@eastbrad Naturellement, I think this is wrong! Re: wizards, they chose hiddenness because they were being persecuted, and persecuted by whom? Well, in our world's England -- and we're told that Harry Potter takes place in our world -- the persecution of witches went hand in hand with the persecution of Catholics. (Spells and the Mass were both magical rites, demonically inspired.) The old wizard families like the Blacks and Malfoys are therefore analogous to the old Catholic families of England who held to the old faith in secrecy. Re: the Jedi, they are analogous not to anything medieval but rather to Cato and the other Republicans who deplored the rise of the Caesars and tried for as long as they could to keep the flame of Republicanism alive. Both wizards and Jedi are adherents of ancient and widely discredited ways; each group sees itself as a kind of saving remnant.