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Post by RandomPasserby on Jun 20, 2014 5:05:30 GMT -5
I've read a few fanfics where - for whatever reason - Harry doesn't arrive at Hogwarts until fifth or sixth year.
One particular one had Ron and Hermione as a couple.
Which led me to wonder. Without Harry, would Ron and Hermione have become friends in the first place - let alone become a couple?
I mean without Harry in Hogwarts, Dumbledore would probably have no reason to bring the Philosopher's Stone into the castle. Which would mean no Quirrelmort. Ergo, no troll. Which was the unifying incident that got the three of them to be friends.
I think they'd have some awareness of each other, if only because of proximity (even though apparently there are two Gryffindor girls that Harry didn't notice despite sharing classes with them for six years) but I don't think they'd get on particularly well.
Their friendship was, in part, forged through the series of adventures. There was always an external threat to focus on and both boys needed Hermione (after all, she's the smart one) because of that. Without Harry there wouldn't have been the adventures (maybe CS' and yes the Triwizard Tournament but neither of them would have entered) so there wouldn't have been external pressures to hold them together.
Hermione and Ron - especially younger Hermione and Ron - have very divergent interests and neither of them can really see the point in the other's interests.
Anyway, I haven't had any sleep in a while.
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Post by Kitty279 on Jun 20, 2014 15:47:17 GMT -5
Rather doubt it. As I said before, I don't even get that pairing. They had nothing in common, IMO it was Harry who held the trio together. Left on their own, I can't see them ever becoming friends.
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Post by teflonbilly on Jun 25, 2014 22:52:08 GMT -5
Rather doubt it. As I said before, I don't even get that pairing. They had nothing in common, IMO it was Harry who held the trio together. Left on their own, I can't see them ever becoming friends. Just straight pure carnal attraction? Maybe Hermione really has it bad for gingers, and Ron thinks brains are sexy. It can really be just that simple. Seriously, opposites do sometimes attract, and I'm sorry, Harry is an Unreliable Narrator of what is going on around him, he consistently was oblivious to much that was going on around him (with the minor period of his monomaniacal focus on Malfoy during HBP). There are large gaps of time where Ron & Hermione do social things WITHOUT Harry around, of their own volition for fun. Ron & Hermione's bickering is always described in the context of what Harry feels about it (a boy that grew up in an emotionally repressive household would possibly find any conflict, even minor verbal sparring to be a major bit of conflict due to fear of how quickly it could escalate to possible violence or negative repercussions.) But if you look at what is described, their bickering while constant was not (usually) hurtful, just look at how Ron and Hermione react when Harry flips out on them (I believe at least twice in the books) and tells them to cut it out, they each individually and separately are quite offended by Harry's outbursts. If Ron & Hermione were truly pissing each other off, rather than just being passionate people that have differing opinions, then their behaviors would more overtly reflect this negative personal tension. Except for the initial negative first impression kickoff (Hermione's fault, by any honest reading of the scenario), the Crookshanks (Hermione's fault)/Lavender (Ron's Fault) debacles, and and finally the Horcrux induced mental breakdown on Ron's part: Ron & Hermione spent upwards of 70-80 percent of their waking lives together and they LIKED IT, they spent summers together (again WITHOUT HARRY AROUND). You do not hang out that much with people that truly annoy the fuck out of you, you just don't. Would Ron & Hermione been friends during their first, second, or even third years? Probably not, but once Hermione got tits and Ron hit his growth spurt: I'm thinking basic hormonal biology would have gotten them together eventually (probably in the fifth or sixth year time frame.) Because being Harry's close friend during most of their Hogwarts years: he was a major cock-block/beaver-dam. TB |
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Post by Kitty279 on Jun 26, 2014 0:34:52 GMT -5
Well, it's obvious that you look at the described incidents differently than I do. For me their interactions were often not so much bickering, but downright hurtful, particularly Ron. Personally, I can't see them becoming friends without Harry in the first place, not after the troll incident. If not for Harry, who dragged Ron to search for her, Hermione would likely have died in the bathroom in first year anyway. It was only that resuce mission that brought them together. And even if she had survived on her own, would she then have gone on to fall in undying love with the guy who insulted her and nearly got her killed? Yeah right, great way to start a relationship. Besides, I personally do not see any relationship working where people are at each others throats all the time.
