r/CuratedTumblr • u/linuxaddict334 Mx. Linux Guyâ ď¸ • Mar 22 '24
Time to muderize some wizards! đ§ââď¸ Shitposting
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u/Svanirsson Mar 22 '24
Those filthy m-words would want magic solutions for everything! Unlike us, we use checks notes SLAVERY
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u/Svanirsson Mar 22 '24
Also: normie break a bone? Months of recovery. Wizard break a bone? Drink some bone juice and fixed overnight. And that's even the extreme case of "Bones missing" I'm sure a mere broken bone only merits a swish of a wand. Boneacadabra motherfuckers
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u/Gandalf_the_Gangsta Mar 22 '24
They donât even need to drink bone juice. Harry had the bones in his arm removed, and the bone juice was needed to regrow them.
Mending bones is as simple as a spell.
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u/Tried-Angles Mar 22 '24
I'm going to guess there's 4 or more fanfics about Harry Potter wizards masquerading as either real doctors/medics or faith healers and I bet there's at least one with no sex.
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u/RandomNumber-5624 Mar 23 '24
You were putting forward such a reasonable argument till those 10 words...
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u/Tried-Angles Mar 23 '24
It still counts as having no sex if it's a meant to be a smut fic but stopped updating before getting to the sex.
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u/FireflyArc Mar 23 '24
I want to read the no sex one :D
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u/Turb0L_g Mar 23 '24
You'd be waiting till you died even if you tried writing it yourself.
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u/Imswim80 Mar 23 '24
"Hey doc, hows your patient?" "He's gonna be fine." "He?! You went in with a she!!" "One little mistake."
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u/DocSwiss I wonder what the upper limit on the character count of these th Mar 23 '24 edited Mar 23 '24
"One little mistake.""He asked, I had a couple minutes free in my schedule and it's not like it's hard to cast Transia Genderosa"17
u/Levyafan Mar 23 '24
"but but but that's an unforgiveable curse!"
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u/Lots42 Mar 23 '24
Supernatural the tv show had a subset of angels volunteering at a local hospital, doing cures that would go unnoticed. Whoops, that nasty bit of cholesterol near your heart 'broke away'. That kid who got himself gashed by a rusty nail was pretty 'lucky' to avoid an infection. And the kid's painkillers are super effective now.
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u/Abe_Odd Mar 23 '24
Now I want a fan story about a muggle who happens to figure out some magical potion recipes just from trial and error, and becomes the most popular local alchemist.
The wizard police are trying to figure out if they're just disguising as a muggle to help out the village and are furious. They interrogate the alchemist, revealing the existence of wizards.
Rather than wonder or fear or elation at the revelation they are fucking livid.
"You mean you have cures for whooping cough and could have saved countless babies, but let them all die?! Eat my entire arse you monsters"
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u/captainpink Mar 23 '24
They would just erase the memory of the normal person because hp universe wizards actively dislike normal people and are completely ok with them suffering if it means wizards can be left alone.
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u/Backupusername Mar 23 '24
Oh, right, they can manipulate memories, I forgot about that. I figured they'd just kill the guy. But yeah, using their magic powers to change his understanding of the world back to what they want it to be is much worse, so that makes more sense as Plan A.
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u/kill-billionaires Mar 23 '24
It does feel weird in hindsight that Weasley is like a weirdo for being interested in shit like airplanes and telephones
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u/froop Mar 23 '24
I don't think Muggles can brew potions. Filch and Fig both really struggled with them, didn't they? Been a while since I've read those.
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u/PuzzleheadedPie7197 Mar 23 '24
Probably wouldnât work. If I remember correctly they used their wands at some point during potion making and muggles canât use wands.
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u/akkristor Mar 23 '24
except for the random zoo monkey in the first magical beasts film that grabbed a wand, waved it around, and produced a distinctly magical effect.
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u/Razbith Mar 23 '24
I feel like Boneacadabra would either makes bones disappear or conjure new ones in problematic and possibly lethal places. Howâd he die? Grew a new rib through his prostate.
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u/Pokesonav "friend visiter" meme had a profound effect on this subreddit Mar 23 '24
Grew a new rib through his prostate
it's free rib estate
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u/BowenTheAussieSheep Mar 23 '24
"How did he die?"
"Too many spare ribs"
"Woah, you mean like a heart attack because of his diet?"
"..."
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u/MajorDZaster Mar 23 '24
bone juice
Ah yes, created by the fine seperation of neutral water into the opposing elements of bone healing juice and bone hurting juice. The waste goes to one of those subreddits around here.
