I seriously disliked that chapter the first time I read it for that reason.
The Ministers chapter? I actually really like that one, much as I keep wanting to start snapping at the wizards on the PM's behalf. Mostly, I think I like it because it *is* an insight into what you'd expect a reasonable Muggle's attitude toward Wizarding society would be. It doesn't have the bias of someone who's got a child there, and it's not Vernon's OMG-Freaks!! bigotry. He knows, and he's *not* enamoured of it, between the blatant condescension of his visitors and his own helplessness in the face of them.
Somewhere along the way I've developed the unfortunate pov of a Muggle in the series You, too? I've found that a lot of my musings/plot bunnies lately seem to focus on the idea of Muggle-born students who, even after a few years at the school, are more attached to their families and the Muggle world they grew up in than the Wizarding world they're supposed to be assimilating in to.
As for Muggle-magical developments, I think there were certainly things that wizards had some *version* of long before Muggles did (including some form of plumbing), but it seems unlikely that Muggles would have gotten the ideas from wizards. If anything, in most cases, the opposite seems more likely. I've also seen fics where tons and tons of writers, authors, and artists were actually wizards -- one or two, sure, especially if there's some story behind it, but not many, and certainly not just because they dealt with the supernatural or, worse, were so brilliant.
I still sort of like the Dumbledore scene, but it simultaneously irritates me quite a lot. How exactly does one 'offer' someone a drink they aren't familiar with, really giving them no chance to decline it, have the drinks literally beat them over the heads, pouring their contents over them, and then claim it would have been "more polite just to drink them"? What's *polite* about this situation?? You're right; it's Muggle-baiting, at least as much as making someone's key shrink every time they look for it.
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Re: This is the only comment I have ever written to need two parts...-Go me!
Date: 2005-12-04 11:03 pm (UTC)The Ministers chapter? I actually really like that one, much as I keep wanting to start snapping at the wizards on the PM's behalf. Mostly, I think I like it because it *is* an insight into what you'd expect a reasonable Muggle's attitude toward Wizarding society would be. It doesn't have the bias of someone who's got a child there, and it's not Vernon's OMG-Freaks!! bigotry. He knows, and he's *not* enamoured of it, between the blatant condescension of his visitors and his own helplessness in the face of them.
Somewhere along the way I've developed the unfortunate pov of a Muggle in the series
You, too? I've found that a lot of my musings/plot bunnies lately seem to focus on the idea of Muggle-born students who, even after a few years at the school, are more attached to their families and the Muggle world they grew up in than the Wizarding world they're supposed to be assimilating in to.
As for Muggle-magical developments, I think there were certainly things that wizards had some *version* of long before Muggles did (including some form of plumbing), but it seems unlikely that Muggles would have gotten the ideas from wizards. If anything, in most cases, the opposite seems more likely. I've also seen fics where tons and tons of writers, authors, and artists were actually wizards -- one or two, sure, especially if there's some story behind it, but not many, and certainly not just because they dealt with the supernatural or, worse, were so brilliant.
I still sort of like the Dumbledore scene, but it simultaneously irritates me quite a lot. How exactly does one 'offer' someone a drink they aren't familiar with, really giving them no chance to decline it, have the drinks literally beat them over the heads, pouring their contents over them, and then claim it would have been "more polite just to drink them"? What's *polite* about this situation?? You're right; it's Muggle-baiting, at least as much as making someone's key shrink every time they look for it.