Harry Potter/Headscratchers/Universe: Difference between revisions

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== Wizarding World in General, Technology ==

* It's established that in the Potterverse, the dead can be spoken to if there are pictures of them. Why then, does Harry never even consider having pictures of his parents (or Sirius etc.) painted. I can buy that there might be arguments against it along the lines of "it wouldn't be real" or "it wouldn't do to live in the past" or whatever, but surely Harry would at least consider it?

* Sorry if this is obvious, but why are the teachers called Professors when they are teaching the equivalent of high school, not college?

** Well, a person is called 'Professor' based on his/her educational degree, and not the place they teach. For that same reason, none of the teachers in my college are called Professors. They are either Doctors, or simply teachers...

** But they could take care of that, if they can hide a big Quidditch ground, I'm sure they could hide a search engine from the wrong people, even Muggle computer technicians can do that.

*** Why would there be an internet? To begin with, we know that electronic devices like computers don't work well around magic and don't work ''at all'' at Hogwarts. Then consider that the books take place from 1991 to 1998. How much of an internet did we have back in 1998? Just because people have magic doesn't mean they're going to invent things before Muggles do and it's actually stated that having magic makes you less likely to be logical or creative since you can just cast a spell and solve your problems instead of having to work at it.

* Wizarding Wireless Network? Wizarding ''Wireless'' Network? Wires?

** I think this one can be explained as certain slang not transferring well. Wireless just means radio in Britain IRC. Doesn't explain radios and no TV though.

*** Magic doesn't work by normal logic. ''Protego'' is not a field of force preventing minor-moderate curses, solid objects or shockwaves from hitting you, it's a magic shield which stops you from being harmed, no matter the means, up to a point (i.e. powerful curses like ''Avada Kedavra''). Since visible light is not harmful, ''Protego'' won't block it. However, since other types of radiation are deadly, it would stop them. Indeed, if you trained a powerful laser on a ''Protego'', it would probably block the light as it is now high-powered enough to burn. Magic doesn't work by logical laws, it works by laws of how a human thinks, and a human thinks a Shield Charm would stop him from getting hurt.

**** I doubt that many wizards are familiar enough with the technology to realize it does more than just cause a really big explosion.

** Why assume it actually ''was'' a nuke that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Considering Rowling seems to be trying to tie Grindelwald's story to World War II (the dates she gives for his reign match up almost perfectly with the rise and fall of the Reich), it's possible that it was a spot of particularly bad magic that they invented the nuke story to cover up. Once you add magic into a story, you have to consider the [[A Wizard Did It]] explanation for nearly everything.

*** But then the nuclear weapons R&D of every nuclear country, spanning decades and costing untold billions of dollars, would have to be a part of the cover-up.

*** A grenade launcher fired at close range would easily kill the shooter. You can't catch a piece of shrapnel to the face from a wand-blast.

*** One, the fact that we can kill 13 muggles in a single shot from even further away is ''more'' scary than the wand, not less. And two, you want 13 dead people in a single trigger pull and wave at close range? Behold, the flame thrower.

** You don't even have to mention nuclear weapons. Most older British wizards will have lived through the Blitz and should know what Muggle weapons are capable of. This Troper's guess is that you just don't mention it in 'polite company', so that most wizards have simply forgotten about it, or never learned about it. The Purebloods we see in the books don't even understand age-old technology like electricity and telephones, and if the Daily Prophet article about Sirius's escape is an indicator, they have no idea what a gun is. In the worst case Muggle weapon technology would be used as an example of how dangerous those 'vile creatures' [sic] are.

** Knowledge about the Muggle world seems to be somewhat inconsistent. For example, Arthur Weasley somehow managed to obtain a car, learn how to drive it and give it magically enhanced abilities. He also works in a Ministry department that regularly deals with 'Muggle artifacts'. Yet, his biggest ambition in life is to find out how airplanes stay in the air, something he could pick up from any number of (childrens) textbooks.

**** Who says he needs to gain that knowledge? He could have just confunded his traffic examiner to get the license and relied on magic to get him through a drive safely. That's what his son does, after all. Or he just drives unlicensed. He floos into work normally, and he can apparate, so he probably relies on those for his transportation needs. He probably just thinks of the car as a really cool toy that he takes out on joyrides, and he does seem to live in a pretty isolated rural area, so he probably can do that without running into a whole lot of danger.

