TheGleam/Gilderoy/Stupid Great Wizards (at climax of PoA) /Plumbing/

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 59018

Darrin wrote:

<< Perhaps at the moment when he looks old and weary is when he knows 
that this will not happen without his death. Kinda like Gandalf going 
into the mines. >>

To me, the moment when he looks old and weary is when he knows that 
this will not happen without HARRY's death.


Peggy Barrato wrote:

<< About Lockheart, I'm not so sure we can really trust what JKR has 
told us. She has not completed the series yet, and there are two 
books to go. I'm not so sure she knows exactly what is going to 
happen just yet. Remember Icicle ( think this is how she spelled 
it...not sure)? Although, I would like to forget him! >>

JKR said: "Gilderoy, bless him, is still in Saint Mungo's hospital 
for magical ailments and injuries, `cos his memory's just gone. So 
I'm making no promises about Gilderoy." in 
http://www.angelfire.com/magic/aberforthsgoat/archive/Fall00_BBC_Newsr
ound.htm

In other words, that scene after the ending credits of CoS movie has 
some validity.

"greatlit2003" wrote:

<< I was bothered by Black and Lupin's incredibly Muggle way of 
transporting Pettigrew at the end of PoA. Why didn't they do to
him what Hermione did to Rita Skeeter at the end of GoF? Do wizards
not rationalize, >>

Well, remember that Hermione's comment on the potions/logic puzzle 
in PS/SS was "A lot of the greatest wizards haven't got an ounce of 
logic, they'd be stuck in here forever." (I empathise: I haven't 
got an ounce of logic either.)

Eledhwen wrote:

<< I have also always been bothered by their increadible stupidity
that night. (snip) I know that he has to escape for the plot for 
the next books to work, but still it seem that Lupin and Sirius 
choose one of the worst and most risky alternatives of detaining 
Pettigrew. >>

Feel sorry for (fiction) writers. It's not enough that they have 
to put words together in a way that makes the reader perceive 
characters who are realistic people with personalities and inner 
lives and also in such a way that the words sound pretty or dramatic 
or funny, but also be terribly clever at thinking up the bad guys' 
schemes and even cleverer at thinking up how the good guys' can 
defeat those schemes. 

Ersatz Harry wrote:

<< I would think magic could be brought to bear on the technological 
problem of human waste disposal more than is evident from the books. 
Then again, maybe there's a magical sewage plant at the bottom of the 
lake. >>

I feel *certain* that there are Filter spells so that the water that 
reaches Hoglake is pure, sweet, fresh water (occasionally plus 
Myrtle, who is a ghost and therefore not material). As the 
conservation of mass-energy doesn't seem to apply to magic, maybe
the pollutants just get Vanished.

Dave Burgess wrote:

<< It coud be argued that some wizards (of Arthur Weasley's ilk)
could be exposed to wizarding conveniences and make up non-magic 
versions using electricity. >>

Or Muggles who were guests in wizarding homes. Here's my rant on 
Wizarding Technology (including Plumbing):

I always say, in the Potterverse, the wizarding folk had indoor 
plumbing with hot and cold running water and flush toilets ever since 
Atlantis. All the various Muggles who 'invented' indoor plumbing 
(Minoans, Romans, 18th century, etc) were really trying to copy what 
they had seen when a guest in a wizarding home. Also, the wizarding 
folk had elaborate castles ever since Atlantis, so it doesn't matter 
that Muggle 'castles' were IIRC wooden huts surrounded by a muddy 
ditch and a picket fence at the time of the Founders.

I personally don't believe in Atlantis or primordial matriarchies, 
but I also don't believe in flying carpets or House Elves. A large 
part of the gimmick of the Potterverse is that many things which are 
familiar folklore or fantasy motifs which every reader *knows* aren't 
real, *are* real (altho' often garbled) in the Potterverse. So I 
think I'm tremendously amusing to add Atlantis and primordial 
matriarchies to the list of things that Muggles are too stupid to 
believe in.

***

I believe that their plumbing empties into the lake via a magical 
cleaning spell that transmutes all the waste products into pretty 
flowers or such, but I fear that that mgical cleaning spell was put 
in place by the lake's inhabitants, such as the merpeople, rather 
than by the castle's occupants. Even tho' I believe that wizards 
have had indoor plumbing with hot and cold running water and flush 
toilets for over nine thousand years, I have no evidence that 
medieval wizards had a higher concern for clean drinking water and 
pleasant smelling surroundings than their Muggle contemporaries did.

***

I believe that Potterverse wizarding folk have had late twentieth 
century indoor plumbing and Renaissance 'replica' castles since back 
before Atlantis sank. They didn't need to know any plumbing, 
hydraulics, metallurgy, stonecarving, or architecture because they 
made their bathrooms and castles by MAGIC! However, Muggles who 
visted wizards and saw the nice things the wizards had, had to invent 
all that technology in order to imitate the wizarding goodies. There 
is a long history of Muggles trying to imitate wizarding plumbing: 
Minoan, Classical Roman, etc.
 
The wizarding folk teach their children a lot of self-enhancing 
falsehoods. For example, they teach their children that the reason to 
keep magic secret from Muggles is to avoid being pestered by Muggles 
wanting favors (and Hagrid, not having completed his education, still 
believes that), when in reality the wizarding folk went into hiding 
because they were scared of the Muggles attacking them.

Another example is that they teach their children that Muggles use 
technology to imitate what wizards do by magic. Technology probably 
*started* that way, Muggles trying to figure out how to make 
bathrooms and castles and swords like the wizards had ... this may 
have remained true up to the Steam Age, with Muggles inventing 
horseless carriages to imitate the horseless carriages that carry 
students from Hogsmeade Station to Hogwarts, inventing railroads to 
imitate wizarding self-propelled wagons like at Gringotts, gaslight 
to imitate the magical self-lighting candles on the wall of wizarding 
houses ... but by then the discovery and invention of science and 
technology had become self-propelling themselves, and with 
Electricity, Muggles went on to invent things that the wizarding folk 
copy. The Wizarding Wireless Network is obviously an imitation of 
Muggle radio, because it's named after "wireles", the British Muggle 
name for radio. The wizarding folk would have no other reason to name 
it "wireless", because they didn't have a preceeding technology named 
"wire" (the telegraph).

***

The kindly condescension to Muggles shown by the older Weasleys IS a 
little off. They say, isn't it marvellous that Muggles and their cute 
little toys are able to make do without magic? One common Muggle cute 
little toy, the telephone, can send a message a great deal faster 
than an owl! Other listies have mentioned Muggle bombs that blow up a 
great deal more than one street and twelve people.