this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2023
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Harry Potter
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This one bothered me pretty early. But I don't feel like the context given in the Harry Potter series would allow for anything like the corruption we see in real-life politics. For one, a couple people are professors of Hogwarts for power, but most are in it because they care about their jobs. There's no reason nobody stood up to Dolores— all students and professors hated her (except her new toady Filch, and maybe only a few Slytherin after she offered them power?) and Dolores was exerting power over the school that she simply didn't have. Any one of them could have just effed her up anytime for her literal, no joke Nazi rules and her torture. Let alone a full disgruntled school.
Wasn't she empowered by the ministry of magic, which was in turn controlled by money?
Position, yes. Actual power to stop a bunch of angry, tortured teenage wizards— especially ones that have been learning to use defense magic in direct defiance of her— no. Also she pissed off all the professors, and they didn't stand up to her either, which is stupid.
That all comes back to the institutional power of the system. She was backed by what they all considered to be the legal government entity, so tolerated her, even though they could have physically overpowered her, despite knowing that what she was doing was wrong. Just like a lot of Americans in 2020.
"Wrong" isn't even a fraction of it. She kicked everyone off the grounds, changed all the rules, tortured students (and others knew it) and literally started hanging up Nazi rule plaques. It was a hostile takeover where she silenced, banned, and abused everyone. And you're going to tell me nobody— no students, no professors— are going to stand against her? Being appointed won't mean shit when you are literally torturing, backing into a corner, and banning an opposition with this much power and unhappiness. In any reasonable situation, they would fight back. She was just one stupid, powerless woman with no soldiers at her command against hundreds of powerful wizards and witches, many of them adults.
And stop comparing it to "2020". I don't even know what the eff that means.
Honestly, tolerating oppression has always been the human condition. The few times people did try to revolt are so lauded specifically because they're exceptions that prove the rule. So the fact that that happened in the books should surprise no one -- it's much more true to life.
These aren't adults who need food and housing. These are a bunch of teenagers including rebellious sorts against a single asshole with very little actual power besides a title. Also they have (probably angry) parents?
Okay then. Convince everyone in your town to rebel against the TSA agents at your local airport and to throw out the body scanning machines. Those TSA agents are just humans run by corrupt managers, run by an even more corrupt and tyrannical organization, all for money. Teenagers are scanned in those things and the TSA holds copies of the scanners' images of their naked bodies. Right wing parents across the country have been angry about this for years, and they're armed to the teeth.
So it should be simple by your logic. Right?
What the hell have you been drinking?
Bourbon usually
If they fight back, they’re go to Azkaban.
JK was writing about how evil happens is it comes from top. As such if the professors fought back, they’d be an enemy of the state and sent to Azkaban.
She was powerful because the system backed her. Had the anyone attacked her, aurors would have come to save her.
The 2020 reference is a lame attempt to attack Trump. The two are not comparable. Everything worked as it should have. So it’s the exact opposite of what JK was writing about.