History Headscratchers / WizardsOfWaverlyPlace

** Laritate explains it as "I fit the punishment to the person, not the crime." [[Manga/RaveMaster So basically, Hitler can steal a stapler and be put on death row, but if Greta Goody-Goody (the nicest and brownnose-iest person ever) murders everyone in her grade, she gets let off with a warning.]]

* Why hasn't anyone commented on the FridgeLogic of Max becoming a little girl? He's a teen boy in the throws of puberty and now he's a little girl. That's ''gotta'' be messing with his head a little. It seems like he still has his own mind, and so being in a girls body could lead to something....[[ADateWithRosiePalms weird]]. He's going to be one messed up kid when he becomes a boy again and grows up.

* In “Taxi Dance,” when talking about a gurney, Max says, “There were giving this away, and they took it.” Shouldn’t he have said, “They were giving this away and ''I'' took it.” ?

How does the family wizard competition work with half-siblings? If two wizards get married, and have three kids, then they get divorced, and the father and his new wife have a child, does that child compete against their half-siblings? What happens if the mother also has another child? Do they have to pick and choose? Also what happens if wizards have kids late in life after the Wizard Competition has finished? Do the kids just never experience powers at all?

*** I recognize that Crumb made a decision. But given that it's a '''''[[TooDumbToLive stupid-ass]]''''' decision, we should elect to call him out for it.

In the episode with Alex's T-shirts she says she doesn't have change and the guy she's talking to would have to buy two extra shirts. She also says that her shirts are ten dollars. So the guy would of needed to give her a thirty dollar bill, which I'm pretty sure doesn't exist.

* In the episode, 'Western Show' Alex takes Mr. Larritate back to the Old West, and a fight breaks out. After Mr. Larritate hits the last man standing in the fight over the head with a glass bottle. Alex stares, with her mouth open, which seems to me that she was appalled at Mr. Larritate doing this. Then, not 10 minutes after she does the same to him! Then she stands, looking quite pleased with herself, while her family stare at her with their mouths open. Max even hides behind Justin.
** They were shocked that Larritate actually beat Clanton, in general. Not just because he finished him with a beer bottle.
*** I thought that too, but, on rewatching she is definitely shocked about the bottle. They say 'Larritate actually won!' and then Justin asks, 'Is it over?' or something. Only after he hit him with the bottle, however did they actually look shocked.
** She wasn't really "appalled" that it happened (I mean, she just told Justin to throw a guy out the window). I figured that she was just surprised that ''Mr. Larritate'' of all people would do something like that. Not because of what he did.

* When Alex talks to the posters in "Detention Election", the posters refuse to tell her who put them up in Mr. Larritate's office because, and I quote, "she promised to vote for me." This means that whoever put the posters up communicated with them while they were doing so, which only a wizard could have done. Even for Alex, that shouldn't have been tough to figure out.

[[WMG:Mr. Larritate firing Alex as his deputy in "Don't Rain on Justin's Parade--Earth"]]
* How does it make any sense for Mr. Larritate to fire Alex at the end? Wouldn't it be better, for him, the school, and even for her moral education, to have her continue to help him catch other vandals and pranksters at the school, even if she also misbehaves herself? If he needs to punish her for giving Harper the faculty restroom key, or for other bad deeds she might (okay, definitely will) commit in the future, couldn't he punish her in some other way? [[UsefulNotes/LyndonJohnson Isn't it better to have her inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in?]]
** Larritate explains it as "I fit the punishment to the person, not the crime." [[Manga/RaveMaster So basically, Hitler can steal a stapler and be put on death row, but if Greta Goody-Goody (the nicest and brownnose-iest person ever) murders everyone in her grade, she gets let off with a warning.]]

* Are you talking about Larritate? Because I think there's a heading (and possibly part of the headscratcher itself) missing. If so, he doesn't "pretty much give a hug to any other student doing anything else". He would leniently punish Harper and give her a hug to make her feel better because she's actually a good person and it was an emergency or she didn't mean it or honestly just didn't know better. He would half-heartedly punish Sal because there wouldn't be much of an effect. Alex (and probably a few other students, but ''especially'' the clever, deviant, redeemable Alex) are simply in the Goldilocks zone of high punishment, between "doesn't deserve much punishment" and "punishment is a waste of time". It's an awful, awful thing for him to do, and would get him fired in any school system with a decent supervisor, but there's not really anything inconsistent about it.

* Yes? If he's not being hyperbolic, it could be justinfied by the fact that exposing wizards to the world would lead to a lot of wizards being vivisected and/or dissected as well as quite plausibly leading up to a war between the wizard world and the mundane world. Similarly, and for similar reasons, treason and high treason have been (and in some places, still are) considered worse than murdering someone of the same caste.