Hermione didn't get along well with Parvati and Lavender, from the looks of it, and I don't see her interact with anyone save Harry and Ron in the Common Room, so I don't get the impression that she had any other friends, save maybe Neville - who was way too shy until at least fifth year to achieve anything with her. So, who else did Hermione have, save Ron and Harry?
Yeah, these summers. Always leave me wondering about Hermiones relationship with her parents. Spending 9-10 months per year in a boarding school and then abandoning them over the summer as well, as if she can't be with Ron more than 3/4 of the year already, gives me the impression that she doesn't get along with her parents that well, and so maybe bickering with Ron was in her eyes better than some family time. Besides, can you prove that it's not Dumbledore's doing? We already know that he thinks he has the right to decide over people's life all the time. I find it sad that Hermione is rather with Ron than with her parents, and it doesn't speak much for her in my eyes.
Besides, they are way too different - Hermione would nag Ron all the time to do more, and he'd sit back and except her to do all the work. Again, great basis for a relationship, huh?
Oh, and as for Harry, I always felt he endured their endless bickering only because they were his only friends, and I cheered when he finally told them off. He was always in the middle of it, expected to take sides and in a very uncomfortable spot because of it. So, for me he was not the block for the relationship, but the one keeping it together.
But I am sure you will not see it my way any more than I see it yours. I've long ago learned that it's of no use to argue with the rabid R/Hr and H/G fans, so I won't say more on the topic.
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Post by RandomPasserby on Jul 2, 2014 7:50:35 GMT -5
Maybe for a short term/teenage romance or a more adult fling but generally relationships which focus specifically on one trait rarely end well.
The first of those that I can think of is the first Hogsmeade visit. We have no idea what they actually did or if they did anything together other than get the sweets for Harry. The only other things I can think of were prefect patrols/meetings and the various points where Hermione was at the Weasleys without Harry.
The first time Ron and Hermione spent part of the summer together without Harry was fourth year before the Quidditch World Cup and we don't actually know how long Hermione was at the Burrow before Harry turned up. Similarly with OOTP, we know Hermione's definitely been there since Harry's birthday (about a week before he shows up) but we don't know how much longer than that. Similarly for HBP. We also don't know when Hermione mind-wiped her parents in DH.
My mother wasn't one of those 'I must meet their parents/grandparents/second-cousin-once-removed before you're allowed to stay at their house' but I highly doubt she would have let me spend a week or more with somebody whose parents she'd met once (when one of them asked ridiculous and slightly insulting questions) at fifteen. Especially if she hadn't seen me since September.
I'm trying to think about Christmases. I mean, Hermione goes home for Christmas 1st year and that's it. She stays 2nd-6th year.
I'm not a parent but christ, I can't think of a particularly healthy family who goes 'yep, I'm going to let my 13 year old child stay at school for Christmas' (also, I'm a little weirded out by Hogwarts' holiday system. I mean who lets the kids decide if they want to go home? There doesn't seem to be any kind of parental influence on whether they should go home. Which, in a way, is good for those who had toxic families because their parents can't demand they come home to keep up appearances. But at the same time, I can't imagine giving an eleven year old that sort of decision).
It's a little different for Ron because he has 3 or 4 siblings who are also at Hogwarts. Still, I find the Weasley's whole 'lets leave our children at school for Christmas' thinking a little suspect. It might just be a wizarding world cultural thing though.
Then again, I can't imagine why muggleborn families are so gung-ho about sending their kids to Hogwarts. I mean any other boarding school has exeat weekends (weekends where you can/have to go home) and they happen at least twice a term on average (depending on the boarding school). Hogwarts it's just 'goodbye kid, see you in four months, try and write but if you don't send an owl we have no way of contacting you, oh and we really want you to come home for Christmas but we can't make you so we hope you love us enough to come home, otherwise we'll see you in June. Hope nothing dangerous happens to you because we probably won't be told about it unless you actually die.'
With regard to the troll incident.
Without Harry at Hogwarts I don't see why Dumbledore would have brought the stone to the school which would have meant no Quirrelmort which means there wouldn't have been a troll in Hogwarts, Halloween 1991. So Hermione would just have spend several hours crying in a toilet without the near death experience.