**** Considering Arthur's car became sentient on its own, and even the staid Ministry of Magic cars can leap to the front of a traffic queue, it's possible that no wizard is 'driving' any car, just directing them generally in the right direction, and they all are self-driving like the Knight Bus, along with various spells to keep Muggles from noticing their impossible behavior. However, no one besides Ernie Prang directs their vehicle in such a crazy manner, so Harry doesn't notice this.

** To me, wizards' knowledge of the Muggle world, or lack thereof, is absolutely inexcusable. One of the more egregious examples of this is when, in one of the books (I think it was Prizoner Of Azkaban), they mention that the Muggle authorities were reporting that Sirius had a gun when he escaped, which the magical source of news had to clarify as "A kind of metal wand Muggles use to kill each other," meaning that enough of the wizarding world doesn't know what a gun is that clarification must be made. I don't buy that. Guns have been around for over five hundred years, and wizards don't know what they are? This just raises even more questions: do they know anything about the history of the modern world? Harry seems to sleep through all his wizard history classes, and they never seem to cover Muggle history, so exactly what kind of bubble does the wizarding world live in? Then there's the fact that you've got people like Ron, who, unlike Harry or Hermione, have spent their whole lives in the wizarding world, and then proceed to go to Hogwarts, apparently having never gone to basic school, where they proceed to sleep through ''their'' history classes, essentially becoming full fledged adults with little to no understanding of the history of the world, current events, or even some major technological innovations that have changed the world forever.

*** Uhm, about the "people like Ron" thing... isn't that pretty much [[Truth in Television]] for most students in the real world?

** A thought just occurred to me: what if a wizard, on his/her way to Diagon Alley, got held up by a Muggle with a gun? They wouldn't know what a gun was, all they'd know is a person stuck something weird looking at them and said something to the effect of [[The Fifth Element|"gimmie the casssssssssssh."]] They'd be confused, say "no," and try to walk away, not knowing their life was being threatened. Cue a wizard getting shot because of gross ignorance.

**** Strong gun control laws means a mugger would be more likely to use a knife? [[Sarcasm Mode|Yes, because all criminals follow the law.]]

**** Actually, yes. It's difficult enough to obtain guns that if you are mugged, as was stated, the mugger is ''more likely'' to be using a knife.

*** And that's what Appearation and the Floo Network is for: so wizards don't have to deal with the Muggle World. They don't have to know anything about us, and we can't find out about them should someone get careless and pull out a Galleon instead of a subway token.

** It could be argued that this ignorance is only true for isolated living purebloods, like the Weasleys or the Malfoys. Hogsmeade is said to be the only all-wizarding town in England, so any Wizards who lives in a town not called Hogsmeade would have at least some contact with Muggles. Heck, even the ancestral home of the Muggle-hating Blacks is somewhere in London, surrounded by Muggle houses.

***** No it doesn't. People ''thinking'' military force is the silver bullet often comes up in reality, yes, but really, it's not. See; Iraqi and Afghan Wars.

***** There are more than 15 or so enemy combatants in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

** Also, one should note that wizards are much more resilient to physical damage due to their instinctive magical protection; Hagrid scoffed at Harry's belief that his parents died in a car crash, as no car crash can kill a wizard, the story where Neville got tossed out of a upper floor window by his relatives to tempt out a sign of magic is treated as a joke, and Qudditch players take regular lead cannonballs to the head with nothing worse than a mild concussion. So I would guess that a wizard would shrug off non-magical firearm rounds as something painful and annoying but not lethal. Also, it has to be noted that Rowling's wizards do not excel in purely offensive magic and wreaking of general havoc, but on subtler skills, like disguise and obfuscation (they hid a city in the middle of London), speed (apparation, flying), and mind-control (the Imperius curse, and the Memory spell). Sure, a nuke or a Muggle army might surprise and overcome a group of wizards by sheer brute force. But that nuke and army is not going to do any good if: they can't find the wizards in the first place, said wizards vanish into white smoke everytime they get close, the soldiers suddenly get all of their mission objectives and combat training wiped from their brains, or the nuke [[Hitch Hikers Guide to The Galaxy|gets transmogrified into a sperm whale and a pot of petunias]] on its way down to the target.

