Some canon related WOMBAT wonderings/ some questions from the test

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 170269

> Alla:
> 
> First of all I must say I was blinking when I saw the question 
that 
> even suggests that some decision of Ministry can have good effect 
on 
> everyday WW life, I was thinking - maybe it is one of those 
questions 
> that will lose me points no matter what I answer, but then I 
figured, 
> oh well, let's pretend that sometimes Ministry does something good.
> 
> I answered (d) as something that had the best effect on WW life. I 
> mean, it could be statute of secrecy, but I figured that decision 
to 
> leave money in goblins control, in other words leave something so 
> significant for WW existance in control of non-human race, may 
have 
> done a lot towards making goblins if not super friendly, but at 
least 
> not hostile towards human wizards these days and no more 
rebellions 
> or something.
> 
> 
> Another thing, when I was looking at those questions, I was 
> fascinated to see that there was an appeal against House elf 
slavery 
> so recently and it was defeated. I thought that was the worst 
> decision and marked it as such. I also think that this is another 
> support towards JKR intent to portray House elves situation as 
pretty 
> comparable to slavery.

Magpie:
I went back and forth on that one a lot. I wanted to choose the 
House Elf answer for "worst," but the question was asking about what 
made their daily life easier, and having House Elves does seem to 
presumably make their lives easier. The damage to the society 
doesn't seem really apparent that way.

I originally put Statue of Secrecy for "best" but then I actually 
changed it to "worst" because it seems to be what keeps them in a 
constant state of emergency, and I went for chasing away the giants 
for best, because presumably they knocked things over.:-) I 
considered the Gringotts question a lot because I thought that might 
have been the thing that stopped the Goblin rebellions, but I just 
couldn't quite consider that something that made their daily life 
better. I went to a great paper on Phoenix Rising about the Goblin 
Monopoly, and it's essentially an uneasy stalemate with the threat 
of financial collapse on one side and the threat of genocide on the 
other. So anyway, those are the ones I went with. I hope it wasn't a 
trick question, because sometimes the one that makes your daily life 
easier is the one that makes things harder in the long run.

Hickengruendler:
By the way, do you think the rumour about Slytherin returning to
Hogwarts is true? I guess not, sicne I suppose the Sorting Hat would
have known and told us, but it would have been nice, particularly
sinc ehous eunity probably is a theme in book 7.

Magpie:
I had thought that one had to be false because of the theme--and the 
Sorting Hat seems to specifically say that he's been gone all this 
time. He's gone literally and symbolically, imo.

Btw, I found some of the Minister for Magic questions interesting--
I'm assuming some of them were stuff we couldn't know (the biggest 
crisis each one had to deal with). I had the first one be the one 
who made the older Ministers walk out because she was a woman, and 
had the Squib riots during the 60s because that seemed to fit that 
time period. I had Spout-Hole as the one who was almost 
assassinated, iirc. Also on the Dark Magic ones I said "sunlight" 
for werewolves and a bezoar for the Draught of Living Death, but I 
think I may have been wrong on that last one. (I was going to 
say "No Cure" for werewolves, but sunlight seems equally true.)

-m