What is a Wizard / Cabinet FIRST!

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 158042

> Tonks:
> IMO a wizard's power is his ability to use the human mind to it's 
> fullest capacity.  Some people are born with the gift of intuition 
> and with what Muggles call "psychic gifts" or what religious folks 
> would call the gifts of the spirit in one form or another. One of 
> these is the ability to "see" into the world outside of space and 
> time, or the mystical world.  Shaman can go there too. All of 
these 
> folks are IMO, wizards.  So it doesn't follow that *we* can not 
> really ever be wizards.  If you thing, as most Muggles do, that 
the 
> WW is make-believe, then you are right.  But if you know that 
there 
> is another plain of existence, then you may be entertaining 
wizards 
> unaware.
> 
> In order to do the "magic" in the HP books one has to use the 
power 
> of the mind. Now I am not saying that "real" wizards do the same 
> type of magic as in the books. But you would be surprised just 
what 
> a real wizard can do. Now before you all start thinking that I am 
a 
> delusional nut case, let me remind you of some of the PBS specials 
> by Bill Moyer on the power of the mind.  Also read about the 
> shaman.  And the U.S. military has done research that would shock 
> you as to what they think one can do with the human mind.  I can 
> find anything that I have lost just by asking my subconscious mind 
> to find it.  And it works. So you too might be a wizard. ;-)

Magpie:
I'm not sure how to respond to this.  You seem to be giving me your 
view on psychic potential in the real world and it's fine but I 
don't see how it applies to this fictional world.  Yes, I do think 
that the Wizarding World is make-believe, because it is.  The 
Wizarding World is not "other planes of existance" or the 
imagination or the Otherworld that a Shaman travels to.  It's 
Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley in the world Harry Potter the fictional 
character lives in.  And in that world our own world, or a version 
of it, is the Muggle world, where we Muggles live. As none of us got 
any letter to study magic at a magic school, we are Muggles.  Yes 
there can be more to the real world than the mundane and maybe we 
can't go to Hogwarts but there are fascinating things to be found 
and discovered in our own world.  But that doesn't make me one of 
Rowling's wizards, and they are the subject of this thread. It's 
becoming the kind of witch that goes to Hogwarts which is closed to 
me by Rowling's own definition.  I don't have those super powers and 
I'm not one of her fictional characters.

Orna:
You may be right. But if you ask what I need – I need a clear act to
mark the transition from talking how much you like to be DE to
committing yourself. The transition includes presumably getting the
mark branded on your arm. But I would think it should include some
act of your choice, of initiation as well. Only after this, anybody
can speak of what your duty is. 

Magpie:
I guess I saw the whole story as an initiation of sorts. He's able 
to eagerly agree to what Voldmort wants him to do and he's able to 
express his desire to be a DE, but he only knows the reality of what 
he's agreeing to after he's tried it.  The important thing, to me, 
is that the task is given to him and he's eager to prove himself 
through it.

Orna:
I would hardly call two murder attempts just "bad faith", even if
they were indirect and sloppy from the POV of the target they were
meant for. He was lucky nobody was hurt – so his way towards making
again perhaps another choice when DD talks with him - stayed open.

Magpie:
"Bad faith" refers to a false notion of self, one at odds with one's 
true nature but that one willingly accepts as a fact despite 
evidence to the contrary.  He is acting as a DE, or trying to, as 
this is the role he is supposed to have.  This doesn't make the near-
deaths any less near-deaths, I agree.  He's still responsible for 
what he's done, and what he's done is serious. But it's only at the 
end when he sees the possibility of a choice and might act as an 
individual, that he might break out of that bad faith.  At the end 
Dumbledore is offering him a chance to make a choice that's more in 
tune with the person he really is instead of what he thinks he's 
supposed to be or what he wanted to be.

Orna:
I liked your thoughts about the generation-issue, the freedom of the
young generation to choose the path, and mistakes the older
generation seems to do there. It came to me, that in CoS Lucius
restrained Draco from getting more involved. He might have done it
of course just because it would direct attention to him. But there
might be also some issue of some of the old generation being a bit
protective or ambivalent of the younger one – since they did go the
whole DE-way, even though they are committed and loyal – they know
somewhere what it really means, what tortures are entangled with it.

Magpie:
I definitely thought this.  Though like a lot of his generation 
Lucius doesn't really want to change.  So maybe he wouldn't want his 
kid to make the same decision he made for practical reasons, but 
he's still brought him up with the same values.  The only way you 
can really get out of Voldemort's clutches is to reject the whole 
package.  Lucius keeps trying to be slippery and have it both ways.

I don't think in Rowling's world you can stay on the sidelines being 
racist but choosing not to get involved, you know?  That's a reason 
I thought Dumbledore's line to Draco about not using the word 
Mudblood seemed important, because it was somebody saying to him 
that the word did matter, and it mattered to Dumbledore even when he 
was about to die and this is the guy who offered him mercy.  Draco 
hasn't rejected the values he was brought up with yet as far as we 
know, of course, but I think he would need to do that to truly make 
a different choice.

-m