One final thing to consider:

It's not like the Catholic church was at its greatest strength in the 1600s. The religious wars between ~1550-~1700 were devestating. IIRC they wiped out something like 25% of Europe's population.

So the Catholic church had more immediate concerns than wizards.

 

Possible. But then you run into a completely different problem. Permanency. What's more long-term? A spell that keeps wearing off and will leave someone insanely pissed at you, or an alliance?

The Imperius is too high maintainence. Even if we assumed that it could last a lifetime, you would have to recast it on each new king and pope. And if you drop the ball just once, or if someone who is pissed at you decides to break them out of it, surprise! You have a Crusade on your lawn.

If it was that easy and convenient, then Voldemort wouldn't have even bothered with the Death Eaters. He would have just Imperiused everyone he came across. The fact that Voldemort bothered with the politics and drama of making alliances and cutting deals instead of just waving his stick in important people's faces is a pretty strong indication that it's not that easy.

Yeah. It is that easy. If it was just the wizards. But it's not. Read Fantastic Beasts. Some species are capable of hiding all on their own, like the Centaurs and the Merpeople. Others? Not so much.

If the wizards were the only magical things on the planet, then I would have no problem buying them just stepping back and letting the march of time hide them. But wizards are only one of thousands of overt magical creatures, and unlike the wizards, most of those creatures are really, really bad at hiding, and don't do subtlety. There are dragon preserves in canon. Dragon preserves. That requires manpower, large amounts of resources, and most importantly, huge tracts of land. If the Powers That Be are not in on it, then kindly explain how the wizards can get away with making entire mountain ranges, forests, and islands disappear off the map? That isn't the kind of thing you can just pretend didn't happen. You need people in on it to help cover it up. The government, the church, whatever. Take your pick. Someone has to be helping them. Seeing how they bring World Leaders into the Statute as a matter of course, it seems very safe to assume the wizards are, in fact, getting help.

Because magic wasn't hidden until the Statute came about. Even if the witches and wizards were reclusive enough that the average person didn't know about them, there was nobody containing the dragons and the chimeras and the griffins and every other fantastic monster. They were all running around like every other animal on the planet.

Why wouldn't that be the state of things?

 

It's not like the wizards suddenly went *poof and off we go* from one minute to the other. I assume they always kept themselves seperate for the most part and, while they may have interacted at some points, on the whole people stopped believing grandpa when he told about stick-wielders and dragons and unicorns. And written accounts were just as credible.

€:

It's not like dragons were flying around like birds, seen every day by everyone. It wouldn't be the state of things because magical creatures would be rare, and not necessarily as flamboyant as dragons. Who probably preferred living in the open countryside rather than staying at the flat in central London.

 

What? Why would you have to keep it up forever? Just Imperius the leaders, get them to organanise the destruction of records, then when finished obliviate the king too.

And lol@ crusade. 17th century Muggles wouldn't be able to touch wizards.

Did you read DH? Voldemort took the Ministry basically by using the Imperius.

 

Wait, so Lord Raine - you think that before the Statute, the world was lousy with dragons, elves, centaurs and unicorns, ad nauseum, after the Statute is implemented, this is no longer the case, and this could only have happened - the sudden lack of boatloads of dragons, elves, centaurs, unicorns, what have you - if the people *with* magic had cooperation *and assistance* from the people *without* it.

Really?

And yeah, I think you are criminally underestimating the ability of people using magic to be able to simply make the non-magical ones forget or believe it's a myth. Look at the moon landing: people saw it on the TV and *still* are able to be convinced by a couple loons that it was a hoax. Imagine how easy it would be to convert true stories to old wives tales and then to silly myths over the course of a couple generations.

And LOL at your church theories. Hello? This was when? And the Catholic church wasn't even fuckng the Asians' kids yet, let alone able to enforce or assist in an INTERNATIONAL statute of secrecy. Try agan. Scratch that - don't try again.

 

First, the existence of dragons, chimeras, etc. in no way necessitates or proves to the ordinary people or the church that wizards exist. A few muggle repelling charms on preserves, etc. and hey, they're hidden and no need to enlist the church.

