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Post by vegablack on Jun 9, 2009 19:10:13 GMT -5
So what are the effects of the ability to do magic on society and the way people think? If broken bones can be healed with a spell or a potion and people can survive falls from the sky with only a broken arm, do people gain a casual attitude toward violence? Do children at Hogwarts grow up thinking that violence isn't a problem?
Are wizards play rougher with their children since a child dropped from a window can bounce down the street unharmed and it is ridiculous to think two wizards can die in a car crash. Do Muggles and squibs appear to be insanely fragile like infants? Are squibs often injured in well meaning families unfamiliar with people unprotected by magic?
Does having powers completely absent in other humans create a sense of entitlement and right to rule? Is that why wizards can erase Muggle memories without a qualm?
What would be the effects of magic on a culture. What is the ethics of magic? Any thoughts?
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Post by cuthbertbinns on Jun 13, 2009 19:27:25 GMT -5
It does seem that wizards allow their kids to engage in more dangerous activities than muggle children. I always saw it as a higher risk tolerance than a propensity to violence, but I could be wrong. This is maybe another case where wizard society still lives by older standards in which more of a rough and tumble youth was the norm. Also, I don't know if it was Jo's intent, but with all the jinxes gone wrong, curses, cursed objects and dangerous plants and animals that turn up in the stories the wizard world feels like a dangerous place. So maybe there would be an attitude that kids should get used to dealing with it.
As far as ethics go, the casual use of obliviate always struck me as the big issue in the stories. The scene at the world cup in GoF, where the manager of the camp ground was continually obliviated, was particularly irksome. Muggles are typically treated as a minor and sometimes amusing annoyance. Sure, the implication is that it is only done to maintain secrecy, but in practice that sort of policy of limited use never holds true.
The ability to do magic has probably always made wizards at least a little arrogant and superior, but thinking about this, I'm wondering if the policy of secrecy and resulting isolation haven't amplified this feeling. Basically, wizards are never accountable to muggles for their actions, but instead police themselves. This is a system ripe for abuse. And the isolation resulting from secrecy would only serve to amplify misunderstanding, which can feed feelings of superiority or exaggerate fears.
I would say that the key to maintaining ethics in magic is the same as in any situation, namely accountability.
Hum, maybe wizarding society should consider rescinding the statute of secrecy?
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Post by queenie on Jun 16, 2009 15:28:30 GMT -5
I think I've mentioned it before on this site: Ron's casual attitude towards Confounding his driving instructor so that he could pass the test really really grated on me. He said, sure, I can use another spell to check and see if there's a car behind me, but I find it hard to believe that he would be able to use that spell every single time he needs that skill. And Confounding the instructor, I thought, is on a line with drugging him, just so he can pass. We have got to assume that he lifted the spell immediately afterwards - what if the next student driver passed the test thanks to that same spell? Or what if the driving instructor went home immediately afterwards, and tried to drive while Confounded? Good Merlin!
I agree about the Obliviating of the solitary Muggle at the Quidditch World Cup. What was he even doing there? Had they rented land from a Muggle solicitor, and so needed one Muggle representative and his family? Why couldn't they, I don't know, have someone take him and his family out for the day and then at the end Modify his memory to make him think he'd spent the whole day working hard, checking people in? Or maybe not modifying his memory every single time he got suspicious? Surely that could not be healthy for him. Dumbledore could enchant a piece of paper in the orphanage to make the lady not question him; surely the wizards at the World Cup could do something similar...
Um, having written a story that features an Obliviator as a main character, this is a bit of a big deal.
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Post by vegablack on Jul 8, 2009 12:28:10 GMT -5
I believe that the muggle ran the camp ground where they were all staying. His family and he lived there which was how the death eaters were able to capture them and toss them in the air. I suppose that all camp grounds large enough to house all the people there would be muggle run.
I don't know what they could have done to treat him better which is why the wizarding world is dangerous when they contact muggles.
