mugglemusings - Tumblr blog

[mugglemusings]

do muggleborns' parents have to pay into MoM taxes? if so, how do they do this?

You can now stop trying to figure out how much tuition is at Hogwarts; J.K. Rowling says Hogwarts is free.

[mugglemusings]

hoopyhobo replied to your post “1. /post/122962326070/ It didn't work at James' death because he died...”

Some people go way overboard when shit they like gets criticized. If you didn't actually like or get Harry Potter, there's no way you would deep dive into these bizarrely esoteric questions.

true fact: most of the original posts in this blog were conceived as the result of me and my partner relentlessly listening to the harry potter audiobooks during road trips.

[mugglemusings]

1. /post/122962326070/ It didn't work at James' death because he died with the intent of holding Voldie off, not acting as sacrifice. His aim was to buy /time/ for Lily&Harry, while their aims were to protect others. 2. /post/122872816396/ Sometimes it really seems to me that this blog of yours misses the point of HP? JKR wrote HP was to allow for the start to be the joy you'd feel learning there was magic in the world &then to gradually show you that magic doesn't make it better than ours.

 i think sometimes people miss the point of this blog? these are not always serious criticisms of the books (except for my complaints about how the 4th book has the most ridiculous and flimsy plot premise and my complaints about the trace; i will die on those hills) and instead are just lighthearted, loving, and silly over-analysis of the internal logic of magic in the books. 

the Harry Potter series is delightful and has many wonderful themes and messages, but sometimes shit doesn’t make sense and you know what? that doesn’t mean the books are bad or that i don’t like them (spoiler: i love them). it just means that i get intense enjoyment from thinking way too hard about young adult fiction, and i started a blog to share these humorous musings with other people who might also enjoy them. but mostly i just get very defensive harry potter fans, apparently.

[mugglemusings]

Well, that clears that up. Here’s the story she’s referring to, in which we hypothetically figured out that if Hogwarts charged tuition it would cost a ton.

[mugglemusings]

Oh god I love this blog. I'm rereading the books at the minute and it strikes me that the ENTIRE WIZARDING WORLD IS TOTALLY BACKWARDS. It seriously should have been swallowed by the sea like Atlantis. But more seriously, do wizards pay taxes to fund the Ministry? And if so, are there ministry officials who want smaller government or decreased public spending? What is wizarding Britain's national debt? Does the muggle PM ever get to visit the Ministry to express (presumably valid) concerns?

Thanks! I’m glad you enjoy the blog. Re-reading the Harry Potter books as an adult is an interesting experience. You really do start to notice things that get you asking questions about the universe. The Ministry is definitely all kinds of messed up, and that’s one of the big reasons that Harry Potter is one of the last fictional universes I’d want to live in (second only to the A Song of Ice and Fire world, probably). As you think of more questions during your re-read, feel free to submit!

[mugglemusings]

And another one! (Sorry!) Why did Lily sacrificing herself for Harry protect him all those years? Was it a specific spell she cast over him? In which case, why don't more witches and wizards know it? And if it's not, then how come it only ever comes up in relation to Harry? Are we to believe that Lily was the only parent who died protecting their child? And surely James died protecting Lily so why didn't this same "protected by love" spell protect her when Voldemort came up the stairs?

My understanding is that the magic that protects Harry after Lily sacrifices herself for him is a much deeper, older, mysterious type of magic that doesn’t necessarily need a spell to function. I get the impression that it’s a type of magic that just sort of happens when the circumstances are right, which is why most wizards and witches don’t know about it (certainly Voldemort didn’t). 

In Deathly Hallows, when Harry is facing off with Voldemort in their final battle, Harry talks about how he willingly sacrificed himself to Voldemort to protect everyone else at Hogwarts, and even though he comes back to life, the fact that he made that ultimate sacrifice willingly and with the express intent of protecting others meant that the same type of magic that protected Harry now protected the people at Hogwarts. He mentions that all the spells Voldemort tries to cast on the Hogwarts defenders don’t work or don’t stick (the silencing and immobilizing spells cast on the crowds and on Neville break eventually).

Therefore, I think it’s a type of magic that doesn’t necessarily only happen to Harry -- it does happen at the end there too. However, I don’t have an answer for the question about why James dying for Lily and Harry didn’t do the same thing, or why it didn’t crop up in the case of other parents that may have died for their children, too. Perhaps things like intent and circumstances affect the magic. Any followers have input?

[mugglemusings]

Oh god I love this blog. I'm rereading the books at the minute and it strikes me that the ENTIRE WIZARDING WORLD IS TOTALLY BACKWARDS. It seriously should have been swallowed by the sea like Atlantis. But more seriously, do wizards pay taxes to fund the Ministry? And if so, are there ministry officials who want smaller government or decreased public spending? What is wizarding Britain's national debt? Does the muggle PM ever get to visit the Ministry to express (presumably valid) concerns?

