I assume those GSCE stats are national? Almost every character we know went to the most prestigious school in the country, so we may have higher expectations for Hogwarts alums specifically. And several teachers demand certain OWL results to let a student continue their course into sixth and seventh years, so a student who can't even get a single A might be expected to leave Hogwarts. Wonder how often that happens, since we never hear about anything like that.

 

Hogwarts is the only school though, so whilst it is the most prestigious school that doesn't really mean its the equivalent of Eton.

However, I'd definitely agree that since several teachers set minimal standards as O's or E's for their NEWT classes, there must be reasonable numbers of kids getting those O's and E's, otherwise the NEWT classes wouldn't run.

 

Hogwarts is the only magic school in the UK and despite homeschooling and foreign schools being an option, according to Lupin barely anyone takes them up, so comparing them to nationwide results seems more fitting.

We do know that you can just leave after the OWLs, as Fred and George did so in their sixth year, even though they left volunterally, we know both of them failed most of their subjects anyway as Molly notes that Ron with 7 OWLs had more than Fred and George together. Though I doubt anyone is forced to leave, as it's mentioned that you can repeat the OWL exams, Snape mentioned that Crabbe and Goyle have to repeate DADA(I wouldn't be suprised if they hadn't passed anything).

 

I'm not sure if this really fits the goal of this thread, but I really dislike the Ministry of Magic's reaction to Voldemort's return. I mean I get that it's a teenage boy claiming to have seen the dark lord return, but a death eater created a portkey to send Harry off somewhere, and he returned with a dead student in tow. Plus, just a year earlier in PoA, Fudge says, “I must say, You-Know-Who alone and friendless is one thing...but give him back his most devoted servant, and I shudder to think how quickly he’ll rise again…” Barty was originally arrested with death eaters who were trying to help Voldemort regain power after Harry survived the killing curse, and far as Fudge knows Voldemort's right hand man has been free for over a year.

 

I agree. On one side, yes, politicians (especially ones like Fudge) are desperate to ignore terrible things happening, to cling to power. I get what Jk was doing and that it even reflects reality in many cases.
But, like you said, even Fudge cannot ignore Harry leaving with Cedric and returning with a corpse. I mean, how exactly does he think Cedric died? If there is no Voldemort, then he (or the Ministry) need to question Harry in a formal manner. Someone just died! Alright, say Voldemort didn't do it, but someone did and shouldn't they try and sort it out? Aren't Cedric's parents demanding to know who?
And then there is Barty, an escaped convict they had no idea had escaped. And also Sirius, whom Fudge believes to be Voldemort's right hand. Barty Sn, that had been acting off for a long time, even while his son was at Hogwarts, so someone must have kept him prisoner, bewitched. There was also the incident at the world cup, which Voldemort did indeed have nothing to do with, but still proof that there are Death Eaters at large, more than just Sirius and Barty and that they can, at any time, bring Voldemort back.
And ok, Fudge is an utter idiot, let's stick with that. He doesn't want to believe. But Fudge isn't the entire Ministry. And you have Dumbledore (at the end of GOF he was a respected wizard), McGonagall ( I assume also with a good reputation) and Snape (a known ex Death Eater). Why would anyone think they are lying? Fudge might be delusional, but they can't all be.
I don't think it was written properly. Especially since in all four books they made a point to show how much everyone looks up to Dumbledore. Seems a bit absurd everyone would suddenly turn on him, from the Ministry to the majority of their society.

 

I've always gotten the sense that the Minister of Magic is effectively an elected dictator, and that Fudge's fretting about political pressure is just a cover for his inability to cope with excessive whining. In which case it doesn't matter what the rest of the Ministry believed about what happened at the Third Task, because their opinions carry no weight.

As for Fudge's mindset, I'd argue Snape conditioned him into not taking Harry's testimony seriously the year before, when he said that Harry and his friends had all been confunded by Sirius, and as we saw with Dawlish in Deathly Hallows, spells like that can have long-term consequences. Which leaves you with one questionable witness providing a convoluted and on the face of it, not terribly plausible explanation for what happened to him and Cedric, and here's Dumbledore telling you to do a raft of unpopular initiatives based on this iffy story. So of course any amount of rationalization would seem preferable in comparison to that.

But of course an even simpler explanation for all of this is that Rowling didn't want to put more thought into wizarding politics than this:

 

I mean, replace "Voldemort" with "COVID" and we've seen just how deep governments can sink into denial and delusion in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Really, I think the only problem with how the politics played out in Order of the Phoenix was that things felt a bit too one-sided. There should've been some visible pushback against what Fudge was doing.

