Question Housing a Jinx

How would Whateley deal with a powerful Odds Mangler with a serious propensity for bad luck? Serious enough that walking to class is hazardous to their health, and the health of those around them? Normally, cases like that would go to Hawthorne, but Hawthorne is probably the second to last place that you want bad luck to be floating around. (The last place, of course, would be Jobe's dorm).

Can Probability Warping be suppressed by magic?

IF they allowed the student on campus which I think is doubtful...

I'm thinking a building off to the side like they housed Eldritch in initially... with some extremely heavy warding. They would most likely not be allowed out and be on pretty much a house-arrest for their own safety. Attending classes by teleconference. Which is why I say it would be doubtful since these same things could be done anywhere.

I don't think that's how odds manglers work in the WU. My understanding is that they have "good luck" and "bad luck" streaks that on the whole balance out.

More technically, "good luck" and "bad luck" are subjective concepts; the same unlikely event may be "good luck" for someone or "bad luck" to someone else, or even be *interpreted* by a particular actor as being of one sort at first and later, in hindsight, be reinterpreted as the other sort.

Which means that you pretty much can't cause "bad luck" for everybody around you, and NOT to you -- anything that is objectively bad to everybody will be objectively bad to you too. So, a true jinx (someone who causes bad luck to everybody around them) would become a victim of their own power. If they are high-level enough to be a real problem (instead of just an annoyance), they would probably die way before contacting Whateley.

[quote="Sir Lee" post=15483More technically, "good luck" and "bad luck" are subjective concepts; the same unlikely event may be "good luck" for someone or "bad luck" to someone else, or even be *interpreted* by a particular actor as being of one sort at first and later, in hindsight, be reinterpreted as the other sort..[/quote]

Heck, even "unlikely" is a fairly subjective concept. No outcome is less likely than any other. It's only because we group many outcomes together as a single outcome that they appear more likely than other events.

On a less philosophical note, first regardless of the other considerations, they'd test that 'Jinx' in conjunction with the other Manglers on campus. You see while Manglers 'interfere' with each other, sometimes they constructively (on a Physics level) interfere, while in others they 'destructively' interfere (again, Physics). We see the 'constructive' interference at work in Insanity Perquisite, where the various Manglers on the dance floor completely banjaxed the odds of the situation. Conversely, Kismet and Murphy, who're both in Whitman Cottage, 'destructively' interfere with each other, sending the incidence of unnatural random occurrences down- well, at least down to the level that passes for 'normal' at Whateley.

If at all possible, if a pair of Manglers are found to be 'destructive', every effort is made to make them roommates, or at the very least, to place them in rooms as close as possible. While Murphy is still in a room with Grabby, Kismet has been moved so that she's right next door. As this moves Kiz down a floor, she is NOT happy about it. Mind you, Kizmet's old roomie maintains a studied silence on the subject.

Sadly, a destructive Mangler roommate pairing is suspiciously hard to achieve, but the Administration keeps trying...

Well, the plan is to have Jinx attend school in the fall.

I find it humorous that a "constructive" pairing is more destructive than a "destructive" pairing. Which is true for soundwaves as well, now that I think of it, but it's still funny.