As promised in the 2023 Fanfiction Survey thread, here is this year's survey on canon opinions. The survey is detailed and covers:

Basic Information
Magical Power
Wizarding Biology
The Nature of Magic
Spells
Magical Exhaustion
Transfiguration
Charms
Potions
Dark Arts
Mind magic
Creatures' Magic
Wizarding Demographics
Wizarding Education
Other species' demographics
British Magical Government
British Magical Social Issues
The ICW
International Wizarding Politics
The Wizarding Economy
Household Expenses
Wealth
Ethical Opinions
Character interpretation opinions
Who would win: various match ups
Wizards vs. Muggles

Link to take the survey: link

Link to the results: link

 

Some of the current 100% are really funny - “are goblins cruel?” - yes. Also, poor Ron.

Some questions that arose from the survey:

- persons who think potions are cooking, but can’t be created by muggles, why? Binary “doesn’t have magic”?

- is “continuous casting” for those who prefer short casting time “without any break”?

- purchasing power for 1% was funny - i assumed 1% can purchase “anything they want”, but some people still think one ir other has more PP

- on DGV level wizards rarity - those who say no others, is it because V and G killed them, or are DGV such extreme aberrations?

- if Hermione beats Ron, how can Ron beat Draco where Draco beats Hermione?

 

The latter.
Dumbledore described Voldemort as "probably the most brilliant student Hogwarts has ever seen" and "the most dangerous Dark wizard of all time", Harry calls him "the greatest Dark sorcerer of all time", Snape calls him 'the greatest wizard, the most accomplished Legilimens the world has ever seen', and Rita Skeeter's book mentions that Voldemort would be at the top of a list of "Most Dangerous Dark Wizards of All Time".
Point being is that Voldemor isn't just some decently talented modern wizard, he is a force that few in history could compete with.
Grindelwal likewise is said to be only shortly behind Voldemort, and according to Rita he was known as the most dangerous dark wizard to have ever lived before Voldemort surpassed him. Dumbledore likewise mentions that he was only a Shade more skillfull than Grindelwald.
Dumbledore himself is also called to be the Greatest Modern wizard on his chocolate frog card, repeatedly noted for his brilliance and power, he defeated Grindelwald and even says he was better than him, and Elphias Doge called him "most brilliant student ever seen at the school".

Point being that you'd have a hard time finding wizards as powerful as DGV in history, there being more of them in modern times would strain my suspension of disbelief.

 

We talked about this in the distribution of magical talent thread, but I think this betrays the perspective of canon characters rather than being necessarily correct. Dumbledore, Voldemort, and Grindelwald all may be historic talents, but this is a British-centric and later Eurocentric perspective. I think "Dumbledore-like" or maybe "Dumbledore-lite" talents may exist elsewhere in the world. Not in any significant numbers, but I wouldn't be gobsmacked if five or ten were floating around in total either.

 

You have to account for the presence of the Elder Wand.

As in Dumbledore defeated Grindelwald when he was wileding the Elder Wand, an object that notably improves the user's powers not comparable to any other wand. At that point Grindewald was undoubtly considered the most dangerous wizard in the world with the entire world being essentially helpless and requiring Dumbledore to step in. The FB movies outright have the aurors approach Dumbledore telling them he's the only one who can match Grindelwald.
Even DH makes it clear that people believed only Dumbledore could have stopped things. And that Dumbledore defeated a master of the Elder wand speaks volume about him.
Then you have to scale Voldemort against him, who was able to match Dumbledore after Dumbledore himself became the master of the Elder wand, and whom Dumbledore himself considers to be more brilliant than himself.
I also doubt Dumbledore is inclined to a brit centric take when he calls Voldemort the most powerful dark wizard of all time.

One thing I will acknowledge that there could have been historically or even in modern times people with potential to have abilities comapred to DGV, but who were never able to develop it because of a lack of opportunity. One thing people forget is that not everyone in the world has an opportunity to attend a great wizarding school like Hogwarts or Durmstrang. According to Rowling homeschooling is the norm for most wizards in the world even.

