SDN Discussion: Population & Social Issues in Harry Potter

[Alyrium Denryle]

Oh, regarding magical schools. One of the four unknowns is [EDIT: IMO, should have said earlier] almost certainly in the Middle East; there's a long tradition of mysticism in that region (it is, after all, where three of the world's major religions originate). Perhaps in Iran ('Persia' if you want to be esoteric; now we have a good explanation for the 'Three Magi'...). You could have one massive school for China-Korea-Japan, one for India and surrounding countries, and one in northern Australia perhaps to cover Indochina, Indonesia and the Philippines.

You could easily be correct there.

I wouldn't use Harry Potter as a typical example, that's for damn sure. His parents almost certainly had a special arrangement with Hogwarts via Dumbledore and their membership in the Order of the Phoenix, and the books seem to pretty much assume that the Dursleys have zero rights in regard to Harry apart from being protected by a charm from Lily. Sirius Black seems to have *some* rights, but only in a highly informal sense (being a fugitive from the law will do that). After his death... Harry is pretty much on his own.

He might not be the best example, but on the other hand the Ministry of Magic seems to have absolute jurisdiction over magical matters in wizarding britain, and between that the statute of secrecy, education is probably absolutely compulsory barring expulsion.

Makes you wonder what the top tier of wizards really is like.

Look at Hermione for that, at his peer group. Dumbledore and McGonagal for the older group.

[The Romulan Republic]

I'd rank Snape over McGonnagle, actually, at least in certain fields.

Especially since he was able to hold his own in a duel against McGonnagle where he was probably trying not to kill her.

McGonnagle would likely best him in transfiguration, but that's her speciality.

[Crazedwraith]

He might not be the best example, but on the other hand the Ministry of Magic seems to have absolute jurisdiction over magical matters in wizarding britain, and between that the statute of secrecy, education is probably absolutely compulsory barring expulsion.

Nope. Voldemort makes it compulsory when he takes over the Ministry in DH. Before that most people got sent to Hogwarts but they have the choice of home schooling their kids instead. (Obviously not an option for Muggleborns.)

[Alyrium Denryle]

He might not be the best example, but on the other hand the Ministry of Magic seems to have absolute jurisdiction over magical matters in wizarding britain, and between that the statute of secrecy, education is probably absolutely compulsory barring expulsion.

Nope. Voldemort makes it compulsory when he takes over the Ministry in DH. Before that most people got sent to Hogwarts but they have the choice of home schooling their kids instead. (Obviously not an option for Muggleborns.)

Magical education is compulsory, not necessarily at Hogwarts. You dont really need to worry so much about it with wizarding families because magic is fucking everywhere and they use it for everything. So long as they pass their OWLs.

Muggleborns, not so much, and the potential for accidental secrecy breaches is too large to leave them to their own devices.

[Elheru Aran]

To address this briefly:

I was under the impression that the conflict with Grindelwald was an European affair, though. [snip]

Consider the timing. It was WWII. Imagine for a moment what a dark wizard could do in Muggle society. Mind-fucking an Austrian-Born German corporal for example. Subverting the population to your Dark Will. At that point, he is a threat to Britain, and Wizarding Britain, and much like muggle Britain got involved in WW2, Wizarding Britain would have had to as well. Winston Churchill would have had Auror bodyguards just to make sure Wizard Nazis did not apparate into his office and Imperius him.

The same with WWI really (though we dont know the history there).

So there were successive demographic shocks.

WWI, an entire generation decimated (potentially)

WW2, an entire generation decimated.

Skip a generation

Leaving you with Wizarding Britain in the 1980s. Successive demographics shocks have left positions in society open for the first time ever. It is a bit like the power shift after the black death. The power of the ruling class has been turned upside down, and all of the sudden Muggleborns are numerous (because they arise out of the general muggle population) are gaining positions of power, and eroding the traditional power dynamics of the pureblood ruling class. A new Dark Lord comes, offering them a return to (absolute, rather than their paltry relative) power!

First Wizarding war, an entire generation decimated.

So many Muggleborns are dead, but because the legal system in wizarding Britain is completely fucking useless, most of the death eaters maintain their pre-war positions of power until the day the Dark Lord returns!

Second Wizarding War, an entire generation decimated.

You have the period of Voldemort's first reign of terror wrong, it was the 1970s, ending in 1981. The Harry Potter books take place over most of the latter 1990s, during which Voldemort's second reign of terror passes.

