You people have ridiculously low standards for evil.

 

We can now go into great detail to describe all the obscenities that the world and humanity in all its glory and horror has conjured up so far, but for the purpose of the HP books, shipping off children, whose sole 'fault' was that they were not born to those of 'proper' ancestry, into something equivalent to concentration camps, sending soul-devouring monsters at whom someone might perceive as government detractors and... yeah, I'd say that counts as pretty evil in the HP books.

 

Umbridge is bad, terrible, horrible no doubt.

But evil, no. Evil has better things to do, like making Horcruxes.

 

Meh, that only requires a murder and is done to gain immortality. Destroying a 15-year-old's soul because you didn't like what he said though, that's worse.

 

We don't know if Dementors actually destroy the souls they eat. But point granted.

 

What would have happened if the Diary absorbed all of Ginny's life force? Would there be two Riddles running around? Would Voldemort be aware of Riddle's advent?

 

One Riddle, one Voldemort.

Now the thing that kind of interested me about this possibility is whether Voldemort would have tried to imprison that particular sliver of his soul into something yet again? I doubt he'd allow the Horcrux Riddle to walk around freely, neither of them have tolerance for competition or those that might claim to be their equal.

 

The generally accepted normal time period for Arthur is late 400s to early 600s--e.g., around the time of the invasion of Roman Britain by the first Germanic tribes. Most of Arthurian legend was written in the 1100s to 13-1400s, though. It also was written not only in England, but in France and Germany as well, though it almost always took place in England. As it was written most of a millenia later, they tended to stick anachronisms from their time period into it, not realizing or caring that there was any difference.

 

I think they'd probably destroy the fuck out of each other. Voldemort has the advantage of knowing a lot more, but Riddle has the advantage of not being a goddamn ghost, so either Riddle would find out stuff and take care of Voldemort before he gets a new body, or Voldemort would murder Riddle as soon as he was able to. Voldemort/Riddle knows better than anyone what kind of person he is and I doubt either would want to share power. Not to mention poor Death Eaters would be utterly confused.

 

I don't really remember any concentration camps, but if they did happen, yeah. Evil. That's past misguided and doesn't take "low standards for evil" whatever that means. Was awful when the reich did it, and it was awful when the Americans did it.

 

When did Americans use concetration camps? Conspiracy theories don't count.

 

I think he's talking about the Japanese American internment during WW2. Nothing like the concentration camps that the Germans established though.

 

What would 7 years of hogwarts cost? (converted to pounds,dollar etc.)

As far as I know the only known thing is the cost of the wand (7 Galleons I thought)
But what about tuition, books, potion supplies and maybe a Broom

 

No gas chambers or medical experiments, for one thing.

 

Has anyone else noticed/thought it was hilarious that Trelawney is only a legitimate Seer when drunk?

Prophecy in PoA: Harry goes back to consult her about something, room reeks of cooking sherry)

Last prophecy: The Lightning-Struck Tower (Harry discovers her reeking of cooking sherry, hiding bottles in the Room of Hidden Things; she inadvertently babbles about Snape hearing her first prophecy)

The first prophecy: which occurred at a meeting with Albus in a room at The Hog's Head, where all the hardest, sketchiest drinkers, including Hagrid, hang out (lol), which happens to be owned by Albus' brother. I think she (or Dumbledore) even mentions that she'd had some drinks to calm down.

 

Huh, never thought about it. In vino veritas taken to its logical extreme.

Edit: Oops, typo (Thanks, Warlocke)

 

Yeah, it was horrible (make no mistake, there - they were innocent American citizens and were treated like criminals) and makes us look like a big bag of dicks (and we were), but they weren't starving people and shoving them into gas chambers. So, at least there's that...

Chapter thirteen is actually called "The Muggle-born Registration Commission," and they mention how they're being rounded up and that there will be a survey undertaken to determine how they managed to "steal" their magic. It's their contention that wizards and witches only come from the union of a wizard and witch, so muggle-born must have somehow, through force or trickery, taken magic from someone magical.

Of course, you should probably read "survey" as "kangaroo court, possibly followed by twisted medical experimentation." Later on in the book, Ron says that Hermione is listed in the paper as being, "...on the list of Muggle–borns who didn’t present themselves for interrogation!"

Interrogation. They're not even keeping up the pretense of calling it a survey, at that point. They also made it so muggle-born couldn't attend Hogwarts anymore.

The Ministry even puts out propaganda pamphlets with titles like, "Mudbloods and the Dangers They Pose to a Peaceful Pure–Blood Society." JKR couldn't have pushed the "These monsters are Nazis" angle harder if she tried - not without simply changing Umbridge's name to Himmler and having the aurors wear swastikas.

Were there actual camps? I thought I vaguely recalled something about them, but it could be fan fic once again intruding on my memory. However, they had to be keeping all those people they were rounding up somewhere, whether it was Azkaban, a new camp, or they were simply killing them after a farce of a trial.

--

Oh yeah, I should also mention that, yes, this makes Dolores Umbridge evil. You don't need to be a cartoonishly obvious magical overlord to be evil; torturing children, passing racist laws, and having people killed or imprisoned (or shipped off to camps, if that happened) because of their parentage is more than enough to qualify. (FFS...)

In avoiding, there is truth?

 

I thought the whole 'muggleborns stole their magic' idea was just freaking stupid. It was something I could see in an honest-to-god childrens' book (not even the first HP) it was so naive, right up there with Deus Ex Amor. I mean, DH was trying to be fairly mature and suddenly JK was pulling some magic stealing shit. How would that work I wonder? It just really pissed me off at the time (almost as much as Malfoy redemption), it was the same level of nonsense as shoving dung in peoples' faces and telling them it's chocolate.

And they helped push the Nazi angle in the film. Those uniforms in the MoM in Part 1... I didn't know whether to laugh or facepalm.

 

You do know that was just the 'justification' given by the ministry, right? Nobody in canon actually took that excuse seriously.

 

I don't think it was stupid. Perhaps it was poorly executed, but the idea had its merit. Take in account that a lot of children bought the books and I think it helped to demonstrate the level of stupidity some governments and societies can reach.
However if you're aiming to write something original (which I think was the author's prerogative) utilizing Nazi inspired analogies does not help. Worst, it makes your writing style look cheaper.