Suspension of disbelief -Idiots of War

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 182420

---  "dumbledore11214" <dumbledore11214 at ...> wrote:
>
> > Magpie:
> <SNIP>
> > We're just disagreeing that JKR set up a situation where 
> > everyone was powerless and paralyzed to do anything but 
> > wait for Harry. And that this was playing it like a 
> > realistic war story.
> 
> Pippin:
> I don't see how you can acknowledge that in real life there
> are times when people feel they are paralyzed and powerless
> to do anything, and yet say that if JKR puts that in her 
. story, it's not realistic.
> <SNIP>
> 
> Alla:
> 
> I do not know about Magpie, but I am not as much having issue
> that it was unrealistic that people feel they are paralyzed 
> and powerless to do anything per se, as I am having issue 
> with the DEGREE of that. Whole society waits for teenager 
> and two of his friends to free them. I have no problem with 
> quick fall of the Ministry as I said before, I find it very
> well foreshadowed and well executed. **I am having problems 
> with NOBODY else in the whole society except few people 
> doing anything to fight Voldemort.** Does that make sense? 
> To me it is all in the degrees. 
> 
> ...

bboyminn:

Here is the logical flaw in your argument, you are assuming
that no one is doing anything, but, in my view that seems
completely illogical. In OotP, we see that the Order is doing
lots of things, though we don't know exactly what they are
because that information is hidden from Harry.

You assume that in HBP and DH that the Order and other
citizens are doing nothing, and only to a limited extent is
that true. Just as the bulk of the French citizens did 
nothing about the occupation by the Nazis because the felt
powerless to do anything, so to did the bulk of the wizard
citizens accept their fate. That fits consistently with 
real world examples in history. 

Just as in real history, where there were people who opposed
what was happening, so to were there wizard citizens who did
their best to oppose Voldemort and the DE's rise to power.
But, and this is a point I made before, there were not in a 
position to launch and all out assault on the DE's or
Voldemort; that would have been suicide. So, again as I said,
they operated a stealthy 'shadows' effort. 

Now, as we all know, we don't see the wizard world doing a
lot because Harry is our point-of-view character, and Harry
doesn't see it. If he can't see it, neither can we, but there
are signs in the books that citizens are resisting and that 
they are supporting Harry and any other resistance movement
that crops up. 

But this is not the story of that resistance movement, this 
is Harry's story and that is the story JKR told. Yes, the
bulk of the citizen were powerless because they were in a 
position that they could only fight their own government or
fight seeming DE's one-on-one in public which would have
been near suicide. There is no point in dying pointlessly,
there is not point in attacking if winning is hopeless and
your death is pointless.

Again, this had to be a very stealthy in-the-shadows type
of resistance until such time as the wizard world was in
a position to launch an actual pointed fruitful attack,
and the battle at Hogwarts gave them that field to fight on.

Again, the books don't show us a lot of what the resistance
was doing because this is not their story, but we know 
there were people organize against Voldemort and those
who were very unsympathetic to Voldemort's cause, and there
are hints in the books that in their behind-the-scenes way
they were resisting the best they could until such time
as it became productive to launch a full frontal assault.

It is just illogical in my books to assume that the ENTIRE
wizard world sat back and sipped tea and did nothing. 

Just one man's opinion.

Steve/bboyminn