[HPforGrownups] Wizarding Plumbing and Muggles

[Alexander]

No: HPFGUIDX 49710

  Greetings!

> Catlady wrote:

CRPWcwn> ...Also, the wizarding folk had elaborate castles
CRPWcwn> ever since Atlantis, so it doesn't matter that
CRPWcwn> Muggle 'castles' were IIRC wooden huts surrounded
CRPWcwn> by a muddy ditch and a picket fence at the time of
CRPWcwn> the Founders.

  Art of fortification was at very high level during the
Middle-Ages, being inherited from the Roman Empire and
preserved properly. So when it was required (and when it was
possible) Muggles were building quite good and reliable
castles... though not "elaborate" for sure. :)

CRPWcwn> (...)

CRPWcwn> Another example is that they teach their children
CRPWcwn> that Muggles use technology to imitate what wizards
CRPWcwn> do by magic. Technology probably *started* that
CRPWcwn> way, Muggles trying to figure out how to make
CRPWcwn> bathrooms and castles and swords like the wizards
CRPWcwn> had...

  Until this moment I can more-or-less agree. As to comes
next, though...

CRPWcwn> ...this may have remained true up to the Steam Age,
CRPWcwn> with Muggles inventing horseless carriages to
CRPWcwn> imitate the horseless carriages that carry students
CRPWcwn> from Hogsmeade Station to Hogwarts,

  Veeeeery questionable. Steam machines were invented
independently and almost simultaneously in several different
places, even though *technological* requirements for making
them were already met at the late Roman Empire.

CRPWcwn> inventing railroads to imitate wizarding
CRPWcwn> self-propelled wagons like at Gringotts,

  No chance. Muggles had their own wagons in mines, they had
no need to imitate anybody. As to the invention of rails and
wagons in the mines, one can wonder...

CRPWcwn> gaslight to imitate the magical self-lighting
CRPWcwn> candles on the wall of wizarding houses ...

  Do you mean gas is self-lighting? Because to imitate the
"self-lighting", one must invent the light switch, not the
gaslight, which comes more or less naturally as a
*replacement* (not replica!) of candles.

CRPWcwn> but by then the discovery and invention of science
CRPWcwn> and technology had become self-propelling
CRPWcwn> themselves, and with Electricity, Muggles went on
CRPWcwn> to invent things that the wizarding folk copy.

  Only it happened much, much before that. Wizards have
copied the steam train for sure, they have also copied
Muggle business and governmental practises (latter takes a
long time to adopt unless forced), they have copied design
(if not function) of indoor plumbing (however little credit
I can give to the theory of "Atlantis plumbing", I cannot
agree at all that it *looked* the same way).

Sincerely yours,
Alexander Lomski,
Gryffindor/Slytherin crossbreed,
great supporter of McGonagall/Crookshanks SHIP.

-----
  "One must be a complete paranoic to search for a hedgehog
  on the top of a fir-tree."
    (P. Shumilov)