I should mention that this post and the one I posted previously, are in response to the Snapedom June Challenge, "Severus and the Muggle World." It's only one, specific facet of Severus' relationship to the Muggle world, but obviously it's an important one to address! I really appreciate the discussion my first post has generated, even where I disagree with what people have said. Simply having the discussion at all is a good thing.
Because so many people have touched upon many of the same points in their comments, I decided to compose a single post addressing some of the most common concerns and observations. As time permits (I'm not online at home, except to read text-only via cell phone) I will reply to individual comments on other points that were raised.
Also see:![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
ether_bunny's post and cardigrl's post which further explore prejudice in the wizarding world.
"Prejudice against Muggles and Muggleborns," "On using the term 'racism,'" and "Ethical considerations in the scene in Snape's Worst Memory" are discussed behind the cut:
Prejudice against Muggles and Muggleborns
The prejudice against Muggle-born witches and wizards is rooted in prejudice against Muggles, and both come under persecution by Voldemort and his followers, so I don't think it's accurate to say it's specifically "anti-Muggleborn" prejudice. Voldemort and Company target Muggles as well as Muggleborns; they hate anything that isn't one hundred percent wizard.
This of course, begs the question of how the hell half-bloods fit into this whole scheme. One would think they would be considered "impure" by virtue of having Muggle blood, and so equally targeted for elimination, yet that is not the case.
It appears the half-bloods get to choose sides: As long as they can claim one wizarding parent, and as long as they align themselves with the wizarding parent and reject allegiance to the non-wizarding parent, they have "purified" themselves in the eyes of Voldemort and the blood-purity crowd. Sort of a twisted version of confession and absolution, as it were: Repent of your Muggle ancestry, and you shall be pure as the driven snow. It requires having a wizarding ancestry that remains after the non-wizarding ancestry has been thus purged--which might actually explain why the "purification" of those with no wizarding ancestry (and it only seems to go back one generation, this analysis) means eliminating them, because they have no wizarding ancestry to survive said "purification."
(As a side note, is anyone else disturbed by the fact that a series that supposedly is all about the message that Blood Lineage Is Not What Really Matters In A Person ends by proclaiming Harry the Last Living Descendant of the Peverells and thus the Rightful Heir to the Hallows? What WAS the point of that whole side plot, anyway--other than to give Harry a super-powerful invisibility cloak, a super-powerful wand allegiance by which to defeat Voldy, and a super-powerful stone that could bring back his parents and their friends in time to escort him on his Death March?)
On using the term "racism"
What I'm raising for debate is how we use and apply the term "racism" in discussion about the wizarding world and its prejudices, not whether any parallels can be drawn between anti-Muggleborn prejudice and real-world racial prejudice. Of course parallels can be drawn, and yes, it's clear that anti-Muggleborn prejudice was meant to be a metaphor for real-world racial prejudice. But that does not mean that anti-Muggleborn prejudice and our real-world experiences of racial prejudice are one and the same thing. They have different historical roots, different cultural contexts, different rationales and assumptions and ideologies underlying them. They are analogous, not identical.
Someone remarked that substituting "prejudice" for "racism" seemed to be "too tame" to apply to anti-Muggleborn prejudice. That was exactly my point: to suggest we use a less volatile, more "tame" term that doesn't automatically elicit strong personal associations when discussing, for example, the rights and wrongs of the Snape's Worst Memory scene.
What happens, otherwise, is that we begin conflating our own cultural and personal experiences of racism (e.g., black and white in America), and beliefs about racism and the moral weight that should be given to it in conflicting interests--all of which are rooted in a huge tangle of historical and ideological associations--with the wizarding world's prejudices against Muggles and Muggleborns. And pretty soon, we are talking about our own situations, not what's happening in the books. Analogies and interpretive filters are not necessarily bad, but we do need to consciously recognize them for what they are, employ them intentionally, and keep aware of the boundaries between the filters and that which we are filtering through them.
This is NOT to say that racism, itself, should be "tamed" or minimized in importance; on the other hand, neither should other forms of prejudice be "tamed" or minimized in importance. While we do need to see the parallels in terms of specific real-world experiences of racism, we also need to be able to back away from those specifics--and all the strong and volatile emotions through which we filter any discussion based on them--and view the broader picture of prejudice in this scene and in the books.
Prejudice is bad. ALL forms of prejudice are bad. I do not believe in making a "pissing contest" between various groups targeted for oppression. In applying only the narrow term "racism" in discussion of anti-Muggleborn prejudice, we risk focusing on one rationale for prejudice and thus failing to see the broader problem of prejudice in ALL of its manifestations, whether based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and/or the social construction of any of the above.
This, I submit, is the major flaw underlying JKR's moral universe: In writing a parable about racism, she turned a blind eye to sexism, classism, appearance-ism (I know there's a word for it, somewhere), and so forth. If the books were meant to be a celebration of diversity, they failed on several important counts.
Ethical considerations in the scene in Snape's Worst Memory
Was Lily wrong? Was Severus wrong?
Both of them were wrong.