Without Harry I think Ron and Neville would have ended up being better friends. Dean and Seamus seem to have gravitated together fairly quickly and they're also both in less of a hurry to escape the muggle world (unlike Harry who jumps on the 'the wizarding world is awesome' train immediately - and I don't blame him) which Ron probably wouldn't have understood as much (see Dean's West Ham poster). Ron and Neville share a similar wizarding upbringing and I think Neville was so shy and so desperate for a friend he would have followed Ron around like a puppy while Ron enjoyed being the one in charge for once.
In the girls dorm, Parvati and Lavender also glommed together pretty quickly and I assume Anonymous Gryffindor Girl #1 and AGG #2 did the same. Leaving Hermione on her lonesome. She might have had some friends in Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw, but Gryffindor don't seem to share that many classes with them.
My guess is that she would have thrown herself into her books more and more since she wouldn't have had other things or people to think about/distract her. Which, I can only imagine, would have exacerbated her lack of social graces as well as her absolute determination to get the best grades possible.
Assuming that without Harry Potter at Hogwarts, there might not have been the opening of the Chamber of Secrets - at least partially because Ginny would be able to hang around with her older brother without freaking out about Harry.
Hermione might have ended up with Crookshanks (although one has to wonder that - of the three allowed pets at Hogwarts - nobody else in Gryffindor had a cat which might eat Scabbers? There were no cat people amongst the 240 odd other students who occupied Gryffindor tower) but Crookshanks and Scabbers wouldn't have been near each other enough.
(Oh and that's assuming that Ron has Scabbers since most of the Harry-doesn't-attend Hogwarts have Sirius free, which means Peter might not want to hide out in the wizarding world)
As for Ron, I can't imagine his grades would have been particularly good since he wouldn't have had Hermione to push him into doing his work or studying. Also, what I think the adventures with Harry gave Ron was a sense of scale. In fact, I think it gave both Ron and Hermione a sense of scale. That certain things (grades or Quidditch) were important but they were less important that other things (like standing up for what was right or somebody's life).
Here's the thing. There's a difference between aesthetic attraction and actually having a relationship. They can be mutually exclusive. But I can't really imagine a Ron who was more focused on Quidditch and a Hermione who was more focused on grades being anything other than aesthetically attracted to one another.
Also we know who Ron's hormonal biology would have got him together with. Lavender.
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Post by Kitty279 on Jul 2, 2014 14:27:48 GMT -5
You'd think they would want to get to know the Weasleys better first, invite them to wherever they live to have a talk with them and all that, wouldn't you? It leaves me wondering if JKR didn't think it through or if she just couldn't be bothered to think about Hermione's parents.
In fifth year, she went home at first, but then lied to her parents that everyone who was serious about the exams stayed at Hogwarts and then went to Grimmauld Place instead. Again, she rather spent the time away from her parents because they dared to take her on a holiday where she wasn't allowed to have the nose in a book all day. Besides, I always suspected she couldn't bear not to be where the action happened.
In first year, the parents (and probably Ginny) went to Romania to visit Charlie. Considering they didn't have enough money to get Ron properly outfitted only a few months before, it's strange, isn't it? Second year, they visited Bill. Why couldn't they do these visits during the school year and then be there for their children at Christmas if they couldn't pay for all of them to go? Third year, I don't remember a reason for the kids to stay at school; fourth year, they were practically forced with that Yule Ball. Fifth year, well, we know they ended at Grimmauld, and in sixth Harry spent the holidays at the Burrow, IIRC. But from what I remember, it usually sounded as if the castle was mostly abandoned, so I doubt it's a cultural thing to abandon their children over Christmas.
Nice summary of how muggle parents apparently sign their children away when they allow them to Hogwarts. Sometimes I wonder if they are told that, if they don't agree, the magic of the children is going to be bound and they all obliviated, and that has to be intimidating for them. Hm, there was a fanfic where the parents only after they signed were told that they had no rights to take their child out of the school if they so desired later and basically had no rights any more, and that's how it sounds to me, to be honest. The Ministry has probably not even the brains to set a post box up where muggle parents can sent post for their children to with the normal post, so they really have no way to contact them at all. It's strange that they don't complain, or at least we don't see anything.
