Expecto Patronus: or How the Wizarding World Really Works (Part 1)

[pharnabazus]

This essay is very long so I'm breaking it up into parts, but it's really meant to be read all together, with each section building on the previous ones.

Comments

[pharnabazus]

I am privately convinced, though, that the "strength of [Muggle] people's convictions about the way their world works" is the deliberate result of generations of work by the Department of Misinformation. It did not arise by accident at all. It is not maintained by accident or by inaction either: it must require continuous work to maintain it.

In addition, I think that the Department of Misinformation (and its foreign equivelents) have deliberately planted and fostered "harmless" Muggle "scientific" supertsitions about aliens and UFOs as a way of misdirecting those who are naturally credulous, and those who notice unusual things that their worldview can't account for, so that they will jump to an alternative explanation for anything magical they stumble across. Otherwise some people would be more or less "bound" to suspect magic.

In fact, there's something about the Department of Misinformation that reminds me of the diabolical civil service in the Screwtape Letters. It isn't anywhere near as malevolent, but they both manipulate Muggle perceptions from behind the scenes in a remarkably similar way.

My point was that the misinformation system can take occasional mistakes and leaks in its stride; but if wizards in general had less to fear from the authorities (and thus grew more careless) and if the reaction of the authorities to breaches of security were slower and more measured, the leaks might approach the critical point at which the worldview of many Muggles started to be affected.

It's a question of just how many leaks there are, and just how well publicised they are. At the moment, both are well within safetly limits. The wizards did get a bit careless, though, the day after Voldemort's defeat at Godric's Hollow.

[emeraldbijou]

Wow, that's a really interesting thought!--that kind of deliberate misinformation being perpetrated by the Ministry--of course many Muggles suspect that their own governments might be doing the same thing to cover up their own secrets. It's all a big circular conspiracy theory isn't it? Excellent really.

I do feel a bit violated now, silly fangirl that I am. I don't my world view shaped by the Ministry...hahahah...