With them being Wizards, why haven't they done spells to improve their lot? Take the cloak that Ron wears to the dance in the Goblet of Fire; couldn't they have done a spell to update it? Same with the wand and books; can't they do spells to fix things or make more books instead of buying them? I would think Mr. Weasley made good money at his job but with a lot of kids, it may take all of it to pay for school.
shareI think it mostly has to do with Mr. Weasley really not caring about money at all or his standing in the ministry. He just wanted to do his thing and study muggles this of course made him an oddball and put him at the bottom rung of the ladder so that equaled crappy pay.
shareRegarding textbooks, I find it odd that they would have to buy the same books every year. Except for DADA, which had a different professor every year who would assign a different book every year, they could easily pass down the books that Charlie bought. With the requirement to buy a second set for the twins. I don't see that there would have been that much difference in the teaching of most classes in ten years.
As for replicating the textbooks, they may have a spell on them that would make it impossible. Otherwise, no textbook would need to be sold. You could just go to the bookstore, duplicate it, then leave without needing to pay for it.
Bob
I'm sure the younger Weasleys had as many hand-me-down textbooks as possible, but they didn't all study the same things and the way the DADA teacher changed every year meant a change of lesson plan, and in some cases, new required textbooks. It's not like Bill and Charley left a complete set of Guilderoy Lockhart's books to be handed down.
But really, no matter how you slice it, supporting seven kids and a stay-at-home spouse on one small income is going to mean going without some things.
“Seventy-seven courses and a regicide, never a wedding like it!
You would think but a friend of mine has her kids in a private school and she has to buy brand new books each year. Used books are not acceptable which I think is stupid. New releases are not even printed each year. I have no idea why this is rule.
shareThe latest stunt I hate has to do with the digital age. A lot of texts now have CD's included in them. Even if you buy a used text you have to enter the code to access the CD or it's worthless. And the students can't reuse last year's codes.
shareThis whole plot point is a political stunt by JK Rowling. The Weasleys are government workers (in the fictional Ministry of Magic). This parallels the real-life British public service. Public servants are some of the most overpaid, under-worked, and highly privileged people in society, but JK Rowling wants you to believe that they are barely getting by while at the same time those mean capitalists who own small businesses like the Malfoys are living a life of luxury. The latter also happen to be fascist terrorists who want to commit mass murder in the name of a radical and racist political ideology. It's completely divorced from reality. JK Rowling is a Marxist, so it's not really hard to see where this plot point comes from. All of the 'bad' people in the wizarding world are left-wing caricatures of conservatives.
shareI'm not sure that is correct. Don't forget, Lucius Malfoy also worked in the Dept. of Muggle Affairs with Mr. Weasley and the Malfoys are very wealthy.
Like real life, there are government workers (from any country) that are wealthy, either through family connections or good money management, and some are struggling.
J.K. Rowling always was a sellout. She's like a whore; she'll do anything for money and attention now, including write how much she hates rich people and capitalism, despite those very things making her rich herself!
shareAnd yet she made Harry rich from the age of 11. His parents left him so much money that he will never have to work if he doesn't want to, and he was able to pay for all of his own school supplies and everything he's ever needed. There's no consistency in her work. She uses the "rich people bad" plot point when it's convenient, but then she makes the good people rich too just to lazily come up with an explanation for why Harry can afford everything himself. If she was smart, she would have had Harry's orphan lifestyle continue into his new wizard life where he has to rely on the charity of others to get by, and that would include using second-hand books and wearing second-hand robes and etc.
shareDidn't she say his parents stored away money for him? Kinda like creating a college fund for your kid? Lots of working parents do that, though whether it pays off for their kid later is entirely dependent on the child. There's nothing elitist about that. You can also feel how much it meant to Harry that his parents thought of him, even in a future where they might never see him attend Hogwarts. He also was very generous with the money his parents left for him, helping out others. And keep in mind that when the Mirror of Erised showed his deepest, most desperate desires, it did not include money at all. All it showed were his parents.