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Post by dancingpony on Jul 8, 2009 15:05:12 GMT -5
I
Even if Ron lifted the spell immediately after his own driving test, doesn't being Confounded leave the "victim" dazed for a while afterward? Remember in book seven, when Harry, Ron and Hermione were camping -- and they heard Ted Tonks, Dean, a man named "Dirk" and two goblins having a conversation? Dirk said he had been captured and was on his way to Azkaban, but he was able to get away from his guard because the guard wasn't "quite right" at the time. Dirk thought hte guard had been Confunded. Since Dirk didn't do the Confunding, obviously the effects lasted a while. Possibly because the spell hadn't been lifted -- but I'd guess, when used on a muggle, the spell would leave some side effects for a while.
It isn't likely the muggle family spends every minute of the day, every day of the year, at the campground without a break. With very little thought and effort, the family could have been sent away for the weekend -- someone at the ministry, for instance, could have easily arranged for the family to "win" a weekend trip to the seashore.
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Post by queenie on Jul 9, 2009 2:44:32 GMT -5
It isn't likely the muggle family spends every minute of the day, every day of the year, at the campground without a break. With very little thought and effort, the family could have been sent away for the weekend -- someone at the ministry, for instance, could have easily arranged for the family to "win" a weekend trip to the seashore. Which makes the whole World Cup thing even stranger. Why couldn't they have been sent away? They served a very important purpose in the plot, of course - to be the subject of the Death Eater's wraths. *shudder* I wonder if any of them were ever the same again. Mr. Roberts had his memory modified like once every quarter-hour, and after that incident his memory was purged to the point where he was dazedly wishing the Gang a "Merry Christmas" when they left. Were his children and wife in the same state? Would that be healthy for his children? Obviously better than the alternative, but still... They did serve a purpose for the plot, but the fact that they were there is an oddity, which JKR would need to justify. Maybe it's, like, a tradition to have a Muggle at a major event like the World Cup - wizards do seem to like things being organized and properly sponsored and traditional. If he owns the campground, or represents the company that owns it, having him there is a sign that everything is going according to plan. If his memory is wonked up every quarter hour - well, it's only temporary. He'll get better. It reminds me of... gosh, some Muggle tradition or superstition, a much better example is slipping my head, but there's an old superstition that if a sailor meets an idiot on his way to sea, he'll do well. It's cruel, but... that's what Muggles believed, once upon a time. Another note on ethics: Muggles debate the existence of souls. Wizards have no debate; they know souls exist, and know they can be torn apart, and how to store them, and how to restore them. How does knowledge - incontrovertible knowledge - of a soul's existence affect ethics? It seems to be something that's just built in to the ethical structure of the world. We never hear for sure about it until book 6, just because everyone takes it for granted. Just look at the ghosts, they'll tell you all you need to know about souls. Well, in a glance. |
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Post by doriscrockford on Jul 9, 2009 7:09:32 GMT -5
Regarding the muggle family at the World Cup: JKR's description of the campground and the non-Death Eater behaviour that went on there reminded me strongly of the music festivals that are held here in the UK every summer, the biggest one being Glastonbury (the town itself plays a big part in Arthurian legends). Where the festival is held is supposedly over an important ley line site and lots of New Agers/Druids think of the whole area as a spiritual centre. Anyway, the site of the festival (and therefore the campsite) is a privately owned farm. It didn't strike me as strange that the muggle family would be there either because it was stated in the book or I assumed that he was the owner of the land and had rented it out for what he thought was a festival (Renaissance or otherwise) of some sort. It was his home; that's why he couldn't be sent away. As to why the World Cup couldn't have been held somewhere else, perhaps there wasn't a wizard-owned piece of land that was large enough or secluded enough or maybe that particular spot had some significance in Wizarding culture. Vegablack's question of whether wizards are rougher than muggles is an interesting one. My initial instinct was to equate magic with modern medicine: were medieval parents gentler with their children when it was easier for them to die of infection from an injury? Obviously not, but perhaps that was because they didn't know what caused (and how to prevent) infections and illnesses. But I think from what we've seen of Madam Pomfrey's attitude toward injuries, magic seems to have a quicker and better success rate and so perhaps the parental reaction after the injury may be different. Wizard parents wouldn't have so much worry. But we've seen in St Mungo's that there are different types of illness and injuries in the Wizarding World than in ours, and in the cases of inexplicable problems (Arthur's bite) there is still the fear of loss and pain. So to sum up  I don't know if wizard parents are rougher, but their areas of concern may just be in different circumstances than muggle parents, and both sets would have the same worries of protecting and losing their children. |