Ah right, you looked at it from the 'Harry is not at Hogwarts' angle, whle I was more thinking along the line of them just not being friends, sorry. You could be right in your analysis how things would have played out then.
Not sure there were that many students. I know, sometimes it sounds like hundreds of students per house, but on the other hand, the classes always sounded rather small. Sure, not all students would merit much of a mention, but it wouldn't be so hard to imply that the class is bigger and we just don't get the names of the other students because they aren't important for the story. So, Harry's year was 8-10 kids, and if that is anything to go by, the whole of Gryffindor has about 70 students, give or take a few.
Btw, that's another thing that annoyed me. When Ron worried about Scabbers after she bought Crookshanks, she said she'd leave him in her dormitory. Instead, she kept bringing him not only into the Common Room, but the boys' dormitory as well (remember Christmas?) IMO Hermione really called for the continuous attacks, and I can understand Ron's anger there.
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Post by RandomPasserby on Jul 6, 2014 8:21:43 GMT -5
Except the only interaction they have with the Weasleys (that we see) is Mr. Weasley trying to corner them to ask about muggle things and Mrs Weasley taking charge of their daughter without so much as a by-your-leave. If I had Mr. Weasley pestering me about very very basic muggle concepts (earlier in CS he's asking about plugs and the postal service) I'd very quickly get frustrated with him.
But you would think they'd actually want to meet the two boys their daughter was (presumably) writing to them about. Or maybe invite Ron and Harry to their house for part of the summer - none of them can use magic anyway so why does it matter if they're in a muggle or wizard house.
I can't say it's that strange. If you've got six boys, it makes sense that Ron would get hand-me-down robes and books even if you could afford new ones. Ron's eleven, he's going to grow out of the robes as quickly as they can be bought so why waste what money they have on getting new robes.
What does bother me is when they assume they have to pick up multiple copies of Lockheart's books in CS. Only one of them can be in class at any one time. Why not just buy one set and share them (or hell, why not by one set and use a copying spell on them?)
Also it might not have cost that much money. I mean wizarding transport can't be that expensive - travelling to Romania would probably mean a portkey or possibly using the car, they can create spaces which are far bigger inside than outside and make somewhere comfortable with a few spells so that's accommodation. The only real expense would be food and if they're staying at the Dragon Reserve, they might be fed there.
I agree they should probably do the visits during term time though.
Yeah that was a brain fart on my part. Gryffindor would have about 70 kids. The 240 figure is more appropriate for the whole school (because I was using the 40 figure for Harry's year from the class list because I'm an absolute muppet).
Still, if you take seventy kids, tell them they can have one of three pets (not that anybody seems to check), there's a good chance that more than one of them is going to have a cat. And cats (as any cat owner will tell you) can and do end up in the strangest places.
Also, while the 240 Gryffindor figure may have been awry, there are the three other houses to consider. It's downright cruel to keep a cat shut up in a single room all the time, so surely the cats go walkabouts.
I agree Hermione bringing Crookshanks into the boys dormitory was out of line, but I can't fault her for bringing her pet into the common room. Ron is. And frankly, cats tend to react worse when shut up than rats do. Rats are happy enough in a decent sized cage. Cats tend to claw things and piss on things when you shut them in a room for too long and Hermione lives with (presumably) four other girls who may not be OK with ginger hairs everywhere and their beds all clawed up.
Also, while I recognise that Scabbers was necessary to PoA (and thus to PS and CS) rats are not on the list of allowed pets (presumably for the logical reason of cats being on the list) so I'm not sure Ron is strictly in the right either.