*** Hagrid scoffed at the idea because Lily and James ''don't drive cars'', not because they are somehow invulnerable to fiery metal death. Bludgers are made of iron, not lead, and they are never stated to be solid rather than being relatively thin shells. Also, if the wizards aren't coming out and fighting in the open, that's what special forces and intelligence agencies people are for. It helps that wizards are so outnumbered.

***** Actually. Hagrid says "Car crash? A car crash killed Lily and James Potter? It's an outrage, it's a scandal!" Lily and James are some of the most well-known martyrs in wizarding history. Hagrid is offended that anyone would try to cover up their heroics. It would be like saying that Jesus was run over by a donkey.

****** His full quote is "CAR CRASH? How could a car crash kill Lily an' James Potter? It's an outrage! A scandal! Harry Potter not knowin' his own story when every kid in our world knows his name!" It does seem like he says this because he thinks Harry should know but it also sort of implies that Lily and James could get in as many car crashes as they wanted and they'd be fine.

** It could be that they don't know where exactly Voldy is at any time, so they can't just apparate wherever and snipe him right away. If they sniped random Death Eaters, Voldy would pick up that Muggles were fighting against him and there'd probably be ''huge'' retribution against Muggles in general. Even after he took over the Ministry, he didn't immediately massacre every Muggle, but if there were signs that Muggles were a threat, he probably would have. Even if gun beats magic, the majority of British civilians won't know what the hell is going on, would be unarmed, and even if they were armed, they probably wouldn't know how to use the gun properly.

** Regarding the "Wizards high up in government" thing, I got the impression that Kingsley Shacklebolt being in the Prime Minister's office was sort of a one-off thing for the duration of the current emergency with Voldemort. Other than the communication between the Prime Minister of Britain and the Minister of Magic, there doesn't seem to be much communication between the governments, nor any penetration of the Muggle government by the wizards.

*** *Waves Occam's razor threateningly* Wizards are resistant to mundane deaths. Wizards are powerful enough to do stuff like nukes, but don't because the Ministry has Charms to detect such spells and punish them (hinted in DH). Magically-hidden places cannot be damaged by Muggles.

**** Occam's Razor? Ooh, that's easy. ''Lily and James didn't drive.'' They weren't likely to be out anywhere that they could be involved in a car crash. Just like someone who spends their whole life in Florida isn't likely to die in a blizzard or avalanche. Much more simple than Wizards being resistant to mundane deaths.

* I can't remember what book that the statement comes from, but at one point, it's mentioned that "technology" does not work at Hogwarts, or anywhere that is particularly magical, and breaks down. Harry at one point draws attention to his wristwatch, which has stopped working as a result of this "magical interference," if you will. I found this to be a really lazy bit of writing, as it raises the question of "what exactly constitutes 'technology?'" Aside from the batteries, a wristwatch is entirely mechanical in its construction, IE, it's just gears turning against other gears. The process by which batteries produce energy is also a fairly simple process, which is why you can power a lightbulb using a potato or an orange, so both instances in this case of "magical interference" are retarding basics of machinery, essentially causing the laws of basic physics and chemical reactions to stop working. Let's suppose for a minute that it's not the mechanical processes of a wristwatch (the gears and such) that are being retarded, but the chemical process of the battery that are, as to assume the former is insinuating that magic somehow causes basic mechanics to break down, the implications of which this troper would rather not think of, as he prefers to retain his sanity (his most conservative estimate is that every simple machine would spontaneously stop working, meaning doors, locks, wheels, pulleys, levers, [[Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick|and the human skeletal system]] would stop working). So, as stated, let's assume magic causes batteries to stop working. Batteries work, in laymen's terms, by transferring negatively charged particles and positively charged particles, and utilizing the reactions of them migrating across from one location to another. Because we're assuming that magic retards this process, it is also assuming that magic causes particles to either lose their charge, or renders the physical properties of this process obsolete; it basically means that it causes the process of producing any form of energy to stop working. The implications of this are also not too pretty. This troper estimates, again, at its most conservative implications, that all life in the universe would simultaneously cease to exist.<br />Now, I know what you're asking. What does this have to do with anything? So Rowling decided to not research the implications that making magic subvert basic laws of chemistry and physics would have, namely that most likely the world would implode or something due ''en masse'' violation of the laws of physics? Big deal, [[A Wizard Did It|a wizard literally did it,]] and we're talking about [[MST3K Mantra|a series with wizards and elves in it]]. Well, here's the thing. [[It Just Bugs Me]] because it shows that Rowling was a lazy writer by putting an arbitrary label on "technology," while ignoring the question of "what constitutes technology?" Or, claiming "magic" causes it to not work, by virtue that it's magic. [[It Just Bugs Me]] because it shows that Rowling decided to be lazy, and rather than exploring the very cool idea of how modern technology and magic might have evolved alongside each other, maybe even get into the idea of how eventually the dichotomy between magic and technology may someday be indistinguishable, we're instead given a huge [[Hand Wave]] by having the series pretend Muggles and things to do with Muggles don't exist unless the plot needs them to for a few minutes. It was a cop out, and not a very well written one, in my opinion.