I think she was also kinda painting him as being similar to a male Cinderella, having lived a life of poverty and abuse while growing up, and then graduating up to something better.
It's hard to believe that such young parents with a newborn would have had so much money saved. They were exorbitantly rich. Something doesn't add up about that.
shareActually, they are upper-middle-class, and part of it was Lily's inheritance from her family....I think. It's possible she had a parent or grandparent die and leave behind a nest egg, and she and James stored part of it away for Harry. I remember the house Voldemort broke into wasn't exactly a tiny apartment or hovel.
shareThe idea that anybody in the wizarding world has to "go without" is strange given the capabilities of magic depicted in the novels. When you can use a wand to mend clothes, fix houses, create subspace rooms that don't require a lot of "real" space, and gather and duplicate food, it seems like the majority of expenses would be a non-issue. Not to mention that the time saved doing a lot of those chores (cooking, cleaning, mending, fixing) could then be turned over into a second job.
Then again, we live in a world where obscene luxury is available to a small number of people while others starve, so I guess in a place where abundance rejoices (and where transportation is a breeze), we still have people living in abject poverty.
But, still, in Rowling's universe, people who are poor have access to magic and don't bother using it to make their lives better.
Really, I guess that they can't duplicate some things for whatever reason. You have to buy food, for example.
shareYes, they can't generate food (though I sorta believe the magically generated feasts were originally intended to be conjured food and was only later "retconned" to be the house elves). But food isn't the only expense. There are loads of magic spells which would make food a rare expense. They can still get clothing, shelter, transportation - basically free. Medical expenses? Zero.
Maybe they're relatively impoverished? Like compared to the Malfoys they have no money?
There are maybe laws against using magic for your advantage in some circumstances?
shareMaybe. But, if so, they're never explained, detailed, or even mentioned. They would have to be, too, because, "Don't use magic to make your life easier!" is a cruel and arbitrary rule in a world where magic doesn't really have consequences (like making compacts with demons or ripping holes in the universe, for instance). It seems like making that law would result in either a) every single citizen upending the Ministry in a Civil War/rebellion because arbitrary cruelty that hurts one's family tends to get one's bile up or b) the law being completely ignored with the same regularity that jaywalking and speed limits are ignored.
Either way, it would be a dumb addition to the universe, especially without explanation.
Well, it is only my theory. But it would make sense. After all, laws won’t always be fair and logical.
shareNo, but when the ministry makes other weird or unjust laws, they tend to be challenged in the books.
Okay, it's not ministry of magic, but when Umbridge takes over Hogwarts, she makes nonsensical and cruel laws, but there's a reaction from the students.
If the wizarding world has a, "You can't use magic to make your lives better because we want you to stay poor," law, I would expect the books to address it. Because they don't, any such rule would raise more questions in my head.
Example: during Voldemort's rise to power, I would expect the Death Eaters to be spreading propaganda amongst the lower-class wizards that, "The Ministry is keeping you poor! Join Voldemort! Overthrow the politicians!" They're lying and they'd subjugate the poor even moreso, but that's how the Bolsheviks did it. That was basically Trump's campaign (Drain the swamp). So the fact that it wasn't used is very telling.
Then again, I don't believe that the purpose behind such a law (if it really existed) would be a cruel way to keep poor wizards poor. But it would have been made to keep the shop keepers in the Diagon Alley in business, by making it illegal to duplicate and produce stuff yourself. (Of course, that would not stop some people, but Molly is clearly very meticulous about her family following the law, so that would be why the Weasleys buy new supplies every year). This is discussed in the sitcom "Sabrina the teenage witch", which also is about magic users. Sabrina wants to just produce an item for free with some magic, but her aunts tell her that she is not allowed to do that. She has to make money to buy stuff like her "mortal" friends.
shareI guess, for me, the bottom line is that the books don't say the law is there, so I assume it doesn't exist. There is no explanation.
