The Endless Possibilities of Squibs

[harpsi_fizz]

Diddle's posts always bring out waves of comments, and for good reason. The points brought up are thought provoking, if not a little depressing. To me, people who would call this community a "bunch of bitter, angry shippers" are incapable of having intellectual discussions. This place is a beautiful thing: we love the series so much that we can

Comments

[condwiramurs]

Interesting ideas. It is a shame that wizards are so...exclusionary.

Nitpick: potions does require the active use of magic, it just doesn't require *wands.* A Muggle trying to make a potion would just get a toxic mess.

[harpsi_fizz]

Really? But it was only in the HBP year that I saw Hermione needing to use magic for her potions. The other times, it looked like chopping and measuring.

I'm just saying, I don't remember magic for the potions in book 3 and book 2.

[condwiramurs]

The books don't go into explicit detail about the composition of every potion, so we don't see every step. But transference of magic could easily take place during stirring for example - just because there aren't words and gestures with a wand doesn't mean no *magic* is occurring.

[harpsi_fizz]

That makes sense.

I'll modify the idea a little and say that the Squibs would instead take a different sort of potions class. One that was more about the application of potions (as lynn_waterfall suggested "a squib could *use* a lot of magic that was essentially *done* by others") and creating potions that were made without magic. There have to be at least a few that don't require magic, but that a non-magical person wouldn't come up with because the ingredients required magic to obtain.

I always thought that potions were like cook books- following the directions exactly would yield the same results and only the oh-so-clever wizards were smart enough to know which ingredients to mix.

[for_diddled]

"In the case of the latter, is it because she was raised in a place that obsessively sectioned people off? I'm going to just assume it's that. I had a psychology professor who came from the United Kingdom and she was always telling me about how bad the classism was and how her own daughter had a teacher make a really nasty (and wildly inappropriate) classist remark regarding the subject matter of her art gallery project."I think JKR was raised up in the Church of Scotland, which has strong Calvinist (read: predestination) influences, which might have led to her portray certain sections of society (e.g., Squibs) as being good only for certain tasks. There's a very good article about it here

[charlottehywd]

That's fascinating! No wonder there was something about the series that bugged me...

[oryx_leucoryx]

What about Arithmancy? Or translating ancient Runic texts? They could preserve unique areas of knowledge that have fallen out of popular knowledge.

[oryx_leucoryx]

And of course we learn that Argus Filch is charged with restoring the Fat Lady's *magical* portrait.

[harpsi_fizz]

Oh, man... true! How would he do that?

[majorjune]

He'd schlep the thing down to Francisco's Emporium of Fantastikal Fine Arts, where Francisco, an actual wizard artist, would undertake the task.

For a sizeable fee.

;-)

[charlottehywd]

Hmmm, if Squibs are naturally resistant to magic then is there possibly a way that they might be able to channel that to cancel out other people's magic as well? The fact that wizards seem to have no contingency plans for if their magic doesn't work would mean that something that negated it could destroy a good portion of the WW if handled correctly. And the jerks would totally have it coming too.

[aasaylva]

I've always wondered: Hogwarts was spelled to look like an empty old ruin of a castle to Muggles - so how could Filch even see pupils and the real Hogwarts?

[koi_no_soshan]

Hmm. Plot hole

[ioanna_ioannina]

Maybe it works similarly to Fidelius, and if you have seen it once (with somebody who knows about it and can show it to you), it is there for you forever.
But, on the other hand, the barrier at King´s Cross was visible all the time... so I don´t know.
But if Filch can see Hogwarts and Hermione´s parents Diagon Alley, I think muggles can see Hogwarts, under some conditions...

(In fact, yes, plot hole.)

[harpsi_fizz]

I was listening in on an imaginary private debate on the subject-

It's like Hermione- she's a wizard born to muggles.
-So a Squib is a muggle born to wizards?
No! They're wizards, just without magic!
-Uh... is that anything like how Jackie Burkhart said "I'm not a poor person, I'm a rich person who has no money" when her dad cut her off?
Yes, sort of like that.
-Then what's the difference between a muggle and a wizard without magic? Knowledge of the wizard world? Ability to feel magic? Have wizards bothered to make this distinction, or do they just class everyone and shut up?
Class everyone and shut up.
-I see.