a lot of Names, interrupted with a lot of Traitors, Lily's Crush, McG/Hooch

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 154766

Potioncat wrote:
> > OK, some of the Slytherin mentality is a bit more understandable.
> >
> 
Neri responded:
> Well, it would have been if JKR hadn't made it clear that all these
> women were muggles, while true witches and wizards were never in
real danger from witch hunts. I suppose the Slytherin faction could
use them to justify muggle hunting. 

Carol notes:
But the Statute of Secrecy was passed in 1692, the year of the Salem
Witch Trials, in which the convicted witches were hanged (and the one
convicted warlock, IIRC, crushed to death by a stone block).
Historically speaking, I don't doubt that they were all innocent
(i.e., Muggles), but from the perspective of the books, they were
probably witches and a wizard. The spells that froze the flames of the
burned witches (who must somehow have faked their deaths or the
punishment would have been abandoned as ineffectual) would not have
saved them from strangulation or the bone-crushing weight of a block
of stone). That these deaths occurred in Morth America wouldn't have
mattered because the colonies were considered part of England at the
time. The Salem Witch trials can't explain Salazar Slytherin's hatred
of Muggles and Muggleborns, but they could certainly explain the new
burst of fear that prompted the Statute of Secrecy and the continuing
prejudice against Muggles that permeates the WW, at least among
purebloods and some half-bloods, ranging from virulent hatred
(Voldemort) to contempt (Hagrid) to condescension (Arthur Weasley).

Just a thought.

Carol, who thinks that the Salem Witch Trials showed the WW that it
really was in danger, ironically just at the time that the danger was
passing