Doing something stupid, or just being an idiot in general isn’t the same as holding the idiot ball.
the person carrying the idiot ball is often acting out of character, misunderstanding something that could be cleared up by asking a single reasonable question or performing a simple problem-solving action, but that he isn’t doing solely because the writers don’t want him to. It’s almost as if the character is being willfully stupid or obtuse.
There are at least three methods of paying off the debt relatively easily, mentioned earlier in this discussion, that are fundamentally unavailable as ways of making money for the vast majority of wizards on the Wizengamot. One, using the Philosopher’s Stone, is explicitly mentioned in the very comment you replied to.
So, no, I don’t think the people in the story are holding Idiot Balls.
Descending through the illusory roof while invisible was a strange experience, and then Harry found himself in a metal corridor lighted with a dim orange light—which, Harry realized after a startled glance, was coming from an old-fashioned mantled gas lamp...
...for magic would fail, be drained away after a time, in the presence of Dementors.
But the others, maybe. Or maybe not; we also have
Minerva gazed up at the clock, the golden hands and silver numerals, the jerking motion. Muggles had invented that, and until they had, wizards had not bothered keeping time. Bells, timed by a sanded hourglass, had served Hogwarts for its classes when it was built.
I revise my position. 500 years seems to be excessive, in many areas. I would guess that the Hogwarts Express, and potentially even the toilets do rely on some level of magic, though.
My understanding was that most of the “modern” items (excepting things like the lamps in Azkhaban) are magic-based items, they simply got the ideas from muggle items. There’s no obvious indication that Minerva’s clock was purely mechanical; the one Trelawney used had voice recognition, for example.
Even torches are a “muggle-inspired technology” if you think about it. Purely magical lighting would be a glowing globe, or even unexplainably-lit rooms like the Wizengamot hall, there’s no reason to have it shaped like a torch (albeit proximity self-lighting and ever-burning) unless you got inspired by real torches and just went on with tradition, and at least many of those are probably not created by enchanting a manufactured torch. (Given how many there are in Hogwarts, and that you seem to find them even in rooms that didn’t exist yesterday, I’d guess the weird self-building architecture just includes most of them by itself.)
So everybody except Harry are holding idiot balls?
I think that’s an inescapable result of the idiot world J. K. Rowling made. There is just so much in cannon that makes so little sense.
Doing something stupid, or just being an idiot in general isn’t the same as holding the idiot ball.
There are at least three methods of paying off the debt relatively easily, mentioned earlier in this discussion, that are fundamentally unavailable as ways of making money for the vast majority of wizards on the Wizengamot. One, using the Philosopher’s Stone, is explicitly mentioned in the very comment you replied to.
So, no, I don’t think the people in the story are holding Idiot Balls.
In terms of the knowledge that Muggles have culturally accumulated, yes. They’re at least 500 years behind the times.
It varies. There are trains and gaslamplikethings and indoor plumbing.
I’m willing to bet most of them run on a non-negligible ammount of magic, though.
But the others, maybe. Or maybe not; we also have
I revise my position. 500 years seems to be excessive, in many areas. I would guess that the Hogwarts Express, and potentially even the toilets do rely on some level of magic, though.
My understanding was that most of the “modern” items (excepting things like the lamps in Azkhaban) are magic-based items, they simply got the ideas from muggle items. There’s no obvious indication that Minerva’s clock was purely mechanical; the one Trelawney used had voice recognition, for example.
Even torches are a “muggle-inspired technology” if you think about it. Purely magical lighting would be a glowing globe, or even unexplainably-lit rooms like the Wizengamot hall, there’s no reason to have it shaped like a torch (albeit proximity self-lighting and ever-burning) unless you got inspired by real torches and just went on with tradition, and at least many of those are probably not created by enchanting a manufactured torch. (Given how many there are in Hogwarts, and that you seem to find them even in rooms that didn’t exist yesterday, I’d guess the weird self-building architecture just includes most of them by itself.)