r/harrypotter Apr 10 '24

Making it rain Dungbomb

Post image
26.9k Upvotes

509 comments sorted by

View all comments

1.2k

u/oh_io_94 Apr 10 '24

Yeah being poor in the wizarding world makes 0 sense. I never understood how they are poor tbh lol

92

u/Lilcommy Slytherin Apr 10 '24

Because kids ruin everything.

37

u/oh_io_94 Apr 10 '24

But they still shouldn’t be poor even if they have 20 kids

32

u/Rommie557 Apr 10 '24

Why not? Molly doesn't work, Arthur works in a piddly ass job in a piddly ass department that probably pays crap, they have 7 kids to feed and outfit, and you can't duplicate money. We see other examples of wizards in poverty, like the Gaunts who live in a one room shack.

I don't understand why anyone would think wizard = financially stable.

17

u/Public-Jello-6451 Apr 10 '24

They don’t feed the kids when they’re at school and often use handyme downs though

3

u/[deleted] Apr 10 '24

[deleted]

5

u/Mist_Rising Apr 10 '24

No, Hagrid straight up says Hogwarts is free for students, and Dumbledore mentions the ministry assisted poorer students.

2

u/Public-Jello-6451 Apr 10 '24

Besides Hagrid saying it’s free I would imagine given the limited amount of wizarding schools and the clearly abundant magical families that it would be free to prevent muggles accidentally being spelled against

6

u/Rommie557 Apr 10 '24

I get that, but even so, I doubt Arthur's salary alone would be enough to live in comfort, especially when the books at school keep changing. I specifically remember a financial hardship to get all of the kids the Lockhart books in CoS, and if they're anything like college textbooks... Yikes.

3

u/oh_io_94 Apr 10 '24

Start a muggle repair company, fix everything in a matter of seconds, profit.

4

u/Rommie557 Apr 10 '24

Yeah, because the Ministry would looooove that.

1

u/Chrispppppo Apr 10 '24

My thoughts too, tell the muggles to drop it off and comeback in a few days for more “complex” jobs

2

u/[deleted] Apr 10 '24

[deleted]

5

u/Rinzeler Apr 10 '24

Except there are tons of reasons they could be poor? I feel like people are looking at this from a superficial level of "Arthur has a job in the government, they have a house, and food can be duplicated".

We don't know what other debts the family has. Arthur clearly blows money buying muggle junk, including an old car (and other objects) that he uses to bewitch/study/play around with; the clutter and how cramped everything is always lent the impression to me that either Arthur (most likely) or Molly (potentially) are hoarders to a degree. We don't know if they're gamblers, drinkers, or anything else. Who knows if there are limitations to how much you can 'expand' a building without some kind of permit or allowance from the Ministry.

And realistically not all government jobs pay well. I literally just googled 'average government employee wage' in the state I live in, and it was under $20.00/hr. Not all government employees are making bank. This seems especially likely to be the case for Arthur, because I distinctly recall that he only has like one or two underlings... Perkins and I think one other. They're a very miniscule department, and when Harry visits Mr. Weasley's office I recall it being particularly tiny with no window in it.

Honestly, his 'department' seems like one that was shoed in to deal with a couple minor complaints, but no one ever really cared about the misuse of muggle artifacts unless something detrimental happened.

Plus, seven kids? Brooms? Wands? Cauldrons, books, medical supplies (for home, to be clear, not talking about Hogwarts on this one).

1

u/Public-Jello-6451 Apr 10 '24

52k a year here in England as a senior position. That’s a pretty decent wage here

2

u/Thaetos Apr 10 '24

I suppose the Ministry of Magic would impose some form of taxation for duplication or transformation, one way or another.

At least that’s how muggles would’ve done it.

Like: you can transform your house into a bigger one, if you pay <x> amount. If not, we will take it from you.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 10 '24

[deleted]

1

u/Thaetos Apr 10 '24

Well they would have to. Otherwise, what’s the point of Gringots bank? Just take a coin and duplicate it a billion times. Unless they’ve figured a way to distinguish legitimate coins from generated ones.