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Post by starsea on Jul 9, 2009 14:09:40 GMT -5
Vegablack's question of whether wizards are rougher than muggles is an interesting one. The thing is that we don't really get to see much of magic family life. Harry usually stays with the Weasleys: five boys and one girl who's a tomboy. Boys are naturally more physical and rough with each other. We see that Molly Weasley is protective of her children, especially Ginny, but she hasn't got time to run around after them, she has to take care of the house. The kids were probably sent outside as soon as they were old enough to play in the garden. In contrast, I expect Narcissa and Lucius were extremely protective and didn't allow Draco to do much. Draco would probably have had a nanny (or maybe many nannies) and Dobby would also have had to look after him if the nanny wasn't available (poor Dobby). Hogwarts can be a bit rought, but that's typical of boarding school life. You either sink or swim. It's why you have houses and house teachers, as a support system. |
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Post by vegablack on Jul 13, 2009 22:45:07 GMT -5
Medieval parents were rough often because they didn 't always have a choice, children needed to work, there was little food and comforts to go around. There were a lot of children.
But with both Muggles and Wizards in the modern world we have the benefits of whealth and abundance.
But I was asking a different question, if a parent was used to a child who could fall from a broom twenty feet in the sky and only sustain a broken wrist, how ever easy that wrist would heal, would they look at falling differently than a muggle parent whose child would be killed by the fall. Would Muggles appear to have the delicate fragility of a new born or a child before he manifested magic.
YOu might fear dropping a newborn but not an eight year old who could fall from a broom and bounce or merely break a wrist.
Perhaps Squib children die because magical parents arent' used to children who can die in a fall.
(Granted that there are other magical maladies that wizards would worry over for their magical children, like spattergoit.)
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Post by kelleypen on Jul 15, 2009 9:10:04 GMT -5
Good point. If magical injuries are easily healed and prevented, then Muggle standards of safety need not apply. No safety helmets are required for riding a broom. So if you have a poor little squib child, and a bunch of magical people with cat-like ability to land on their feet again and again, the little squib is going to be darned lucky to survive his family through childhood. Perhaps that is part of the reason squibs are so rare--not as much genetically rare as much as they have a very high childhood mortality rate. I can even see in ancient magical days that a high childhood mortality rate would be encouraged, rather like Spartans leaving all the babies under seven pounds on a hillside to die.
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Post by vegablack on Jul 16, 2009 12:43:22 GMT -5
Exactly Kelleypen I could see a Squib child either being injured by parents who can't seem to keep track of everything that could hurt him. I could also see a Squib who is injured while playing with magical children, either because they bully him in the thoughtless way children have or because they don't realize that the same games that they play without injury could hurt him. A child might want to ride on a broom to see what it is like and then fall to his death while playing. It would be more tragic because it is innocent.
A Squib child might also be over-protected by parents who don't understand what could hurt him, and don't want to risk allowing too much. I think in someways that might explain a little of why Neville had never been on a broom before Hogwarts. I don't think the clumsiness explains it adequately. (Would you keep a clumsy child off a bicycle?) I always thought that his elderly caregivers didn't want to make an effort, but recently I've wondered if his family viewing him as almost a Squib and feared he'd be injured by magical play?
His great-uncle assuming he was magical and wanting to force some magic out of him and also frustrated by his sheltered life gives him his pushes. That would explain the lack of broom flying and the dangerous pushes.
You either have kids injured by interactions with their magical relatives or overprotected and insulated from the magical world. (I'm assuming here that they weren't sent away.)
