broomsticks vs. flying carpets (was: It's all Lucius Malfoy's fault....)

[Patricia Bullington-McGuire]

No: HPFGUIDX 55311

On Mon, 14 Apr 2003, The Sparrow wrote:

> I'd also like to ask on a different subject- if flying
> carpet are banned because carpets are Muggle
> artefacts, then how can they get away with
> broomsticks? They're just as much a Muggle object.

I've thought about this too.  It's rather inconsistent, but I think the
inconsistency is on the part of the MoM and the ww, not JKR.  The ww seems
a bit obsessed when it comes to Quidditch.  I doubt anything could 
convince them to give up their flying brooms, which would essentially 
outlaw Quidditch, even if it would be in line with their general legal 
reasoning.  Basically, I think the ww makes an exception for brooms 
because they want to keep playing Quidditch, not because the exception 
makes any sense.

----
Patricia Bullington-McGuire	<patricia at obscure.org>

The brilliant Cerebron, attacking the problem analytically, discovered
three distinct kinds of dragon: the mythical, the chimerical, and the
purely hypothetical.  They were all, one might say, nonexistent, but each
nonexisted in an entirely different way ... 
                -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"