But that's not what most Fics do. They usually involve the Statute either be outright broken in no time or outright flaunted so Harry and/or Hermione could be rich in the muggle world. They almost never show the potential downsides to the Statute suddenly ending, they just look at all the ways the one society could fix all the societal woes of the other.

Personally, I'd actually enjoy reading a story where people work on gradually ending the Statute over many decades. Seeing the steps both sides take towards that goal, what kind of opposition they'd have to deal with, all the major setbacks that would occur. It could be a perfectly good story. But as far as I know, there was only one story that ever considered that sort of long-term process, and even then it was a two-shot more focused on Ginny basically being Mother Teresa.

 

@Lord Twain

Firstly you ignore three key aspects of creation of magical goods

• Impossibility of automatisation.
• Required specialisation.
• Limited population

Wizards are simply unable to produce them at the rate required by the muggle world. Which would lead either to even bigger assertion of the elites or attempts at exploiting wizards which would end up in conflict.

Add to this the problems that ISOS separates muggles from, and from which they have zero way of defending, like magical diseases.

The net losses for muggles would ve probably bigger than benefits and even if not, big enough to create resentment and in effect tensions.

 

Hence, again, giving it a few decades in which the Wizarding population will hopefully have increased.

 

The political aspects of a Repeal are all very interesting, but what about the religious aspects? Suddenly, Jesus will look much less like a god, while many pagan cults will get a lot of support. Millennia-old status quo being broken like that, mass hysteria is not out of the table. Even if it'd make for an uncomfortable read, I'd rather explore that side of the coin.

 

One shouldn't underestimate the effects of providing unimpeachable proof of the existence of a soul and an afterlife.

 

Another great aspect to explore. That's why I said some religions would gain momentum, while others might struggle. But the author would have to be careful not to get trapped in a religious debate inside his own story. Tricky, I know.

 

It's not as though removing the Statute would also make it suddenly legal for dark wizards to go and cause chaos. What's stopping dark wizards from doing that shit anyway? If you make it illegal to use magic to cause chaos, to steal, to kill, whatever, how is bringing down the Statute make it more likely for a dark wizard to do all that?

If anything, revealing magic would create more trouble for dark wizards who want to do these things, because then they have to deal with muggles who know about magic. And though that wouldn't be enough to stop them, it's surely more bothersome to deal with muggles who prepare, as best as a muggle can prepare for magic, than ones who have no idea magic exists.

They know about Polyjuice Potion? Ok, now they have safety questions they ask each other out of fear.

They know about the Imperius? Ok, now they further limit the amount of power one person can have so that no single Imperiused person can fuck up so much.

They know about the Killing Curse? Ok, now everytime a muggle dies with no explanation, it automatically points to a wizard.

They know about the Memory Charm? Ok, now many muggles are recording every second of their day.

You get the point. Bringing down the Statute of Secrecy may be a bad idea, but pointing at dark wizards as the reason for it being a bad idea doesn't make any sense. That argument would only work if wizards couldn't already do all those things to muggles.

 

Indeed, but I think the benefits of that outweigh the dangers. Either the Stone-ghosts are allowed to say precisely what the Afterlife is like, and that's religion settled once and for all; or they're not, in which case the only new information is that there is an afterlife for sure, and it's nice (at least for good people). Just the latter would be enough to put millions of people at rest. For instance, I am an atheist of the opinion that oblivion is terrifying, and there are no words for how much relief hard, studied evidence of a heaven would bring me.

 

There is a world of difference on the levels of evil between "I'm gonna steal some shit" and "I'm going to steal some shit and irrevocably change the fundamental world order for the rest of time." It still functions as a restraint on many bad actions.

 

It would be nowhere close to what would be needed To have big enough wizard population you would have to institute some crazy breeding programs. And that probably wouldn't go well with both the wizards and the muggle women who would be impregnated to mass-produce wizards.

 

Eh. Encouraging large families should be enough, I think, if you combine it with the other thing which the Wizarding World really ought to get a grip on doing, namely revoke the Wand Ban. If you factor in all the Goblin, Elf, Veela, Dementor, etc. population, it all starts to look a lot more manageable.

 

Why the fuck would you want to give them wands. Goblins are cunts, House Elves need some form of emancipation before you can think of anything else, and Dementors literally feed on happiness and human souls. Veela have their own magic and may even be incapable of wielding a wand. If they are capable, they like as not have the right already.

 

I'm not sure if you're serious or taking the piss. Nor am I sure which offends me the most.

 

Adding on to this, why would they even need wands?

House Elves seem to be capable of some decent shit without a wand. Dementors only goal is to suck out your soul so it's not like they need a wand for improvement of quality of life. Goblins seem to be able to do magic without a wand and cast some pretty nasty enchantments and curses on their vaults.

 

Farming magicals to force them to solve muggle problems, and they're the unethical ones. Hmmmmm.

 

Well, yeah, but that wasn't what I was arguing. The argument people were using was that dark wizards would do bad shit if the Statute came down.

 

You make the argument right here. That's what I was responding to.

 

Except you haven't explained anything in regards to that. You said "it still functions as a restraint" but didn't bother elaborating. I still don't understand how I'm wrong. You haven't explained it. How does the Statute stop dark wizards from doing all that anyway? You said it functions as a restraint on many bad actions, but how?

 

The thing you're all forgetting is that, Grindelwald excluded, dark wizards all support the continued efficacy of the statute. They will make sure it's not broken because they believe in it and are often the most enthusiastic enforcers of it. Even Lord Voldemort, when conducting attacks on Muggles, made sure not to expose wizards.

 

Which is somewhat what I'm saying. Dark wizards who wish to fuck with muggles aren't going to want to bring down the Statute because it might make what they want to do harder for them. I'm not advocating for the Statute to be removed, just stating that the "dark wizards will do bad things" argument doesn't work here.

But I think we've kind of derailed this thread too much already.