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Post by teflonbilly on Jul 6, 2014 9:49:16 GMT -5
Except the only interaction they have with the Weasleys (that we see) is Mr. Weasley trying to corner them to ask about muggle things and Mrs Weasley taking charge of their daughter without so much as a by-your-leave. If I had Mr. Weasley pestering me about very very basic muggle concepts (earlier in CS he's asking about plugs and the postal service) I'd very quickly get frustrated with him. While Mr. Weasley's enthusiasm for all things muggle is amusing, the specific ways that JKR expresses the cultural differences between muggles and wizards makes very little sense. While not understanding what keeps airplanes in the air is quite understandable. Although, really even this makes no sense, it should have only taken Hermione all of 2 minutes to explain the concepts of aerodynamics and dynamic lift, 1 minute if she had a chalk board. Heavier than air flight works under the same mechanism that permits birds to fly, and Wizards, it stands to reason, would have delved much deeper into this earlier than muggles considering the fact that they have the capability to make themselves fly using their own magic (understanding how animals do it would have come as a natural area of study so as to maybe come up with more convenient or easier spells to accomplish flight). Not understanding plugs, batteries, fire-arms, policemen, etc... goes a little beyond what makes sense. If wizards were truly that divorced from the muggle world (especially considering Ron's statement that muggleborns and halfbloods are the only reason there even still IS a wizarding world) they wouldn't even be speaking English anymore. Muggles are demonstratively ignorant of magic as a matter of course, so the muggle list of cultural ignorance should be larger in comparison to the wizarding level of ignorance, just from the simple fact that Wizards actual know that muggles exist. But the primary areas that wizards would have serious cultural and informational deficits (in my mind, and from the seeming level of technological development of wizards from the books) would be: Electronics from 1945-Present (with possible earlier era inventions due to magical replacements suplanting the need to even consider them, floo-calling completely negating the need for telephones so wizards never really consider the use for example.) The existence of Wizarding Wireless, heavily implies that Wizarding understanding of and integration of muggle technological inventions goes at least as far as the 1930s to WWII era. I would lean towards going through the end of WWII, just from the fact that the bombing of England by the Nazis would have pulled Wizards into paying closer attention for this time period on the muggle world (at least more than usual.) Muggle Medicine & Surgical Techniques. Considering the fact that 1. Wizards physically are tougher than muggles (as seen by their lack of serious or immediately fatal injuries when they get blasted about by spells, fall dozens of feet from brooms, thrown around by larger creatures, and other gross physical damage caused by magical accidents), 2. Wizards are able to heal the overwhelming majority of what would be serious muggle medical maladies from home using potions or spells; it stands to reason that this would be an area of significant cultural ignorance, and also considering the fact that the most likely times of significant cultural information injections would be from wars the Wizarding world's understanding of muggle medical practices would be heavily influenced by this (significant amounts of amputation, open wound surgeries, and metal fragment exploratory surgeries) Ron's statement that muggle doctors being nutters who cut people open isn't that unfair of a characterization of muggle medical skills (through the end of the 19th century.) Pop culture & muggle politics. While I seriously doubt there would be possible for a solid and impenetrable barrier to exist between the two cultures (I doubt if Arthur & Molly haven't listened to the Beatles or Elvis before, for example), the books heavily imply there is that much of a gulf between them. Consequently there would be very little cross knowledge and ample avenues for confusion between muggle-born and wizarding children. The chapter "the other minister" makes it clear that there is almost no interaction between the two governments, this again makes absolutely no sense. There would be significant cross cooperation at least in the areas of Defense, and Civil Works projects. But to the original issue, the Wizarding world must have suffered significant pure-blood casualties during Voldemort's original rise to power (and therefore significantly diminished the number of pureblood children) and this is why muggle-borns and half-bloods have the numbers in the society that they do. Pure-bloods must (at one time) been the overwhelming or controlling majority of wizarding society until relatively recently in history. Because owing to the fact that all Wizards (whether muggle-born or pureblood) have significant individual power, muggle-borns and half-bloods as a group would not have put up with the gross prejudices that are seen in the books, unless the overarching pure-blood population was significantly larger. Having a minority ruling class subjugating a majority under-class only works if the under-class does not have the means and power to usurp their oppressors. If muggle-borns and half-bloods were the majority (or even a 20-40% of the population minority) then the Pogrom attempted by the Ministry under Voldemort would never have had any legs. So, while I still see Arthur being as enthusiastic about all things muggle, I would see his areas of lacking knowledge would be different (computers and complex electronics for example, which are things by their very nature DO NOT work