** Sadly Stevie had to go through her wizard competition a little too early and she lost. Being on the outs with her family and brother already, she ran away to start a new life for herself a revolution to end the wizard competition so she and every kid will be able to keep their powers, and relationships with their siblings. Only to die because of Max. Although it’s said she came back to life, has two cats, and that her relationship with her brother is improving but nothing can be confirmed. (TJ being an only child so he keeps his powers be default).

*** Proposed solution: Justin's mind is falling apart[[note]]which is why he fares so badly[[/note]] during the battle (because of being erased from history), while Alex has a little more time due to being at the center of the temporal disturbance. The Magic Ball goes to her because it is ''trying to help.'' She still has a working mind,and is therefore better positioned to reverse the spell that wrecked up time.

*** Are we watching the same show? Alex ALWAYS screws up for not thinking ahead on her usage of magic, and Justin ALWAYS has to rescue her somehow (and half the time, Alex manages to screw him up while he's rescuing her). And yes, I'm aware that there are exceptions to that, and that Alex had rescued him on occasions. Justin's frustation is that Alex always gets what she wants and how she wants it, without any consequence, while he CantGetAwayWithNuthin.

** I saw that episode recently and it bothered me too. Stevie's brother was clearly an incompetent wizard so Stevie's anger is partially justified. In addition, wouldn't it be worth discussing the merits of her plan? She wasn't trying to actively hurt anyone, she just wanted to remove the unfair limitation of only one child being the designated wizard (not that she should have succeeded but perhaps she was on to something). And of course, her death and the reactions that followed. She was shattered into a million pieces and Alex just kinda goes "Ok who wants to go to the fair?". I suppose her brother or someone could put her back together, but what if that isn't possible? Alex just murdered someone in cold blood.

Older children have an advantage over younger kids, because they get more years of practice with their powers. This is even more apparent in families with larger age gaps, imagine the Duncan family in Good Luck Charlie were wizards, PJ is about 16 years older than Charlie that hardly seems like a fair contest (ignoring his incompetence). The competition also places an unfair strain burden on siblings by making them compete. If their is a limited amount of magic that can be present, it would be fairer to have either all wizards of a certain age have to compete, creating a more level playing field, eliminating family rivalries and decreasing the chance of bad wizards getting powers simply because their siblings were worse. Or just having an individual test each wizard must pass. Also, challenging laws that we believe to be unfair are the funding principles of not only America but of a lot of other countries as well, without rebellions, many countries would not have independence, women and other minorities would not have equal rights,and hundreds of unfair laws would not have been repealed. Stevie wasn't evil, she was a revolutionary (even if she was doing it for selfish reasons), if I was a wizard I would have joined her whether I was behind in my family competition or not.

* In the episode, 'Western Show' Alex takes Mr. Laritate back to the Old West, and a fight breaks out. After Mr. Laritate hits the last man standing in the fight over the head with a glass bottle. Alex stares, with her mouth open, which seems to me that she was appalled at Mr. Laritate doing this. Then, not 10 minutes after she does the same to him! Then she stands, looking quite pleased with herself, while her family stare at her with their mouths open. Max even hides behind Justin.
** They were shocked that Laritate actually beat Clanton, in general. Not just because he finished him with a beer bottle.
*** I thought that too, but, on rewatching she is definitely shocked about the bottle. They say 'Laritate actually won!' and then Justin asks, 'Is it over?' or something. Only after he hit him with the bottle, however did they actually look shocked.
** She wasn't really "appalled" that it happened (I mean, she just told Justin to throw a guy out the window). I figured that she was just surprised that ''Mr. Laritate'' of all people would do something like that. Not because of what he did.

* When Alex talks to the posters in "Detention Election", the posters refuse to tell her who put them up in Mr. Laritate's office because, and I quote, "she promised to vote for me." This means that whoever put the posters up communicated with them while they were doing so, which only a wizard could have done. Even for Alex, that shouldn't have been tough to figure out.

[[WMG:Mr. Laritate firing Alex as his deputy in "Don't Rain on Justin's Parade--Earth"]]
* How does it make any sense for Mr. Laritate to fire Alex at the end? Wouldn't it be better, for him, the school, and even for her moral education, to have her continue to help him catch other vandals and pranksters at the school, even if she also misbehaves herself? If he needs to punish her for giving Harper the faculty restroom key, or for other bad deeds she might (okay, definitely will) commit in the future, couldn't he punish her in some other way? [[UsefulNotes/LyndonJohnson Isn't it better to have her inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in?]]
** Laritate explains it as "I fit the punishment to the person, not the crime." [[Manga/RaveMaster So basically, Hitler can steal a stapler and be put on death row, but if Greta Goody-Goody (the nicest and brownnose-iest person ever) murders everyone in her grade, she gets let off with a warning.]]