 

Governments sure. I can totally see that. I'm just not sure that Fudge would have been leading the charge. He has always been politically minded, but he seemed acutely aware that Voldemort could come back. That would absolutely destroy his career and even if he didn't want to announce it to the public I could see him doing stuff behind the scenes to prepare. I think the DMLE and the Wizengamot are also aware of it, but they don't know how to destroy or contain Voldemort even though he has lost his power. I think the push back should be coming more from the death eaters that escaped charges for various reason and now hold various positions of power even if they aren't doing it overtly and instead through their contacts, blackmail, and people sympathetic to the cause.

 

I think you're underestimating how simplistic the politics of a community of 20-30 thousand folk are. Especially when largely isolated from larger political concerns.

Its like town or very small city, but without national politics above it. Politics revolving around a single person's leadership would likely be quite appealing in that sort of situation, because of how accessible that person is. And a single person can absolutely have power ripped away from them by a single bad thing happening under their oversight, even if its not their fault - especially if there's a way it could be spun that they could have prevented it, or that someone else is better suited to dealing with the aftermath.

 

A very small part of canon:


"Barry Wee Willie Winkle (b. 14 August, 1236) was the oldest known wizard in the 1990s, when he reached the age of 755. To celebrate the occasion, he held a massive party, inviting every wizard and witch he had ever known, a total of thirty million people. It was one of the biggest parties in wizarding history."

Do the math and he met 108 people each day from the beginning of his life.

 

We only saw that in the film, so it's easy enough to ignore.

 

What I definitely disliked from canon is how Voldemort's side does not make any logical sense and how the Slytherins were portrayed.

 

Something that always felt wrong to me, was how easy Voldemort took over the UK.

Sure he was powerful and so on, and J.K never disclosed how many wizards/ witches there were in the UK.

But that everyone just accepted he was in charge and that he took over Hogwarts, it just felt unnatural to me. As if the world had to do so, for the story to move forward.

I understand that she couldn't set aside chapters to show this. But some characters talking about their parents/ siblings etc. fighting would have been appreciated.

In my opinion, the resistance in the last book is ludicrously weak. Especially considering everyone is a glass cannon.

 

Remember that he didn't openly take charge though. He had a puppet who was the Minister for Magic, who was the former Head of the Department for Magical Law Enforcement. When the Minister for Magic was assassinated, it would have likely been seen by a lot of people as very reassuring for the head of law enforcement to step up and take charge. And then...well, people like to accept what makes them feel safe - the idea that the Ministry is actually working for Voldemort is something that people would just laugh off.

Imagine the conversation. One person says "Voldemort has taken over the Ministry", an idea which terrifies everyone. And someone replies "No he hasn't, the Minister is Pius Thicknesse, he was DMLE before that. Voldemort isn't the Minister." And then everyone feels reassured and tells the first person to fuck off with their conspiracy theories.

If you control the Ministry and the only major news sources, then you can keep a majority of the population docile because they're not going to want to seek out trouble.

 

Personally it always irked me how Harry just straight up gave away his triwizard earnings for literally nothing. Like no partial ownership of the shop, not a loan, not even an actual agreement like 'free products for life', he literally refused even that little gesture by the weaselys and paid for his stuff.

Admittedly this is more about Harry's charecter rather than any world building, but even teens are supposed to have some understanding of value, and a thousand galleons is supposed to be a lot, especially as seed money for a business.

 

Harry was feeling survivor's guilt regarding Cedric and didn't think he deserved the gold. Even before he gives it to the twins we see that.

 

To me, it's much worse when he dumps all his money out into the fountain at the Ministry of Magic after his trial in book 5. He's basically giving his money to the incredibly corrupt ministry that's trying to ruin his life-- JK was going for symbolism, I guess, but Harry is a moron when it comes to money.

As someone who grew up poor, I would think he would value it a whole lot more than most people-- that's how I've always been and a lot of people that start poor are much more circumspect with money than middle class people from what I've seen.

 

People who've never had money are notoriously bad at managing money. Growing up poor doesn't automatically make you good with money, or value money more than middle class people. It all comes down to the reasons for your childhood poverty. If your parents are poor due to circumstance and they teach you good lessons in how to marshal your resources, then you stand a good chance of being good with money. But if your parents are poor because, at least in part, they have no financial literacy and don't know how to manage their money, then the likelihood is that that will pass on to you.

In the context of Harry...he won't have received much of any financial education during his childhood. He had no way of learning the value of money.

 

Dunno what's been said in the thread yet, but the moment the books lost that sense of wonder for me (3 or 4ish?) and turned into an angsty teen drama, they lost me.