Despite being largely built from real-world prototypes, the Death Eaters don’t have any great real-world analogies that I’m very familiar with. As a violent political organization that gained substantial power and waged a full-blown civil war quite recently, they seem close to the IRA, but they don’t have the historical context that colored that conflict; the strong blood-purity emphasis puts them close in some ways to Klansmen or neo-Nazis, or the early Nazi Party before it dropped its revolutionary angle, but there doesn’t seem to be a strong nationalist component and the methodology is different.
Point is, I’d forbear from reasoning too far by analogy here; the situation’s too unusual. About the best we can do is look at the in-universe consequences of various people’s actions, and from that perspective the accusation looks pretty damned weighty. Especially for a schoolteacher.
It’s worth noting that, in canon, Rita’s writing results in Hermione receiving piles of hate mail including booby-trapped letters containing toxic chemicals. It also results in the Ministry, as represented by Fudge, taking a very dim view of Harry on the evidence of her articles alone (“having funny turns all over the place”).
Given the apparent gullibility and quickness to violence of the general population in the Potterverse (with no comment on how this may or may not resemble the real world), it is entirely plausible that Rita’s other victims were also the targets of such abuse, including risks to their health. And let’s not even get started on the possibility of vigilante justice (you don’t mess with Lucius Malfoy because he is, in fact, Lucius Malfoy, but what about less well-defended targets?), or the way key institutions such as the Wizengamot are easily swayed by rumour and rhetoric.
In light of the above, I assign a very low probability to the hypothesis that Rita Skeeter’s writing has not resulted in cases of bodily harm and miscarriage of justice (up to and including Azkaban and/or death).
Despite being largely built from real-world prototypes, the Death Eaters don’t have any great real-world analogies that I’m very familiar with. As a violent political organization that gained substantial power and waged a full-blown civil war quite recently, they seem close to the IRA, but they don’t have the historical context that colored that conflict; the strong blood-purity emphasis puts them close in some ways to Klansmen or neo-Nazis, or the early Nazi Party before it dropped its revolutionary angle, but there doesn’t seem to be a strong nationalist component and the methodology is different.
Point is, I’d forbear from reasoning too far by analogy here; the situation’s too unusual. About the best we can do is look at the in-universe consequences of various people’s actions, and from that perspective the accusation looks pretty damned weighty. Especially for a schoolteacher.
It’s worth noting that, in canon, Rita’s writing results in Hermione receiving piles of hate mail including booby-trapped letters containing toxic chemicals. It also results in the Ministry, as represented by Fudge, taking a very dim view of Harry on the evidence of her articles alone (“having funny turns all over the place”).
Given the apparent gullibility and quickness to violence of the general population in the Potterverse (with no comment on how this may or may not resemble the real world), it is entirely plausible that Rita’s other victims were also the targets of such abuse, including risks to their health. And let’s not even get started on the possibility of vigilante justice (you don’t mess with Lucius Malfoy because he is, in fact, Lucius Malfoy, but what about less well-defended targets?), or the way key institutions such as the Wizengamot are easily swayed by rumour and rhetoric.
In light of the above, I assign a very low probability to the hypothesis that Rita Skeeter’s writing has not resulted in cases of bodily harm and miscarriage of justice (up to and including Azkaban and/or death).