Video Game Violence is Not Violence

In the 1960s, as Bandura conducted his media effects research, the British folklorists lona and Peter Opie spent years observing and studying children's outdoor play. They watched children play games—many of them made up—with names like Underground Tig and Witches in the Gluepots and concluded, "A true game is one that frees the spirit. It allows no cares but those fictitious ones engendered by the game itself." When children commit to the games, they opt out of the ordinary world and "th...

 Rational Potter Plots to Take Over the Magical World

Professor McGonagall undoubtedly knew every last detail of how you went about turning into a cat. But she seemed to have literally never heard of the scientific method. To her it was just Muggle magic. And she didn't even seem curious about what secrets might be hiding behind the natural language understanding of the Retrieval Charm. That left two possibilities, really. Possibility one: Magic was so incredibly opaque, convoluted, and impenetrable, that even though wizards and witches had ...

 The Church is the Antithesis of Nature

Ruta Skadi stood. Her white arms gleamed in the firelight; her eyes glittered so brightly that even the farthest witch could see the play of expression on her vivid face. “Sisters,” she began, “let me tell you what is happening, and who it is that we must fight. For there is a war coming. I don’t know who will join with us, but I know whom we must fight. It is the Magisterium, the Church. For all its history- and that’s not long by our lives, but it’s many, many of theirsit’s t...

 Witches Own Nothing

“Well, that seems kinda precipitate. Seems to me a man should have a choice whether to take up arms or not.” “We have no more choice in that than in whether or not to be born.” “Oh, I like choice, though,” he said. “I like choosing the jobs I take and the places I go and the food I eat and the companions I sit and yarn with. Don’t you wish for a choice once in a while ?” Serafina Pekkala considered, and then said, “Perhaps we don’t mean the same thing by choice, Mr. S...

 Torture Methods Used on Those Accused of Witchcraft

One might glance at some of the special tortures at Bamberg, for example, such as the forcible feeding of the accused on herrings cooked in salt, followed by denial of water - a sophisticated method which went side by side with immersion of the accused in baths of scalding water to which lime had been added. Other ways with witches included the wooden horse, various kinds of racks, the heated iron chair, leg vises [Spanish boots], and large boots of leather or metal into which (with the feet ...

 The Judges Become the Judged

36. When, under stress of pain, the witch has confessed, her plight is indescribable. Not only cannot she escape herself, but she is also compelled to accuse others whom she does not know, whose names are frequently put into her mouth by the investigators or suggested by the executioner, or of whom she has heard as suspected or accused. These in turn are forced to accuse others, and these still others, so it goes on: who can help seeing that it must go on and on? 37. The judges must either s...