The State is to the Muggle world what the Ministry of Magic is to the Wizarding world. This institution located beneath London is responsible for enacting laws and enforcing them in this vast universe filled with creatures. The films portray the organization more as a collection of austere, incompetent bureaucrats who don't support Harry, in addition to being completely clueless about what's going on around Hogwarts. J.K. Rowling emphasized its manipulative role and the corruption that plagues its members. Also, the Ministry is much better described in the books, so much so that it takes on more weight with its different departments, and its complex structure rather than a simple tribunal run by its crooked members ready to bring you down for the slightest infraction.
#3 Its structure better detailed
The Ministry is organized into departments. From the entrance hall (the Atrium) visible in the films, extend nine basements, where seven departments are located, such as Magical Law Enforcement, Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, Magical Games and Sports (such as Quidditch), Magical Transport Management (floos, portkeys, etc.), International Magical Cooperation, but also the Department of Mysteries.
The ones that interest us here are the departments of Magical Law Enforcement and the Department of Mysteries. The first is undoubtedly the most influential. It is composed of the Auror office, these hunters of dark wizards, the service of misuse of magic (especially in the Muggle world), the Office for the Detection of Confiscation of Illegal Defense Items and Spells, the very discriminatory Muggle-born registration office and finally the Wizengamot, which serves as a court. In short, the supreme authority responsible for directly enforcing the law, and its ultra-repressive system, symbol of the institution.
As for the Department of Mysteries, it is composed of the rooms of Time (time manipulation), the Room of Love, the Room of Death, the Pensieve and finally the Room of Prophecy, scene of the great battle of The Order of the Phoenix. It is also in this volume 5 that J.K. Rowling describes the different levels and their departments and their roles, or even the elevators that connect this sprawling organ.
#2 The Wizengamot
Still in In Order of the Phoenix, Harry comes to the Ministry of Magic to attend his trial (following his illegal use of magic against Dementors and in front of a Muggle). It is therefore during this chapter that the structure of the Ministry is described, as well as its Wizengamot, the highest court.
Depicted through Harry's trial at the beginning of the film, the court is dissected by the English author. Judging serious crimes, it consists of numerous wizards in purple robes, sitting in a semicircle around the accused, and is presided over by Cornelius Fudge and Amelia Bones, the witch who heads the Department of Magical Law Enforcement at the Ministry of Magic. J.K. Rowling also emphasizes the decor and atmosphere of the room: dark, austere, and imposing.
#1 The change of regime following Voldemort's return
Already very corrupt, the Ministry of Magic becomes even more so after Voldemort's return. Cornelius Fudge resigns, and in the process, his successor, Rufus Scrimgeour, is eliminated by Voldemort the summer before Harry's final year at Hogwarts (The Deathly Hallows). It is Voldemort who takes control of the Home Office by placing Pius Thicknesse at its head, controlled by the Unforgivable Imperius Curse. All institutions will then be diverted to serve as propaganda for He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and to persecute certain minorities as well as Muggle-borns. The films briefly show the changes and oppression orchestrated by the regime, such as the trial of Mary Cattermole, the Snatchers, and the hunt for Harry Potter by its members (particularly during the escape from the Ministry). The books therefore go much further. The Mudblood Register, the instrumentalization of the Daily Prophet as a propaganda network, legal details, it is the entire functioning of the organ that is detailed and serves to apply Voldemort's method in the Wizarding World.
Want to continue reading? Discover these anecdotes that you (probably) don't know about the famous Dementors.
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