That said:

Muggle WWI doesn't seem to have affected the magical population *that* much, apart from apparently a large number illegally intervening in the conflict. How they intervened and where, we don't know-- maybe all the 'intervention' consisted of was mailing out a bunch of anti-bullet charms, who knows. It doesn't sound like the British wizarding population, at least, was significantly influenced... or JKR simply doesn't care enough to elaborate further.

Ditto Muggle WWII, though Rowling is more explicit in associating Grindelwald with it. There does seem to have been more spill-over onto the wizarding population in Britain during that time. Tom Riddle would have gone to Hogwarts in the late 30s-early 40s (born in 1926). It's quite possible that his views on the non-pureblooded were strongly influenced by the Grindewaldist ideology, without being tempered by Dumbledore's life experience. Sort of like modern neo-Nazis. (Again, ditto JKR not bothering to elaborate)

IIRC the UK went through something of an economic downturn post-WWII; if this affected the magical population as well (acting upon the assumption that large events in the Muggle world do tend to affect the magical world in turn), that would have created a fertile atmosphere of discontent and unrest among the youth that Voldemort would have been able to exploit in his movement towards creating the Death Eaters and starting the Wizarding War.

Reading the HP wiki, it appears that Voldemort and his allies during the First War started out something along the lines of a terrorist organization, which kinda makes sense; it's a fairly classic move for a clandestine organization. They didn't actually engage in open warfare for a while until Voldemort started getting together some creatures like the Giants and werewolves, which appear to have been what caused the most devastation among the magical population. Apparently this required quite a bit of clean-up by the Aurors (now given authority by Crouch Sr. to use the Unforgivable Curses). Voldemort seems to have been largely on the ropes by the time he attacked the Potters in Godric's Hollow thanks to the Aurors being able to outright kill his agents or coerce information out of them. Once he was out of the picture, his organization collapsed pretty fast, the Death Eaters either going to ground, getting nicked or plea-bargaining their way out of trouble.

So I have to question how much of an *actual* threat he was versus being a *perceived* threat... of course the perceived threat is almost always greater. But that's all, in its own way, ancient history

[The Romulan Republic]

Not sure where you get the sense that Voldemort was "on the ropes" when he went to Godric's Hollow to kill Harry. From everything everyone says about the First War in the books, he seemed to be on the cusp of victory.

However, it should be noted that it took him eleven years (not even counting his moves before starting the conflict) to reach this point, whereas he started from a weaker position when he returned and took full power in two years plus a few months.

The difference in the competence of the Ministry between the two eras I suppose. Plus I don't think its a coincidence that he took power within months of Dumbledore's death. Didn't someone (Sirius I think) basically say in book five that Dumbledore was more or less the only thing stopping him?

Which speaks to the size of the world, I suppose, that major wars can be decided by a duel between two wizards (we see this with Dumbledore defeating Grindlewald as well).

[Alyrium Denryle]

Muggle WWI doesn't seem to have affected the magical population *that* much, apart from apparently a large number illegally intervening in the conflict. How they intervened and where, we don't know-- maybe all the 'intervention' consisted of was mailing out a bunch of anti-bullet charms, who knows. It doesn't sound like the British wizarding population, at least, was significantly influenced... or JKR simply doesn't care enough to elaborate further.

And that is an issue. We dont know the extent to which the wizarding world intervened in the conflict. On the other hand, Wizarding Britain is still Britain. The wizards have friends in France, and I see no reason why they would not be just as patriotic as the rest of the UK. It might have been an illegal shadow war, but still.

Ditto Muggle WWII, though Rowling is more explicit in associating Grindelwald with it. There does seem to have been more spill-over onto the wizarding population in Britain during that time. Tom Riddle would have gone to Hogwarts in the late 30s-early 40s (born in 1926). It's quite possible that his views on the non-pureblooded were strongly influenced by the Grindewaldist ideology, without being tempered by Dumbledore's life experience. Sort of like modern neo-Nazis. (Again, ditto JKR not bothering to elaborate)

WWII is harder to square non-intervention because there is explicitly a dark lord running around doing...stuff. So I am assuming they mobilized and got involved in the larger muggle conflict, if only by way of having to deal with Pure-bloodist wizard Nazis. The minister of magic had a good working relationship with Churchill at the time so there was likely coordination there.

Wizard SOE... and we have entered The Laundry.

Reading the HP wiki, it appears that Voldemort and his allies during the First War started out something along the lines of a terrorist organization, which kinda makes sense; it's a fairly classic move for a clandestine organization. They didn't actually engage in open warfare for a while until Voldemort started getting together some creatures like the Giants and werewolves, which appear to have been what caused the most devastation among the magical population. Apparently this required quite a bit of clean-up by the Aurors (now given authority by Crouch Sr. to use the Unforgivable Curses). Voldemort seems to have been largely on the ropes by the time he attacked the Potters in Godric's Hollow thanks to the Aurors being able to outright kill his agents or coerce information out of them. Once he was out of the picture, his organization collapsed pretty fast, the Death Eaters either going to ground, getting nicked or plea-bargaining their way out of trouble.