Why do the wizard powers keep changing? In the report card episode Alex gets them sucked out of her and they look like a ball of technicolor light (if I remember correctly ). In the episode with them retaking the test, the powers are in a control panel and are three glowing cylinders. In the episode with Stevie, we don't see them but they're tranfered with a machine that isn't needed to take them in the other episodes. In the movie it's a ball of light that looks like the sun and it's transferred by touching it. Also that the competition seems to move from a test, a battle, and something involving levels. Can we get a little consistency?

In the movie the bird girl (Gazelle or something) refuses to give the stone of dreams to the mom. Why? She already had her wish, the mom wasn't going to wish anything against her, and the kids didn't know she did anything illegal (was what she did ever mentioned?). Even if they did know, after the experiance they had just went through I doubt they'd care/remember.

** I don't think its that much of a hand wave considering A: She actually states Gorog brought her back, B: By this point he's already turned Justin into an angel, stripped Mason of his werewolf powers, and offered to give them back enhanced, in exchange for servitude, restoring a vampire's powers hardly seems impossible for him to acomplish C: considering his highly intelligent and manipulative personality, is making certain he had an ace in hole to deal with one of the greatest threats to his plans that out of character? D: Considering all he's been able to do so far, is it really that unreasonable he would be able to track down one single powerless vampire? Basically it all makes sense, you just have to pay attention to his character a little closer.

In the movie, Jerry got back the powers he gave up to be with Theresa, but does that mean Kelbo lost those same powers? What if he was being Shakria? Did he randomly turn back into Kelbo during a contest? Or did Shakira never exist at all? Did all of the magic he ever did after his generation's Wizard Competition just undo itself? And, for that matter, what about all the stuff Justin, Alex and Max fixed/screwed up during their lifetimes? Did that stuff not happen? Is T.J Taylor still controlling his parents with kugel? Does Future Harper's book series not exist? And why were both Theresa and Jerry at the same resort at the same time if they never met?
* Presumably, during the events of the movie, history was rearranging itself by first eliminating the most outstanding elements of the changing, that is, the russo kids. If it had succeded in doing that, everything would have runned as if Teresa and Jerry wouldn't have meet, so no Shakira, no Russo kids, and Jerry and Teresa would have been elsewhere. Since Alex repaired history, nothing changed and everything is as it was.

** Sadly Stevie had to go through her wizard competition a little too early and she lost. Being on the outs with her family and brother already, she ran away to start a new life for herself a revolution to end the wizard competition so she and every kid will be able to keep their powers, and relationships with their siblings. Only to die because of Max. Although it’s said she came back to life, has two cats, and that her relationship with her brother is improving but nothing can be confirmed.
** TJ being an only child keeps his powers be default.
*** Alex and Justin kick it into overdrive to win the title of family wizard so they can stay in their relationships and only reason both Alex and Justin get a happy ending once Alex is considered the family wizard is that an elderly wizard decides to retire and give Justin his powers.

* Going off the of the above WMG neither Jerry’s siblings seem to have kids, T.J. is an only child and Stevie only has one brother. What if the wizard competition is a more recent rule made in the mid to late 80s, to keep the population in check, but everyone thought it was temporary and didn’t learn the truth until 2000.
** Jerry won the competition but feel in love with Theresa so he had to give up his powers to marry her, he gave them to his brother. (Loosing his sister) Jerry and Theresa started a restaurant cover up to justify living arrangements and partied and had until they decided to have kids. They learned that the competition was still a thing when they got their wizard internet extension but Justin and Alex were already born and (future murder) Max was on the way. So they decided raise their kids the best they could, hoping for the best.
** The competition didn’t work out for Stevie because she had to have her wizard competition too early and she lost, and being on the outs with her family and brother already, she ran away to start a revolution for every kid to be able to keep their powers, only to die because of Max. (Word on the street is that she came back to life, but keeps a low profile however nothing is confirmed.)