Hell, if Voldemort was born in Germany or something he likely would have never risen to power, since Dumrstrang wouldn't have accepted someone from a muggle orphanage, severly limiting how much he could have grown his magical abilities.

 

@Skeletaure

On page 21, question about magical vs muggle farms for obtaining food is required after choosing "grow" in the previous question.

 

People who think an Auror can survive radiation and a bomb, but not a nuclear bomb (which is a bomb + radiation), I am curious. Also if you think magic overcomes physical phenomena, but somehow nukes are exempt.

 

I will shortly be opening this up to HPFF Reddit, whose results will likely drown out the DLP results.

For posterity, I have printed out a copy of the results as they currently stand, which is largely a DLP dataset (75% of respondents from DLP).

Copy of the PDF here.

 

Harry's Hogwarts letter in PS called Dumbledore 'Grand Sorcerer' - that would imply that a 'Dumbledore-like' community exists.

 

Not necessarily. Dumbledore also has the Order of Merlin, First Class, but that does not mean that all people with that award are Dumbledore's peers, magically speaking.

It may be that Dumbledore's ability is well above the typical "Grand Sorcerer" (whatever it is).

 

A lot of these questions could have used a 'maybe' rather than just true or false.
Also, the 'If he had worked harder, Harry had the potential to use magic on the same level as Dumbledore, Grindelwald, and Voldemort.' question is just bizarre. Are you implying that even if Harry did at some point have that potential, not working hard at 12 years old now means he doesn't have it anymore?
Why not just ask if Harry is capable of reaching Dumbledore and Voldemort? Why make it past tense? He ends the series at ~17.

What does 'street level combat' even mean?

 

Actually, he called Dumbledore a 'Grand Wizard'... because Albus hated the Blacks.

All the way from Phineas Nigellus, to Bellatrix and her sisters, right on down to Sirius and Regulus, yessiree.

Assuming canon personality and allegiances figure into these fights, Hermione might beat Ron by virtue of skill combined with Ron not wanting to hurt Hermione. They'd both be holding back on the damaging magic, which leaves Hermione an opening to win with finesse and a wider breadth of spells.

If there were a 'Hermione' among the death eaters (knowledgeable and ruthless, but with a tendency to panic under fire), Ron might walk away with her head in a sack.

The same Hermione who beat Ron might lose to Draco, simply based on Draco not caring if he hurt her, even if he lacks her skill. Draco may also know some nasty spells to which Hermione didn't have access. Again, Hermione's not the greatest under pressure - 'fighting' Ron is low stakes compared to fighting Draco.

Ron, though, might beat the Draco who beat Hermione, simply because he's not too fussed over the condition Draco ends up in, so he has no reason to hold back, and keeps his head better than Hermione in those situations. Also, he really fuckin' hates Draco.

Personality and canon relationships figured into my answers. When it comes down to Hermione versus Draco, I feel it largely depends on whether he is flinging a mix of auntie Bella's favorites like they were beads during Mardi Gras.

--

I think including the Unplottability and Muggle-Repelling Charms in the same questions was inadvisable; they're apples and oranges.
The former seems to prevent knowledge/information from being stored/recorded, while the other affects the human mind.

Let's assume the Unplottable Charm can prevent a satellite from storing the location of Hogwarts on a hard drive. That doesn't mean the satellite's camera skirts around Hogwarts because of the Muggle-Repelling Charm. A satellite isn't a muggle, it doesn't have a human brain, and it won't suddenly think it needs to hit Tesco for some bog roll when it gets too close to spotting Hogwarts.

By that same logic, a missile's targeting system (if it were coordinate/GPS based, rather than searching for heat signatures or what have you) might not be able to plot a course to Hogwarts, but if you dumb-fired it at the castle, it wouldn't turn around and go home because it thought it left the stove on.

Bearing that in mind, the answers were "yes AND no" to those questions, which lead to me simply saying the muggle tech wins in those situations.


I'm baffled that people think wizards are outdoing muggles at construction. They have the potential, sure, but have they used it? We've seen a handful of crooked buildings, a castle, and a stadium. That's about it.