So I have to question how much of an *actual* threat he was versus being a *perceived* threat... of course the perceived threat is almost always greater. But that's all, in its own way, ancient history
It's a strange world. Let's keep it that way.

He was enough of a threat that there were witch hunts afterward with star chamber courts. Unleash werewolves on the wizarding population and things get bad pretty fast. And I have to concur with TRR's assesment of the situation. It was bad enough that the Order of the Phoenix was forced to go to ground, with Death Eaters having penetrated all ranks of the Ministry power structure well enough that some of them could not be dislodged even after the war (the Malfoys, for instance. Even if you cannot convict, jesus christ make him persona non grata in the halls of power...)

[Crazedwraith]

Magical education is compulsory, not necessarily at Hogwarts. You dont really need to worry so much about it with wizarding families because magic is fucking everywhere and they use it for everything. So long as they pass their OWLs.

Muggleborns, not so much, and the potential for accidental secrecy breaches is too large to leave them to their own devices.

oh yes, sorry misinterpreted you there. It definitely makes it sound like some education is compulsory. Presumably they want to get the accidental magic factor under control. It's interesting that with a few years of Hogwarts the incidences of accidental/wandless magic drop to nothing. To thep oint where if you're expelled, snapping your wand is seen as enough to cut you off from using magic. (and they only make you pinky swear not to try and stick the halves together and keep trying ala Hagrid.)

Until you become really powerful and can start using magic without a wand again. Even apparition which involves no incantation or wand waving still seems to require you to have a wand at least on your person according to Deathly Hallows. (the ministry and malfoy manor scenes)

[The Romulan Republic]

Heh, I wonder if they've ever expelled someone who was good enough to use wandless magic?

[TithonusSyndrome]

I've always wondered if maybe Stalin's purges emptied the Soviet Union of wizards, as I'm sure Rowling wouldn't be able to resist tying Rasputin into her universe if it came up. We certainly don't see anything in the Philosopher's Stone to suggest that any event analogous to the collapse of the USSR had occurred in the Potterverse despite it taking place in that same year, so maybe Stalin killed all the Russian wizards and those who could escape the country had already done so long ago.

[Elheru Aran]

Well, 'on the ropes' might be a bit over-optimistic, but the Ministry was starting to deal more energetically with him especially after sending off the giants. A number of his Death Eaters were captured or killed in this period. It's possible he destabilized the Ministry a lot more during the beginning of his reign of terror, and the Order of the Phoenix basically had to hold things together until the Ministry got back on its feet and started applying some wellie.

As for the second reign of terror, he already had a large number of Death Eaters that had since worked their way into the Ministry and other aspects of society, and could well have been manipulating Rita Skeeter and the Ministry's campaign of discrediting Dumbledore and Potter, as well as getting Umbridge sent to Hogwarts. It was simply easier for him to gain a position of power once Dumbledore was dead. Notably, he manages to set up a puppet Minister of Magic, which he doesn't appear to have done during the first war.

Honestly... I suspect that to a large degree the wizarding world is far more oligarchic than the mundane world. The true leaders of the wizarding world are the insanely powerful, who are generally either extremely talented, highly trained or both. Note that Dumbledore was offered the position of Minister of Magic several times, obviously because he was considered suitable for the position.

In such a situation, when you remove one such powerful individual, the less powerful subjects of that individual will tend to devolve, fight within themselves, go to ground in fear of reprisal, and generally destabilize. It's notable that there seems to have been quite a bit of shock and panic within the magical community when Fudge leaves office, Scrimegour replaces him, and is deposed in short order. Having a strong leader seems to be a requirement for the British magical community.

EDIT: Hell, you see this after Dumbledore dies in book six; Voldemort promptly takes over, the Order of the Phoenix almost breaks, Harry, Hermione and Ron go into hiding and it sounds like a number of other Order members and wizards do as well.

Heh, I wonder if they've ever expelled someone who was good enough to use wandless magic?

Nah, I suspect that if that happens, the student is transferred to 'intensive study' and kicked up a grade or two. Wandless magic is serious mojo and they aren't going to turn anybody loose who has that kind of power.

[Elheru Aran]

Magical education is compulsory, not necessarily at Hogwarts. You dont really need to worry so much about it with wizarding families because magic is fucking everywhere and they use it for everything. So long as they pass their OWLs.