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Post by doriscrockford on Jul 17, 2009 7:03:34 GMT -5
But a squib child growing up in a magical family would still have access to magical medicine. We don't know that wizarding children have some kind of barrier, tougher bones or quicker healing time than muggle children; we've just seen magical remedies. We have no reason to assume that those remedies wouldn't work on non-magical children, because we know spells work on muggles (confundus, levicorpus, etc) and even potions and charms would probably work (Hermione sent her muggle parents some tooth-flossing sweets). I think it's Hagrid who says at one point that the wizarding world wants to keep their existence secret from muggles because otherwise the muggles would constantly be after them to do things for them. So I don't think a squib child would be in more physical danger than a magical child. But emotional danger is another question ...  |
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Post by vegablack on Jul 17, 2009 13:10:54 GMT -5
When Neville falls from his broom in first year he is very far in the air. He only sustains a broken wrist while such a fall in a normal human would result in a broken back or death. The falls and injuries we see in Quidditch games given the height and speed of the play would result in death for normal people. Being hit by a bludger would kill us, yet players sustain injuries that don't result in instant death.
Hagrid says it would have been impossible for wizards like Harry's parents to die in a car crash. Wouldn't it have been possible if they were far from others and thus far from access to wizarding medicine.
These injuries are also quickly healed by magic. Neville's broken wrist is healed in minutes rather than weeks, but the fact that he only sustained a broken wrist after such a fall can only be explained by some kind of magical protection to the body.
When he is dropped out the window by Great Uncle Algie he manifests magic and bounces down the street. He doesn't break his neck and crush his head which is what would have happened to a squib or a normal child who was hung by his ankle and then dropped from a second or third story window. The magic protected him from injury.
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Post by birdg on Jul 21, 2009 13:35:57 GMT -5
I think we can assume their magic does protect them. This became most evident to me while reading DH - Harry jumps into freezing water and his heart doesn't stop, Ron follows and after rescuing him they sit in the snow for a bit and they walk back without casting a warming charm or getting hypothermia.
Then there's the scene at Gringotts where the Trio and Griphook were drowning in burning hot metal and didn't die of third-degree burns. All they needed was some dittany afterwards and they were right as rain.
It's mentioned in GoF that muggles can be healed by magical medicine. Arthur mentions it to Harry, I forgot about what, possibly what happened to the Muggle camping groundskeeper and his family.
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Post by queenie on Jul 21, 2009 20:38:23 GMT -5
Then there's the scene at Gringotts where the Trio and Griphook were drowning in burning hot metal and didn't die of third-degree burns. All they needed was some dittany afterwards and they were right as rain. Oh gosh but I wondered about that when I was reading DH! I was like, "Wouldn't they be unable to stand even moving if everything's supposed to be that hot?" Magic protecting wizards inherently makes sense. It makes a lot of sense! And it allows for dramatic settings and stuff like rooms full of red hot metal (that's constantly increasing in multitude) and jumping into freezing water without worrying about silly stuff like physics or biology. (Why would one's heart freeze upon leaping into frozen water? Is it the shock?) Hmm, so this makes me wonder - would the Cruciatus Curse affect a Muggle even worse than it does a wizard? Or is one of the effects of the Curse that it completely penetrates all the body's defenses, including those of magic? It also makes me wonder if a wizard's magic would come into effect if they were under torture to get them to reveal some key information - if the wizard's magic would kill the wizard, as a mercy kill/suicide. I almost feel it would have been mentioned, say in the case of the Longbottoms... |
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Post by vegablack on Jul 22, 2009 1:30:14 GMT -5
There is no mention of the mechanism besides the Cruciatus curse itself that would have left the Longbottoms in their state. We just know that the curse was applied with such ferocity that they were left permanently damaged. (I follow this because I write them a lot.)
No failed strategy for avoiding their fate is listed. Indeed Voldemort kills someone who he has left in a similar state after trying to remove a memmory charm. Their magic didn't appear to have offered them a chance to kill themselves either. No such chance is mentioned in the books.
!. First it is a children's book and timely suicide is probably not allowed by publishers for good reason.
2. The person who is being tortured to that extent is probably in the control of the person torturing them and thus probably wandless. I cannot imagine a person under torture that extreme would have the mental wherewithal to perform wandless magic even assuming there was such a thing.
3. Any defence they would have would be like the accidental magic of a child. It isn't clear that adults can still do accidental magic. Even if they could it is by its nature unpredictable. The person might preform some magic that was useless to them.
4. The one person whose magic allows them to die out of despair is Merope. She seems to pine unto death. The magic allows her to die, but even in her case it isn't clear how she acomplishes it. The censure she receives implies it was a volitional choice, something a person tortured into insanity wouldn't have.