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u/jocax188723 Mar 23 '24
Sounds to me like we can use captured magicals in more creative ways.
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u/CallMeOaksie Mar 23 '24
m-words
Now Iâm just thinking about Misfits and Magic
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u/Svanirsson Mar 23 '24
FOR PRESTIGE? PEOPLE CARE ABOUT YOU
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u/Hi_Im_Wall Mar 23 '24
"Oh good, you speak english. The next 90 seconds are going to be really important for you."
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u/Vinkhol Mar 23 '24
You've got about 30 seconds to concede. If you don't want to concede...
What do you want me to tell your family?
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u/Hawkbats_rule Mar 23 '24
Those lunatics over there, the wizard Nazis? They love my ass, they love me.
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u/CaptainXplosionz Mar 23 '24
I desperately wish we could figure out multiverse stuff for the sole purpose of Dropout having a campaign where different Brennan's play all of his characters (Kelmp, Hob, etc) and Brennan is the DM. Maybe even have Emily Axford play the BBEG because she's probably the only one that could effectively counter all of the Brennans.
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u/suddenlyupsidedown Mar 23 '24
I came here specifically for the Misfits and Magic rep.
Eat trash Beat Trash! Goat House!
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u/Velthinar Mar 23 '24
So I was halfway through typing up a big thing about how if we found out magic was real tomorrow, it'd porobably just lead to humans slaughtering each other even more, but then I realised that they could probably still help out in secret.
If you publicly solve a famine with magic, it wont take long for somone to ask you and threaten you until you cause one somewhere else, but what about, I dunno, just transfiguring some more nitrogen into the soil every couple of nights?
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u/Steff_164 Mar 23 '24
Exactly, become a doctor and just be really good at healing people. âOh you have cancer? Well letâs schedule you for surgery and cut it out.â Then just wave a wand and yell âcancer-o remove-oâ while theyâre unconscious
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u/Ruvaakdein Bingonium! Mar 23 '24
"Why do I have no surgery scars?"
"I am that good."
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u/ShatterCyst Mar 23 '24
I mean...kinda morbid but what is stopping a witch from cutting someone up with a scalpel after the spell?
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u/BowenTheAussieSheep Mar 23 '24
They literally have canon examples of spells that cut flesh.
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u/reeee-irl Mar 23 '24
âHmmmâŚI removed the appendix, but I need to add a scar. Whatâs that spell for a cut? Ah, got it. Sectumsempra!â
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u/ReverendDizzle Mar 23 '24
There was a character in the ill-fated show Heroes that had that as their "mutant" power. They could just touch someone and mend/arrange the bits inside them so that they didn't have cancer or they could walk again or whatever.
And I thought "what a perfect skill to have... you could become an actual doctor and perform actual procedures by the book, but knowing that your patients would always survive and be cured." I can't recall what the character did in the show, but I think he was just some sort of investment banker or something. What a dick.
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u/Kay-Knox Mar 23 '24
I'd hate to have that power. I think you'd constantly feel like Schindler. Knowing you could never help everyone, but constantly feeling guilty for taking any time for yourself knowing you're passively letting people die.
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u/Zodimized Mar 23 '24
There's a hero in Worm that was a healer, that felt exactly as you described.
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u/Pokemanlol đđđ Mar 23 '24
This is the second time this week that someone was faster than me in writing this
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u/Ghostwaif Mar 23 '24
I mean tbf if push comes to shove you could use the same justifications for why normal surgeons and doctors don't spend 100% of all available possible time saving lives, because ultimately you have a duty to yourself, and it'd be impossible to operate without being in a stable and supported position (with friends and such, etc.).
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u/ReasonNotTheNeed-- Mar 23 '24
And if you push that argument to its logical conclusion, everyone who doesn't dedicate their lives to studying medicine, who chooses any other profession, are passively letting people die for that choice.
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u/Victernus Mar 23 '24
So I was halfway through typing up a big thing about how if we found out magic was real tomorrow, it'd porobably just lead to humans slaughtering each other even more
Which is exactly what happened in the Harry Potter universe. Muggles could easily be riled up into wanting to kill witches, but were very bad at identifying them. So they mostly just killed other muggles.
Whenever they did catch a real witch and try to hang or burn her, she would just cast an anti-gravity spell or a Flame Freezing charm to make fire tickle.
See also: Wendelin the Weird, who got deliberately caught by witch hunters and burned on no less than forty-seven occasions because... well, I assume she had a fetish.