Muggleborns, not so much, and the potential for accidental secrecy breaches is too large to leave them to their own devices.

oh yes, sorry misinterpreted you there. It definitely makes it sound like some education is compulsory. Presumably they want to get the accidental magic factor under control. It's interesting that with a few years of Hogwarts the incidences of accidental/wandless magic drop to nothing. To thep oint where if you're expelled, snapping your wand is seen as enough to cut you off from using magic. (and they only make you pinky swear not to try and stick the halves together and keep trying ala Hagrid.)

Presumably if you choose not to send your kid to Hogwarts, and you have a magical background, you have the option to homeschool them provided the kids take the OWL's, which permits the Ministry to be aware of what their population is doing. Voldemort's reform is unusual in that it *mandates* all the children go to Hogwarts, the better to keep an eye on what they're learning.

[Alyrium Denryle]

I've always wondered if maybe Stalin's purges emptied the Soviet Union of wizards, as I'm sure Rowling wouldn't be able to resist tying Rasputin into her universe if it came up. We certainly don't see anything in the Philosopher's Stone to suggest that any event analogous to the collapse of the USSR had occurred in the Potterverse despite it taking place in that same year, so maybe Stalin killed all the Russian wizards and those who could escape the country had already done so long ago.

How?

It is really easy to build a safe-house when things like "the law of conservation of mass" are not really a problem.

Your sniper manages to hit one, and the rest apparate to their hidden mountain fortress, and by hidden and I mean actually hidden inside a single rock is bigger on the inside than on the outside.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well, 'on the ropes' might be a bit over-optimistic, but the Ministry was starting to deal more energetically with him especially after sending off the giants. A number of his Death Eaters were captured or killed in this period. It's possible he destabilized the Ministry a lot more during the beginning of his reign of terror, and the Order of the Phoenix basically had to hold things together until the Ministry got back on its feet and started applying some wellie.

As for the second reign of terror, he already had a large number of Death Eaters that had since worked their way into the Ministry and other aspects of society, and could well have been manipulating Rita Skeeter and the Ministry's campaign of discrediting Dumbledore and Potter, as well as getting Umbridge sent to Hogwarts. It was simply easier for him to gain a position of power once Dumbledore was dead. Notably, he manages to set up a puppet Minister of Magic, which he doesn't appear to have done during the first war.

Honestly... I suspect that to a large degree the wizarding world is far more oligarchic than the mundane world. The true leaders of the wizarding world are the insanely powerful, who are generally either extremely talented, highly trained or both. Note that Dumbledore was offered the position of Minister of Magic several times, obviously because he was considered suitable for the position.

In such a situation, when you remove one such powerful individual, the less powerful subjects of that individual will tend to devolve, fight within themselves, go to ground in fear of reprisal, and generally destabilize. It's notable that there seems to have been quite a bit of shock and panic within the magical community when Fudge leaves office, Scrimegour replaces him, and is deposed in short order. Having a strong leader seems to be a requirement for the British magical community.

EDIT: Hell, you see this after Dumbledore dies in book six; Voldemort promptly takes over, the Order of the Phoenix almost breaks, Harry, Hermione and Ron go into hiding and it sounds like a number of other Order members and wizards do as well.

Heh, I wonder if they've ever expelled someone who was good enough to use wandless magic?

Nah, I suspect that if that happens, the student is transferred to 'intensive study' and kicked up a grade or two. Wandless magic is serious mojo and they aren't going to turn anybody loose who has that kind of power.

Well, Hermione did say they wouldn't expel her after she got over 100% on an exam in book one, so they may give more leeway to exceptional students (see also how much of the staff turned a blind eye to Riddle).

As to the oligarchy thing- Rowling has confirmed on Pottermore (see the stuff on Ministers I previously posted) that Ministers are generally elected, though their are cases of someone like Dumbledore just being offered the post. No details on when or how, as far as I know.

Though I suspect Dumbledore was offered it less for magical skill alone than for achievement. Depending on when it happened... defeater of Grindelwald, famous alchemist, holds all sorts of positions, etc.

I don't recall any panic over Fudge leaving either (in fact Fudge says in book six, when talking to the Muggle Prime Minister, that the public overwhelmingly wanted him gone), or Scrimgeour leaving (the panic their was about who replaced him, more than him being replaced, I think).

But their is a real issue of one person's absence destabilizing a whole organization, if that person is controlling lots of people via the Imperious Curse/fear, and their is no clear successor (see how fast the Death Eaters folded after Voldemort's first defeat). There's also the issue of one side having an exceptionally powerful wizard and the other side losing their only comparable counter (what happened when Dumbledore died during the war with Voldemort).