What represents skill in construction? Fabricating something that won't fall down, even without magic, or half-assing something that would cave in like a house of cards... but doesn't, because you're a dab hand at sticking charms? Don't need to know how to make a waterproof basement, or how to install a stove in such a way that it doesn't set the house on fire, when you can just slather your dwelling in water and fireproofing spells. Who needs to know about load distribution (giggity) or the tensile strength of various materials when you can just make everything unbreakable with a wave of your wand?

Accessibility? I suppose if you don't have muggle inspectors breathing down your neck and you know the right spells, every Hogwarts alumnus could, in theory, build their own comfortable-but-ugly Burrow-style abomination. Though, given that the average U.K. wizard couldn't seem to squeak out a proper Shield Charm, I don't have much faith in their ability to magically build a home that won't implode.

Price? In theory, even if a wizard couldn't build their own house with magic, it would probably still be cheaper to pay another wizard who could, even if they still have to pay someone for the harder to obtain materials, than to do things the muggle way with the endless regulations, contractors, subcontractors, inspectors, shipping, miscellaneous fees...

Speed? Presumably a skilled wizard could construct a home faster. They seem not to blink at the notion of raising a temporary stadium capable of holding an international quidditch audience. Though, that seems to be the biggest thing they bother building.

Where's the magical Burj Khalifa? Maybe their population doesn't warrant such large and conspicuous buildings (though the poll answers seem to indicate otherwise), but that still leaves me wondering where their great works are, that we can say they've outdone the muggles. If potential were reality, the ink my teachers wasted writing that word on my report cards would have produced significantly better results.

Have wizards outdone muggles in sanitation because they can shit themselves and vanish it, instead of creating industrial scale sewage treatment systems for cities with populations in the millions?


It seems the general opinion is that Draco Malfoy was potentially redeemable, but that he should have been doing that redeeming with his ass cooling in cell at Azkaban. This is, of course, the right answer.


If he worked harder, Harry could have become better at magic than Hermione? Who says he wasn't already better? Canon seems to indicate that the only areas of magic Hermione beat Harry in were the ones he either hadn't yet heard of or hadn't yet bothered trying.


"Has the magical government infiltrated the Muggle government to monitor and enforce the Statute of Secrecy?" 79.6% say yes.
"Have wizards already effectively conquered Muggles by infiltrating their governments and covertly controlling their leaders?" 61.7% say no.

I mean... I'm not saying those are entirely contradictory statements, because they're definitely not, but I'd still think the response to the second question would more strongly reflect the response to the first.


"Regardless of how it is delivered, what is the nature of the Veela enchantment?"
Why not both?


Potentially the question with the most unintentionally funny result: "What percentage of British wizards attend Hogwarts?" No consensus whatsoever, nobody fuckin' knows! Not even a consensus of headcanon. lol


I think an occlumens resisting Veritaserum (or a love potion, for that matter) would go about as well as a strong-willed person 'resisting' anesthesia or Rohypnol.
For my next experiment: Willpower versus 'Bath Salts.'


It has always been my contention that wizards act as conduits for the magic with which they cast spells. Bearing that in mind, there could be some conceivable fatiguing or otherwise deleterious physical effect from acting as such a conduit for extended periods of time. Maybe it makes the wizard giddy and prone to mistakes, like a drug, or eventually starts to cook you from the inside out (especially if you're drawing more power than your wiring is rated for). Most people would probably simply become too fatigued to keep casting, before these other effects ever kicked in.

In that case, exhaustion caused by casting magic exists, but one cannot induce magical exhaustion as though they were drawing from a gas tank or 'core' that inevitably must run dry or be replenished.

Or maybe none of that shit is accurate.

Spoiler: Cooking Versus Potions

I'm afraid my mind wandered during the 'Is potion-making a form of “magical cooking”' question.

I pictured a ridiculous one-shot, with Harry making a comment of this nature during potions class, and Snape unloading on him about how ignorant he is.

