Muggles v wizards redux

[hickengruendler]

No: HPFGUIDX 183238

 
> a_svirn:
> Sure it does, but it seems to me that it is a completely different 
> issue. You are basically saying that muggles are just too 
> insignificant for the story to be bothered with. They are of 
course, 
> but they are there nevertheless, the ever-present foil to the 
> Wizarding world, and Rowling is *very* persistent in bringing them 
> up. I mean, OK for the Dursleys, but why on earth do we need the 
> entire chapter about the Muggle minister? Does it add anything 
> significant to the plot? Nope. If Rowling wanted us to understand 
> that the Muggle world is likewise affected by Voldemort she could 
> have Kingsley to say something relevant at the Order meeting. And 
yet 
> we are emphatically treated to a yet another show of muggle 
> inferiority, and invited to chuckle at the spectacle of their 
> humiliation. Moreover, we are told in the interview that it is a 
very 
> important chapter, one she wanted to squeeze in the second book 
> first, but saved for later. It looks like it is an imperative with 
> Rowling to show muggles as inferiors and she goes to considerable 
> lengths to achieve it. And much as I'd like not to bother about 
them, 
> thanks to Rowling's persistence I can't help doing just that.  
> a_svirn


Hickengruendler:

But the Prime Minister is ridiculed by Fudge and Scrimgeour. They are 
not exactly role models. I mean, I do enjoy Fudge in this chapter and 
think some of his quotes here were pretty funny, but he's still 
Fudge. He was shown to be a rascist basically from his very first 
appereance onwards. So when I see him obviously acting superior to 
the Prime Minister, I don't identify with him, nor do I think his 
behaviour is supposed to be okay. I did sort of like the Prime 
Minister however, and thought he was in an awful situation, due to no 
fault of his own, and couldn't do anything about it. So if we were 
meant to see him as ridiculous, I don't think JKR suceeded. At least 
not for me.