** I suspect that Harry's watch was digital.

*** I can't imagine that pacemakers are common in children and they're a relatively new invention (and it's even newer that pacemakers were given to children) so it might have simply never come up. If a child does have a pacemaker, any responsible guardian would tell the school and, if necessary, explain what a pacemaker is. If nothing else, the child would collapse upon entering the school and immediately be taken to the hospital wing or St. Mungo's and the problem would likely be permanently fixed.

** I think we've forgotten that the reason Harry's watch wasn't working was because he dived into the lake during the second task while wearing it, and continued to wear it out of habit. As to Hermione's comments on bugs not working, it's possible that Hogwarts has some kind of protection against malicious technology such as bugs and bombs and the like.

* I know that this is due to [[Rule of Cool]], which (after plot and theme) is the controlling factor in how the Potterverse works, but still: parchment, quills and ink bottles? People having been trying for a long time to make writing implements which improved on the quill, and wizards have shown that they're willing to copy things invented by Muggles, but they haven't copied fountain pens, much less ballpoint pens. Now, if ''all'' the quills were enchanted to be "ink-free" or "self-inking", then wizards would have no need to adapt those Muggle inventions, but those sorts of quills are the exception, not the rule. And do they do Arithmancy with ink? If so, every time they make a math mistake and need to correct it, they have to put down their quill, pick up their wand, cast an erase spell, put the wand back down, and pick the quill back up, whereas if they used paper and pencil they could just use the eraser on the end of the pencil.

** Don't hate on the quill and ink bottle, I still do my university homework with a quill and ink (and yes, all my friends think I'm weird). Not to mention the wizard quills are much better than actual pens, they never run out of ink, they can change colour at your command, they have a built in spellcheck/factchecker, and they can write an essay by itself via mimicking your own style. Also not all educational institutions allow you to write your homework in pencil, and not all pencils have a eraser on the end, a regular eraser erase probably takes as much time as doing a spell, finally, looking at the proliferation of non-erasable Muggle writing implements (e.g. the above mentioned fountain pens), most of us are obviously not as dyslectic as you.

** Hogwarts is always changing. Maybe they just left some toilets in an empty room and the castle made it's own plumbing.

** The Wizarding world takes on muggle technology, but just at a slow rate. They have cameras, elevators, clocks and what have you. It's not too farfetched to think that plumbing filtered in through the save process of mental osmosis. Furthermore, plumbing is '''ancient''', the Romans had them.

** If you're complaining about the anachronistic of Hogwarts, the bathrooms are trivial problems. For a better example, there are no 1000 year old castles in Scotland. Or England. At all. Castles filtered in from the Normans, which invaded England in 1066, and castles didn't get to Scotland until the 1100s. And those were the wrong kind of castle, which were really just stone keeps with wooden fences...Hogwarts, as described, couldn't possibly exist until the end of the 13th century, and really seems closer to 15th, the very end of castles before cannons made large flat walls impractical.

*** The founders could've copied castle designed from the continent, which later generations of wizards modified. Certainly it would've had to expand over time, as Britain's magical population grew alongside its Muggle population.

 

== Wizarding World in General, Government and Rights ==

*** This American Troper finds this offensive. Our country would never interfere with Britain's affairs! [[Self-Deprecation|They aren't one of our main sources for imported oil.]]