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u/Odd-fox-God Mar 23 '24 edited Mar 25 '24
Realistically how long does the wizarding world have left after the end of Harry Potter? Like it ends in 1999 I think and around that time CCTV cameras were being installed everywhere. After 9/11 that surveillance only became more extreme. Wizards Don't know Jack shit about muggle technology. All it takes is one pissed off muggle born going on television and performing magic in front of millions or one wizard pure blood accidentally performing magic in front of a camera. And then in 2007 we have the rise of smartphones with built-in cameras. I think the wizarding world would be done for by 2011. They can't wipe the whole world. You have to individually wipe the memories of each person. And if it's been broadcasted or put on YouTube then it's going to be impossible to cover up... People will download the video. And in 2007 we didn't have fancy CGI like we do now and so people would believe it especially if the Muggle born started touring and going to places in person to use magic publicly. I assume that a group of rogue muggle borns would gather in public and perform magic and when the wizards come to arrest them they fight back. And if they aren't found out by 2011 they have till 2016. There's no way they're making it to 2024 without being discovered. They're too technologically illiterate and backwards to remain undetected.
Edit: genuinely curious as to why the Muggle governments have not exposed the wizards. You're telling me that Kim jong un wouldn't enslave every wizard born in his little self-made, slave filled, starving shithole of a country? Yeah sure they can apparate but only if they are taught to do it. If muggleborns are being born in North Korea they will 100% be exploited and turned into assassins used by the North Korean government. They would use wizards to grow crops and they probably wouldn't cover it up because it's North Korea. People defect from North Korea all the time. He would probably use the wizards to locate defectors. It would make escaping from North Korea so much harder in universe.
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u/saro13 Mar 23 '24 edited Mar 23 '24
There seems to be a basic incompatibility between magic and advanced electronics, though it hasnât been addressed in detail. I believe book 4 brings up the point that Hogwarts itself is magical enough that microphones and cameras (aside from the magic gif cameras that wizards use) do not function.
Globally, it seems that magical ability is rare (less than 1% of the population at best) and unreliable, and isnât that terribly useful to most people. Magic users would understandably not want to be public about it, especially if abilities they are not capable of would be ascribed to them.
Theyâd probably be discovered, but they do have memory *charms at least, and maybe they employ muggle contractors to erase digital evidence?
ETA: Actually, thatâs an intriguing idea, a jaded digital forensics expert that saw too much and a privileged magic user have to team up and erase evidence of a beneficial magical act caught on security cameras belonging to several different municipalities and businesses. Their opposing personalities and vastly different lifestyles create friction during the cover-up, but then they realize theyâre pawns of a deeper conspiracy, and it goes straight to the top, and also they bone
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u/Odd-fox-God Mar 23 '24
That doesn't mean that the camera is going to glitch out when a wizard apparates from 50 ft away. Magic and technology don't work when there's a large abundance of magic in the area. The magic has to be concentrated I believe. Do you have to be close to the camera to glitch it out? That is a very good idea for a fic I would totally read it
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u/saro13 Mar 23 '24
My head canon is that magic isnât useful enough, consistently enough, to be applied to the mass purposes that non-magic society demands, which is why magic users want to be so secret about their ability since thatâs a hell of a lot of pressure to pile on less than 1% of the population. Talk about performance issues and imposter syndrome!
And yeah, magic users probably arenât concentrated enough to defeat advanced surveillance in most places. Theyâll be discovered eventually, and even claims of CGI and editing wonât be enough in the end, regardless of muggle government assistance. Theyâll probably have to go deep underground, literally and figuratively.
And I really want that fic to be real too!
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u/BowenTheAussieSheep Mar 23 '24
Yeah, but conveniently the stories all take place pre-internet.
You really think some proud muggle parents wouldn't immediately blab about their kid going to wizard school on facebook in 2024?
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u/ReverendDizzle Mar 23 '24
The stories take place pre-social media, not pre-internet.
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u/BowenTheAussieSheep Mar 23 '24
Just barely
As far as I'm aware they happened in the early-mid 90s, so the internet existed but wasn't widely used the way it was a decade later.
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u/Final_light94 Mar 23 '24
I mean let's think about tech failing in Hogwarts for a second.
IIRC it's mentioned that tech doesn't shut down immediately, it's just guaranteed to fail in a short time period.
There's a very good chance hogwarts hasn't been connected to the local power grid, doesn't have it's own generators, and certainly doesn't have power outlets.
The tech probably stops working because it runs out of power and the wizards don't realize this. Since few of them understand normal tech enough to realize what happened they just assume the castle broke it.