I've always wondered if maybe Stalin's purges emptied the Soviet Union of wizards, as I'm sure Rowling wouldn't be able to resist tying Rasputin into her universe if it came up. We certainly don't see anything in the Philosopher's Stone to suggest that any event analogous to the collapse of the USSR had occurred in the Potterverse despite it taking place in that same year, so maybe Stalin killed all the Russian wizards and those who could escape the country had already done so long ago.

Or maybe the old regime never fell in Russia, and their never was a wizard Stalinism or even communist regime. No reason that politics in one world must mirror the other that closely.

I doubt Stalin could wipe out all wizards in Russia without wizard collaborators. Wizards have a long history of successfully ducking Muggles who want to kill them.

[Elheru Aran]

I've always wondered if maybe Stalin's purges emptied the Soviet Union of wizards, as I'm sure Rowling wouldn't be able to resist tying Rasputin into her universe if it came up. We certainly don't see anything in the Philosopher's Stone to suggest that any event analogous to the collapse of the USSR had occurred in the Potterverse despite it taking place in that same year, so maybe Stalin killed all the Russian wizards and those who could escape the country had already done so long ago.

How?

It is really easy to build a safe-house when things like "the law of conservation of mass" are not really a problem.

Your sniper manages to hit one, and the rest apparate to their hidden mountain fortress, and by hidden and I mean actually hidden inside a single rock is bigger on the inside than on the outside.

Who's to say that Durmstrang wasn't one such safe-house, and possibly these purges were a source of manpower for Grindelwald. Stalin doesn't have to kill them off, just run them out... and if Grindelwald manipulated him into starting the purges, that's something. It would explain their frequency through the 20s-30s.

More likely, perhaps there simply aren't that many wizards in the European side of the USSR, and on the Asiatic side, they tend towards more tribal/pagan archetypical magic rather than the 'civilized' magic of the West, which isn't so obvious to Stalin and the Communists as they simply dismiss it as superstition.

[TithonusSyndrome]

Sure, maybe they can all hide; Russian wizardry simply doesn't seem to have much of a presence in the Potterverse one way or the other, most glaringly while the USSR was coming apart, and there has to be some reason for that.

Come to think of it, what do wizards do when the political entity they're shadowing undergoes a serious secession? Do wizards in former colonial nations have separate polities that don't correspond to the colonial constructs, and therefore don't care? Why are the wizards in America majority-white? Was there a corresponding depopulation of indigenous American wizards?

[The Romulan Republic]

Sure, maybe they can all hide; Russian wizardry simply doesn't seem to have much of a presence in the Potterverse one way or the other, most glaringly while the USSR was coming apart, and there has to be some reason for that.

Come to think of it, what do wizards do when the political entity they're shadowing undergoes a serious secession? Do wizards in former colonial nations have separate polities that don't correspond to the colonial constructs, and therefore don't care? Why are the wizards in America majority-white? Was there a corresponding depopulation of indigenous American wizards?

Given that most wizards seem to have at least some Muggle heritage, I'd imagine that the shear disparity between white and native populations of Muggles would lead to a similar disparity among wizards eventually.

Wizard borders seem to follow Muggle ones fairly closely as I recall, although the Pottermore stuff on Wizarding America says that Wizard US actually preceded Muggle US, which is interesting.

[Elheru Aran]

Well, Hermione did say they wouldn't expel her after she got over 100% on an exam in book one, so they may give more leeway to exceptional students (see also how much of the staff turned a blind eye to Riddle).

There is definitely a lot of favoritism given towards exceptional or even just famous students; Harry gets fawned upon quite a bit in early books, for example, though the serious instructors (McGonnall, Snape, Lupin etc.) give him short shrift.

In a way, this is possibly their society's way of bringing up the exceptional individuals to place them in positions of power. Excel in your studies and your employment, people pay you a lot more respect, you work your way up the social ladder... and so forth. Good? Eh. In a sense, it's a meritocracy; in another, it's an oligarchy.

As to the oligarchy thing- Rowling has confirmed on Pottermore (see the stuff on Ministers I previously posted) that Ministers are generally elected, though their are cases of someone like Dumbledore just being offered the post. No details on when or how, as far as I know.

Though I suspect Dumbledore was offered it less for magical skill alone than for achievement. Depending on when it happened... defeater of Grindelwald, famous alchemist, holds all sorts of positions, etc.

I don't recall any panic over Fudge leaving either (in fact Fudge says in book six, when talking to the Muggle Prime Minister, that the public overwhelmingly wanted him gone), or Scrimgeour leaving (the panic their was about who replaced him, more than him being replaced, I think).

