I forgot that it's been the constant policy of all religions for the past three centuries that witches are evil.

Look, usually I'd be piling this topic high with the MST3k Mantra, but we're deliberately considering history with an eye to how effective the Statute of Secrecy would be. And the only logical answer to anyone with any knowledge of international geopolitics over the last few hundred years is that there is no way to enforce one law over every country in the world - except, in canon, that's what happened.

Again, normally this is something to just handwave away as JK-sucks-at-Renaissance-geopolitics, but when you're specifically discussing the royal families of Europe, the usual handwave policy is put aside. So... every single wizard and witchcraft of both pureblood and muggleborn stock renounced all loyalties to every muggle institution (even though their magic could do said institutions a world of good, especially when their country of origin is, say, suffering under famine or plague or being invaded) and turned their back on the huge opportunities to turn their magical powers into huge opportunities in the muggle world, choosing instead the magical world where all the ones most familiar with the muggle world are an underclass... AND none of the brothers, sisters, and parents of muggleborns have ever spilled the beans, AND none of the royal families of the world have ever produced a muggleborn witch or wizard, or if they did they promptly forgot about it and never passed on that knowledge to their descendents.

That is the only way the Statute of Secrecy would have stayed intact for the past 300+ years, and it ignores every single facet of human nature, both good and bad, in favour of mindless loyalty to some treaty that somehow got signed by every single magical organization in the entire world.

Or it's a political fiction, and the various governments and monarchs of the world are in on it and keep it out of the public eye for whatever reasons of their own and likely have wizards and witches on their payroll, and wizarding non-intrustion in muggle politics is a relatively new phenomenon, probably borne of Grindelwald's fuckery during WW2.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that James Bond is a wizard.

 

I second this. Also, Indiana Jones. Because somebody has to be the greatest cursebreaker in the world.

And it explains the refrigerator trick.

 

We already had this out in IRC and it's clearly going nowhere. But yes the policy of every major religion in Europe during the medieval time period was that witches are evil. And in fact the policy of the vast majority of Muslim and Christian sects, (two religions that account for over half the planet's population) still condemn witchcraft as evil. As do most Jewish sects and many other religions.

So feel free to continue to not believe that witchcraft was widely and harshly condemned in Europe in the 1600's. But that belief has as much basis in historical reality as a typical Tom Clancy novel.

 

It depends on what you define as a 'witch.' As far as Abrahamic religion goes, there are only two places to get magic. Either God gives it to you, or an angle gives it to you. Now, the number of times GOD has handed that out can be counted on the fingers of one hand, and still have enough fingers left over to do long division. And since angels are forbidden from sharing that lore with humanity, the only angels who would do it are fallen ones.

So if you want to get specific, a witch would be classified as someone who acquired magical powers from pacts with demons. The demons part is important, because without that, you have to call Solomon and Moses witches too, and that's just not kosher. The only characters in HP who are likely to fit that bill would be Voldemort and Grindelwald.

It's not as much of an unsolvable situation as you seem to think. The wizards just have to convince the church that it's a gift from God, and that only Dark Wizards would have anything to do with demons.

 

Even if this were the case, it's a tough sell and even then would apply to the higher reaches of the Church. Your average, everyday peasant and clergyman is not going to appreciate this difference. Moreover, that's just not the position of most religions at the time period. You have witch hunts, witch burnings, the Malleus Maleficarum, etc. The type of situation you suggest requires an AU world, because it simply doesn't fit in with history (hence the Tom Clancy reference). That's fine if you want to go that way with it. It doesn't however, fit in with a canon world where European history is the same as it is for us.

 

It doesn't fit with history in the Harry Potter universe, or doesn't fit with IRL history? Because IRL history never had Merlin.

 

Harry Potter history is clearly meant to fit in and coincide with RL history. RL witchhunts -- HP witchhunts. RL WWII--HP WWII. RL modern Britain = HP muggle Britain.

 

... I demand a Taure-Raine canon fight thread. That would be glorious.

 

Or just impossible for the rest of us to stand.

 

While magic doesn't existe in real life, the basis for Merlin come from a true historic personage who lived in the 5th century.

 

Which is why it would be in a seperated thread, so as not to spill over on other discussions.

 

Right. Except with all the magical events having been expunged, which means King Arthur and Merlin are just legends, and not actual people who did things. Only in the HPuniverse, they totally were, which means we have to assume that an unknown quantity of history has been bullshat by some wizards in a censorship office somewhere.

