Ooooh, now that sounds much better. Thanks for the explanation!

I just sorta assumed that it really meant that A could win over B even though B is worlds better than A in a given subject.

To use a Naruto analogy, I thought it meant like a genin Naruto could beat Kakashi on his own.

 

Well, since Naruto is still technically a genin . . . how weird, right? But I get the gist of what you're saying, and no, there's no way Naruto at the beginning of his training could have given Kakashi a run for his money.

It would probably be used more in the sense of "Madara could give Hashirama a run for his money." But now we've digressed far too much, I fear. Let's say it's more "Voldemort could give Dumbledore a run for his money."

 

How big are the carriages in the Hogwarts express? I think a compartment would have space for about six students but how many compartment are in each carriage? And would there be bathrooms between each carriage or every so many of them?

 

I figure it expands and shrinks as necessary otherwise you get into problems as Wizarding population following two wars and having small growth should be a lot smaller than it was a century ago.

 

This is something I see a lot, but I see no reason to believe it.

Generally speaking, wars don't stop people from having babies. Maybe population growth slows, but it rarely reverses completely. The fighting population is generally a small percentage of the total population. It takes epidemics to cause mass drops in numbers.

 

I just find it easier to believe that the numbers are at an all-time low than a society with numbers that low can work as given in canon.

Wouldn't be that hard to change things so that it fits for the numbers but then you are not talking about canon anymore.

 

I think the extent to which wizarding society is a complete society has been overstated in fanon; the wizarding world is not, despite its name, a world: it is a sub-culture which happens, in the present, to be a secret, but was widely known about, and fully integrated into daily life, in the past.

 

So, how big would it be on Harry's first year? Magically expanded or not.

 

Big enough to fill all students and the lady who sells sweets.

 

That would be the train. I meant how many compartments would it have in each carriage.

 

Typical rail car (coach) with cabins- eight cabins per car, plus 1-2 WC at one end.

Source.

 

But you're looking at England's population, and except for the bombings, an actual "war" wasn't fought in England. France's population tells a different story.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/Population2Centuries.jpg

From what we read (and read between the lines, I think that the first wizarding war in England was a lot more damaging than the second one, since it seemed to have lasted quite a bit longer (at least that's how I've read it). The second, not so much. All in all, I'd say the first war probable made the population dip a bit, but the second would have stagnated population growth at best.

The real issue however, is that there tends to be a population bump after a war. So all in all, my guess is that there are probably more magical people in England than there would have been if the wars had not been fought.

 

The (usually accepted) tiny size of wizarding England means that seemingly small numbers of deaths represent measurable fractions of the population.

Canon describes more than fifty deaths in the Battle of Hogwarts, just from the side opposing Voldemort. Given an overall population in the low thousands, that is greater than 1% killed in just a few hours - a greater proportion than was lost by the UK in World War II (~0.94%). And then you have to add the Death Eater casualties, plus some unknown number of wizard deaths in the previous two years of war.

 

It was never established in books what exactly Voldemort and DE did - whatever it was something like WTC attacks - small attack but shocking or something like Rwandan Genocide (around 20% of country's total population was murdered). During second war, after takeover of Ministry parallels to Holocaust are quite obvious but it is not clear whatever they reached stage of mass murders. In addition proportions of Muggleborn/Half-bloods/Purebloods are completely unknown.

As result almost any description will fit canon.

Also, UK was relatively unaffected by WW II.

Total population of Poland was around 35 million before war, estimations of deaths due to German occupation range from 5 to 6 million (plus Soviet occupation, plus war itself).

Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Poland#Second_World_War_.281939.E2.80.931945.29 ) has an interesting table.

 

What exactly is a Mary Sue/Gary Stu?

I've heard it refer to so many different characters in so many different stories for various reasons, that I've lost track of what it's supposed to mean. I'd like a solid definition.

 

Tvtropes and wikipedia have it about right.

 

If you can stomach it, focus on the mother and father vampire figures in Twilight. That's about as close to a perfect definition as you'll get, IMO.

 

That's fucking perfect EC, I could never figure out what they were other than annoyingly lacking character.

 

@knight: Here's a quote from Wildbow:

 

The Pureblood faction or Dumbledore's. Which side are you symphatetic to?