"Pathetic" Muggle-borns

[delwynmarch]

No: HPFGUIDX 178532

Carol wrote:
> Dover to Calais is 21 miles (I looked it up), easily covered by
> Apparition.

Del adds:
And they are Muggleborn: they know about such devices as trains,
planes, boats and cars. Steal a boat, enchant it to self-propel, go to
France or anywhere else, and magically send the boat back or
something, and there you go. 

> As for a language barrier, Fleur and Viktor spoke English,
> as did their classmates who spent almost a year at Hogwarts. Many
> European Muggles speak English as well. It wouldn't be an
> insurmountable problem, 

Agreed. Being Brits gives them the huge advantage of speaking *the*
international language.

> Granted, the children couldn't attend Durmstrang, but they
> could attend Beauxbatons. Surely, Madame Maxime would be glad to 
> help if she knew of their plight. And there are apparently other, 
> smaller, wizarding schools in Europe.

Funny, I was thinking right along those lines just this morning. The
names of all Muggleborn kids who are supposed to attend Hogwarts are
known: McGonagall would simply have to consult the magic quill and
note down all the names and addresses of the Muggleborn kids. From
there, the Order can help set up a network with foreign schools
(whether in Europe or even in, say, the US!) to host those kids who
can't go to Hogwarts.

I was even thinking that there are ways to get around the little
problem of school and transportation fees: find rich donators. There's
one readily available too: Harry himself. Bill and Fleur work at
Gringotts until March IIRC, so there's ample time to set up a little
something with the Goblins (who we know aren't particularly keen on
helping the DEs), to have other people discreetly access Harry's vault
(since he can't do it himself). I'm sure Harry wouldn't mind, and
would in fact be happy to see his money be put to such good use. 

> I would have liked to see some sort of Underground movement beyond
> Pottercast.

Me too. Where are the sabotages? Where are the various networks (some
to help Muggleborns survive and/or escape, others to undermine LV's
reign, and so on)? Pottercast is wonderful, but back then, the
Underground radio programs were only one part of a big ensemble. Here,
it seems like Pottercast is all there is.

> Which leaves Dolohov, the newly identified
> Selwyn, and a few others to keep track of all the Muggle-borns in
> Britain, with the help of Fenrir Greyback and various crews of
> money-seeking thugs with neither brains nor power?

Plus a load of Imperio'd people. But still, that just doesn't seem to
be enough to me.
 
> The takeover is too quick and involves too few people to make the
> situation of the Muggle-borns (except those whose children have been
> kidnapped) plausible.

I agree. I mean, we are constantly shown, in the other 6 books, how
things that can be very problematic for Muggles, are dealt with very
easily by wizards. And then suddenly, we are supposed to believe that
Muggleborns, with or without their wands, are somehow even more
helpless than even normal Muggles would be? That doesn't make any
sense to me. 

> At any rate, Muggle-borns are not Muggles, and you'd think
> they'd find magical means to protect themselves or even to fight the
> DEs and MoM employees, whom they greatly outnumber, rather than
> complying. It's not like unarmed Jews being arrested and dragged off
> to concentration camps by armed Nazis.

Agreed. If all adult Jews had been trained to use firearms and had had
one on them at all times, the Nazis would have had a *much* harder
time rounding them up! So the analogy rather falls flat for me.

> Rather than submit to the
> decree without taking any kind of action, I would think that most
> Muggle-borns would either fight or run, taking whatever defensive
> measures they could.

I agree. I mean, registering as Muggleborn is one thing, but handing
over their wand, their precious wand, that extension of themselves
that hasn't left them ever since they went to Hogwarts? I just can't
believe that the Muggleborns would do that en masse, not even if it
meant directly defying the MoM.

> I do realize that the Muggle-borns would be fugitives and that they
> would most likely lose their homes, but it's implausible that they
> would not and could not take some sort of precautions or have some
> sort of alternative to becoming as helpless and degraded as Merope.

Again, I agree. Wasn't Merope supposed to be an untalented and
untrained witch left alone in a world she didn't know? That
description doesn't come anywhere close to applying to the Muggleborns.

I'd like to add one point: this apparent inability/reluctance of so
many Muggleborns to manage/want to live in their own *original* world
doesn't sound very healthy to me. I understand that they made a new
life for themselves in the WW, but their roots are still in the MW,
aren't they? Their parents and siblings also live in the MW. So how
come the Muggleborns seem to be so completely disconnected from the
MW? Emigrants usually maintain a link to their home country and
culture, but the Muggleborns seem to completely abandon all things
Muggle behind them. And I don't see this as healthy, neither for them,
nor for the WW in general. It smells too much of "social
schizophrenia", of split personalities, if you see what I mean. The
Statute of Secrecy says that the MW mustn't know about the WW, but it
doesn't say anything about the other way around! It doesn't say that
the WW shouldn't know anything about the MW, so how come it doesn't,
how come the Muggleborns apparently fully abandon their Muggle roots
and completely disconnect themselves from the Muggle world? And by
doing this, aren't they actually doing exactly what the Purebloodists
are preaching: proving that the Muggle World is not as worthy as the
Wizarding World? 

Del