And yet the potion brewing mechanism sucks so badly, its not worth using at all.

 

Chamber of Secrets is open now to Slytherins. There's some information about the Malfoy family in chapter 4.

 

Bwahaha. Hurrah for my second account that was sorted into Slytherin.

Edit: shit, gotta work through PS first. Lol.

 

And an interesting article on the wizards' attitudes towards Technology, in Chapter 3

Spoiler

Discovered in this chapter

When you can summon any book, instrument or animal with a wave of the wand and the word 'Accio!'; when you can communicate with friends and acquaintances by means of owl, fire, Patronus, Howler, enchanted objects such as coins, or Apparate to visit them in person; when your newspaper has moving pictures and everyday objects sometimes talk to you, then the internet does not seem a particularly exciting place. This is not to say that you will never find a witch or wizard surfing the net; merely that they will generally be doing so out of slightly condescending curiosity, or else doing research in the field of Muggle Studies.

While they have no need of mundane domestic objects such as dishwashers or vacuum cleaners, some members of the magical community are amused by Muggle television, and a few firebrand wizards even went so far, in the early eighties, as to start a British Wizarding Broadcasting Corporation, in the hope that they would be able to have their own television channel. The project foundered at an early stage, as the Ministry of Magic refused to countenance the broadcasting of wizarding material on a Muggle device, which would (it was felt) almost guarantee serious breaches of the International Statute of Secrecy.


Some felt, and with justification, that this decision was inconsistent and unfair, as many radios have been legally modified by the wizarding community for their own use, which broadcast regular wizarding programmes. The Ministry conceded that Muggles frequently catch snippets of advice on, for instance, how to prune a Venomous Tentacula, or how best to remove gnomes from a cabbage bed, but argued that the radio-listening Muggle population seems altogether more tolerant, gullible, or less convinced of their own good sense, than Muggle TV viewers. Reasons for this anomaly are examined at length in Professor Mordicus Egg's The Philosophy of the Mundane: Why the Muggles Prefer Not to Know. Professor Egg argues cogently that Muggles are much more likely to believe they have misheard something than that they are hallucinating.


There is another reason for most wizards' avoidance of Muggle devices, and that is cultural. The magical community prides itself on the fact that it does not need the many (admittedly ingenious) devices that Muggles have created to enable them to do what can be so easily done by magic. To fill one's house with tumble dryers and telephones would be seen as an admission of magical inadequacy.


There is one major exception to the general magical aversion to Muggle technology, and that is the car (and, to a lesser extent, motorbikes and trains). Prior to the introduction of the International Statute of Secrecy, wizards and Muggles used the same kind of everyday transport: horse-drawn carts and sailing ships among them. The magical community was forced to abandon horse-drawn vehicles when they became glaringly outmoded. It is pointless to deny that wizardkind looked with great envy upon the speedy and comfortable automobiles that began filling the roads in the twentieth century, and eventually even the Ministry of Magic bought a fleet of cars, modifying them with various useful charms and enjoying them very much indeed. Many wizards love cars with a child-like passion, and there have been cases of pure-bloods who claim never to touch a Muggle artefact, and yet are discovered to have a flying Rolls Royce in their garage. However, the most extreme anti-Muggles eschew all motorised transport; Sirius Black's love of motorbikes incensed his hard-line parents.

 

I love this bit.

Spoiler

There is another reason for most wizards' avoidance of Muggle devices, and that is cultural. The magical community prides itself on the fact that it does not need the many (admittedly ingenious) devices that Muggles have created to enable them to do what can be so easily done by magic. To fill one's house with tumble dryers and telephones would be seen as an admission of magical inadequacy.

Hopefully it will shut up all those people who claim the magical world is "backwards" because they don't use mobile phones.

There was also this very interesting bit on the Malfoy Family.

