Identifying with Muggles in Potterverse

[Tonks]

No: HPFGUIDX 158011

> Betsy Hp:
> It's the use of magic that tilts it for me.  A wizard using his 
wit or intelligence or basic decency to put the Dursleys in 
> their "place" I'm fine with.  But when a wizard uses his magic 
he's taking advantage of an extreme power difference.  A power 
difference I'm on the wrong side of.  That it's done so easily 
suggests that  abusing that power is an easy thing for wizards to 
slip into.  And I don't like it.  Which colors how I take that scene.
> 

Tonks:
If a person with an IQ of 135 takes on a person with an IQ of 100 or 
110 and uses their "wit" as you say, isn't that using a "power" that 
the second person doesn't have?  Isn't that taking advantage of the 
lack of ability on the part of second person?  So how is that any 
different that one having magic and the other not? I see the use of 
magic as just a skill that some have and others don't.  Just like 
the skill of music or any other skill.  There are always ways in 
which one person has an advantage over another.  One is older and 
wiser, or younger and stronger, etc.   

I don't see DD in this scene as using magic against the Dursleys.  I 
guess if he turned off the lights and levitated the Dursleys and sat 
fire to their sofa that would be taking advantage of his power, but 
a couple of wine glass out of the air, no big deal to me.

He is showing off his power to the Dursleys, just as anyone in a 
position of power (of what ever type) might in that situation.  But 
he does it gently and, as I said before, with respect.  Think of 
what Hagrid would have done instead.  Or what Hagrid has done 
instead when he first met the Dursleys.  If you look at those two 
examples, I think we can see that DD was a gentleman in this 
situation.

And think of what a DE might do with them. That would be abuse of 
magical power. So I think we have to keep perspective here.

This is going to seem strange, but I was surprise that you said you 
saw yourself as a Muggle and identified with the Muggles in the 
stories. It just never occurred to me that some of the readers would 
still think of themselves as Muggles after knowing about and living 
vicariously in the WW for the last 9 years.  I see myself as one of 
the Wizards.  

I think of Muggles as those humans who don't see or don't want to 
see that there is a world outside of the world of matter as 
experienced by their 5 senses.  I see the WW as similar to the world 
of the mystic or the spiritual world. It is just that the Muggles 
don't want to know about the world of the wizards.  But the wizards 
know about both worlds.  Some even live in Muggle areas and appear 
to be Muggles to the Muggles around them. 

Tonks_op
Who thinks that Betsy might be more of a wizard that she want to 
admit. ;-)