Thanks! I’m glad you enjoy the blog. Re-reading the Harry Potter books as an adult is an interesting experience. You really do start to notice things that get you asking questions about the universe. The Ministry is definitely all kinds of messed up, and that’s one of the big reasons that Harry Potter is one of the last fictional universes I’d want to live in (second only to the A Song of Ice and Fire world, probably). As you think of more questions during your re-read, feel free to submit!

[mugglemusings]

mcgonagall: do you think we should start requiring permission slips for quidditch? i mean, potter literally lost all the bones in his arm last year

dumbledore: nah

mcgonagall: also, maybe we should let parents know if we're gonna send students into the forest for detentions? remember when we sent potter in there and you-know-who tried to kill him?

dumbledore: nah

mcgonagall: well, maybe we should get permission from parents for extracurricular activities. dueling club last year resulted in potter being outed as a parsletongue, and everyone thought he was the heir of slytherin for most of the year

dumbledore: nah

mcgonagall: alright, well, potter wants to know if he can go to hogsmeade. the abusive muggles you saddled him with wouldn't sign his form

dumbledore: you wanT HIM TO GO TO HOGSEMEADE WITHOUT A PERMISSION FORM??? DO YOU UNDERSTAND HOW DANGEROUS THAT IS??? HE MIGHT GET CAVITIES FROM ALL THE CANDY HE MIGHT BUY. I WON'T BE RESPONSIBLE FOR A LAWSUIT, MINERVA

[mugglemusings]

But why. Why do ALL potions need a wand? We don't always (ever?) see students using wands in potions class?

Like I get that JKR said they do but that doesn't mean that this claim suddenly makes any sense. Canon =/= logical/understandable

I don’t see why squibs can’t go to Hogwarts. There are more than a sufficient number of classes that don’t require your ability to cast spells and charms, and it seems unfair that children from magic families who grew up in a magical environment shouldn’t be integrated into magic society. It makes more sense to me for them to be potioneers or herbologists or finding some other way to integrate them into the world they grew up in as opposed to expecting them to adapt to the muggle world.

(Tech’s note: unfortunately you do need magic for those classes. I mean MAYBE dealing with magical creatures doesn’t require much, if you stick to the smaller stuff, but you can’t keep a dragon in check with no magic =| )

[mugglemusings]

what i say: i'm fine

what i mean: how does the justice system of the harry potter world function? are there jails besides azkaban for smaller crimes, or does one have to deal with crushing terror for peeing on a bush? why was barty crouch allowed to be involved in his own son's trial? is there any form of ethical training that goes into the ministry? also, how does azkaban work? are there human guards as well as dementors, or can dementors function well enough to feed prisoners or take them to visitation areas? if there are wizards or aurors who work within the prison system do they have to deal with constant feeling of dread from their coworker dementor jim just hanging out? what is the fugitive protocol? why were there no clear visible figures trying to find sirius, just dementors around hogwarts? can dementors function the same as u.s. marshals? is that what they're a metaphor for as well as depression? how did the law enforcement of the wizarding world close a case after finding only a man's finger, how did--

[mugglemusings]

one thing I never see anyone take into account is the fact that Hogwarts must be crawling with cats. you’re allowed to bring either a cat, an owl, or a toad. if we assume only 1/3 of the students bring cats with them, that’s still, like, HUNDREDS OF CATS.

[mugglemusings]

Courtesy of Sincerely Tumblr on Twitter

[mugglemusings]

There's also the fact that Tom Riddle's trace would have been going off when he visited Morfin and killed the muggle Riddles, placing him literally at the crime scene, and yet this is never investigated by the Ministry (as discussed here in this post).

The fact that wizard law enforcement found a dude’s finger and immediately closed the investigation, declared him dead, and concluded that the only possible explanation for why they only found a finger was that he was killed so hard that the rest of him was obliterated kind of speaks volumes about why nobody followed up when the genocidal serial killer just vanished.

[mugglemusings]

What she says: I'm fine

What she means: How do the owls in Harry Potter work? Can they read the addresses on the envelopes or do you have verbally communicate the name of the recipient for them to understand? Does this mean that Voldemort could have found Harry Potter years earlier by just sending him a letter at the right time and following it? Are owls more powerful magical trackers than Voldemort?

[mugglemusings]

We have a lot of questions for JK Rowling. 

[mugglemusings]

Sometimes i lay awake at night wondering why Albus Dumbledore wasn’t a Slytherin

[mugglemusings]

Besides Quidditch teams and musical bands, what other aspects are there to wizard pop culture? Are there wizard radio dramas? Wizard plays? Wizard opera? Wizard fashion shows? Is a wizard equivalent of television ever invented? Are there wizard soap operas? Wizard movies?