*** Forget writing a fanfic about America intervening. Write one about why it doesn't.

** This troper doesn't recall anything in the 7th book indicating that Voldemort's rebellion had spread beyond the UK. In fact, this troper doesn't recall anything to indicate that the outside world even ''knew'' Voldemort was back. The Ministry warned the Muggle UK Prime Minister, but apart from that, it doesn't seem like they told anybody. And after Voldemort took over, he certainly wouldn't want the French or US wizard governments knowing about it, just in case they did decide to invade.

** Tyrants coming to power in a single state and the coup being given only bureaucratic attention by governments elsewhere unfortunately is [[Truth in Television]]. It's actually one of the most realistic thing about the last book. Far worse things have been done in the real world than what Voldemort was doing to England and its Muggles, Muggle-borns etc.

****** Let's be honest. The real reason nobody persecutes Wiccans is because ''no one believes their ridiculous claims about knowing magic spells''. If Muggles were made aware of REAL magic, the response would be quite different. After all, the reason the Bible considers witchcraft sinful and immoral is because of ''what it can do'', not just because it is allegedly a product of a pact with Satan. If magic were real, society would be utterly unable to tolerate it. How do you live next to a person you know could make your house burst into flame with a word? How do you deal with people who can read and control minds at will and without any physical trace that they've done so? You can't. The only rational response is to either wipe them out or forcibly segregate them from the rest of society (and by "segregate" I mean "move them to another continent", not "put them in a ghetto").

******* Given apparition and portkeys, "wipe them out" is the only option.

** This doesn't really bug me, but I was just wondering if the Muggle bureaucracy even knows that wizards exist - not in the sense that they know Ron Weasley is a Wizard, but in the sense that they know a boy named Ron Weasley exists who was born in whatever year. Do wizards have whatever the British equivalent of social security numbers are? And of course, that relates to another question; just how much population is flying under the radar? Also, presumably Muggle-borns are registered in the system, but what about half-bloods where one parent is a Muggle? What about THEIR kids?

*** Probably not. Wizards existing in the records of Muggle bureaucracies opens up a whole slew of problems. For instance, who keeps these records? I can't see wizards doing it, given their strong cultural bias against doing anything in close proximity to Muggles. So they would have to be kept by Muggles. What happens if some Muggle bureaucrat is going through the records and starts finding more and more people who apparently don't exist? Does the Ministry of Magic keep a full-time company of Aurors on hand to memory-wipe any Muggle who stumbles upon the records? No, the alternative is much more likely. The names and births of wizards don't exist in Muggle records, with the exception of muggle-borns or wizards who are publicly visible to Muggles (i.e. Squibs, wizards who've had their wands snapped, or wizards whose profession involves regular contact with Muggles), and the records of the latter are probably forged. Half-blood wizards are ''probably'' registered (it would be hard to keep them secret from the Muggle side of the family), but not their children. As far as the Muggle government is concerned, half-blood wizards grow up, move away, and die alone and unloved.

**** What do you mean, people who apparently don't exist? All wizards except those in Hogsmeade have Muggle neighbours. Even the Weasleys in Ottery St. Catchpole. Muggleborns and half-bloods don't drop off the face of Muggle Earth. Wizards may not mingle with their Muggle neighbours much, but an inspector looking to confirm the existence of Ron Weasley or Marvolo Gaunt would succeed in doing so. And aversion to working with Muggles? They're in contact with the Prime Minister.

** The reason Hagrid gives for keeping the Muggles in the dark is what bugs me. Apparently, magic is so wonderful that it can't possibly be shunned as a solution like every other new and scary thing exposed to the masses. There are still plenty of people who refuse to touch a computer! "Well, I never needed a wand to look after my house, and I had more kids than this Weasley person!"

*** Hagrid's answer is likely a) something he came up with on the fly, b) something he's not given a lot of thought before, and c) a drastically simplified answer given to an eleven-year-old boy who's just discovered that wizards exist. Explaining the social and political ramifications of the fall of [[The Masquerade]] to a child (potential violent response from Muggles, social unrest, demands to access to magical artifacts for scientific study, cruelty to magical creatures/beings, etc.) when you're not that well-educated yourself is probably pretty difficult.

