Is the Wizengamot a separate entity from the Ministry of Magic?

 

It seems that the Wizengamot takes rather significant inspiration from the witenagamot, the Anglo-Saxon predecessor to parliament.

Like the early parliament, the witenagamot was not anything so formal as an institution. Rather it was an event: a gathering of the realm's preeminent secular and religious leaders. It did not meet regularly or on a scheduled basis, but as needed - either summoned by a monarch, or self-organised to deal with certain matters (e.g. settling succession).

So, if the analogy holds, and the Wizengamot is a modern wizarding version of the witengamot, then its powers will be far ranging (predating any idea about separation of executive, legislative and judicial powers) and membership would likely be by invitation, consisting of those who are most influential in society. For Muggles these were landowners. For wizards, who knows?

As cliché as it has become, it might well be a wizarding House of Lords (pre-1911 Parliament Act).

 

If it is like the traditional parliament, it would be all at once the body from which the executive government is composed, the highest court of the land, and capable of passing laws. That blurring of powers would explain Fudge's position there.

 

The same Barty Jr. who fooled Dumbledore for a year? The same Barty who was able to hoodwink the Goblet of Motherfucking Fire?

Okay, okay, I'll stop. But still.

 

How did the Horcrux survive in Harry? I'm starting to wonder if this is a plot hole based on the following syllogistic arguments:

Prop 1: only very powerful magic can destroy a Horcrux.
Prop 2:the Killing Curse destroyed the Horcrux in Harry in DH
Conclusion 1: the Killing Curse qualifies as "very power magic" (that can destroy the Horcrux.)

Prop 1: the Killing Curse kills when it hits a person
Prop 2: the protection of sacrifice through love stopped the Killing Curse against Harry in the backstory
Conclusion 2: the protection of sacrifice through love is more powerful than the Killing Curse

SO
Conclusion 2: the protection of sacrifice through love is more powerful than the Killing Curse
Conclusion 1: the killing curse is shown as magic that can destroy the Horcrux
___________
Conclusion 3: the protection of sacrifice through love is very powerful magic that can destroy a Horcrux

If that is true, then,


Prop 1: protection of sacrifice through love can destroy a Horcrux.
Prop 2: Harry had that protection until book four
Prop 3: Harry had the Horcrux long before he lost the protection
______
Conclusion: the protection should have destroyed the Horcrux

So: either the Horcrux should have been destroyed by the protection, or the Horcrux has no ability to interact with the physical/magical plane.

However, a Horcrux ties a person to this plane of existence through magic, so the latter possibility isn't correct.

So, how did the Horcrux survive?

 

it would be, except that "the shield" also killed people in this case (Quirrell), so that actually isn't a one-to-one comparison.

(EDIT: Or, a better way to look at it, yes. A sword keeps striking a shield. Whichever one is destroyed first, is weaker, and the one that remains is the stronger/better forged metal. So, I actually do think that works, especially in the case of one curse being tossed and not just stopped, but repelled since a Killing curse is otherwise unstoppable).

It seems that killing Horcruxes is one of the very few things in the HP world that actually is tied to some type of magical power level/deep magic/whatever you want to call it. So the magical ability of a protection, when it comes in contact with something that in its essence, wants to harm Harry (it's VOLDEMORT'S soul), should have reacted in the same way. The rest was just proving that it was more powerful than a Killing Curse, since it is essentially magic on magic.

That, in truth, is what I'm arguing.

 

How does the Killing Curse even... work? I mean, yes, it kills people. But how? Does it rip the soul out from the body? Does it make the body cease functioning?

 

I wonder what clued you into that. Was it the name? I bet it was the name that gave it up.

 

It's just magic. Read the beginning of GoF: the coroners could not find a single thing wrong with the Riddles. "They seemed perfectly healthy - besides the fact that they were dead."

Or some such. So essentially, it just kills you in a purely existential sense. There is no "cause of death." You just die.

 

I like to think that there is some mechanism that causes death other than "just magic;" it's just that nobody knows what that mechanism actually is. 'cause, you know, I don't like the "just magic" excuse being literally true, as I've gone over many times before.

 

I think the other term used was "natural causes," if you don't like the "it's magic" tag.

Heart failure? But then . . . Heart-Failure Curse just doesn't have the same ring to it.

 

"Just magic" is not an explanation the same way "god did it" is not an explanation. How, within the physics of that universe, did it happen? Probably by stopping neural activity in the brain (it is possible to revive people whose hearts have been stopped).

 

Actually, I'm pretty sure it's just magic.

 

If we're talking physics, then HP has about as much of that as Mass Effect where spaceships make sharp turns in space with engines that have nowhere near enough thrust vectors to make that possible.

TLDR; it's fiction.

 

It is in a universe where god can and does explicitly interfere with humans, it would just be a statement of a fact. Just as the Killing Curse is a curse that kills. How it does that? Through magic.