Why it Would Totally Suck if Harry Potter was Real

I am a Potterphile. I love the books, love the movies, bought the fake wand, and ordered Chocolate Frogs from England. But have any of you really considered the world of hurt we’d be in if the boy with the lightning scar was real? The world would be really messed up. I mean messed up on a horrifying scale. I'm talking enslaving the entire muggle race suckitude.

For anyone who hasn't read the books, seen the movies, or has been buried in a cave on the moon for the past decade, the wizarding world is a complete secret to muggles (non magical people). Wizards don't have doctors they have healers. Men and women who are trained in the art of magic to cure and repair even the most vile of human diseases. Do they share this power with the world? Do they learn to bottle it and charge insurance companies thousands of dollars for it? No, no they don't. This means that wizards around the world are allowing innocent children to die of cancer when they have the power to stop it. They don't care that little Suzy won't live long enough to be Hermione Granger for Halloween. The only thing they care about is keeping their powers a secret.

This secrecy stretches much further than healers. Did you know there is a single person in the wizarding world that has the power to completely destroy the Earth? Yup, one wizard who has the power to destroy the entire Earth. His name is Voldemort. Instead of informing their international allies about it, the wizards keep it to themselves. We have assault rifles, nuclear weapons, and the Navy SEALS! Yes Voldemort has limitless dark power but he has to channel that power through a wand. A thirteen inch piece of wood is what has the wizarding world's panties in a twist. Aim a couple thousand heat seeking missiles at no nose and see if he can stop all of them. But do the wizards even for a second take that into consideration? No, of course not. What is their sollution to fighting the greatest evil that has ever walked the planet? They find a wounded orphan boy, force him to grow up in filth and negligence, surprise him with the knowledge that he has power he had never imagined, then tell him a prophecy says he's going to kill Voldemort and that he'll probably die doing it. Sounds like a solid battle plan.

The wizarding community is just hoping that no one notices they could have stopped all of this before it started. One quarter of all wizards are evil and for SEVEN YEARS of their lives they live together in a dungeon in a castle where they all wear green. You can't miss these guys. Why not nuke Slytherin house or when the sorting hat places the evil quarter into Slytherin, instead of being led to their house after the welcoming feast, they're led into a little room where Hagrid quietly disposes of them. These evil wizards let werewolves eat unicorns. They murder people to grant themselves eternal life. They imprison children to keep their parents in line. Many of you can't justify wholesale slaughter based solely on the idea that maybe these slimy Slytherin students might turn ou to be the downfall of the human race. That's OK, I can get behind that train of thought. But maybe, just maybe, not allowing them to attend a school with the purpose of increasing their power.

Wizards begin attending wizarding school when they're eleven where they learn only magic. No science, no history (except history of magic), no math. Imagine someone who has access to time travel with a fourth graders grasp of world history. Before long dinosaurs, gun slingers, gladiators, and the entire cast of Braveheart would be roaming modern streets with access to modern weaponry. Now imagine that kid times 10,000, now imagine a quarter of them are all evil. I know the books and movies show every wizard, with the exception of the Slytherins, has a conscience and a solid moral compass. Think back to fourth grade for a moment. If your teacher left a box of doughnuts out on his desk and told you not to touch them, how long after he leaves the classroom do you wait before pouncing on that box like a raptor on a chicken? My guess would be .35 seconds. A fourth grader doesn't care about impulse control. He doesn't have the mental capability to comprehend the turmoil he would cause if he brought Ghengis Kahn, Alexander the Great, Ivan the Terrible, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and Lady Bathory to the future and let them go at it with nuclear warheads.

So, if the Harry Potter world is so evil, why do we encourage our children to read the books, pay for the movie tickets, and buy all the merchandising? Because in the Harry Potter world Healers are saviors, Voldemort is Satan, and the wizarding community, as a whole, does live by a strict moral code. It is the classic tale of good versus evil. There are some characters who you don't know if they’re good or bad (we're looking at you Snape), but for the most part the lines are clearly drawn. While the books may teach that life would be infinitely cooler if you had wizard powers, they also teach the value of friendship, loyalty, hard work, and dedicating yourself to a worthy cause. And in spite of the lying to humanity, aiding and abetting future criminals, and a serious lack of proper education thing, Harry Potter lives up to all the ideals we hold most dear. But, it would be really cool to be able to throw fire balls with my mind.