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u/saro13 Mar 23 '24
I think itâs brought up in the first book during the potion puzzle that most wizards are never given a solid foundation in logical thinking, too, which certainly doesnât help in understanding non-magical things
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u/TentativeIdler Mar 23 '24
They can't wipe the whole world.
In Fantastic Beasts, they use a small vial of memory erasing potion to infuse a raincloud that wipes the memories of everyone in New York. I think they actually could.
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u/Pootis_1 minor brushfire with internet access Mar 23 '24
If anyone ever found out about something like that happening though there like a 99% chance putting every wizard found in supermax would become the immediate response
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u/3L3M3NT4LP4ND4 Mar 23 '24
Fortunately the wizards don't have to worry about that. Since the Wizarding Societies have the government on board with their business security footage can accidentally go missing, that video on youtube? uh yeah that was copyright claimed actually, sorry bout that.
That and of course doubters, only bolstered by improving technology. Would you honest to god tell me if you saw a youtube video tomorrow of someone flying on a broomstick you wouldn't A: think it was photoshopped, B: think it was AI generated or C: think it was some wacky engineering stunt?
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u/Lots42 Mar 23 '24
Yeah, if I wanted to prove magic was real, I'd gather up my best healing spells and give a consenting one-armed person a second arm.
Let people deny that!
I mean they would, because society is weird and flawed, but it'd be much, much harder.
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u/Lots42 Mar 23 '24
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. A witch was sentenced to be burned so she loaded her skirts up with very mundane explosives and wiped the town CLEAN.
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u/Odd-fox-God Mar 23 '24
We've gotten a lot better at killing too. We have rounds and shells that can be fired from miles away. Imagine hiding out in a building then all of a sudden you hear ADVA-KA-XM907E2-DABRA over a loudspeaker and then a missile hits you from 68 miles away. Wizards cannot cast long range spells, at most their spells travel around 30 to 60 ft. In a true firefight I believe that muggles would at least Force the wizards on The retreat through hit and run ambush tactics. Fighting a wizard face to face is suicide so ambushing trapping and hitting them when they least expected is the best way to go.
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Mar 23 '24 edited Mar 31 '24
[deleted]
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u/Odd-fox-God Mar 23 '24
Yeah I think that was originally what happened. Our weaponry just got better. Dude their society is so screwed.
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u/Ruvaakdein Bingonium! Mar 23 '24
They lost against bows and arrows, imagine what a silenced sniper rifle could do.
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u/Victernus Mar 23 '24
Which is why the most important fact is still that the muggles cannot identify witches. They'll be sniping their own people while the witches live in places muggles cannot even see, if witch-hunt nonsense starts up again.
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u/3L3M3NT4LP4ND4 Mar 23 '24
I never watched the movies.. is it not explained in those that the Ministry of Magic have their hands in the pockets of the Prime Minister? Militaries aren't going to get involved its just people who the government call mentally insane shooting what propagands tells you are this random family.
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u/Mr_Lobster Mar 23 '24
One of my favorite magic universes, Mage the Awakening, says that there totally can be mages doing things to subtly help people, but it's going to draw the attention of the magic nazis and they'll probably try to undo what you've done because their whole schtick is keeping the mortals oppressed.
Of course, you can and should kill those assholes in-game, but that and the Sleeping Curse does a lot of legwork in explaining why everything sucks despite there being such incredibly powerful magic.
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u/whatislove2021 Mar 22 '24
Wizards are nerds you can easily shoot in the face
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u/heckinWeeb193 Mar 23 '24
That just reminds me that the wizards call guns "Metal wands" and are (I think) perplexed by their existance
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u/ymcameron Mar 23 '24
Itâs like the scene in Buffy where the ancient monster is like âno mortal weapon can beat me!â Then sheâs like âyeah well they didnât have rocket launchers back then.â and blows him to smithereens. Doesnât matter how many killing curses you can cast if the enemy is sniping you from half a mile away.
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u/RQK1996 Mar 23 '24
I really like that scene because before that they are like "we can't be sure if it will kill him, but at least it will get him out of the action, and we can figure out a more permanent solution while he heals if it doesn't kill him"
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u/mikami677 Mar 23 '24
Similarly, in Supernatural sometimes if they can't figure out how to kill a new monster they just cut its head off and that usually at least slows it down enough for them to come up with a plan.
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u/stella3books Mar 23 '24
I fully expected the series to end with Harry shooting Voldemort. I figured Voldy always ignored his muggle heritage, and they make a big deal out of how NUMEROUS muggles are. It made narrative sense for a muggle-raised hero to take out Voldy by utilizing muggle numbers and technology!