I will grant it's been some time since I read the books. You're right about Fudge, but they definitely freaked out a bit more after Scrimgeour went down. Of course that was probably as much "OMG Voldemort" as it was "OMG we need a leader" if not more so...

But their is a real issue of one person's absence destabilizing a whole organization, if that person is controlling lots of people via the Imperious Curse/fear, and their is no clear successor (see how fast the Death Eaters folded after Voldemort's first defeat). There's also the issue of one side having an exceptionally powerful wizard and the other side losing their only comparable counter (what happened when Dumbledore died during the war with Voldemort).

Absolutely, and it's easy enough to assume that this is what happened with Grindelwald. The problem is that this kind of top-down, one-person-holds-all-the-reins leadership is obviously vulnerable to a decapitation, especially when you're on the side of the 'good guys'. Dumbledore tried to defray this to some degree by creating the Order of the Phoenix, which still ended up looking up to him as the de facto leader.

I've always wondered if maybe Stalin's purges emptied the Soviet Union of wizards, as I'm sure Rowling wouldn't be able to resist tying Rasputin into her universe if it came up. We certainly don't see anything in the Philosopher's Stone to suggest that any event analogous to the collapse of the USSR had occurred in the Potterverse despite it taking place in that same year, so maybe Stalin killed all the Russian wizards and those who could escape the country had already done so long ago.

Or maybe the old regime never fell in Russia, and their never was a wizard Stalinism or even communist regime. No reason that politics in one world must mirror the other that closely.

I doubt Stalin could wipe out all wizards in Russia without wizard collaborators. Wizards have a long history of successfully ducking Muggles who want to kill them.

As noted, it could have been one of Grindelwald's schemes. But this falls again into that whole "we don't know because JKR never bothered" hole. She has never really said how closely the wizarding world parallels the muggle world, as far as I know, apart from occasional comments such as WWII paralleling the Grindelwald conflict.

[TithonusSyndrome]

Sure, maybe they can all hide; Russian wizardry simply doesn't seem to have much of a presence in the Potterverse one way or the other, most glaringly while the USSR was coming apart, and there has to be some reason for that.

Come to think of it, what do wizards do when the political entity they're shadowing undergoes a serious secession? Do wizards in former colonial nations have separate polities that don't correspond to the colonial constructs, and therefore don't care? Why are the wizards in America majority-white? Was there a corresponding depopulation of indigenous American wizards?

Given that most wizards seem to have at least some Muggle heritage, I'd imagine that the shear disparity between white and native populations of Muggles would lead to a similar disparity among wizards eventually.

Wizard borders seem to follow Muggle ones fairly closely as I recall, although the Pottermore stuff on Wizarding America says that Wizard US actually preceded Muggle US, which is interesting.

This rather obscenely implies that Wizard colonists were displacing Wizard natives to establish their own polities, and possibly waging a parallel war of depopulation against them. After all, why would Wizard natives not use their powers to stem the wave of genocide creeping west across the continent, if not for the fact that they were being met by other Wizards?

[Elheru Aran]

This rather obscenely implies that Wizard colonists were displacing Wizard natives to establish their own polities, and possibly waging a parallel war of depopulation against them. After all, why would Wizard natives not use their powers to stem the wave of genocide creeping west across the continent, if not for the fact that they were being met by other Wizards?

Frankly there's little to say that Wizards haven't been as racist/imperialist as their Muggle brethren in the past. They seem relatively enlightened in the HP books, but those take place in the 90s, and even then there's still prejudice against non-human intelligent magical creatures.

Nobody ever really says the conquest of North America by the Europeans was a *good* thing, after all... (barring the usual shitheads of course)

[TithonusSyndrome]

I guess I had always just assumed that global wizards had a general parity of magical potency, and there was nothing to suggest that colonial Wizards would have held the same advantage over native Wizards that was the case for Muggles. Realistically, white European Wizards coming to North America would have been immigrating to the Wizard Iroquois Confederacy, as opposed to "settling" or "colonizing", and certainly shouldn't have been able to challenge them by might of arms.

[Elheru Aran]

I guess I had always just assumed that global wizards had a general parity of magical potency, and there was nothing to suggest that colonial Wizards would have held the same advantage over native Wizards that was the case for Muggles. Realistically, white European Wizards coming to North America would have been immigrating to the Wizard Iroquois Confederacy, as opposed to "settling" or "colonizing", and certainly shouldn't have been able to challenge them by might of arms.