I'm not saying Harry Potter is bad, but there's a lot of stuff in the books that doesn't make sense - this is one of them.
The Sabrina example, though...I'm not familiar with the show, but isn't that rule in place so Sabrina can exist in a non-magic world as a magic user? In Potterverse, they're in their own world, basically. It's parallel, but self-contained.
But it would have been made to keep the shop keepers in the Diagon Alley in business, by making it illegal to duplicate and produce stuff yourself.
Not that I was talking about food necessarily.
But if there would be a food shortage, the ministry could make it temporarily legal to duplicate food.
This has never made sense, especially because the Weasley kids are actually pretty talented as wizards (particularly the twins). Yet despite having spells that can alter your appearance, to the point of turning you into an animal, they couldn't alter the appearance of a bad outfit or tatty textbook? Also, how were they not well off? Neither Weasley parent is bad at magic, so there's a lot that could be done in the human world, let alone the wizarding one, that could earn them money.
share"Yet despite having spells that can alter your appearance, to the point of turning you into an animal, they couldn't alter the appearance of a bad outfit or tatty textbook? "
Oh I'm sure such spells existed, remember Ron tried to alter the appearance of his dress robes? So I'm sure such spells existed, but Ron didn't know them and neither did anyone else in his orbit. I mean, it's the sort of spell some mothers might know, but Ron's mother thought Weasley sweaters were cool.
As for money in general, the Weasleys had nine people living on one moderate income, that's going to mean economizing in any system where money is used. Of course with magic at their disposal they had all the necessities of life, a house where they all fit in and had a big yard to play quidditch in, three hearty delicious meals a day, nice warm sweaters for winter, best school in the country for all seven kids. They just had to do without all the little fineries that make kids feel cooler than their peers, which is why Ron was always grumbling, even though he had all the basics covered.
I get what you're saying, but it doesn't make sense in the world Rowling built. I get that she intended to paint the Weasleys to be that family - the one that couldn't afford luxuries and had holes in their socks, but were a big, warm loving bunch that Harry wanted to be part of. Thing is, it's not probable that they were actually like this.
As someone pointed out earlier, Arthur probably made a tonne of wizard gold as a government worker - he wasn't stupid to what wizard money could buy and he did in fact send his kids to Hogwarts, so he does care something for prestige and class.
Also, several of the Weasley children are grown, or become adults over the course of the books, with their own jobs and businesses - like I said, none of the Weasleys seem to be bad at magic, so they could easily have contributed to the overall family wealth. Percy works with the Minister for Magic, for crying out loud. And the remaining kids were also talented. Anyone would imagine that the twins' shop was a huge financial success, and they weren't even graduates of Hogwarts.
Also, the books and films repeatedly tell us that the brightest witch of the age is Hermione. But she couldn't help Ron summon up a simple spell like to change what clothes look like? And they knew Tonks, who could change her appearance, so they did eventually know of someone who could teach them things.
Again, I get what the Weasleys were supposed to be, but in the context of the world they were written in and with the powers they each possessed, it makes no sense for them to be like this.
Arthur Weasley was quite clearly staying in a low-level job at the Ministry that didn't pay much, and he wasn't interested in moving up the career ladder, so in muggle terms he'd be the equivalent of a low-level civil servant whose salary is nothing to write home about, but who stays at the job for the benefits, security, generous retirement, and the fact that the job interests him. So that would mean up to nine people are living on a middling salary, which isn't going to leave a lot of disposable income.
And yeah, by the time we heard about Bill and Charlie they were out of the house and earning their own livings, and we have no idea if they sent money home. Because we don't know if they had any disposable income early in the game, we don't know if Arthur and Molly would have accepted money from a child who wasn't rolling in the stuff (like Fred and George were later), and really, we don't know that they really needed all that much. Like I said, for all Ron's grumbling they had all the necessities of life covered very well, they just didn't have money to waste on luxuries and cool stuff.