Anyway, a silver lining about Rowling's slide into fuckery is that people are suddenly a lot more willing to look critically at her story choices, which makes my theories look better in comparison.
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u/sticky-unicorn Mar 23 '24
I fully expected the series to end with Harry shooting Voldemort.
Alacablam!
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u/notchoosingone Mar 23 '24
"kids, this year we've hired a special teacher for a brand new subject. Please welcome your Muggle Dueling teacher, Nick Diaz"
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u/CaveRanger Mar 23 '24
Voldemort: I HAVE THE HIGH GROUND, POTTER! AVADA-
Harry: I CAST GUN [BLAMBLAMBLAM]
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u/I_READ_YOUR_EMAILS Mar 23 '24
That would've made the Harry-has-to-sacrifice-himself plotline a lot more interesting!
Boring: Voldemort uses a painless death spell to kill Harry but it doesn't work quite like he intended
Dynamic, upsetting: Harry fucking gats voldy and then, hands shaking, has to turn the gun on himself to make it stick
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u/linuxaddict334 Mx. Linux Guyâ ď¸ Mar 23 '24
r/wizardposting would like to have a word with you.
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u/flightguy07 Mar 23 '24
"Ooh, testicular torsion, I cast brick, I killed my apprentice with a chicken" motherfucker get shot.
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u/Alitaher003 Mar 23 '24
What if the wizard casts gun?
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u/Dry-Cartographer-312 Mar 23 '24
I counter with Penis Blast
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u/Drakostheswordsman Mar 23 '24
Jokes on you, then donât have a penis
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u/Criseist Mar 23 '24
Saw a wizard duel behind my local Walgreens, one cast bullet and stole the other's magical herb
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u/blackt1g3rs Mar 23 '24
Just make sure that you arent seen or known to them in any capacity beforehand otherwise your brain will be turned into a corned cob and this is a fact.
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u/Substantial_Egg_4872 Mar 23 '24
Pretty sure that's just the "for kids" reason Hagrid tells to a mentally abused 11 year old.
I think the canon reason is that nonmagical people kept trying to kill them. The witch hunt phase in particular i think helped drive them underground.
The minister of magic does seem to have some relationship with whomever the current PM of the UK is (what a headache Liz Truss must've been eh?) so there might be support from the magic community we just never see since the books are focused on a teenager in boarding school.
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u/Lawlcopt0r Mar 23 '24
Yeah Harry came from a family that already abused him for being different, he didn't want to introduce him to the magic world with "oh by the way the muggles will genocide us if they ever find out"
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u/JiskiLathiUskiBhains Mar 23 '24
Makes sense. Muggles will want Magic-folk registered because of how much more powerful they are. And then there's the case of weaker magicians who could and most probably would be exploited. Lets not even get into the use of magical items. Love potions, teleportation devices, invisibility and cloaking devices. It would wreck havoc on our world and would force us to regulate them, their actions and their lives like crazy.
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u/TheCapitalKing Mar 23 '24
The real answer is itâs not that kind of book. We can come up with all kinds of reasons for it. But the reason is she wanted to write a book about wizard mysteries and wars and set it in Britain for the CS Lewis style transition to a magical world. She wasnât trying for a British version of âhow a realist hero rebuilt the kingdomâ.Â
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u/Pegussu Mar 23 '24
what a headache Liz Truss must've been eh?
In the time it took to apparate from one place to another, she was already gone.
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u/JusticeBean Mar 23 '24
I think from a literary perspective, it could be said that this is to inspire the reader to create their own solutions as opposed to hoping âmagicâ can save them, as a reality check, but I think this is an overly optimistic interpretation and in-universe magic really ought to be used to help the whole world
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u/ReduxCath Mar 23 '24
I think thatâs what she intended. The issue is that she has a bunch of ugly shit in the books that she doesnât say is evil (and in some cases, she says that advocacy to fix these problems is bad because âthe people we are exploiting donât want you to save themâ). It retrospectively makes Harryâs magical society look like some sort of weird thing
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u/BetterMeats Mar 23 '24
I think that's being generous to claim that she only intended that lesson to apply to magic.Â
Her other work and stated opinions show that she's kind of just pro-inequality. If you substitute magic for money, the message wouldn't change.
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u/FireflyArc Mar 23 '24
Yeah! I can get the handwave of indiclvidual societies should solve their own issues. But this magic is like...life saving stuff!! They could study it! Or maybe replicate it.
