Wizarding numbers: 24 000

[o_caipora]

No: HPFGUIDX 83633

"Robert Shaw" wrote:

> Consistency require that either a considerable number of wizards
> aren't Hogwarts educated, or that much of the support work is
> done by non-wizards.

I think you place too high a value on consistency. Even the four 
Gospels aren't consistent.

I'm making a case for inconsistency. We know less than Rowling tells 
us, because her [explicit] declarations of numbers are incompatible 
with the [implicit] population needed to support the infrastructure 
described. 

We've got to give up one or the other. Since she's likely to keep 
piling on the infrastructure and implicity the number of inhabitants 
of the WW, my bet is that by the end of Book 7 only a number closer 
to 100,000 than to 20,000 will fit.

Robert wrote:
> >> However we don't know what contribution is made to wizarding
> >> society by non-wizards.
> 
> Which could be done by muggles. A charm can make the maintenance
> workers overlook the platform number and other oddities.

There are Wizard bus conducters, tavern keepers, store keepers, and 
even traders in stolen goods. Why not platform sweepers? Gilderoy 
Lockhart showed us the power of memory charms, they seem rather like 
the morning-after pill: reasonable in an emergency but not something 
to make a habit of. Whatever the terms of the Muggle Protection Act, 
I'm don't see how it could permit tricking Muggles out of free labor 
by keeping them in a state of habitual delusion.

> Maybe, depending on how magic works.
> If it responds to intent, the same cloak that makes you invisible
> to the human eye will also make you invisible to video cameras,
> and no new charms will be needed.

If the world responded to intent, Dumbledore would not have had to 
apologize to Harry at the end of OotP.

Seriously, one of the constant themes in tales of magic is that it 
responds not to intent, but to literal words. Wishes from genies or 
demons, the Monkey's Paw, the Sorcerer's Apprentice. In scores of 
classic fairy tales, mortals get not what they want but what they ask 
for. 

Clarke's Law says that, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is 
indistinguishable from magic." Magic suffers some of the same limits 
as technology. Turn on that darn paper clip that comes with Microsoft 
Office if you'd like to see technology that responds to intent. 

> > It's at least a dozen people, assuming they all work several 
tasks.
> > And that's for a train that runs twice a year.
> 
> Trick muggles into doing all the manual labour and you're left
> with a handful of desk jobs, which might take two people a
> week, spread over the year.

I respectfully submit that you can't even keep a medium-size model 
train setup running with that little effort. 

Where Rowling has shown us the innards of the WW, manual labor 
(ticket taking, bus driving, etc) has been performed by wizards. It 
seems reasonable to assume that what we haven't been shown runs along 
the same lines at what we have been shown.

> 
> The section of track through Hogsmead is slightly more problematic
> but, given how little it's used, a single person in Hogsmead can
> probably inspect the track every few months, and renew the
> various self-maintenance spells.

> > Depending on
> > your recipe, several to half-a-dozen kinds of seafood go into
> > bouillabaisse, and no amount of analysis will permit a 
reconstuction
> > of what "the Bouillabaisse" looks like swimming in the sea.
> 
> But it will let you determine all the creatures from which the soup
> was made, which is enough.

My point, which I failed to state clearly enough, is that you can't 
get a *single* creature from it; it's inconsistent. It seemed like a 
good metaphor for how Rowling constructed her world.
 
Robert also said:

> Which doesn't stop coherent rules from emerging.
> 
> Pratchett didn't originally have any street plan in mind for
> Ankh-Morpork, he just used names at random, but it proved
> possible to construct a street plan which fitted all the references.
> 
> It's also possible that Rowling does have a consistent underlying
> picture, as part of the background notes she has occasionally
> referred to, but that Harry is not the kind of person who would
> notice it.

On the other hand, Barsoom is unmappable and quite impossible, and Oz 
had both bacon and talking pigs. I was unaware that an Ankh-Morpork 
map had been drawn - thank you. But because some authors have managed 
to invent consistently doesn't mean Rowling has pulled it off. 
 
> I know towns that size [25,000] with most of those services. 
> Allowing for the effects of magic, I certainly can envision the
> town having all of them.

After two more books stuffed with details, I think you'll need to 
raise that. 

I continue to think that U.K. gypsies, rather than a small town, are 
the best real-world equivalent. 

> The quidditch teams might only be the equivalent in skill, and pay,
> of some third division straggler, but that's still a lot better than
> the average amateur. People would still pay to watch them.
 
I believe you're right on that. A lot of the WW seems many decades 
behind the times, and not long ago professional sports salaries and 
other costs were nowhere near today's stratospheric levels.  

Robert also said:
> Also, I doubt that all goblins are bankers, and we have no idea
> of their total numbers. Their other services could go a long way
> to making up for low wizard numbers.

It's clear that the non-human magical people will play an important 
role in the coming war. We'll certainly get a better idea of their 
relative strength in the next books. 

 - Caipora