Integrated worlds, separate, or co-existing?

[Sandra Collins]

No: HPFGUIDX 154919

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, career advisor 
<aceworker at ...> wrote:
>
> <Sandra Collins <sandra87b at ...> wrote:          
> <<snip> I just can't get my head around the layout of the whole 
HP world. I suppose my point is, if the characters have to go 
through a magical gateway to be on Platform 9 and 3/4 which 
exists in a 'parallel' world, why don't the magical people reside 
permanently in that world? Sandra, back after ages away!>
>  
> <snip>Katie:
> <Well, my understanding was always that those magical 
things were NOT in a parallel world, but instead existing right 
there in front of all the Muggles, but they couldn't see them.
> 
> DA Jones
>  
Sandra replies-
Thanks for that reply - I hadn't considered so much! I can 
appreciate the 'masking' effect, but in order for that to work and 
mask an entire town (eg  where Diagon Alley is), the magical 
world would be hiding itself  away on an enormous scale - and 
someone at the Ministry  would have to ask themselves the 
question "Why are we  bothering?"
After all, people with magical powers have easy  control over 
muggles as demonstrated when Harry gets cross in 
book three and makes his aunt swell up like a balloon. And we 
all know the power of Voldermort, as well. So why hide their 
world away from an obviously inferior 'race'?

This kind of leads on to my headache - if the worlds do co-exist 
because one is 'masked', say you have a marriage between a 
magical person and a muggle - how would they balance their 
lives if they live in the muggle world? Would the wizard (for 
example) have a tricky time hiding his true identity from all the 
muggle friends and live a complete lie, or would he be 
permanently masked from everyone else? And in a co-existing 
world, how would that person make any money to pay their way 
and help keep the family supported? Even if he does whatever it 
is wizards do in the magical world to make a living, the currency 
couldn't be changed into English money, or electronically 
transferred into a bank account (unless a drafting spell exists! 
LOL). And suppose they lived in the masked magical world, what 
could the muggle do? They're not capable of anything magical, 
they'd know nothing of the strange ways of the people, and run 
the risk of having social-misfit muggle offspring in a world where 
magic is a must.

Also, if the worlds are seperated only by being masked, what's to 
stop any magical person from remaining 'masked' when leaving 
their front door, wandering along Oxford Street, quite invisible to 
everyone else, and helping himself/herself to whatever takes 
their fancy? Like if Ron was tired of being poverty stricken all the 
time, why not head off to a big store and fill the car boot up? If the 
spell exists, why not use it? The only rules about using magic in 
the muggle world seem to be strictly applied to Hogwarts 
students up to a certain age, only when they're not in Hogwarts - 
but if everyone lives in the muggle world anyway, once they're old 
enough. where is the line drawn between using magic in the 
'wrong' place and 'right' place?

Although I can see that the points raised about masking are 
perfectly valid and do get mentioned in the books, I can't really 
see how the two worlds fit together. I think JKR should have had 
the magical world exist as a separate entity in a parallel 
dimension, one which muggles or half bloods have to cross into 
- and magical types reside there all the time. What we have is a 
kind of mishmosh of the two with as far as I can tell, no clear 
rules or boundaries between them laid out. That''s what I think at 
the moment, so maybve it'll all be explained in book seven (the 
one where Harry gets a chat show, Ron plays for Chelsea and 
Hermione ditches her books to become a footballer's wife).

Sandra, now scratching her head even more.