Skip to main content

harry potter - Were Muggle-born wizards free to talk about their experiences?


Obviously, in the Harry Potter universe, some Muggles know all about wizards. The Dursleys, for example, and the British government, as well as Hermione's family. But at the same time, the Wizarding World has a vested interest in keeping themselves hidden, often going to extreme lengths to preserve the Muggles' ignorance about what's really going on. Some things (like this question) seem to take care of themselves, but word-of-mouth still seems like it would be an issue.


Are there any details provided about how they navigated this issue? Did Hermione ever mention (before the events of the final book where she straight-up mind-wiped them) an inability to tell her parents about anything she was doing? Was there a legal reason why the Dursleys could know about Hogwarts but Marge Dursley couldn't (aside from the Dursley's self-imposed shame)? Did we ever hear about family members' memories being altered after graduation, or any loose-lipped gossips needing to be told to hush up?



Answer



This was already covered on another question here, but high level the answer is simple:





  • Muggles who HAD to know (parents/guardians of wand carriers, Prime Minister) knew. Clear canon.




  • Muggles who were blabbed to, 2 options:




    1. The blabbee thought that the blabber was joking, lying, or nuts.


      Example: See Fudge telling Prime Minister nobody would hear it from him:




      "But then," bleated the Prime Minister, "why hasn't a former Prime Minister warned me--?"
      At this, Fudge had actually laughed.
      "My dear Prime Minister, are you ever going to tell anybody?"
      Still chortling, Fudge had thrown some powder into the fireplace, stepped into the emerald flames, and vanished with a whooshing sound. The Prime Minister had stood there, quite motionless, and realized that he would never, as long as he lived, dare mention this encounter to a living soul, for who in the wide world would believe him?





    2. If the blabbee ended up being named Fox Mulder and was ready to believe - they could always be obliviated, or have their memories messed with. No canon support, but again an obvious approach.







  • Muggles who knew (because they had to), were unlikely to blab for one of 2 reasons:




    1. Parents of wizard kids would not want to harm their children (would YOU want your child to end up in MI5 prison/lab?)




    2. People wouldn't want to be thought to be joking, lying, or nuts - see previos bullet point and Fudge/Prime minister quote.







  • Muggles who blabbed anyway, probably were told NOT to again. In the worst case they could be obliviated as well. No canon evidence but reasonably obvious approach.


    Most of them would not blab




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Was the "pure soul" of Harry's what had really hurt Voldemort?

In the Order of the Phoenix, Voldemort possesses Harry, and it hurts. Greatly. I think that Dumbledore explained that it was because Voldemort's rotten soul was incapable of assimilating Harry's pure soul, that Voldemort didn't understand the love and friendship etc that Harry has in his heart. But, I think it was a lie. Remember that in Deathly Hallows, while looking for information regarding Horcruxes, it is discovered that it is in fact possible to merge a soul fragment back, but that the process was extremely painful. Now then, if Voldemort tried to possess Harry, and Harry had a fragment of Voldemort's soul, I think that it could have been the true cause of Voldemort's pain: the fact of having his soul so close of another fragment. I think that Dumbledore knew that fact, but had to lie to Harry because it was inappropriate to let him know that he had one of Voldemort's soul fragments at the moment. Is that right? Or was it truly the pure soul of Harry's...
Post a Comment
Read more

languages - Do we ever see written English in the Star Wars films?

In Empire Strikes Back , we see a transcription of what R2's beeps and bloops mean, but it's not English (sorry for the low quality, it's from the 2004 DVDs): I'd assume it's what Basic looks like when written, but is there some point in the the Star Wars films we see written English instead? (This sort of spun off from a discussion in How do people understand astromech droids? .) Answer At one point there was English but it has been phased out in subsequent versions of the films. Chris Gould at DVD Active did a comparison of all versions of each of the Star Wars films, and in his comparison of Episode 4 , there are a couple of screenshots showing how the power gauge for the Death Star tractor beam was changed. I imagine there are probably more to be found in his other comparisons but I haven't got around to reading those yet.
Post a Comment
Read more

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...
Post a Comment
Read more

star trek - Warning regarding forward saucer section in Nemesis?

In Star Trek: Nemesis , just before the Enterprise rams into the Scimitar, Picard sends a text message from his captain's chair arm pad to Troi — who is manning the helm in lieu of the crewman who was just blown out through what was once the view screen — indicating that she should put full impulse on standby. (Literally, if you watch the scene closely, Troi's console prefaces the order with "TXT MSG" !) My question is: Did Picard also somehow warn crew members in the forward saucer section about what was about to happen? The ramming of the Scimitar was a heat of the moment decision. Considering that he also resorted to calling the auto-destruct sequence shortly after (which ended up being offline), he probably was of the mindset that any losses would be acceptable in order to hault Shinzon's march to Earth. Still, I'm curious. Answer The original script indicates that he called for the crew to " brace for impact ". Whether that call (or the comma...
Post a Comment
Read more