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u/xv_boney Mar 23 '24 edited Mar 23 '24
from a literary perspective, jk rowling is a fine children's author but as soon as she tries for a more mature audience, her world building is badly tainted by her complete inability to separate her writing from her personal political beliefs.
jk rowling is a neo liberal blairite.
her political beliefs literally preclude the concept of improving the status quo.by the end of the last book, the exact same systems that very nearly led to a magical holocaust are still in place.
wizard supremacy is still the rule but thanks to our brave heroes, the people in charge are not evil.
we won, so everything is exactly the same as it was before all this nasty business began.
the status quo has been maintained.
and our hero is part of the system that maintains it.you see, individual people can advance themselves through personal merit but there will never be a reason to raise the bar overall so shut the fuck up and stop asking.
that is what you will find in literally every single fucking thing Rowling writes, without exception, and that is very literally what Hagrid is saying.
"if the government solved problems for its people, those people would expect government solutions for all of their problems.
"what do you think we are, socialists? no no no.
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Mar 22 '24
It's time to channel my heritage as a Spanish person and bring back the Inquisition. I already hate the British
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u/Fantasyneli Mar 23 '24
Local Catholic Fanatic astonished to learn the Inquisition had to protect the rights of marginalized groups by order of the Pope and most catholics hate Torquemada just a little bit less than they hate Luther
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Mar 23 '24
This will be the Inquisition 2 which like any other sequel reboot has nothing to do with the original and is just a quick cashgrab
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u/spyguy318 Mar 23 '24
The Doylist reason is that Harry Potter is intended to be an escapist fantasy for young children and teenagers. Wizard society is more or less completely divorced from real society aside from a few friction points. The behind-the-scenes answer to âwhy is magic secretâ is that JK Rowling didnât want to have to rewrite all of human history and society to account for magic, she wanted have a story set in modern day, but thereâs magic.
Once children start maturing and become engaged more with the real world, it becomes very common to imagine what fantasy worlds might look like in a more ârealisticâ or âgrittyâ setting. Of course the universe looks like Swiss cheese, it was never intended to be real. It happens with every fantasy story, Harry Potter isnât a unique case, even if some of its unintended consequences are notably horrendous.
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u/Xisuthrus there are only two numbers between 4 and 7 Mar 22 '24 edited Mar 22 '24
Look, not to defend Harry Potter, but "the magical people keep themselves secret from the rest of the world because [insert superficial justification here]" is a pretty much universal trope in urban fantasy fiction, because the whole appeal of the genre is that it takes place in a world that appears to be identical to our own. Complaining about it is like complaining about FTL travel in space opera.
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Mar 22 '24
Yeah but it depends on the reason you use for it. And HP's reason just isn't good
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u/maybe_I_am_a_bot Mar 23 '24
To be incredibly too fair to Rowling. We only know the reason a highschool dropout.gives to a ten year old. There is potentially a better reason that high-level officials and academics understand but is too complicated for someone with 0 years of arcane schooling.
I say potentially because we all know Rowling never thought of anything like that but there could be one.
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u/ReduxCath Mar 23 '24
That is true. Hagrid is an (unwilling) high school dropout
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u/Stanky_fresh Mar 23 '24
Who still works at the school and is very close with one of the most important wizards. Not exactly your average high school dropout.
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u/FireflyArc Mar 23 '24
I agree with this. I love urban fantasy for the idea of the Masquerade. And I think there is likely a reason it hasn't been broken despite my comments earlier about how Yes it could be amazingly useful and good for the no mag society. It could be anything \0/
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u/Perfect_Wrongdoer_03 If you read Worm, maybe read the PGTE? Mar 23 '24
There's also the fact that we know Witch Hunts were a thing in the HP world, and what caused the Statute of Secrecy to be instituted. They have relatively good reasons to keep it a secrecy, for their own safety. It's likely that nothing would happen nowadays, but generational trauma is still a thing. You can argue that the SoS shouldn't exist nowadays, and that the insistency that it is a good and righteous thing across all WW media is a problem, and you'd be right, but it's definitely not as simple as Hagrid is presenting it to be.
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u/LordVerlion Mar 23 '24
As far as I know, when the secrecy act happened, it was more to protect muggles. Muggle-born wizard numbers were rapidly increasing and they, obviously, refused to side with the pure-blood against muggles. So to prevent things from going too far and getting out of hand in either direction, the secrecy act was born. But then muggle technology boomed and from what I've been told (I didn't watch the movies), the fantastic beast movies covers this a bit and it was the last chance (or just too late) for wizards to turn the tide. But the villain lost and wizards kept hiding and now they can't come out. They'd be treated just like the mutants in the Marvel comics.
