New Card Story (was Re: Muggles v wizards redux)

[Jerri/Dan Chase]

No: HPFGUIDX 183274

I have been away and came back to the in-depth discussion of JKR's 
treatment of Muggles and Muggle/Wizarding World relations in the 
series as a whole, and with parts of the discussion relating to the 
new short-short story JKR wrote for the Waterstone charity fundraiser 
about James and Sirius and the police and the motorcycle, etc.

I want to focus on just this new bit of writing.

I found myself conflicted by the story.  Read in one way the story is 
a fun, fast moving romp of a story.  But if one reads it closely it 
has a number of issues.

On the one hand the two police men are shown as very caring 
professionals.  They have been chasing this speeding motorcycle for a 
quarter of an hour as speeds that they don't want to believe (and 
modern day motorcycles can easily go well over 180 MPH, my husband 
says that 25 years ago a good "street bike", that is, not a racing 
track only model could make 140.)  My first mental question was how on 
earth did the police car keep up with the cycle for a high speed chase 
that lasted that long?  Either they would get them trapped in a dead 
end or crash sooner than that or the bike would have gotten away!

But, back to the police, after this high speed chase Fisher is caring 
enough to slow down since he doesn't want to run over one of the two 
riders, who he expects to be thrown off the bike.

And, as near as we can tell, Fisher and his partner are preparing to 
arrest these two, they don't seem to be preparing to beat them up. 
(And James and Sirius deserve arresting, at this point.)

One thing we don't know is who are the three men flying into the alley 
on broomsticks?  Are they Death Eaters who have been trying to track 
James and Sirius down?  Was that why J&S were speeding around in the 
first place, when they had attracted the attention of the police?  In 
that case, J&S's actions are somewhat justified like HRH's during the 
Gringotts Break-in, since they had to get the Horcrux/Cup.

However, if the three men were MoM employees coming to do something 
about the potential breach of the Secrecy Act J&S were totally out of 
line.

BUT if the three men were death eaters, then leaving them "apparently 
insensible" on the ground with "broken bits of broomstick" seems to be 
very mean indeed to the poor policemen, who not only have a badly 
damaged police car and a story that their superior officers won't 
believe, but will sooner or later have some very angry death eaters, 
who might do very nasty things to the confused muggle's who they find 
attempting to administer first aid.

Even if the three men are MoM employees, the best that the police will 
get is to have their police car repaired and their memories modified. 
But if the MoM just remove the flying motorcycle and men on 
broomsticks from their memory and leave them with the damaged police 
car and no explanation, they will almost certainly get into trouble 
for wrecking the car.  Probably it will be assumed that they have been 
drinking or drugging or somesuch.

I assume that JKR has the story all worked out in her mind.  I assume 
that the men on broomsticks are DE's and that after J&S's departure 
the MoM or DD or someone will arrive and grab the DE's and fix the car 
and provide a substitute memory for the police.  And JKR obviously 
doesn't have a problem with memory wipes for muggles in her world.

And couldn't she leave out the "fat" jokes about the poor policemen. 
Cheap laughs about fat people seem so out of place, for someone who on 
her web site expressed concern about young women and girls with weight 
and image issues!  In the books as a whole I had been able to 
rationalize her "fat" jokes aimed at Dudley.  He was being made fun of 
because he was a git not a fat muggle.  But, I thought he turned out 
very well in the end, and there are some nice characters with weight 
issues and other nasties without.

I am now trying to remember if she could write humor without making it 
be "make fun of someone"?

Just some thoughts about a minor bit of JKR's writing.

Jerri