[[WMG: Wizard competition reason part two]]
** Neither of Jerry’s siblings seem to have kids, T.J. is an only child and Stevie only has one brother. More likely the wizard competition is a recent rule made in the late 80s to keep the population in check.
** Jerry won the competition but feel in love with Theresa but had to give up his powers to be with her giving them to his brother. He like most wizards in his generation thought it would be temporary rule so they had as many kids as they wanted. Sadly the rule continues and by the time Jerry and Theresa found out because they already had Justin and Alex and Max was on the way, they decided to raise their kids as best as they could. (Setting up the wizard internet to keep in touch with your wizard friends was hard in the 90s)
** The competition didn’t work out for Stevie because she had to have her wizard competition too early and she lost, and being on the outs with her family and brother already, she ran away to start a revolution for every kid to be able to keep their powers, only to die because of Max. TJ being an only child keeps his powers be default. The only reason both Alex and Justin get a happy ending once Alex is considered the family wizard is that an elderly wizard decides to retire and give Justin his powers.

*** Neither of Jerry’s siblings seem to have kids, T.J. is an only child and Stevie only has one brother not to mention we don’t know about families who live in the wizards world. More likely the wizard competition was a more recent rule made in the late 80s to keep the population in check. Jerry won the competition but feel in love with Theresa but had to give up his powers to be with her (his sister also cut off all ties with him). Jerry and other wizards likely thought the competition rule wouldn’t last very long because the rule broke up so many families, so the wizards of his generation had the amount of kids they wanted and went on with their lives. Sadly by the time Alex and Justin were born and Max was on the way Jerry and Theresa found out the rule was in affect and families all over tried to raise their kids best they could.
** It didn’t work out for Stevie because she had to have her wizard competition early and she lost, and being on the outs with her family and brother already, she ran away to start a revolution only to die because of Max. Alex and Justin both have to become the wizard in their family to stay in their relationships and only reason both Alex and Justin get happy ending in the end, is that one elder wizard decided to retire from his job and offered it to Justin (which would give him wizard powers). Meanwhile T.J. being an only child never went through the competition at all.

** Neither of Jerry’s siblings seem to have kids, T.J. is an only child and Stevie only has one brother not to mention we don’t know about families who live in the wizards world. Odds are every wizard marrying another wizard and having more than one kid was a tradition to bring the wizard population up and every wizard who didn’t want to follow that rule because they did want kids or because they fell in love with a mortal they lost their powers and were completely cast off from their community. But eventually the rule was not being enforced because it was too much even for them. Also eventually the wizard world had the opposite problem of their being too many wizards. So around the time Jerry’s parents generation was nearing adulthood the the wizard competition was implemented. Wizards were no longer cut off from everything they knew if they didn’t want kids or didn’t want to marry another wizard and have kids. However there are cracks if wizards wanted to have more than one kid (in either world) those kids would be be subjected to going through the wizard competition, no matter what. If you wanted to marry a mortal you’d have to give up your powers. If you even wanted to be with a vampire or werewolf you would need to keep your powers in order to stay with them. Jerry wanted to marry Theresa but had to give up his powers and his side of the family broke up. The only reason both Alex and Justin get happy endings with their love interests is that one wizard decided to retire from his job and offered Justin his old powers.

** This quote from the beginning will get me to my own. Humans doesn't know nothing about wizards, but wizards know everything about humans. The percentage of corruption on wizard authorities seems a kind of lower than human ones, and they know their own weakness. So why they let the humans control the world instead of taking over and [[IronicEcho "revealing humanhood"]] being wrong?

In one episode (the one where the Russos went to court for exposing magic), Theresa mentions that she saved Jerry a corn dog to shut him up at church. Does this mean that the Russos are religious? This is strange, since many religions forbid witchcraft. Unless they're part of some pagan religion.

* Maybe they were accidents.

* BadWriting? Retcon? Every time we are show the competition is a different way. Either each family gets a different competition or the competition itself is random every time is used, so the families can't cheat.

* In Crazy Ten Minute Sale,Alex says to Harper to not say Gigi's name and Harper says "You Just said her name though" and Alex says we will say Gigi's name backwards and Harper says "Gigi spelt backwards is Gigi" and Alex says "well we will only know then" But Gigi spelt back wards is IgIg so actually it is not them saying it backwards but if they were people would notice and say something, wouldn't they?

* In Crazy Ten Minute Sale,Alex says to Harper to not say GiGi's name and Harper says "You Just said her name though" and Alex says we will say GiGi's name backwards and Harper says "GiGi spelt backwards is GiGi" and Alex says "well we will only know then" But GiGi spelt back wards is IgIg so actually it is not them saying it backwards but if they were people would notice and say something, wouldn't they?

** Look at the Wizards we have seen so far. CloudCuckooLanders, evil people, jerkasses or self absorbed people. About Jerry, notice Movie!Jerry acts pretty immature, very unlike normal Jerry.

I have been a watcher for nine years and just realized do the wizards who have no siblings still keep their powers? Wizards such as TJ and Hugh Normous seem to keep their powers because they have no one to compete in their family wizard competition. It was never explained in the show.