Spoiler

The Malfoy name comes from old French and translates as 'bad faith'. Like many other progenitors of noble English families, the wizard Armand Malfoy arrived in Britain with William the Conqueror as part of the invading Norman army. Having rendered unknown, shady (and almost certainly magical) services to King William I, Malfoy was given a prime piece of land in Wiltshire, seized from local landowners, upon which his descendants have lived for ten consecutive centuries.

Their wily ancestor Armand encapsulated many of the qualities that have distinguished the Malfoy family to the present day. The Malfoys have always had the reputation, hinted at by their not altogether complimentary surname, of being a slippery bunch, to be found courting power and riches wherever they might be found. In spite of their espousal of pure-blood values and their undoubtedly genuine belief in wizards' superiority over Muggles, the Malfoys have never been above ingratiating themselves with the non-magical community when it suits them. The result is that they are one of the richest wizarding families in Britain, and it has been rumoured for many years (though never proven) that over the centuries the family has dabbled successfully in Muggle currency and assets. Over hundreds of years, they have managed to add to their lands in Wiltshire by annexing those of neighbouring Muggles, and the favour they curried with royalty added Muggle treasures and works of art to an ever-expanding collection.

Historically, the Malfoys drew a sharp distinction between poor Muggles and those with wealth and authority. Until the imposition of the Statute of Secrecy in 1692, the Malfoy family was active within high-born Muggle circles, and it is said that their fervent opposition to the imposition of the Statute was due, in part, to the fact that they would have to withdraw from this enjoyable sphere of social life. Though hotly denied by subsequent generations, there is ample evidence to suggest that the first Lucius Malfoy was an unsuccessful aspirant to the hand of Elizabeth I, and some wizarding historians allege that the Queen's subsequent opposition to marriage was due to a jinx placed upon her by the thwarted Malfoy.

With that healthy degree of self-preservation that has characterised most of their actions over the centuries, once the Statute of Secrecy had passed into law the Malfoys ceased fraternising with Muggles, however well-born, and accepted that further opposition and protests could only distance them from the new heart of power: the newly created Ministry of Magic. They performed an abrupt volte-face, and became as vocally supportive of the Statute as any of those who had championed it from the beginning, hastening to deny that they had ever been on speaking (or marrying) terms with Muggles.

The substantial wealth at their disposal ensured them considerable (and much resented) influence at the Ministry for generations to come, though no Malfoy has ever aspired to the role of Minister for Magic. It is often said of the Malfoy family that you will never find one at the scene of the crime, though their fingerprints might be all over the guilty wand. Independently wealthy, with no need to work for a living, they have generally preferred the role of power behind the throne, happy for others to do the donkey work and to take the responsibility for failure. They have helped finance many of their preferred candidates’ election campaigns, which have (it is alleged) included paying for dirty work such as hexing the opposition.

The Malfoys' unfeigned contempt for all Muggles who could not offer them jewels or influence, and for the majority of their fellow wizards, drew them naturally towards the pure-blood doctrine, which seemed for several years in the twentieth century to be their likeliest source of untrammelled power. From the imposition of the Statute of Secrecy onwards, no Malfoy has married a Muggle or Muggle-born. The family has, however, eschewed the somewhat dangerous practice of inter-marrying within such a small pool of pure-bloods that they become enfeebled or unstable, unlike a small minority of fanatic families such as the Gaunts and Lestranges, and many a half-blood appears on the Malfoy family tree.

Notable Malfoys of past generations include the fourteenth-century Nicholas Malfoy, who is believed to have dispatched many a fractious Muggle tenant under the guise of the Black Death, though escaping censure by the Wizards' Council; Septimus Malfoy, who was greatly influential at the Ministry in the late eighteenth century, many claiming that Minister for Magic Unctuous Osbert was little more than his puppet; and Abraxas Malfoy, who was widely believed to be part of the shady plot that saw the first Muggle-born Minister (Nobby Leach) leave his post prematurely in 1968 (nothing was ever proven against Malfoy).