around magic, so naturally Wizards wouldn't be able to use them to figure out how they work.) and therefore more understandable and less vexatious for Dr. Granger to discuss with Mr. Weasley. Harry not being able to visit would probably be chalked up to having to stay a good chunk of his summer off time at Privett Drive. That does not preclude Harry from being able to have visited on weekends or such. However, keep in mind we don't know how far apart Harry lives from Hermione's home, so Harry actually physically getting to her house may have been an issue without a Wizard taking Harry there. Ron would have no such restriction in principle with regards to blood-ward recharging or travel distance, so again, weekend visits in an of themselves would have been a natural thing for them to do. The books do however make it clear that Hermione's parents were active travelers during her vacation time, and it stands to reason that whenever Hermione was not at Grimmauld Place or the Burrow, that she was likely vacationing with her parents (or doing some other family bonding activity off camera so to speak.) This is why I enjoy fanfics that have Ron & Harry having little get togethers at Hermione's house during the summer, just from the fact it'd be a natural thing for children to want to do. I agree on the hand-me-down issue, it makes perfect sense especially with mending charms making it possible to get clothing to last longer. With regards to expense, for most travel trips it's not the getting there that is the main source of expense. It's the meals and lodging that breaks the bank. So a trip to visit Charlie would not have been a significant expense by itself (the physical movement to Romania should cost almost nothing, unless the Ministry charges a significant fee for port-keys, the floo-network doesn't cross international boundaries, and apparition is limited to a few dozen/score miles.) But again, the real cost would be lodging and food at the other end, just Ginny (would could crash on a camp bed) and the parents (who would only need one bed together) wouldn't have been insurmountable or that outrageous an expense. That by itself didn't make sense, unless Molly just was worried about going outside her budget, not that she couldn't have afforded the books at all. Having your own spellbooks might have been a cultural thing, these books will make up the core of each or her children's wizarding libraries, so they would need their own invidual copies. I'd wager that wizarding books have some sort of charm or hex the prevents direct and permanent copying spells from working, or else Wizarding authors would only sell one copy of their books ever. Or it could be that copying spells don't copy the details well enough such that books don't copy properly, or copies don't last long enough to make them useful. And I missed you stating this before I responded to this exact point above, brilliant minds think alike ;-) Again, I'm of the opinion that Harry's year cohort must have suffered a significant number of deaths for there to be so few students in his year (and adjacent years) at Hogwarts, especially when JKR says that Hogwarts has a bout a thousand students total. But there are a whole bunch of things that make no sense in the wizarding education system. The restriction of underage wizards from using magic AT ALL outside of school is monumentally stupid (and grossly against wizarding human rights, magic is a part of what makes a wizard what they are, can any of you seriously see a muggle government try to restrict or ban children from reading books when they were out of school? Or ride a bicycle? The restriction of underage wizardry goes so much past this it's boggles the mind. And in my opinion was only inserted into the story for the purpose of narrowing the Character's choices within the plot. In the same way Gamp's Laws preventing the creation of food was used in DH to make the trio miserable.) Cat's must be able to wonder the invidual house dorms and common rooms at the very least, but Mrs. Norris proves that the castle itself is perfectly safe for cats to wonder about on their own regardless (and personally I think it'd be cool if cats were just part of the wizarding world that they are permitted to wander about on their own, walk through classrooms, and just are part of the background of any wizarding dwelling.) I believe Ron was wandering about with Scabbers because he may have been trying to give the rat some fresh air (remember Scabbers was supposed to have been looking very sick during this time and Ron was trying to find a way to make him better.) The list of allowed pets might have only been with regards to those pets that wizards would permit to wander about on their own (although why Frogs are special in this way in the wizarding world I have no idea) TB |
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Post by RandomPasserby on Jul 6, 2014 12:21:44 GMT -5
The thing is that the wizarding wireless is the only source of wizarding music we see, we have no idea if they can pick up muggle frequencies (would there be muggleborns listening to the top 40? Tuning into Radio 1 to hear the news?), we have no idea how it works period. It could have developed entirely autonomously from the muggle radio.
I think part of the gulf is that we primarily see the world through the eyes of Harry 'I-think-the-wizarding-world-is-awesome' Potter (which is understandable, given his home situation). Harry might be functionally muggleborn but we never see him having any ties to the muggle world - actually we have the same thing with Hermione and Lily Evans, who both leave their parents at eleven and seem to pretty much wave goodbye to the muggle world completely. The closest we get to muggleborns who have any connection to their previous lives are Dean Thomas and Colin Creevey and we know basically nothing about either of them.
