Identifying with Muggles in Potterverse WAS: Re: DD at the Dursleys:

[phoenixgod2000]

No: HPFGUIDX 158049


> Betsy Hp:
> Hmm, see I have it as exactly opposite.  The wizards are the 
insular 
> xenophobes, with little that is beautiful and soul enriching 
> surrounding them.  They know nothing of art or music or 
literature.  

First of all, thats not true. They certainly at least have art and 
music at the very least. This isn't a treatis on wizarding culture 
so we don't know much about them because Harry doesn't care all that 
much but they have the weird sisters and the wizarding wireless, 
celestia Warbeck and the apparently superior music of the french
(according to Fleur at least :) Hogwarts seems fairly littered with 
paintings so they must have some magical artists coming around.

As for literature, no, they don't seem to have much (that we know 
of) but I don't blame them.  With magic, their lives are more 
interesting than book I can think of.  Charlie wrangles Dragons for 
gods sake.  Bill is freakin' Indian Jones marrying a fairy 
princess.  Dumbledore is Gandalf the Grey come to life. In world 
with hundreds of prophecies, ghosts that teach classes, Olypmic 
events performed against dragons, magic is all the mystery and 
fantasy anyone could ever want.

And for them it's real.  

I wouldn't read much either.


> Their schools concentrate soley on that which is practical and 
> pragmatic, thriving on and encouraging cut-throat competition with 
> little love or mercy for their fellow man. 

their powers are practical and pragmatic in a way that is almost 
impossible to duplicate in the real world.  They have to know know 
how to perform household charms, make potions to fix their 
children's booboos, and do their jobs.

I still haven't used the calc I slaved over in high School and my 
perfect score on the Egg Drop physics test isn't all that useful 
either.  I also use everything I learned Auto still.  More about RL 
school needs to be practical. 

And really, only about half their classes are practical. Potions, 
Transfiguration, Charms, and Defense Against the Dark Arts.  All the 
others are all theory. COMC is hands on but really on practical for 
the Charlies of the world.
 
> They are the elites, surrounded by what they perceive to be rabble 
> who'd swamp them with desperate cries for help if they revealed 
> their sanctified existence.

Or hunt them down like animals. Can you imagine what would happen in 
the real world if a group of people with mind control, 
shapeshifting, trasmuting powers were to be revealed in out midst? 
They would be destroyed.

  Not recognizing that *they*, the 
> wizards, are the ones who are so hopelessly backwards.

Letting the inner snob out a little :) I wouldn't say backward, I 
would say different. they have different technology, they are 
remarkably self sufficient when they have their wands about.  I 
would say that our reliance of easily broken technology ultimates 
makes us more backward than they--or at least less sophisticated. 
Certainly they have better medical skills than we do.

> The Weasleys, the Malfoys, the Diggorys, the Smiths know nothing 
of 
> Shakespeare or Chaucer or Lawrence or Potter (Beatrice, that is 
<g>) 
> or Blake or Austen or Michelangelo or Galileo or Einstein.  Nor do 
> they seem to have any equivalent.

First of all, there are plenty of real world people who wouldn't 
know those names so the ignorance of wizards isn't unforgivable.

Secondly, I'm sure there are wizard equivelants of those names. They 
do after all have trading cards about them :) its just that Harry 
has bigger things on his mind than tell us about them.

> As per JKR there is no fiction in the Wizarding World.  (She'd be 
> stuck writing "how to" books, IIRC.)  There are no art courses of 
> any kind offered at Hogwarts that we've seen.

We also haven't seen any clubs at Hogwarts either, but we know 
they're there so art could be as well.  Magic also seems to be an 
art on its own for those who choose to see it as such.

> In short, the Wizarding World is brutal and dark and I wouldn't 
want 
> to be there for any length of time.  At least, that's how I see it.

I think the wizarding world is an amazing place and I would jump 
through the looking glass in a minute.  Magic is the ultimate wish 
fufillment. Wizards can have whatever they want as long as they 
learn how to do it. even youth, wealth, immortality can all be had.  
Think about the uses of magic in the bedroom alone.  Think about 
being able to whistle up your favorite foods and easy clean up. 
Think about being able to take to the air on brooms or wings you can 
make yourself.  think about the animagus form and how amazing it 
would be to have a shape as simple as a housecat.

The wizarding world isn't dark and brutal. Its a place of 
possibilties limited only by your will and your imagination.

phoenixgod2000