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How can wizards identify Muggles?
Aug. 6th, 2004 09:27 pmSo how can a wizard tell whether he's confronted with a Muggle or another wizard? When in a situation where this isn't obvious from context?
Say, you're standing in the middle of Trafalgar Square and there's a bloke sitting on the edge of the fountain. How do you know that bloke is a wizard? Or a Muggle? Is there some special aura crackling off the wizard or, conversely, off the Muggle? Is it clothing only? (But what if it's a Muggle dressed up for halloween in a magician's robe?)
There seem to me to be two options.
a) You can't tell them apart at all. Or: you can tell them apart by clothing only (all those weird robed folk in Book 1) which is really just another way of saying that you can't actually tell them apart. In which case, I presume, you'd have to perform some sort of trick to find out, e.g. point your wand at them and mumble a spell: if it's a wizard, you'll find yourself disarmed and turned into a trout; if it's a Muggle,he'll stare at you in confundment.
b) You can tell them apart by some sort of external sign, e.g. an aura, pointy ears. (Well, it doesn't specify anywhere in canon that wizards do not have pointy ears so what if the film got it wrong, huh? They gave everyone pointy ears in Lord of the Rings, and they're not mentioned once in book canon! I'm just saying.) In which case you would either see this all the time, or you would need to perform some sort of reveal spell to discover it.
Conversely, can Muggles recognise wizards? Presumably, most Muggles believe wizards don't exist so the question doesn't crop up. But some Muggles do know, e.g. those that have wizarding children. And there exists a whole lot of witchy lore among Muggles (well, irl anyway, possibly not in canon...) so maybe they have some inkling...?
Are there ever any cases of mistaken identity? (Mrs Figg shocked Harry but she's not a real witch.)
The question boils down to this: are wizards (and witches) a visible, or an invisible, minority? What clues does canon give us?
And, much more interestingly, what solutions has fanon proposed? Any intriguing fics on the matter?
Say, you're standing in the middle of Trafalgar Square and there's a bloke sitting on the edge of the fountain. How do you know that bloke is a wizard? Or a Muggle? Is there some special aura crackling off the wizard or, conversely, off the Muggle? Is it clothing only? (But what if it's a Muggle dressed up for halloween in a magician's robe?)
There seem to me to be two options.
a) You can't tell them apart at all. Or: you can tell them apart by clothing only (all those weird robed folk in Book 1) which is really just another way of saying that you can't actually tell them apart. In which case, I presume, you'd have to perform some sort of trick to find out, e.g. point your wand at them and mumble a spell: if it's a wizard, you'll find yourself disarmed and turned into a trout; if it's a Muggle,he'll stare at you in confundment.
b) You can tell them apart by some sort of external sign, e.g. an aura, pointy ears. (Well, it doesn't specify anywhere in canon that wizards do not have pointy ears so what if the film got it wrong, huh? They gave everyone pointy ears in Lord of the Rings, and they're not mentioned once in book canon! I'm just saying.) In which case you would either see this all the time, or you would need to perform some sort of reveal spell to discover it.
Conversely, can Muggles recognise wizards? Presumably, most Muggles believe wizards don't exist so the question doesn't crop up. But some Muggles do know, e.g. those that have wizarding children. And there exists a whole lot of witchy lore among Muggles (well, irl anyway, possibly not in canon...) so maybe they have some inkling...?
Are there ever any cases of mistaken identity? (Mrs Figg shocked Harry but she's not a real witch.)
The question boils down to this: are wizards (and witches) a visible, or an invisible, minority? What clues does canon give us?
And, much more interestingly, what solutions has fanon proposed? Any intriguing fics on the matter?