And you ignored my point. If in fact these beasts are so widespread that the common everyman and clergyman knows of them, then the Church is not going to be any help in getting rid of belief in their existence. So once again, the Church is superfluous.

EDIT: Ninja'd by Portus.

 

Lol - no, that makes very little sense. When was the muggle-repelling charm invented? Why would it not have been used in certain situations prior to the Statute? The answer to your questions, of course, is and always will be 'magic', or rather, 'magic - and fuck the logistics.'

IIRC, the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy made it illegal for wizards to reveal themselves as such to non-wizards. You have to presume that there was by that stage already a 'magical world' in some form, with some of the protections and enchantments that go with, because prior to the Statute wizards were already reclusive. Understandably so, because the Church and any god-fearing citizenry would try and kill them.

The Statute wasn't a major upheaval operation, it was legislation. It made what was already mostly secret an absolute secret. Wizards didn't fly around the world catching all the wild dragons a-roaming, the dragons were either a) rare and lived in habitats, which is indicated in canon by regional names for species and subspecies, mostly pertaining to mountainous regions, or b) already kept for the most part away from muggles by early-version dragon handlers. Sanctuaries or reservations may have existed in some rudimentary form, just like in canon, well before the Statute in order to keep them from harming the public. Or as you put it, dragon preserves!! Maybe both. (NB: Now replace the word 'dragon' with any other magical species that existed in those days)

Why so dead set on an alliance? It doesn't work. If you want to make it work, write the damned fic - stop trying to convince everyone you're right when nobody (read: nobody) is going be convinced. Write the fic! It'll be reviewed with the same criteria we use to review everything else. You're not going to change people's minds about this, especially not like this, so write the thing - show us its feasible - and then submit it for review (at your own peril).

You missed the part about every counter argument made against you so far.

Yes it was. You just aren't reading anything anyone says in reply. Neither am I, that thoroughly - I'm repeating what others are saying. Let's hope it drives the message home.

 

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I like this. Been looking for some support for what I want to do in HPAC, and saying that those who fraternised with Muggles began to be suspect implies it happened prior to this. The Sir Nicolas reference is just :awesome Nicely found.

 

I've really just skimmed the last page-and-a-half of Raine-induced fuckshittery, but anyone talking about the wizarding world like it's one united bloc of all wizards everywhere ever seriously needs to step back and reexamine things. You really think that, if wizarding authorities were to declare a war of obliviation against a monarch or a religion, there wouldn't be wand-wavers going turncoat to protect the interests of their God or their Monarch? Even if the average pureblood has zero interest in such things, there's always muggleborns and halfbloods raised to venerate God, King, and Country, and bastard scions looking for a better deal outside the established power structures have been a constant throughout history. And even if one country's magical community could pull itself together enough to not have any rogues in their ranks, do you think they could achieve the same in every country in Europe, assuming they could get them all to go along with it? And you think they could do so in a theoretical world where the church and the monarchies have established ties to magic without any of them catching wind of what's going down?

Any theoretical historical conflicts of this type would be wizards vs the church in the same way that WW1 was Austria-Hungary vs a Serbian terrorist group.

 

Because there'd be absolutely no wizards on the sides of said kings or churches, because the wizarding world is so canonically monolithic and non-schismatic? And wizards, even muggleborns, are somehow immune to both religion and patriotism?

 

They can probably easily neutralize anyone who don't obey the Statute of secrecy once it is enacted. And you assume that the Church or Royalty will actually went the help of wizards and not kill them outright.

 

Because the entire point of this thread is to discuss why the Windsors might possibly matter for shit. Seeing how Merlin personally tutored 'The' Motherfucking King of Britain, "alliance" seems like the most obvious and likely scenario.

 

The line of Pendragon as nothing to do with the line of William the Conqueror.

 

That we Muggles know of, no.

When 98% of a world's history is complete bullshit, you have some built-in legroom to work with for fudging historical events.

 

Not the one I'm reading.

That's a question of how can it, not does it.

 

Cause any non-retard is going to side with people who teach that they're instruments of the devil. Come on son.