JKR's willing to make a point about the seriousness of the issues in her books by drawing parallels to real life tragedies, but abandons historical accuracy when it reflects badly on her plot and the characters she wants to convey postively.)
And frankly, if you really think about it, how does this make her characters look better? The WW is secret from Muggles for some reason, and they go to the length of memory charming people regularly to keep it that way, when they're not driving Muggles crazy because they don't know what's happening to their keys or whatever. I think one of the reasons the dreaded "DE-PoV-interested fans" have popped up is in trying to make this work within a wider world. We know how violent our society has been towards witchcraft--these very books have been banned for their subject matter. So to turn around and say, "Oh, that? The burnings and hangings and such? No, wizards have no connection to that at all. They thought it was funny watching Muggles burn each other while they got tickled."
Okaaaayyyy...so then why the secrecy? I remember talking to someone once on FAP, I think, about wizard medicine (I think it somehow came from one of those werewolf/AIDS parallels). Anyway, I was on the side of people who claimed wizard medicine did not work on Muggles and that they had different diseases, while others thought they'd just found cures for diseases they weren't sharing with us. The person's justification of Muggleborns, for instance, witholding the cure for AIDS from their families was that if Muggles knew about magic they'd want to use it for everything (the way wizards do in canon??!) so it should be kept secret from them.
If that's the reason behind the secrecy--not any threat but just a superior attitude (the kind Arthur Weasley and even Hermione display towards Muggles) then memory charms and things become even more sinister.
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Date: 2004-11-09 11:59 am (UTC)And frankly, if you really think about it, how does this make her characters look better? The WW is secret from Muggles for some reason, and they go to the length of memory charming people regularly to keep it that way, when they're not driving Muggles crazy because they don't know what's happening to their keys or whatever. I think one of the reasons the dreaded "DE-PoV-interested fans" have popped up is in trying to make this work within a wider world. We know how violent our society has been towards witchcraft--these very books have been banned for their subject matter. So to turn around and say, "Oh, that? The burnings and hangings and such? No, wizards have no connection to that at all. They thought it was funny watching Muggles burn each other while they got tickled."
Okaaaayyyy...so then why the secrecy? I remember talking to someone once on FAP, I think, about wizard medicine (I think it somehow came from one of those werewolf/AIDS parallels). Anyway, I was on the side of people who claimed wizard medicine did not work on Muggles and that they had different diseases, while others thought they'd just found cures for diseases they weren't sharing with us. The person's justification of Muggleborns, for instance, witholding the cure for AIDS from their families was that if Muggles knew about magic they'd want to use it for everything (the way wizards do in canon??!) so it should be kept secret from them.
If that's the reason behind the secrecy--not any threat but just a superior attitude (the kind Arthur Weasley and even Hermione display towards Muggles) then memory charms and things become even more sinister.