If you want to give the European conquest of the Americas an even nastier background, perhaps the European wizards cooked up magical variants of smallpox, anthrax and what not that would be particularly devastating upon the Native American population...

Alternatively, perhaps the Native American population was more open in their wizarding tradition, and didn't have 'Muggles' as such, more 'aware Muggles' that knew wizarding existed and accepted it as part of their everyday lives (and of course they wouldn't have called it 'wizarding', more just part of their native religious, medical etc. tradition).

It does appear that in some ways the wizarding population of the US that we know of was more intolerant than the British one, such as restricting intermarriage between Muggles and Wizards. Perhaps a line of Dark Wizards formed over there. Who knows; I expect the Fantastic Beasts movie and its background will elaborate further on the specific history of American wizardry.

[Alyrium Denryle]

I've always wondered if maybe Stalin's purges emptied the Soviet Union of wizards, as I'm sure Rowling wouldn't be able to resist tying Rasputin into her universe if it came up. We certainly don't see anything in the Philosopher's Stone to suggest that any event analogous to the collapse of the USSR had occurred in the Potterverse despite it taking place in that same year, so maybe Stalin killed all the Russian wizards and those who could escape the country had already done so long ago.

How?

It is really easy to build a safe-house when things like "the law of conservation of mass" are not really a problem.

Your sniper manages to hit one, and the rest apparate to their hidden mountain fortress, and by hidden and I mean actually hidden inside a single rock is bigger on the inside than on the outside.

Who's to say that Durmstrang wasn't one such safe-house, and possibly these purges were a source of manpower for Grindelwald. Stalin doesn't have to kill them off, just run them out... and if Grindelwald manipulated him into starting the purges, that's something. It would explain their frequency through the 20s-30s.

More likely, perhaps there simply aren't that many wizards in the European side of the USSR, and on the Asiatic side, they tend towards more tribal/pagan archetypical magic rather than the 'civilized' magic of the West, which isn't so obvious to Stalin and the Communists as they simply dismiss it as superstition.

I would be willing to be that it was. It is a familiar place with a secret location, presumably well fortified magically and by mundane means. It would be ideal. But even without it, we see entire mansions concealed between otherwise continuous townhouses.

Sure, maybe they can all hide; Russian wizardry simply doesn't seem to have much of a presence in the Potterverse one way or the other, most glaringly while the USSR was coming apart, and there has to be some reason for that.

Durmstrang is very obviously Full Russian. Not all russian by population, but its institutional culture is pretty russian or at least generally slavic.

Come to think of it, what do wizards do when the political entity they're shadowing undergoes a serious secession? Do wizards in former colonial nations have separate polities that don't correspond to the colonial constructs, and therefore don't care? Why are the wizards in America majority-white? Was there a corresponding depopulation of indigenous American wizards?

Well, it seems to me at least that the different schools are often supranational. So the different ministries might have an almost EU-like structure if they cover multiple nation-states. Britain is separate because Britain has always been a very distinct entity from the European continent, even if they interact closely. Eastern Europe is very different from Western Europe. Japan is culturally isolated from Mainland Asia. While South America is culturally unified as being (mostly) former spanish colonies (barring Brazil, but really...)

As for Amerind wizards, they have their own magical traditions. Hell, they have survived to this day. Their wizarding community is probably just integrated fully into the society and have social roles that are not readily distinguishable from what they were in the pre-colonial period (though they might have to be more subtle now).

They probably resisted christianization though. Afterall, their shamans really can affect the weather, and while European wizards helped drive them onto reservations (if only by tamping them down so they dont spoil the secrecy caboodle by calling down lightning) they need not have been depopulated.

African Wizards Simply Were Not Enslaved. So the only black wizards you see in the US (in the 1920s) are those muggleborns that spring up from mutation in the general population.

I guess I had always just assumed that global wizards had a general parity of magical potency, and there was nothing to suggest that colonial Wizards would have held the same advantage over native Wizards that was the case for Muggles. Realistically, white European Wizards coming to North America would have been immigrating to the Wizard Iroquois Confederacy, as opposed to "settling" or "colonizing", and certainly shouldn't have been able to challenge them by might of arms.

Weeeellll.... different magical traditions might be useful for different things. Imagine wizarding europe in a feudal system before the secrecy statute. Nobles have court wizards and shit, so the Real History of Europe includes wizards doing battle and all that just kinda got erased from the history books in the late 17th century. Their magic would have grown around that sort of thing. Lots of combat magic and quality of life things for peasantry etc etc.

In North America, the social role would have been different, and thus the form magic took within that culture might also be very different and perhaps not a suited to Wizard Duels.