** It's never really established how widespread pensieves are in this world. For all we know, Dumbledore has one because a previous Headmaster of Hogwarts created it and left it for Headmasters only. If, however, they are widespread enough for commercial use, it's entirely possible that the way veritaserum is bypassed can bypass pensive memories as well. Unbreakable Vows, on the other hand, might be really bad, as, if I remember correctly, if you break one, you die. That would be bad in the courtroom for lying about something small on accident. Unfortunately, even if phrased correctly as an oath of truth, it could probably still be bypassed by the above method of fooling veritaserum. The fact that a truth serum can be bypassed usually means there's a magical method to completely fool one's perspective of the truth. In that case, there would be no way to get the truth unless there's a way to prevent the method.

*** Well, I would presume that the British Ministry would have enough resources to get a single one to be used at trials. As for bypassing the truth serum, according to [[Word of God]], "he [Barty Crouch Jr.] might have sealed his own throat [to prevent swallowing it] and faked a declaration of innocence, transformed the Potion into something else before it touched his lips, or employed Occlumency against its effects", so those techniques couldn't be used against a pensieve or the vow. And when Slughorn tried to tamper with his extracted memory, it was obvious that it had been altered. And as for dying from breaking the vow: 1) the vow could be worded along the lines of "I swear to not ''intentionally'' lie" to prevent death from accidents, and 2) I don't think people would be willing to die in order to lie over minor matters.

*** What really gets me is that their solution to the possibility of veritaserum failure is simply to take testimony without any veritaserum. So, because there is a method of interrogation that can possibly be suborned with significant effort, it is then cast aside and instead they use... a method that can be suborned by the simple effort of opening one's mouth and lying? Refusal to use a method because it's imperfect only makes sense if the alternative is more reliable; otherwise, it might not be ideal, ''but it's still better than nothing''. As for the [[Word of God]] in question; in that very same paragraph, Rowling also mentions that the reason veritaserum ''did'' work on Barty Crouch was because he was 'groggy' at the time he was dosed and thus unable to perform any tricks. The solution is thus obvious; feed the interrogatee a stunner (or some type of confundus or disorienting charm, if you just want to daze them momentarily), force-feed Veritaserum, then enervate.

**** Veritaserum is not better than nothing because it lends a sense of false confidence to the interogation. It is easily understood that the person being questioned may lie, but people may have a harder time accepting that if they've been dosed with veritaserum.

***** That depends on how they use it. If Veritaserum is used so that a confession is treated as proof that it works on the suspect but no confession is not proof that it doesn't then it can be a basic screening method to save a lot of time and effort. The only flaw I can see in this is that it wouldn't detect people confessing to things that they did not do but I think that would only happen in a minority of cases when the person who took the Veritaserum either had a thing for confessing to things they didn't do or if they were trying to protect the person who did commit the crime or who they believed to have committed the crime.

*** Think about this in terms of the Muggle equivalent: do you really think execution is an appropriate punishment for perjury, in EVERY instance? What if you were a witness to a murder, had been through unspeakable horrors, and after therapy agreed to testify at the trial, only to be drugged, threatened with death if your accounts were imperfect or you told a white fib (e.g. "I was on that street to pick up the dry cleaning, not buy sex toys..."), made to give up your private memories and experiences to be scrutinized by strangers, and treated with extreme suspicion and disrespect. Do you think your testimony would be the best quality and calmest it could be?

** It was more an off-the-cuff remark about Muggle vs. Wizard, she didn't particularly think it through. There is evidence through the series that wizards aren't much threatened by guns.

** Not only that, but the Order of the Phoenix is NOT international, and it was mentioned that they were unable to get foreign help.

*** I think we're given some evidence that the Muggleborn students haven't been introduced to the wizarding world well in advance. Justin was supposed to go to Eton until he got his letter and if he'd known for years they wouldn't have made plans to send him there (or at least he wouldn't still be talking about it years later). Colin babbled about how shocked they were when he got his Hogwarts letter and so did Hermione. If these people had known that they were wizards for longer than a month or so than they'd be well used to the idea and have likely spent enough time in Diagon Alley or around other wizards that they'd be much less...bubbling. Harry Potter might as well ''be'' Muggleborn for all the good having wizard parents did. Dean isn't Muggleborn and presumably there have been other cases of magical children being raised by Muggle relatives who aren't their parents. Tom Riddle wasn't Muggleborn and he got the same sort of treatment as Harry did. In fact, it actually shows that he had never heard of magic being real before he got his letter so I think that's even stronger proof that Muggleborn students find out around the time Harry does. And it makes so much more sense to send the notes out at the same time rather than diong it a week before their eleventh birthday. Hermione's birthday is in September so should she find out a year before she can actually go to Hogwarts? Where's the sense in that? It's also so much more work to remember (or magic it) to send letters out periodically to students whose birthday it's approaching than to do it all at once.