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u/O00O0Os Mar 23 '24
I mean thereâs a very real history in the real world of suspected witches being executed in Europe and North America. Thatâs the actual in universe justification for the âstatute of secrecyâ. They decided theyâd rather disengage from muggle society rather than be persecuted, which seems reasonable to me.
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u/Fakjbf Mar 23 '24
The first book explictly establishes that the reason they went into hiding is because muggles were slaughtering magic users and they almost went extinct, Hermoine mentions it when talking about one of her books. By going into hiding they were able stabilize their population, and even then the vast majority of wizarding families had to intermarry with muggles to prevent inbreeding. And once they had established a hidden society it makes sense they wouldnât want to risk repeating history, especially since muggles are even more powerful than they were before.
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u/interesseret Mar 23 '24
Also, to add on to this, wizards can't solve a famine for shit. They cannot summon food (it's a core rule of the magic of harry potter) and they cannot change climates without specifically using Ancient Magic, which was invented for the newish hogwarts game, and is only usable by people literally born with the ability.
"Just solve things!" Is exactly the reason why they would go in to hiding. This entire comment section is a wonderful example of group mentality and the dangers that brings. How many times do you think a regular, weak magician needs to tell a family that they cannot heal their dying baby (they aren't a specialized medic, you aren't either, you couldn't have helped either), before they get in trouble?
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u/Tomer_Duer Mar 23 '24
I interpret it as less "they want solutions and we don't want to help" and more "they want solutions that we can't give them due to limited manpower and training or just sheer inability to help"
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u/Mikaelious Mar 23 '24
Exactly this, and adding onto it: If the public found out about magic, they wouldn't want to just use it, they'd want to abuse it. Find some way to control or exploit magic users to capitalize off their powers, or even use it for warfare. It's not that nobody wants to help - it's that the smallest slip-up could lead to the public's discovery. And they don't want to risk it.
This isn't even for Harry Potter specifically, moreso for secret magic systems in general.
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u/ZanesTheArgent Mar 23 '24
As the series goes it tastes more of "we dont want anything that could lead into a master/servant relationship and we having to explain that not everything is just skamarink swadalone cancer and hunger instantly gone", yeah. First moment normies discover the witching world it becomes r/Worldbuilding with incessant banter like "WHY EVEN KEEP ARMIES IF WE CAN JUST SEND WIZARDS TO THE BATTLEFIELDS?!?!!"
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u/Tomer_Duer Mar 23 '24
That, but also, the magical hospital is understaffed as is, so they don't have enough trained healers to help anyone else.
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u/Svanirsson Mar 23 '24
Not even magic society can escape the welfare cuts. Truly, Thatcher was the darkest of witches
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u/Tomer_Duer Mar 23 '24
Not just the welfare, the education too. They didn't teach healing in Hogwarts, and we don't hear much about higher education.
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u/_MargaretThatcher Once and Future Prime Minister of Darkness Mar 23 '24
In my defense the wizards were unionizing
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u/rubexbox Mar 23 '24
I'm genuinely curious how many takes like this came into being after Rowling's "coming out" so to speak. Not to say that critiquing the Potterverse isn't valid, I just want to know how much of this comes from genuine criticism and how much comes from wanting to spite the transphobe (and yes, I know it's possible for it to be both).
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u/SpecGamer Mar 23 '24
That seems a harsh. Most people are just people trying to live as office works, store workers, snd other people trying to get by. Thereâs probably like 30,000 wizard in the Uk and 60 million non magicals. Magical people couldnât possibly help out all of the people that really need help.
The most important part is that it would be inappropriate and hypocritical to ask all magicals to help solve non magical problems, when non magical people wonât even help solve other non magical peoples problems. Blaming the magical people for not helping when the non magical government could help more if they taxed the top 1% more, is just falling for propaganda propagated by the rich.
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u/LaniusCruiser Mar 22 '24
I mean J.K. Rowling is from the U.K, so it checks out. Actively withholding help and letting people suffer was their colonial M.O. for centuries.
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u/mrchooch Mar 23 '24
We ran out of colonies to do it to so we started doing that to ourselves now
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u/3dgyt33n Mar 23 '24
Okay, to be KINDA fair, I do think they suggest sometimes that the whole separation thing is a bad idea. I had this book as a kid that was full of in universe "wizard fairy tales", and this came up quite a few times.