In the traditional Arthurian Mythos, Merlin had strong connections to the Church. He was intended to be the Antichrist, but the Church intervened by baptizing him at birth and tattooing his flesh with blessings in the holy script of angels, thereby absolving him of his fate to destroy the world and creating what is probably one of the most badass story prologues of all time. He still had the supernatural powers, he was just free to choose for himself what to do with them.

If even a small part of that is true in the HP universe, then Merlin was The Man. He was brofisting the Pope and was the adoptive father figure of the guy who became the King of Britain and wielded Excalibur, one of the most awesome magical swords ever. Even if none of it is true, he was still probably The Man. This is, after all, Merlin we're talking about here.

I'm not sure what there would be to fight about, seeing how we both seem to agree as far as canon goes. An opinion thread would probably be a fight, but canon? Not seeing it.

 

There was a fic out there regarding the idea that Princess Diana met her demise due to wizarding intervention when she repeatedly did something to threaten the statute of secrecy. But it was made out like what people here have said, marysueish and wierd because of it being based on a real person.

We are told muggle leaders in the bigger countries atleast know of wizards. Fudge himself said it when the PM questioned why his predecessor never warned him, they only reveal themselves to the new prime minister, and there's no warning because the older PM's dont want to come across as insane and mental....who would believe a PM if they said magic existed? pitchforks and tortches would be at the forefront of the voters storming the building

"

So, Britains Prime Ministers, past and present, know about wizards/witches...however its up to debate whether this means other branches of the muggle world/gov does as well (I.E. Church which has been discussed here, military intelligence etc etc.)

It would be more difficult for them to hide now in 2011 then it was in the 17th century, or even in the 1990's, where the timeline of the HPverse took place. Satellites with newfound imagery systems with infared/UV and such are one such example thats used to indicate possible discovery by higher ups in the government.....say they stumbled on something, take it to the PM, PM tells them its nothing, never speak of it again...people who found it are sworn to never say shit.

Anyways, even IF they found evidence and someone talked, it would be like the UFO phenomenon where a few ex military/gov employee's say they exist, they've seen them in hangers etc but really....most people think they're insane.

 

Yarly. What makes you think that spells to hide things only work on one small band of EM radiation?

 

Personally I don't think the 'modern' Royal Family has any dealing with the wizarding world. When I say 'modern' I mean since William the Conqueror's time. I suspect wizards were common in royal households while England was divided into smaller kingdoms with Camelot being the last time a major wizard interacted with muggles. The fall of Camelot probably led to a gradual separation of wizarding world from muggle with enough interaction that legends sprouted up. This separation sped up when the Founders decided to create the haven of Hogwarts, leading to the first all wizarding town of Hogsmeade.

Fannon likes to portray the royals as having some sort of dominion over the wizarding world, but would any wizard accept such? Old powerful bloodlines, who would know their history, would have some knowledge of this supposed debt of fealty and yet their contempt of all muggles is complete.

 

Basically what quite a few people who were discussing it believe, give or take a few details.

But as Tehan has said already in here, why is there only one faction of wizards suddenly? Their society wouldn't behave as a whole (and doesn't even when there's a central government, assuming the Wizengamot is a High Court as is said in canon), and nothing's stopping wizards and witches being born to any muggle.

Fanon. Coleam's picture of a cannon was to make this point.

 

I would think there is only one faction because Merlin united them all. He is their 'father of the nation' after all. The Founders probably intensified the separation from muggles movement.

As for witches and wizards being born to muggles, I would think the vast majority are left by the wayside, never attending a magical school. That is, until the modern age. Have you noticed that even if a Pureblood is considered almost a squib, they are in Hogwarts? Yet for all the Pureblood bias, there is not a single magically weak muggleborn in Hogwarts. My view is that all Pureblood children are signed up to Hogwarts at birth, regardless of magical talent, whereas only muggleborns above a certain level of magical strength, through some sort of detector, are actually enrolled at Hogwarts. Or there might actually be more magical schools in Britain after all.

 

I'm not exactly a canon expert, but didn't JK pretty much nuke the idea of 'magical strength' in one of her goddamn Dumbledore's-gay-and-Luna-marries-Scamander interviews? Going by that, squibhood would be a binary value, and you either are or are not one - Neville's problem isn't so much him being magically weak, it's him being such a goddamn pussy wallflower that he doesn't actually do anything noteworthy but melt cauldrons up until the last couple of books where his balls finally drop and he turns into a teenage John McClane with a wand.