**** Concerning Hermione, this might be [[Fridge Brilliance]]. Remember how she's a year older than Harry and Ron because she waited a year to find out about the wizarding world and reading books and stuff? While she was happy to do so, maybe she just ''had to'' because she got her acceptance letter just a little to late and her parents had already planned something for the year!

** The policy not to alert Muggle parents about their children's potential might date back a long way, to an era when there'd be no guarantee a newborn wizard or witch would ''survive'' to age 11. Child mortality was sky-high for most of human history; better to wait until they're sure the child will live long enough to come to Hogwarts before the family is informed.

* Given that the books say more than once that many witches and wizards are half-blood or muggle-born, otherwise the wizarding world would be dying out, why is it that the head of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts department doesn't get almost everything muggle? Ditto most of the wizarding population. You would think everyone would know someone they could ask questions concerning muggle stuff.

*** Didn't Dolovoh actually try to say the spell? For all we know, it was a Killing Curse that got changed or something due to the Silencing Charm.

*** This is it exactly. Dolohov wasn't doing a nonverbal spell, he was attempting to cast a curse verbally without being able to speak. This on its own would probably be debilitating to the spell effect. Also, was Silencio cast on him while he was trying to cast it or earlier? Because if it was the former, then it's even worse for him, because it would likely be similar to Cho Chang setting her friend on fire by screwing up the incantation for the Disarming Charm in OotP, or Ron's Hover Charm failing because he was mispronouncing 'Wingardium Leviosa' in PS.

*** I could be wrong, but Obliviate ''modifies'' memories, it doesn't just wipe them blank. You have to actively create a memory in someone's mind, which would require much more concentration than just stunning, petrifying, or blasting.

** Nah, making a Killing Curse requires you to seriously mean to kill the person you are in front of. Harry tried to torture Bellatrix in Order of the Phoenix, but it didn't work. Harry wasn't that resentful, and it shows us how [[Moral Event Horizon|bad the Death Eathers were if they could do the Unforgivable Spells with such ease]].

*** It would take an extremely powerful Obliviate just to make this happen, as in "regress them back to a juvenile state" powerful. The caster would have to erase their memory far enough to make the opponent forget about their fighting skills if they want to kill them off. Alternatively, the caster could just make the opponent forget why they're fighting if they're only looking to make peace. Even then, the person could get treatment to get their memory back.

**** Not immediately. Breaking memory charms is a difficult and time-consuming process that can permanently damage the victim's memory. Just look at Bertha Jorkins.

**** It's implied Voldemort tortured it out of her. If a powerful wizard such as Dumbledore wanted to restore her memory without doing damage, it would probably have been easy. Lockhart was only damaged so badly because of the broken wand he was using.

* Is it just me, or are the wizards and witches incredibly unimaginative? Okay, so maybe the "good guys" stick with approved spells and uses, but what about dark wizards? How about "Accio Spinal Column" to summon a person's backbone right out of their skin? And that crazy bone removing spell used by Lockheart would sure cause a stir if used offensively. There just seems to be alot of untapped potential.

** An 'Entrail-expelling curse' was mentioned in the Order of the Phoenix.

*** It's magic!

** This troper would like to know ''why'' it is impossible to do astronomy in June in the Highlands. Does Scotland not have stars during the summer or something?

** Perhaps they set at midnight in June ''because'' it would be difficult? It's the Ordinary Wizarding Levels, which are ''meant'' to be incredibly hard and challenging examinations, so it's not too much of a leap to think that maybe the examiners just wanted to increase the challenge. Alternatively, the Astronomy OWL is in June because all of the OWLS are in June, and the test structures questions around stars and planets and things that would be visible at that point in time.

** They have magic telescopes that don't need total darkness to operate. Duh.

*** Taking an astronomy final indoors would probably be seen as the equivalent of taking your driving test on a VR simulator. It's not ''just'' whether you can spot things or manipulate the equipment, it's whether you can deal with the wider environment while doing so.

