A Fully Realized World (Was: Re: Harry's Seclusion and the Weasley Suspicion)

[meriaugust]

No: HPFGUIDX 123468


Snorky wrote:  
> There are unsavory things about the Weasleys, their curious
> callousness and so on, but they might just be what's normal for the
> wizarding world.
snip
> Here's a list of things I can recall at this moment that could be
> warning signs or corrupting influences (laugh a little if you 
like):
> -The treatment of gnomes, who are flung and tossed.

Meri now, jumping in: I would agree that there are some unsavory 
parts to the WW, just like there are some unsavory parts to the real 
world and IMHO JKR did this on purpose to make parallels between the 
RW and the WW in order to make her world more understandable and 
accessible. The example of the gnomes is similar to how Muggles 
would treat a household or garden pest, in fact it is more humane 
that most Muggle treatments for mice, ants, etc. 

> -the treatment of the mandrakes, social creatures who like to 
party,
> but are killed for the WW's benefit.

Meri: This could be seen as a parallel of animal testing (something 
I am against) but is also a bit of a fuzzy area, seeing as mandrakes 
are techinically plants, and most people don't feel much compunction 
about cutting up, say, a carrot for their personal benefit. 

> -The willingness to submit Muggles to constant memory modification 
for
> the sake of a useless game (Quidditch), even though memory
> modification can be damaging.
> -The brutal game of Quidditch itself. (Read Quidditch Through the
> Ages.)

Meri: These are fair points, but then again, RW sports are damaging 
and brutal, too: boxing, football, rugby, soccer, even basketball 
and baseball can be physical and cause lasting injuries and 
sometimes even death. That's just the nature of sport, isn't it? And 
as for the example of the Muggles being memory charmed, Mr. Roberts 
and his family were being memory charmed to make them forget about 
being attacked and levitated by the DEs, but I am as sure as I can 
be that the Obliviators were being as careful as they could when 
modifying their memories. 

> -The cruel treatment of mother dragons and their eggs for the sake 
of
> fun.
> -The enslavement of intelligent beings, the elves. (Mrs. Weasley 
wants
> an elf, even though she must know that would mean having a slave.)

Meri: Again, fair points, but also again these both have RW 
parallels: circus animals and slavery, respectively. Although I am 
not opening up another house elf debate here !-)

> -the lack of concience of the Twins who happily perform dangerous
> experiments on students. (Remember Angela's bloody nose?)

Meri: Angelina's bloody nose was a Quidditch injury exacerbated by a 
legitimate mistake on the twins' part; they accidentally gave her 
the wrong end of a nougat. The twins also gave fair warning on their 
poster to anyone who took their skiving snackboxes that they were 
experimental and could not be held responsible for injury sustained. 
The subjects took these of their own free will and were compensated 
(I think the going rate was a couple Galleons), much like modern 
voluntary medical studies, ads for which can be found all over the 
Boston subways. 

> -Ron's cruelty towards Lockhart who had been rendered helpless. 
(Ron
> kicks him in the shins after he learns that Lockhart is helpless.)

Meri: But remember, the only reason Lockhart was incapacitated in 
the first place was because he was trying to attack and memory charm 
Harry and Ron, and thereby was fully willing to let Ginny die (and 
as a result return a form of LV to full power). Ron has good reason 
to be ticked at Lockhart. 

> -Dumbledore's decision to keep a 3-headed dog in the school - and 
he's
> not fired by the school board!
> -Dumbledore agreement to a wizarding contest that admits a lot of
> strangers to Hogwarts when he knows his top job is to protect 
Harry -
> and he's not fired by the school board!
> -Dumbledore's decision to hire a known deatheater as a teacher- and
> he's not fired by the school board!

Meri: DD does things his own way and always has. Whether that is an 
acceptable explanation or not, I'm not sure. The board of governors 
has acted against DD in COS, but to be fair they were bribed by 
Malfoy, Sr. to vote him out of the job. Regarding Fluffy, the dog 
was kept behind a locked door and students were warned about not 
trespassing in the third floor corridor on penalty of "a most 
painful death". HRH and Neville were out of bounds and shouldn't 
have been there and as far as we know no other students ever crossed 
Fluffy's path that year. Regarding the TT, it was an international 
effort to bring the tournament back to life, and the "strangers" 
being admitted to the school were students (an unlikely group of 
people to be conspiring with LV) and Mme. Maxime and Karkarof. 
Admittedly the latter was a former DE, but one who had named too 
many names to be in LV's good graces, and Mme. Maxime was an old 
colleague of DD's. And remember, the one person who mattered to LV's 
plan, Crouch!Moody, might have been at the school anyway. And 
regarding the hiring of Snape, DD vouched for him and his word is 
enough for the WW. 

> -The existence of easily located shops, just a little ways away 
from
> the high street (or main street, for you Americans) that sell items
> such as cursed necklaces, poisonous candles and shrunken heads,
> presumably human. (Whose heads are they, mmm? And why does the shop
> keeper have the right to sell them?)

Meri: There are all kinds of stores that, in the RW, we might not 
like to go in to, or our children for that matter, but its a free 
comecial market, isn't it? We might not like stores that sell guns 
or knives or other questionable material, but we can't deny that 
there is a market for that kind of thing. (And I hope this doesn't 
sound like I am condoning drug trafficing, because I think that is a 
little different.) 

Anyway, all of these examples serve to make the WW more like our RW. 
Instead of the WW being a utopian fairy land it is real, gritty, has 
good sides and bad sides (and also unspeakable terrible sides), just 
like the RW. It has things to be proud of and things to be ashamed 
of. IMHO that is why we as readers feel we can jump into the WW at 
any time: we understand the Weasley's frustration with garden pests 
and sports injuries. Anyway, just a few knuts. 

Meri - who has begun to see the WW a bit differently now that she 
has read Don Quijote.