Abraxas’s son, Lucius, achieved notoriety as one of Lord Voldemort's Death Eaters, though he successfully evaded prison after both Lord Voldemort's attempted coups. On the first occasion, he claimed to have been acting under the Imperius Curse (though many claimed he called in favours from high-placed Ministry officials); on the second occasion, he provided evidence against fellow Death Eaters and helped ensure the capture of many of Lord Voldemort's followers who had fled into hiding. His son, Draco, was saved by Harry Potter during the Battle of Hogwarts, and currently resides at the family estate in Wiltshire.

 

INCOMING DELUGE OF MAGIC-TECH FICS?!

 

It's been forever since I've been on Pottermore; I may have to check it out, after the new material becomes available to all houses.

Or just make sure my alt gets sorted into Slytherin...

lol! Wait... So, they're not backwards because they don't have these advancements; they don't have them because they're prejudiced by their own deeply ingrained and desperately clung to belief in their own culture's uncontested superiority?

Which makes them backwards in a completely different way. :awesome

I'll spare you my list of simple reasons why a magical equivalent to the modern cell phone would beat the shit out of every other magical means of communication, and be a device that any witch or wizard (who wasn't blinded by an insecure, culturally-driven need to feel superior) would gladly own.

Unless I get a request.

Bwahahaha!

 

The bit on the Malfoys is a bit odd. It seems to imply that the Pureblood superiority philosophy is fairly recent: that it didn't really get started until after the Statute of Secrecy, and even then it didn't reach its peak until the 20th century.

While this appeals to my love of things that break cliches - the idea of Pureblood philosophy being an old fashioned idea- it does seem to rather contradict the story of Salazar Slytherin. On the plus side, it really mirrors the rise of nationalist thought in the 20th century, which is I guess what JKR was going for.

I do love how much it's implied that the Statute really changed things, and that magic really was widely integrated with the Muggle world before it, even though it slightly contradicts the expansion books (I can't remember if it was FB or QttA, but one of them mentions how the Statute mearly formalised a process that was already occurring). The idea of magical nobles at court, and of widespread magical-Muggle trade, is interesting.

 

I think I liked this part better than the PS section. It was a little less boring. The mnigames, like the gnome throwing, while not exactly having a replay value, were at least mildly fun for a minute.I hope they continue to throw something like that in every few chapters.

Also, is there any word on when the next few chapters might be released?

 

Because he can't just brew a love potion, of course.

 

The Wizards on her Majesty's secret service wouldn't allow it.

 

I'd prefer to think that Sir Francis Walsingham made certain that any love potion aimed by Malfoy at the Virgin Queen would end up consumed by the Duke of Anjou, or possibly Norfolk.

(weird timing to read this a day after watching Elizabeth again)

 

Knowing humans (magical or not) a love potion was the first potion to be ever invented.

 

And thus, the history of slash was born.

 

I'm not sure it does imply that. As I read it, the segment didn't date or elaborate on the history of the pure-blood superiority doctrine, but rather the Malfoys' changing stance on that philosophy.

In other words, it seems to say that the Malfoys would have once been considered Muggle-lovers, and it's easy to imagine them being resented by pure-blood supremacists of the day, with the way that they leveraged their Muggle connections into expanding their own coffers. Then, with an ease generally seen in career politicians, they flip-flopped.

That said, it's also easy to imagine that pure-blood supremacy may have crystallized and strengthened after the Statute; it's easier to foster that sort of contempt if your government's rules enforce separation between you and the "other guys."

edit: It seems to be an amusing coincidence that silentclock just recently put a fic into WBA that has a Malfoy family with historical Muggle connections.

 

The crap on the Malfoys was interesting, but it also doesn't line up with a lot of what is told to us in the books and other 'first hand' material - especially the "half-bloods being in their tree" thing.

This could also line up with some new A/U opportunities for fan-fiction, especially regarding "properly educated" muggleborns/half-bloods marrying into pureblood families/lines.

...

On the other hand, I predict a lot more shitty Hermione/Malfoy fics coming up, too. :facepalm

 

burn them with fire. Although I am hardly tempted to add random blurbs written for Pottermore into the hallowed halls of canon.