[The Romulan Republic]

I guess I had always just assumed that global wizards had a general parity of magical potency, and there was nothing to suggest that colonial Wizards would have held the same advantage over native Wizards that was the case for Muggles. Realistically, white European Wizards coming to North America would have been immigrating to the Wizard Iroquois Confederacy, as opposed to "settling" or "colonizing", and certainly shouldn't have been able to challenge them by might of arms.

If you want to give the European conquest of the Americas an even nastier background, perhaps the European wizards cooked up magical variants of smallpox, anthrax and what not that would be particularly devastating upon the Native American population...

Alternatively, perhaps the Native American population was more open in their wizarding tradition, and didn't have 'Muggles' as such, more 'aware Muggles' that knew wizarding existed and accepted it as part of their everyday lives (and of course they wouldn't have called it 'wizarding', more just part of their native religious, medical etc. tradition).

It does appear that in some ways the wizarding population of the US that we know of was more intolerant than the British one, such as restricting intermarriage between Muggles and Wizards. Perhaps a line of Dark Wizards formed over there. Who knows; I expect the Fantastic Beasts movie and its background will elaborate further on the specific history of American wizardry.

Magical US history stuff: https://www.pottermore.com/collection-e ... america-en

Basically, their were rogue wizards who the early US cracked down on; their ancestors, though not magical, had a vendetta against wizards; one of them got into a relationship with a witch who spilled the beans; and it caused a major breach of the Statute of Secrecy and everyone flipped out.

Sure, maybe they can all hide; Russian wizardry simply doesn't seem to have much of a presence in the Potterverse one way or the other, most glaringly while the USSR was coming apart, and there has to be some reason for that.

Come to think of it, what do wizards do when the political entity they're shadowing undergoes a serious secession? Do wizards in former colonial nations have separate polities that don't correspond to the colonial constructs, and therefore don't care? Why are the wizards in America majority-white? Was there a corresponding depopulation of indigenous American wizards?

Given that most wizards seem to have at least some Muggle heritage, I'd imagine that the shear disparity between white and native populations of Muggles would lead to a similar disparity among wizards eventually.

Wizard borders seem to follow Muggle ones fairly closely as I recall, although the Pottermore stuff on Wizarding America says that Wizard US actually preceded Muggle US, which is interesting.

This rather obscenely implies that Wizard colonists were displacing Wizard natives to establish their own polities, and possibly waging a parallel war of depopulation against them. After all, why would Wizard natives not use their powers to stem the wave of genocide creeping west across the continent, if not for the fact that they were being met by other Wizards?

I don't recall any information on that, though their might be something from Rowling on the subject I'm overlooking.

But you raise a good point about why Native wizards wouldn't have intervened.

I would speculate that, while their is no evidence to my knowledge that wizards were actually waging their own campaigns of genocide/conquest against Native Americans, they doubtlessly would have insisted on the Statute of Secrecy being maintained- in fact, Rowling has established that for much of its history, Wizarding America was particularly draconian about it. Their are situations where the SoS can be broken to save lives, but it would have definitely limited any attempts to stop the genocides.

I would also expect more than a few native wizards to have told the International Confederation of Warlocks and the Magical Congress of the United States of America to fuck off (as with the previously discussed cases of wizards illegally interfering in WWI), but consider how small wizard population is- their probably weren't enough people to stem the tide, considering Muggle numbers.

Which, yes, makes the ICW/MACUSA at least complicit, if not necessarily direct participants.

[The Romulan Republic]

This rather obscenely implies that Wizard colonists were displacing Wizard natives to establish their own polities, and possibly waging a parallel war of depopulation against them. After all, why would Wizard natives not use their powers to stem the wave of genocide creeping west across the continent, if not for the fact that they were being met by other Wizards?

Frankly there's little to say that Wizards haven't been as racist/imperialist as their Muggle brethren in the past. They seem relatively enlightened in the HP books, but those take place in the 90s, and even then there's still prejudice against non-human intelligent magical creatures.

Nobody ever really says the conquest of North America by the Europeans was a *good* thing, after all... (barring the usual shitheads of course)

There's no indication of race-based prejudice or gender-based prejudice being as powerful in the Wizarding World as the Muggle one, and much to contradict it. I mean, isn't the head of the American government in the fucking '20s supposed to be a black woman in the upcoming Fantastic Beasts movie?

Their world seems to mostly just care about species/magical heritage. Though I would theorize that the pure blood bigots might frown on homosexuality due to the importance of producing pure blood heirs to maintain the bloodline- hence Dumbledore's sexuality never coming up in the books.

And I dare say imperialist wars are probably frowned on because major conflict might draw the attention of Muggles.