There is a reason McGonagall is constantly on the verge of snapping and keeps setting students up to be murdered. If Umbridge had been clever enough to bring Percy with her to take over all the admin work, the teachers might have been less certain of their loyalties...
Yeah, mind magic is one of those big handwavy "don't ask how it works or everything falls apart" bits of the series. It gives us a lot of leeway, but also means that probably no explanation will entirely work, which is really frustrating.
Hm. I know I've joked about Dumbledore spiking the students' morning pumpkin juice with a curiosity-suppressing potion, but maybe something like that really could be plausible? Or, maybe more likely, it's a "trust Dumbledore" potion (much more broadly useful). He manages to work something like, "Voldemort's identity is, alas, undetermined" into conversations whenever appropriate, and people are oddly inclined to take his word for it and not give it more thought. Even people he didn't say it to directly might hear it from other people and go, "Well, if even Dumbledore doesn't know, it's an insoluble mystery!" And then if he does choose to reveal the connection, of course it seems obvious once he says it--they're inclined to trust his word.
(ETA: I have the same problem with this as with Terri's hypothetical "Confidere" spell, incidentally: it seems like too much work. Dumbledore as cult leader seems simpler--we know people like that can get away with a lot of mental manipulation in the real world. But how many thousands of people don't connect the dots in over thirty years? Really? This is another reason I like the idea that they all have an alternate explanation for what happened to Tom Riddle: if they're all pretty sure they know what happened--Voldemort killed the poor but handsome and talented orphan who might challenge him, obviously--there's less reason for them to think to look more closely at him. Also, more than a few of those people who disappeared during Voldemort's early years were probably the people most likely to know enough to work it out. Like the predecessor of that poor journalist, which is why the current one keeps the bulletin board very secret.)
Working in any public service job is enough to give people start thinking about how the world is just broken, man, if only I could tell everyone how to behave and make them listen for a change! Think maybe Florean Fortescue disappearing means he faked his death and ran away to change his face and start a new career as the next Dark Lord?
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2021-06-27 02:31 am (UTC)Yeah, mind magic is one of those big handwavy "don't ask how it works or everything falls apart" bits of the series. It gives us a lot of leeway, but also means that probably no explanation will entirely work, which is really frustrating.
Hm. I know I've joked about Dumbledore spiking the students' morning pumpkin juice with a curiosity-suppressing potion, but maybe something like that really could be plausible? Or, maybe more likely, it's a "trust Dumbledore" potion (much more broadly useful). He manages to work something like, "Voldemort's identity is, alas, undetermined" into conversations whenever appropriate, and people are oddly inclined to take his word for it and not give it more thought. Even people he didn't say it to directly might hear it from other people and go, "Well, if even Dumbledore doesn't know, it's an insoluble mystery!" And then if he does choose to reveal the connection, of course it seems obvious once he says it--they're inclined to trust his word.
(ETA: I have the same problem with this as with Terri's hypothetical "Confidere" spell, incidentally: it seems like too much work. Dumbledore as cult leader seems simpler--we know people like that can get away with a lot of mental manipulation in the real world. But how many thousands of people don't connect the dots in over thirty years? Really? This is another reason I like the idea that they all have an alternate explanation for what happened to Tom Riddle: if they're all pretty sure they know what happened--Voldemort killed the poor but handsome and talented orphan who might challenge him, obviously--there's less reason for them to think to look more closely at him. Also, more than a few of those people who disappeared during Voldemort's early years were probably the people most likely to know enough to work it out. Like the predecessor of that poor journalist, which is why the current one keeps the bulletin board very secret.)
Working in any public service job is enough to give people start thinking about how the world is just broken, man, if only I could tell everyone how to behave and make them listen for a change! Think maybe Florean Fortescue disappearing means he faked his death and ran away to change his face and start a new career as the next Dark Lord?