Wizard supremacy (was:Re: Nel Question #4: Class and Elitism)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 125752


 Ellyddan wrote:
>  An interesting dilemma, there are obviously moments
> when even in JKR's books that the two worlds
> interesect.  The Muggle parents of Hermione having a
> witch daughter, Harry's uncle and aunt having a wizard
> nephew, and many others with similar situations or the
> opposite wizarding parents with squib children.  In
> these instances she cannot help the interesections of
> the culture.  I do believe though that there are very
> good reasons for the two worlds to remain as separate
> as they do.  First for the protection of the muggles. 
> Look at the number of wizards that would make the
> muggles into a lower caste for themselves.  Powerful
> wizards like the Malfoys wouldn't hesitate to use
> their powers to manipulate, overpower and subvert the
> muggle world to their own whims if both worlds were
> united.  Others like Tom Riddle have already killed
> some muggles in revenge for painful childhoods.  Who
> would control such behavior?  <snip> Would muggles have
> the compassion and understanding to realize that
> wizards are just humans with extra powers?  Would they
> view them as threats or tools to be used?  
>          The second main consideration of course woul
> then be protection of wizards.  Their privacy would be
> gone.  News stations would hound them almost as much
> as celebrities.  <snip> And what about wizard
> children in mixed schools.  How would the other
> children treat the minority of wizard children?  Would
> they not befriend them out of fear?  Treat them as
> freaks? Or constantly blame them for the problems in
> their lives that the child hadn't fixed like dying
> relatives, accidents etc?
> 
>     I can see the problems of a united world as being
> really quite messy.  The way the JKR has separated
> them of course does lend itself to way the story is
> being told, the issues inherent in the separated
> worlds as well.  On the other hand, if the two worlds
> would collide what a mess JKR would have on her hands
> to try and fix up.  <snip>

Carol responds:
As I see it, the separation of the WW and Muggle worlds is simply a
necessary condition for verisimilitude. In order to create a semblance
of reality, to help her Muggle readers willingly suspend their
disbelief, she has to have credible reasons why none of them has ever
(knowingly) encountered a witch or wizard. 

Unlike Tolkien's Middle Earth, which is removed from our world by
thousands or tens of thousands of years into a mythical time before
"the lands were changed," JKR's WW exists almost in the here and now
(unless you're eleven years old and regard the 1980s and 1990s as "the
olden days"). Consequently, she has spells to conceal Hogwarts and the
QWC and St. Mungo's from prying Muggle eyes, memory spells to keep
Muggles from remembering that they've just seen a dragon (or even a
child flying on a toy broom), Muggles who (realistically) think that
magic is make-believe and consequently deny that anything they see is
supernatural or uncanny (Vernon in SS/PS persuades himself that he
didn't see a cat reading a map; Stan Shunpike says, "They don't see
nuffink, do they?"). Muggles who can't deny the existence of magic
(like Petunia, who has a witch for a sister and Vernon after Petunia
takes Harry in) regard it as abnormal and try to hide it from the
neightbors.

All of these devices (along with the Statute of Secrecy, nicely timed
to coincide with a real event, the Salem witch trials, which despite
being in America involved Englishmen and -women and would have shocked
the whole WW) serve to explain why modern Muggles never (knowingly)
encounter magical people, places, and creatures. Past encounters with
magical people, places, and creatures, relegated by Muggles to the
realm of myth and legend (or fantasy) become history in the WW. Merlin
and the other witches and wizards on the chocolate frog cards are
presented as historical figures.

Granted, this necessary act of separating the WW from the RW has its
consequences for the plot and characters. More is required than simply
explaining why Muggles in general are unaware of Wizards and why
Wizards want it that way. But the separation itself was necessary from
the beginning. Even Lord Voldemort has to be weaker than, say, Saruman
(I won't even mention Sauron as there's no comparison) or we'd have
heard of him. And Lord Voldemort can't win VW2, either, or JKR will be
hard put to explain why we Muggles aren't already his slaves.

Carol,hoping that this makes sense as an alternative to Nel's overtly
Marxist agenda