* [[Word of God]] is that Voldemort can't feel love because he was born under the effects of a love potion, ergo there was no true love between his parents. Reaches a bit of [[Unfortunate Implications]] when you think about artificial insemination. I mean, does that mean that all people born through artificial insemination are heartless sociopaths or what?

** That's not [[Word of God]] at all. Full quote as follows:

** We've established why wizards can't simply hand out food - it breaks the economy, makes people dependant on wizards, etc. - but what about subtly influencing the weather, or conditions of terrain, in third world countries to make growing crops easier?

*** Wizards can't conjure food from nothing, remember? But they could multiply the food people already had.

*** Yes, it ''might'' be possible for wizards to overall improve the planet but are these people ''really'' going to feel obligated to fix the world?

**** Ain't it kinda an obligation of ''every'' person living in the world to try and improve it?

* In the sixth or seventh book, some of the people in the Order are secret keepers to their own hiding place. So, why didn't Lily or James become secret keeper to their own hiding place? If that person just stayed in the house, there would be no chance of them being captured, thus, no chance of Riddle finding them. I've also wondered why no ever tried to make Harry the secret keeper. Protect the baby (who can't talk, at that point), and the secret's safe. Of course, I can buy that no one would try the latter (and that there could be a plausible explanation for why it wouldn't work in the first place), but the former? No.

** This was discussed on the Deathly Hallows page, and it's assumed that someone made a discovery that allowed the person being protected by the secret to be the secret keeper since James and Lily died (plus we wouldn't have a story). Also making a baby that can't talk the secret keeper wouldn't be smart, because if only the baby knows, then no one else knows, and the baby has no way to tell others which can be very bad, especially if the secret is "keep X hidden". It's never explained entirely who knows what about the secret when it's cast; for instance, does the caster know the secret, or does the secret keeper have to tell them? If the latter, good luck ever finding the baby again.

**** So in other words... Snape asking Voldemort to spare Lily made it possible for Harry to survive, setting everything into motion?

***** Exactly. Snape asked Voldemort to spare Lily. So Voldemort gave Lily a chance to live. But Lily didn't take it and sacrificed herself, hence the protection for Harry. Had Snape never asked for it, Voldemort would just kill both of them, and there would be no magical sacrifice and no magical protection. It's not "I'm gonna die protecting my baby". It's "I'm gonna be offered a chance to live, but I'm gonna refuse AND die protecting my Baby."

* "The Tales of Beedle the Bard" says explicitly, "... the fundamental difference between being an Animagus and Transfiguring yourself into an animal [is,] in the case of the latter, one would become an animal entirely, with the consequence that one would know no magic, be unaware that one had ever been a wizard, and would need someone else to transfigure one back to one's original form." This seems to be a direct conflict with two instances in the original seven books. 1) Krum Transfigures his head into a shark in Goblet of Fire. How did he know what he was doing to continue the task/not go insane with the animal's perspective of having a half-shark-half-human body? (Also, not positive, but I'm pretty sure it says that he unTransfigured himself, which is also said to be impossible.) 2) Slughorn Transfigures himself into a chair. Without knowing that it was Dumbledore coming, was he hoping that a friendly, extremely talented wizard was just just going to come along and guess that the armchair was human so he could return? Because I'm pretty sure it's Dumbledore who puts him right again.

** The first one can be [[Handwaved]] with the explanation that it's a partial transfiguration and he hasn't completely changed into a shark. There's also a bit of a crack theory that he's really a shark animagus and only partially transformed to hide the fact. As for Slughorn, it's never said he transfigures himself into a chair, does it? It could just be an illusion. If, however, that is the case, perhaps transfiguring yourself into a rock or something similar wears off after a while, unlike an animal transfiguration.

*** Apart from Fleur and her family, none of the characters we meet has a daughter language of Latin as a native language.

**** Modern English is basically Middle English (a Germanic language) mixed thoroughly with Middle and Modern French (Romance languages) due to the Norman conquest of England.

** I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that spells are named by their creator (which gets us the English "Point Me" spell), and since Latin is a fairly well known language (that is to say, a lot of people know a small amount of Latin), it just became convention. Also, spells in Latin sound cooler than spells in English.

** Maybe it's the other way around. Could be that in this Verse, Latin was derived from the language of magic rather than vice versa, because its Romans were as well-armed with magic as with engineering and military expertise.

 

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[[Category:Harry Potter Universe]]

[[Category:Headscratchers]]