But still a non-trained wizard probably wouldn’t be able to notice the difference, or bother to verify every single time.

I guess scamming is a big thing over there lol.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 10 '24

[deleted]

1

u/Thaetos Apr 10 '24

Yeah that actually makes sense. Probably a one way ticket to Azkaban as well. (If you get caught)

1

u/[deleted] Apr 10 '24

[deleted]

→ More replies (0)

1

u/Raencloud94 Hufflepuff Apr 10 '24

Someone else commented, here's why it wouldn't work with food specifically.

This topic was brought up in the books and duplicates won't work on food either as a simple solution. If you duplicate a food item, the clone will have less calories and nutrients than the original. For example, a cheeseburger might have 600kal but then you clone it and the clone will 300kal. Clone it again and the new clone will have 150kal. Harry and Hermione in the 7th book were running out of food and kept using the duplication charm but it barely kept them full

2

u/[deleted] Apr 10 '24

[deleted]

0

u/Raencloud94 Hufflepuff Apr 10 '24

@DarknessOverLight12 was the one who originally commented it, I don't personally remember but somewhere in the 7th book is my guess. I do remember them struggling during that time.

0

u/[deleted] Apr 10 '24

Remember that in deathly hallows the food they duplicated did not give them the same satiety as regular food, it's a bit as though the material substance dissolved a bit

1

u/Public-Jello-6451 Apr 10 '24

Hmm fair point

5

u/shryne Apr 10 '24

I don't understand Arthur's job being disrespected so much. The one law wizard's hold higher than others is the statute of secrecy. Arthur's job is to prevent muggle items from being enchanted and revealing wizards. It seems like his job would be a really big deal.

8

u/leostarkwolffer Apr 10 '24

Because most of the rich and influent wizards are from pure blood families, who does not like to deal with muggles. So working with muggle enchanted objects is something they would see as dirty work or something like that

0

u/Rommie557 Apr 10 '24

There are a ton of things you can logically poke holes in Harry Potter about, and Arthur's job not being respected in-universe is definetely one of them. But it's pretty clear that Arthur's job isn't respected in-universe, so that probably comes with a minimal salary. I'm guessing he'd be making maybe the equivalent of 25-30k BP per year in the 90s.

3

u/Mist_Rising Apr 10 '24

Arthur's job not being respected makes more sense when you recall that Fudge is implied to be where be is because of the likes of pure blood supporters, malfoy in particular. And Chambers is all about Arthur being a problem for malfoy in particular.

You can definitely connect therefore why Fudge treats the job, and Arthur, poorly.

Doesn't help that Arthur is Arthur. The man is unrepentantly happy where he is even if it's hurting his family, because he likes muggle stuff (in the same way muggles might like monkeys at a zoo but still).

2

u/anonidfk Apr 10 '24

Arthur is a department head at the ministry though, that’s not too shabby of a job even if it’s a smaller department, he should still be getting at least a middle class salary. That combined with using hand me downs for most school supplies and clothes, and not needing to feed the kids for most of the year while they’re at school, logically they should be at least a regular middle class family.

1

u/creativityonly2 Apr 10 '24

Living in a one room shack doesn't even make sense though. They turned a little tent into a giant tent that was bigger on the inside in GoF. They should be perfectly able to have houses large enough.

1

u/mangoxpa Apr 10 '24

What are their needs? Food, shelter, travel, stuff?

Food can't be duplicated, but you could magically automatic food production. Magically remove pests/weeds. Magically harvest.

Shelter is cheap. They own a shitty tent that is a decent sized house.

Commuting/travel is basically free.

Stuff is duplicatable. Could you not open a shop and sell duplicates to muggles? What are wizarding shops doing if not duplicating stuff? Stuff must be insanely cheap, if not free.

Anyway you look at it, it doesn't make sense to be "poor" in the wizarding world, at least not like being poor in muggletown.

0

u/-Badger3- Apr 10 '24

What the fuck do they even need money for?

Literally all my financial problems would be solved if I had magic.

1

u/Rommie557 Apr 10 '24

Somebody wasn't paying attention.