Snape sneers that each step in the process is important, ingredients carefully calculated with attention to not only their physical and magical properties but their more esoteric ones such as symbolic meanings, making each potion a ritual meant to bring about a certain and precise result.

Harry then counters that, as long as one has the proper instructions from someone who already figured that stuff out, they don't need to know any of that shit, they can simply follow the recipe... just like cooking.

This culminates in Harry challenging Snape to cook a multi-course meal, complete with dessert, with Harry presiding as one of the judges. Throughout the cooking, Harry looms over Snape, watches over his shoulder, mutters imprecations about his technique, warns him that he's over-mixing this and about to burn that...

"Where is your hat? Well put it on, Snape; while a random hair could only improve your dishes, your hair might start a bloody grease fire."
"I've seen people making pigs in a blanket but, until today, I'd never seen someone cook like one."
"I've been warned not to wish on a monkey's paw; did no one warn you against baking with a pair of them?"
"'Shit on a Shingle' isn't a cooking technique, Snape, nor is it one of tonight's recipes. Get it together!"
"You've destroyed another pot, Snape, you blithering dunderhead."

Finally, he judges the completed dishes, and goes full Ramsay.

"I wouldn't feed this to a dog... mainly because I abhor cannibalism more than wasting food."
"As wine-pairings go, I'd give your choice an 'organ grinder monkey with vertigo' on a scale of flobberworm to wizard. No, maybe a 'Russian dancing bear... that's lethargic from getting its bile harvested by Chinese apothecaries on its days off.'"
"Given the choice between eating your Pâte à Choux or pâté off my shoe, I'd go with the latter. You've scorched this on the outside, while it's underdone on the inside. At least when you set out to make a disaster, you make it a complete and utter one."
"Where is the fucking lamb sauce?"
"Cutting into this entree I see that it is... raw. It's just completely raw. You're the death eater, not me; I can't even safely taste test this. So, from what I can see, the theme of this evening's meal is that IT'S ALL! FUCKING! RAW! YOU DONKEY! Are we still in potions class, because you've not created a meal, you've concocted EIGHT COURSES OF POISON! TAKE THAT HAT OFF AND GET OUT OF MY KITCHEN! Fucking hell..."

Snape eats his own cooking to show everyone that Harry is full of shit, begins projectile vomiting -from both ends- and Harry rolls his eyes as he blithely saves him with a bezoar. For an epilogue, we see Snape subsequently restricting his behavior during potions class, at least where Harry is concerned, to the occasional frown or tepid glare.

Well... that was ridiculous, but my headache is gone. Cheers!

 

Wizards can construct buildings that are smaller on the outside. That alone puts them head and shoulders above.

And yes, I had vanishing their shit in mind for the sanitation question

 

I don't think that there weren't any other wizards on the same level as them in history, it's just that journalism and mass media has advanced in Wizarding society the same way that it has in Muggle society and they're a lot more well known. It's like trying to compare a modern heavyweight boxing world champion to a hypothetical pugilist from a thousand years ago. We have no idea who would win.

There also may be more wizards and witches of the same calibre alive at the same time as DGV, but they just aren't well known for their fighting abilities because they haven't been to/aren't interested in war. They seem to come along once every 70 or so years in the UK alone, so most countries with a similarly sized population probably have about 2 alive at the same time, with bigger countries having more and smaller countries having less.

Aside from that, I would probably put muggles ahead of wizards in most areas pertaining to culture/non magical skills just because with a much larger population you can a significantly larger amount of people specialising in a significantly larger number of fields.

I'm slightly surprised about the consensus that wizards live longer because of a combination of some innate quality and their healthcare. With magic a wizard is immune to the vast majority of muggle diseases and conditions. If you have a heart problem, conjure a new one and use a switching spell. Vanish cancer, block deadly diseases from getting anywhere near you with a simple spell. I don't think that their longevity has anything to do with an innate difference, just with the fact that most things that would kill a muggle are trivially easy for a wizard to deal with. Imo, Wizards are humans who can use magic. That's their only biological difference. Sure, some purebloods might be horrifically inbred, but unless the consequence of that is squibdom or a disability it can be dealt with quite easily.