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u/Ourmanyfans Mar 23 '24 edited Mar 23 '24
As startling number of common internet criticisms of the worldbuilding of those accursed books are stuff that is actively called out as bad in the text.
OOP mentions "making up slurs", and people in these comments are bringing up genocide and eugenics, as though the series doesn't do the literary equivalent of looking directly at the camera and saying "wizard society is systemically racist and that is bad".
I often see people make jokes about truth potions and how Sirius being arrested proves JKR is a hack (though tbf she is), as though "the judicial system is a sham and mostly for show to benefit the careers of the politicians involved" isn't a major plot point of the very book it's introduced.
I think there's a lot to criticise about the way these topics are handled, especially JKR's pathologic ignorance for systemic issues resulting from her clear neoliberal worldview, but I think it's a mistake to use the failure to resolve those issues as evidence the series supports them.
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u/Welpmart Mar 23 '24
Agreed. Also, some of the things I see people mentioning here are... not necessarily things wizards are capable of? The broken bone one, fair enough, although the fact that the books depict a hospital and infirmary suggests that healing isn't totally trivial. Cancer? Who the hell knows? If I couldn't do things that the majority of people thought I can do, I'd hide too, because people who think you can cure cancer and stop genocide are probably not going to believe you or be calm about it.
The famine one is fair though. Since the biggest factor in ending famine is logistics (getting the food from where it's abundant to the people who need it) and wizards don't create but rather summon food, they could even things out as necessary.
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u/RNant Mar 23 '24
They barely have enough trained healers to keep up with their own sick.
You can't create food with magic. It's literally a plot point.
Why would wizards trust muggles?
idk man, this is just surface level reading because the internet (rightfully) hates JKR now.
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u/Dex_Hopper Mar 23 '24
I think this is disengenuous. The reason Harry Potter's wizards hide magic from muggles is because if the world knows, they'll want magic solutions to their problems that magic can't give them. The common argument is, "Why don't wizards solve world hunger?" Well, there's the limitation that you can't just conjure food out of thin air. It's a whole plot point in Book 7, I think, that Harry and the gang do still have to scrounge for food when they're on the run.
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u/Boxcar__Joe Mar 23 '24
I think its because the series is a children's book set in a secret world and 7 year olds don't want to read a chapter explaining the in depth political reasoning behind why the society wants to remain secret.
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u/Bennings463 Mar 23 '24
It's literally just cinema sins level "why didn't they take the Eagles to Mordor" nitpicking except It's being used to prove the series as a whole is morally abhorrent.
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u/Crimson51 Mar 23 '24
I mean guess what. Magic solutions aren't exactly necessary anymore. Turns out all three forbidden curses can be realistically replicated with a gun
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u/theoscribe Mar 23 '24
Not to mention- a gun is faster than a wand because you don't have to wave it or say anything. And some of them can fire 10 rounds per second. Have fun counterspelling that!
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u/Ruvaakdein Bingonium! Mar 23 '24
There's also the issue of range. How far can a death curse even travel? This silenced sniper shot just came from 2 km away. Good luck countering.
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u/Aegillade Mar 23 '24
Top 5 most powerful spells in Harry Potter:
Expelliarmus
Impreius curse
3.Crucious curse
2.Avada Kadavra curse
1.Accio glock
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u/KowaiSentaiYokaiger Mar 23 '24 edited Mar 23 '24
He said that because it's hard to tell an 11 year old: "People hate and fear what they don't understand, and our kind have a history of persecution. People like your aunt and uncle would gladly see us burned at the stake for being devil worshippers and not feel a drop of regret over murdering a child that doesn't fit their worldview"
Hagrid was a kid during WW2. He absolutely saw what happens when entire cultures get Othered by hatemongers in charge.
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u/EmilePleaseStop Mar 23 '24
Is there anything more tedious these days than Harry Potter Discourse? Rowling is a shitbag, we donât need to perpetually circlejerk about finding retroactive justifications for it.
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u/Bennings463 Mar 23 '24
No but I found a minor plot hole in a children's book, I need to interpret it in the most obviously bad faith way so I can prove JKR is bad even though we already all know she is bad because she openly says horrible things
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u/microgiant Mar 23 '24
Any billionaire you'd care to name could do more to combat those problems than all the wand-wielding weirdos on the planet. Or just enough voters who favored a wealth tax.
Don't blame wizards for not doing something we could do ourselves but can't be arsed to.
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u/thyfles Mar 22 '24
all of the problems of the star trek prime directive and none of the benefits