We don't see the muggleborns who ask questions. We don't see the ones who wish they could see their family more. The ones who want to bring their computers and TVs and music players. The ones who miss doing normal subjects. Who miss books (Hogwarts doesn't seem to have a fiction section). Who had dreams and goals before they came to Hogwarts (what did Hermione want to be before she found out she wanted to be a witch?).
Are there muggleborns who borrow their grandparents gramophones and vinyl records and bring them to Hogwarts? Ones who write their essays out in ballpoint on ruled paper before writing with quills on parchment? Maybe one who brought a cassette player to Hogwarts to try and get it to work.
On the flip side, we don't see much of wizarding culture either. We have Celestina Warbeck and the Weird Sisters (as well as the, disbanded, Hobgoblins) and that's it for music. There's the Tales of Beedle the Bard and Ron's Martin Miggs the Mad Muggle comic, but that's all we really see for non-education/sport related books.
What do Hogwarts students do for fun? I mean if you don't have homework to do and you aren't on the Quidditch team for your house, you aren't a prefect and it isn't a Hogsmede weekend, what do you do?
This is a ministry who thinks screwing with the mind of the President of the United States over a minor meeting is a smart idea. And who apparently have people in the White House who can do that.
Actually I can sort of justify it as pureblood BS.
Think about it. Draco Malfoy lives in a house with two wizarding parents and at least one house elf. Now house elves using magic around underage kids can register as underage magic (as evidenced by CS) so my guess is that pureblood families who have kids over the age of eleven would register their houses in the Ministry and get an exemption within their houses boundaries with the Ministry assuming parents would restrict their kids ability to do magic and so all magic done around the child would be a house elf or one of the parents.
Now muggleborns and muggle-raised witches/wizards wouldn't know how to do this and also wouldn't have a magical parent/house elf to blame so magic near them or done by them would register with the ministry.
So pureblood kids get to practice magic over the holidays and muggle born kids can't. Which just feeds into the pureblood rhetoric that they're just naturally better at magic.
Maybe the Weasleys either don't subscribe to that ideology or the exemption is more along the lines of a bribe.
I have to wonder how much of 'electronics don't work around magic' is true and how much of it is pureblood BS. I mean, for the first thing, Hogwarts doesn't have electricity so how does anybody know that every single electrical thing doesn't work if they've never tried it. If you put in the wiring for an electric socket (the way somebody must have put in showers and toilets some time in the interim between the 10th century and the 20th) would you be able to plug a television in and have it work?
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Post by physicssquid on Jul 7, 2014 13:44:26 GMT -5
Actually I can sort of justify it as pureblood BS. Think about it. Draco Malfoy lives in a house with two wizarding parents and at least one house elf. Now house elves using magic around underage kids can register as underage magic (as evidenced by CS) so my guess is that pureblood families who have kids over the age of eleven would register their houses in the Ministry and get an exemption within their houses boundaries with the Ministry assuming parents would restrict their kids ability to do magic and so all magic done around the child would be a house elf or one of the parents. Now muggleborns and muggle-raised witches/wizards wouldn't know how to do this and also wouldn't have a magical parent/house elf to blame so magic near them or done by them would register with the ministry. So pureblood kids get to practice magic over the holidays and muggle born kids can't. Which just feeds into the pureblood rhetoric that they're just naturally better at magic. Maybe the Weasleys either don't subscribe to that ideology or the exemption is more along the lines of a bribe. I can see that being true, though that does call into question, why the Ministry didn't react when Arthur, Moody and Dumbledore performed magic around Harry at Privet Drive. After all, Arthur started a fire in the summer before Harry's fourth year, after Flooing to Privet Drive; Moody cast a Disillusionment charm on Harry the following summer; and Dumbledore took Harry by Side-Along Apparition in the summer after that, and I don't think they were far from the front door at Privet Drive when they left. I'm wondering whether the whole 'electricity doesn't work around magic' thing, is just another load of BS created by the purebloods. After all, St Mungo's, the Ministry and Diagon Alley are all right in the middle of Muggle areas in London, and, though JK never mentioned it, I would have expected there to be a lot of Muggles complaining about their equipment not working properly in those areas, if electricity really didn't work around magic. I cannot imagine the Muggles working at the shops around St