Harry Potter

Dimitri Diamanti
Precis. 5/9/08
Science Fiction/Fantasy
Muggles Vs. Wizards

I 1 One aspect of Harry Potter that has always annoyed me has been the wizarding world’s portrayal of muggles as sort of child like figures with quaint and illogical ways of doing things. 2 Especially with how easy everything seems to be for wizards. With a simple wave of the wand and some choice words just about anything seems possible. 3 There are of course exceptions to this rule of some of the more difficult spells and potions. 4 But really there is little or no thinking really involved. 5 This ignorance reminds me of human understanding when it was just skin deep, when we used to understand that things happened that if an object is thrown into the air it will come back down. 6 We knew enough to exist, and enough to make certain use of these laws but until fairly recently we never understood them much.

II 1 In Harry Potter I see almost no understanding of the nature of magic at all, it simply exists and that is good enough for the wizards. 2 You may say that it is possible that there is this knowledge and inquiry out there, that we just aren’t privy to it as readers. 3 The reason I think otherwise is that Harry, Ron, and Hermione have just spent six years in a facility that is supposed to be the magical equivalent to a world class boarding school. 4 Even in my public school with its underfunded classes, teachers on the verge of nervous breakdowns, and uninterested beauraucrates I was still being taught some rather complicated physics and chemistry. 5 I was still being explained Einstein’s theory of relativity and Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. 6 And yet here in Hogwarts, this school of schools, still we hear not a whisper of why magic exists and what it is.

III 1 The wizards seem to have a convenient source of power, much like the sun, and yet they have no ‘why’. 2 I think this wizardly complacency is the true division between muggles and wizards and not actual magic ability. 3 Wizards seem to have blind power and muggles seem to have inquisitiveness. 4 In my mind the pearls of wisdom are a far loftier goal than merely the baubles of power. 5 And all the while wizards treat muggles as children, with somewhat intriguing but ultimately pointless ways of doing things. 6 As if they were somehow creating magic substitutes with technology. 7 Ironically if history has taught us anything, magic is humanities explanation for things we don’t comprehend. 8 And if this definition is at all accurate, I would say that the wizards who put their faith in that they don’t understand are the real fools.