote:
<< MCHAPPYMEAL (Multiple Campus Hogwarts Augments Population, 
Purporting Youngsters Might Enter Alternatively Located Schools). >>

A Tabouli acronym of my very own! I am happy!

Grey Wolf wrote:
<< Snape teaches 14 groups (since he doubles), 4 hours/week to a 
total of 56 hours. The DADA also teaches 56 hours/week (28 * 2). >>

I have a vague impression that some classes meet twice a week for one 
hour a meeting, which would be the same 56 hours (28 * 1 hour * 2 
days). but aren't there any classes that meet THREE times a week for 
one hour a meeting?

Anyway, I've tried to figure out Snape's work hours, and the best I 
could come up with was Monday to Friday is 8 hours a day of the 1st 
thru 5th years, and maybe the classes for 6th and 7th years are 
smaller enough (maybe people who didn't get a Potions OWL don't take 
them) to be for all four Houses combined, so the sixth year class and 
the seventh year class could meet on alternate Saturday mornings, 
thus leaving Snape's Saturday afternoons for snooping around after 
Harry. 

To make this work, I had to imagine not only that some students drop 
Potions after fifth year, but that sixth and seventh year Potions 
students do a lot more work on their own, in small groups, or with 
teaching assistants, and don't need as much classroom time with the 
professor. (To me that is illogical, because I'd think that the 
advanced students would be the ones who have advanced questions that 
need the expert Professor to answer, while the beginning students 
are the ones who could get by with just the teaching assistants.) 
Even so, he would be spending *all* his nights correcting homework, 
grading exams, preparing the equipment for classroom demonstrations, 
etc.