Mungo's being happy if their security systems, as well as the electric lighting, cash-desks and lifts, didn't work properly. And what about the trains that stop at platforms nine and ten? Wouldn't there be a lot of interest in what's happening around that area if they kept needing repairs all the time? Plus, there's the fact that Muggle-borns and muggle-raised Half-bloods live around muggle technology, for the first nearly eleven years of their lives, and during the summers, so, if magic and electricity really didn't mix, wouldn't they're families have major difficulties and huge bills for all the repairs, especially when the child has an outburst of accidental magic? Really, it does seem to me, that the idea of electricity and electrical items failing around magic, is just BS created by purebloods to make it more likely that those raised in the muggle world will want to leave as soon as they finish school. |
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Post by Kitty279 on Jul 16, 2014 13:51:43 GMT -5
Sure, but that's just it, he was the sixth boy, so in the worst case, his robes were fifth-hand or at least fourth-hand, as Fred and George were twins. Percy was the third child, only had two older brothers to inherit the robes from, so I suspect they wouldn't be that bad. Still, he got new ones AND an owl for being made prefect. At the same time, Ron not only got these already rather short robes, but Charlie's old wand which was so badly damaged that the core poked out. So, not only he had a wand that never chose him, but one that was barely functional at all. And Molly as a pureblood should know what that means. How do you explain that? Shouldn't they have used the money to buy a wand for Ron, even more so as Percy could use a school owl?
The books might have been copy-protected, but otherwise, you are just saying what I have been complaining about earlier, too. Wizards really don't have any common sense.
Didn't PoA say that they spent most of their win on that Egypt holiday? As I agree that travelling can't be that expensive for wizards, it leaves me wondering if they spent it all on a hotel, and why they didn't just take one of these magical tents, which would have been so much more cheap. It's not as if they had to bother with the discomfort we mere humans might have experienced with camp beds and limited cooking and all that.
So why did Hermione promise to keep Crookshanks away if she had no intent to keep that promise at all? And why did she buy a pet that at first sight in the shop already attacked her best friend's pet? Why could they not agree on a compromise - one day Scabbers, one day Crookshanks?
Actually, I wouldn't be too surprised if it was another way of the pureblood bigots to harrass Muggleborns that these get notices for underage magic, while purebloods would get away with it. Ever noticed how eager Mafalda Hopkirk was to send these letters within minutes, while it took them forever to notice that the Ministry was under attack in OotP?
That leaves me wondering again if the Trace is on the wand or the wizard? Or is it the house? (And how does it get there in the first place??) I mean, they didn't react to the adults doing magic, so that would hint at it being the wand or wizard, but then, how did that work with Dobby in CoS? In his case, it would have to be the house that registers? Or how is that whole thing supposed to work? Young muggleborns wouldn't be registered as magical at the Ministry, save they have something like the book in Hogwarts where the magical births are registered. Does someone come when they are doing serious accidental magic? What if they accidentally turn someone into an animal or something like that where the Magical Accident Reversal Squad (or whatever the name was) has to act? How do they notice it? And somehow I got the feeling that they never explain anything and maybe even obliviate everyone instead, so the kids and families are still surprised when they turn 11 and find out. Besides if they can track any magic cast, why can Death Eaters throw Unforgivables all around and no one cares?
That's exactly what I thought. Another thing that makes no sense whatsoever.
As for the whole issue of the magicals being so clueless of the muggle world, it is endangering the Statue of Secrecy more than letting the Muggleborns use magic at home (which is probably their official excuse). The magicals are supposed to blend in, but particularly the purebloods couldn't do that to save their lives. Is it really that hard to transfigure their clothes into something they see the Muggles wear? They really risk being found out with their stupidity. Even back in Harry's time they must have stuck out like a sore thumb if they went anywhere outside of their homes, Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade. Never mind nowadays with all the surveillance cameras and all that. Besides, Diagon Alley or St. Mungo's are in the middle of London, and even bigots like the Blacks have a house there. How can they not know anything about the nonmagical world? It does seem very unlikely, doesn't it? It doesn't seem too well thought out by the author.
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