Let’s try an analogy that’s a bit closer to the mark:
“I know a guy who needs to eat freshly killed bald eagle meat every now and again to stay alive, and while doing so he was discovered by some forest rangers and kids out hiking on public land. He quickly used a gas grenade to knock them out without harming them, then gave them a drug that caused them to lose their short term memory of the event. He then dialed 911 on one of their cell phones and watched from a distance to make sure they didn’t get eaten before help arrived.”
Note that there are several things here which don’t have good conversions into Real Life due to magic. In cases like that, you can’t just pick the ‘closest equivalent’ and expect it to make sense. Sometimes, you’ll have to drag something magical into the real world as well.
Analogies are hard, at least if you’re trying to be accurate. Doing a double analogy to see if you can get back the original helps. For example, let’s take your analogy, and try to convert it back into the original scenario:
“I know a guy who was killing some horses in the forest when he was discovered by a group of aurors, a school teacher, and some kids. This guy beat up everyone using curses that take weeks to heal and must heal painfully and naturally, then he stunned them and memory charmed them to get away with it”
This is a good way to tell where your analogy breaks down. In particular:
1) [minor] horses in the muggle world are typically owned by someone, with the very rare exception being free range horses on public land. Be default, the reader of your analogy will assume that the horses are unspecial and owned by someone. This is very different from killing something unowned but special, like a bald eagle.
2) [major] “killing a unicorn because my life depends on it” is turned into “killing some horses with no justification.”
3) [critical] beating up a person to the point that they can’t function is a much, much bigger deal in the real world than using stunning magic, where the stuns are reversible and extremely temporary, and healing magic makes major wounds no more threatening than a hangnail.
4) [minor] Quirrel did not leave until he knew that the aurors, teacher, and students would be safe (because of the presence of Harry’s future copy), but this is lost in your analogy.
5) [minor] Dumbledore himself uses memory charms to wipe Harry’s patronus 2.0 from the minds of three aurors, so memory charms are clearly less ‘against the rules’ in wizarding society than mind altering drugs are in muggle society.
Let’s try an analogy that’s a bit closer to the mark:
“I know a guy who needs to eat freshly killed bald eagle meat every now and again to stay alive, and while doing so he was discovered by some forest rangers and kids out hiking on public land. He quickly used a gas grenade to knock them out without harming them, then gave them a drug that caused them to lose their short term memory of the event. He then dialed 911 on one of their cell phones and watched from a distance to make sure they didn’t get eaten before help arrived.”
Note that there are several things here which don’t have good conversions into Real Life due to magic. In cases like that, you can’t just pick the ‘closest equivalent’ and expect it to make sense. Sometimes, you’ll have to drag something magical into the real world as well.
Analogies are hard, at least if you’re trying to be accurate. Doing a double analogy to see if you can get back the original helps. For example, let’s take your analogy, and try to convert it back into the original scenario:
“I know a guy who was killing some horses in the forest when he was discovered by a group of aurors, a school teacher, and some kids. This guy beat up everyone using curses that take weeks to heal and must heal painfully and naturally, then he stunned them and memory charmed them to get away with it”
This is a good way to tell where your analogy breaks down. In particular:
1) [minor] horses in the muggle world are typically owned by someone, with the very rare exception being free range horses on public land. Be default, the reader of your analogy will assume that the horses are unspecial and owned by someone. This is very different from killing something unowned but special, like a bald eagle.
2) [major] “killing a unicorn because my life depends on it” is turned into “killing some horses with no justification.”
3) [critical] beating up a person to the point that they can’t function is a much, much bigger deal in the real world than using stunning magic, where the stuns are reversible and extremely temporary, and healing magic makes major wounds no more threatening than a hangnail.
4) [minor] Quirrel did not leave until he knew that the aurors, teacher, and students would be safe (because of the presence of Harry’s future copy), but this is lost in your analogy.
5) [minor] Dumbledore himself uses memory charms to wipe Harry’s patronus 2.0 from the minds of three aurors, so memory charms are clearly less ‘against the rules’ in wizarding society than mind altering drugs are in muggle society.