"Pathetic" Muggle-borns

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 178549

Magpie:
> I can see how it does sound like that, what with calling Muggleborns
"pathetic" but in reading the thread I think it's more just about
sloppy world-building, which I totally agree with. I tihnk JKR felt
like she had to write a sprawling story where the WW went under like
WWII, but she's really not interested or able to write a story on 
that level. She's more about individual people. So you wind up, imo, 
with all these references to wider changes that are recognizable from
history without convincingly showing how it happened. She doesn't
write a real resistance movement, she writes some people trying to
keep up morale until Harry saves them all. Writing a real resistance
movement or a real study of how the world could be taken over and
become this way just isn't the story she's writing.
> 
> When I was reading I don't remember specifically being brought up
short by the Muggle-borns, but that was because I just thought they
were there to sort of stand in for "the world is in misery! save us
Harry!". 
> But overall I did think she's created an "Idiot World" as it's
called in bad movies. "When did the Order have time to set up an
underground movement when they were busy moving the Dursleys and Harry
to different houses that day?" just kind of reinforces that. There are
individuals who stand up to people when the plot demands it but on the
world-scale it was, imo, something where you just had to accept it
even if it didn't ring true for you at all. Even the guys who have
been preparing for this and aren't hiding their heads in the sand are
strangely useless. Not stooping to the level of your enemy does not
mean you make yourself completely ineffective, even if that means
killing or forcing people to do things. 

Carol responds:

Exactly. It's not a question of sympathizing with the Death Eaters or
not sympathizing with helplessness and homelessness. It's a question
of believability or verisimilitude. it's as if the highly competent
Muggle-borns, whom JKR has taken pains to depict as being at least as
skilled and powerful as the Pure-bloods and Half-bloods (with
Hermione, and, to a lesser degree, Lily, as her chief examples), and
yet, suddenly, these Muggle-borns, fully qualified wizards with a
Hogwarts education and wands they know how to use to defend themselves
or disguise themselves (not to mention that, with the hints that
Voldemort was about to take over and memories of VWI, it would have
been advisable to stock up on Poly-juice potion if you didn't know how
to turn yourself into an armchair or a dog and weren't a born
Metamorphmagus). Not only do the Order members do little beyond
getting Harry out of Privet Drive and creating safe houses for
themselves and a few others (couldn't they have at least protected Ted
Tonks?) and broadcasting an occasional Pottercast, but the few who do
effectively resist at least to some degree turn out (Hermione
excepted) not to be Muggle-borns at all. Gran Longbottom's story is
both amusing and inspiring, though off-page, but she's a Pure-blood,
as is Neville, the leader of the resistance at Hogwarts. And Luna,
whose courage and optimism contrast so markedly with her father's
cowardice (though, admittedly, he was choosing between what was right
and his daughter's life, not an easy choice for anyone), is the child
of a witch and a wizard. The Muggle-borns are represented by Colin
Creevey, presumably still sixteen though he's a sixth year, whose role
is to die a courageous innocent. But where is the vaunted equality of
the Muggle-borns, about which we've read so much? Certainly, they have
the same rights as Pure-bloods or Half-bloods (or Muggles) to life and
freedom and happiness and, since they're magical, to own and use
wands, but why do they succumb so quickly and easily and completely
(with little help from anyone else) to the will of a small number of
DEs, a Dark Lord who loses interest in them and goes looking for the
Elder Wand, and a corrupt Ministry busy churning out pink pamphlets?

It's not that I don't feel compassion for people forced from their
homes and deprived of what belongs to them (in this case, wands). It's
just that, if I stop to think about it, the whole situation seems
contrived (as do the various coincidences, without which the Trio
would not have found a single Horcrux).

No one is arguing that the Muggle-borns deserve to be mistreated.
We're only wondering why they don't take advantage of their own skill
and power to find some alternative to begging in Diagon Alley. Even
living in a cave (preferably protected by defensive charms) would be
preferable.

Carol, wondering what happened to the confiscated wands and whether
they now consider Umbridge or Yaxley their masters