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

[Neri]

No: HPFGUIDX 154817

> Neri:
> 
> > Also, in the pretty long list of "famous wizards" cards 
> > and "Wizard of the Months" in JKR's site I can't recall a 
> > single wizard who was persecuted or hurt by muggles in any way.

> 
> houyhnhnm:
> 
> Not killed but possibly persecuted, and certainly inconvenienced.
> 
> Cornelius Agrippa--imprisoned by Francis I.
> 
> Paracelsus--driven out of Basel and forced to wander Europe as a 
> pauper.


Neri:
I couldn't find this information myself, but I suspect that in both 
cases it's the RL history/folklore regarding Agrippa and Paracelsus, 
not Potterverse canon. That is, JKR used the names of these two RL 
personas in her story but their persecution isn't part of her canon. 
I won't be surprised if Nicholas Flamell too was persecuted in RL 
(many alchemists were) but my point is that such a story isn't a part 
of his Potterverse persona. I contrast this with Mc'Tavish (to take 
just one example) where his baiting a muggle is certainly a part of 
Potterverse canon.   

> >
> Carol responds:
> <snip> 
> I'm not suggesting that the DEs used the Salem witch trials as
> justification for Muggle baiting. I'm saying that it may well have
> prompted the Statute of Secrecy in the same year.
> 

Neri:
It very well may be, but the question I'm interested in (at least I 
think this is what Potioncat suggested, which started this discussion 
in the first place) is precisely if witch-hunts were a justification 
for the way the Slytherin faction treats muggles. 

My point is that JKR could have easily taken that direction, had she 
wanted to. The horrible RL history of witch-hunts could certainly be 
used to justify a lot. In that case the HP series would have come out 
very much like the X-men series, only with persecuted wizards instead 
of persecuted mutants. But JKR very decidedly (and IMO very wisely) 
didn't go there. In her single detailed reference to the witch-hunts 
throughout the series she has the History of Magic teacher *and* 
textbook both assure us (and with a rather humoristic tone at that) 
that true witches and wizards didn't suffer from "witch" burning. 
Rather pointedly she told us about quite a few cases of muggle 
baiting and even muggle killing by wizards, but no case of wizard 
baiting by muggles. IIRC the only exception for that is the treatment 
that Harry himself gets from the Dursleys, but Harry is the very 
antithesis of the Slytherin faction. So while I agree that JKR uses 
the witch-hunts as a plot point to help explain the secrecy of the 
WW, I think she also says that it cannot be used to justify or 
understand the Slytherin ideology.

Neri