Ask Lemmy

Life's change and people move on. But people who completely vanish, come back on holidays, can't say shit (as if they wouldn't, they definitely do as we know from the characters) so spread the secret.

And this happens for hundreds of people. Every year. For centuries.

And one assumes those kids never return to muggle jobs either. No heir to an industrial fortune who suddenly is born a wizard and vanishes? Security can't follow them to school. Even if they come to obliviate the private security, since the head of the muggle department at the ministry doesn't understand what a light bulb is, they're not going to understand what surveillance cameras are.

So yeah. It just wouldn't work unless you make that assumption. Suspense of disbelief, sure, but that is the bit that makes zero sense and os covered with utter bullshit logic that doesn't remotely work.

In Fantastic Beasts Newt obliviates all of New York City with the Thunderbird.

"Looney bin"

Sounds like you're really read up on current terminology.

We're not talking one single person. We're talking all the muggle-borns or half wizards. There's dozens every year. And all them magically vanish, never to be seen or heard or when they are, they have no excuse for where they have been. And if someone asks too many questions, suddenly they act like they've had a stroke and can't remember things. But proper journalists have backups.

Do you think none of the muggle-borns would want to show off to their former non-wizard friends, even with "don't tell anyone"?

You don't think there's a single wizard desperate enough to utilise magic to make real world money and that they'd never caught?

NY obliviating? That's some extra convenient writing considering how obliviating works in the books. (read = shit writing) They even almost hang a lantern on it for that reason, out loud questioning will it even work and them saying "~~ofc it's a deus ex machina~~ we'll hope for the best"

That movie highlights the kind of shenanigans one slightly awkward but extremely moral and "want to hide the magic" wizard can get into. Even if we imagine the tiny group of people the Ministry has could be able to address some, the head of the Muggle things in the ministry doesn't know what a lightbulb is. How would they ever understand the nuances of video-surveillance?

Maths study shows conspiracies 'prone to unravelling'

A few thousand people can't sustain a conspiracy. There's 100 000 wizards in the Quidditch finals.

This is genuinely the most glaring and moronic flaw in the whole series and you just got to accept it. Despite there being hundreds or thousands of people like Petunia who were jealous as fuck and know about the existence of magic for sure and just don't do anything about it. OK. Like if you had a brother who had been invited to Hogwarts, you'd just not even talk or think about magic, ever.

Petunia is even shown to cry to Dumbledore themselves that they want to go as well. Because it's the natural reaction. All the characters act naturally but the story world couldn't exist it that behaviour was assumed from other people as well. (Which isn't hard to understand nowadays vis-a-vis who the author is; "rules for thee but no rules for me")