No alternate salvation is ever given for the Longbottoms. There is not listed strategy that they could have used.
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Post by birdg on Jul 22, 2009 12:13:03 GMT -5
I think with Merope it was more that she became so depressed that her magic didn't work and she basically died due to the trauma of childbirth. It's her "fault", I'm guessing, because as a witch she could have chosen to snap herself out of her depression and focus on her son then her magic would work again and she wouldn't have died.
Just a guess.
BTW, Vega, I have an idea for a Neville fic-type thing that I want to get your opinion on. Should I PM you here or at LJ or wherever is most convienent?
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Post by vegablack on Jul 22, 2009 14:01:31 GMT -5
LJ is best. Thanks. Here is fine though.
The conversation about Merope between Dumbedrore and Harry angered me. I know Harry is an orphan with abandonment issues, but all I could think as I saw two successful men discuss her failure as a woman and a mother because she allowed herself to die in childbirth was "What do you know about being alone, penniless, uneducated, and pregnant?"
Merope has no friends, no money, no mother, a violent and abusive father and brother, no skills and no obvious way of making a living. She's ugly and unwanted. JKR makes a point of telling us that she is ugly. I think we can infer that she is ashamed of her actions. Why else would she have stopped giving Tom Riddle the potion that kept him ensnared?
What do these two know about feeling ashamed and a failure? What do they know about believeing you are ugly, incompetent and worthless and knowing that other people think the same about you? What do they know about being alone and pregnant?
Lilly Evans has a lot more than courage behind her. She is conveniently beautiful, educated, intelligent and popular. She has a lot that Merope has never had and will never have. It is ridiculous to compare them.
At that moment I knew that Dumbledore had little understanding of what it was to be weak, powerless, or ashamed. Losing his sister partially through his own actions had apparently not taught him that.
Later I came to understand a little about JKR's characterization of Merope when I discovered that she had been severely depressed when her daughter was a baby. She sought treatment because she realized her daughter needed her. This hasn't changed my opinion of the men in the conversation though.
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Post by queenie on Jul 22, 2009 17:12:32 GMT -5
vegablack, in my reread of HBP I haven't yet gotten to the point regarding Tom Riddle Jr.'s birth and Merope's death. Last I visited them it was in the House of Gaunt, which I personally find to be one of the most powerful passages in the books. So, I'll get back to you on that. Might I suggest that as soon as Harry realized that Merope was Voldemort's mother, he lost a certain amount of pity for her? This article - link -> www.redhen-publications.com/Premature.html - presents an extremely interesting theory for Merope Gaunt's death and Tom Riddle's early life; namely, that Poor, poor Merope. Should we give the Gaunts and Riddle's family its own thread? Personally I love this theory. It doesn't excuse Harry and Dumbledore from dismissing Merope, but, erm, I haven't gotten there yet. Hmm, though... I'd thought that the point of the lessons between Harry and Dumbledore, revealing all about Tom Riddle's past, was meant to inspire pity for Tom Riddle, the unloved child of a pitiful girl. This may have been me reading too much A Wrinkle In Time, but I fully expected Harry to learn to feel truly and deeply sorry for Voldemort and - I don't know, Care Bear Stare him to death. I'd thought the ethics of the series would have maintained a more pacifistic viewpoint, though obviously I was disproven on that count. (See? See? I can bring this back to the topic!  )
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Post by vegablack on Jul 22, 2009 17:39:03 GMT -5
I think starting a new thread on the guants would be a great idea.
Harry didn't kill Voldemort. Harry was going to use expeliramus and Voldemort his him with a killing curse that rebounded against him. Harry offered Voldemort the chance to repent which he scoffed at. Whether Harry really believed V. could or would is immaterial. Voldemort refused.
Personally I'm glad she didn't write V. repenting.
Some people don't. A lot of people remain firm in their malice to their end. I think that was realistic. I lot of what appears to be repentence is merely self-pity.
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I don't know if wizard parents are rougher, but their areas of concern may just be in different circumstances than muggle parents, and both sets would have the same worries of protecting and losing their children.
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