Lily felt threatened by Severus' allegiances, but Severus also felt threatened by Lily's allegiances. We are so used to seeing Gryffindor and the Order through the filter of Being The Good Side that we need to remind ourselves that they were not always good, especially if one happened to be a Slytherin.
Severus was being ABUSED. TORTURED, for crying out loud. Severus broke. And Severus later tried to make amends, only to be kicked while he was down. It is just amazing to me that so many people cannot or will not see that this matters in the moral calculus. And it is a perfect example of why we need to stop viewing this scene solely through the filter of "racism" and all the connotations and baggage that holds for each of us: The prejudice against Severus, based on class, appearance, House affiliation, and so on, exhibited in this scene is just as morally and ethically objectionable as the prejudice against Lily based on her circumstances of birth.
I refuse to blame the young man for breaking under torture.
No, it doesn't make it right to use the term "Mudblood," and it doesn't make it right to aspire to a career among the people who practice violent, genocidal bigotry against the Muggle-born. But neither is it "right," strictly speaking, when a real-life victim of torture says or does something unethical. We don't--or at least I should HOPE we don't--say, oh, you horrible bastard, how could you say or do such a horrible thing? We DO take into consideration the context, the extenuating circumstances, and the fact that every human being has a breaking point.
Both were wrong. Both were wronged.
One thing we need to be clear about, and this is a point that only recently has struck me: Severus referred to Lily as a "Mudblood," but he did not, as is commonly interpreted, address the insult to her. He spoke the word about Lily, but it was James he was addressing.
Consider the implications of that. He did not intend, even under the breaking-point of torture, to hurt Lily herself--though it's easy for us, standing outside of the situation, to see that obviously it would and did hurt her. He was lashing out at James, trying to offend James, and trying to reassert his "manhood," as it were, in retort to a humiliating taunt that he (especially given his presumably sex-traditional working-class background) would perceive as undermining it.
What we are seeing, in the breakdown of the friendship between Lily and Severus, is a typical real-world dynamic of setting members of differing oppressed groups against each other--especially when they threaten the existing order by starting to form allegiances across group lines.
If Severus was so godawful, why would Lily have remained friends with Severus for so long, till the end of fifth year? Surely his friendships with people harboring anti-Muggleborn prejudice were known to her long before fifth year. Perhaps she saw and empathized with the fact that he was targeted for bullying because of his "oddballness" in terms of appearance, economics, social presentation, and House affiliation, and so she (like Severus) filtered out the things about him she did not want to see, such as where his questionable friendships would lead him, until she could no longer deny seeing them.
And why would Severus have remained friends with Lily if he were so thoroughgoingly steeped in anti-Muggle prejudice? Partly, no doubt, because of the place she held in his heart as his first friend, but perhaps also because at some subconscious level he was questioning the very blood prejudice his mother had instilled in him and his housemates expected him to pay allegiance to. The very fact that he apologized showed that he had not fully internalized the belief that Muggleborns were "Mudbloods." He had used the word as a weapon against his enemy, and ended up injuring his friend, who could not or would not believe that he did not really mean it.
In an ideal world, this conflict between Severus and Lily could have been a crisis that opened the way to real moral growth for both of them, bringing out into the open the question of whether Severus really believed that Muggleborns were worse than purebloods; if he thought he did believe that, then why did he still care so much about Lily? It could have been the opportunity for Severus to bring up the practical realities of what Lily apparently expected of him: If he were to spurn his friendships in Slytherin, to whom could he turn? Where would he find support? Would he be putting himself in danger by taking a stand against his housemates and against the organization to which they aspired?
The wizarding world, however, was not an ideal world. People on both sides of the divide would have objections to such a friendship. In Snape's Worst Memory, we see James take advantage of that social tension (consciously or subconsciously) to play Lily and Severus against each other.
If we want to apply real-world concepts of prejudice to the wizarding world, then let us see this scenario (and the five-year history leading up to it) for what it really is: divide and conquer. One reason oppression continues in the real world is because the various oppressed groups are set against each other. To see Lily alone as right and Severus alone as wrong is to miss the bigger picture of multiple bigotries that interweave and permeate the social and relational dynamics at Hogwarts and in the larger wizarding world--and in our own. Racism, sexism, classism, status-ism, affluence-ism, beauty-ism: It's all connected. None is better, or worse, than another. None should be set against another. Tug at one string in the web of life, and everything begins to unravel.
Because so many people have touched upon many of the same points in their comments, I decided to compose a single post addressing some of the most common concerns and observations. As time permits (I'm not online at home, except to read text-only via cell phone) I will reply to individual comments on other points that were raised.
Also see:
ether_bunny's post and cardigrl's post which further explore prejudice in the wizarding world."Prejudice against Muggles and Muggleborns," "On using the term 'racism,'" and "Ethical considerations in the scene in Snape's Worst Memory" are discussed behind the cut:
Prejudice against Muggles and Muggleborns
The prejudice against Muggle-born witches and wizards is rooted in prejudice against Muggles, and both come under persecution by Voldemort and his followers, so I don't think it's accurate to say it's specifically "anti-Muggleborn" prejudice. Voldemort and Company target Muggles as well as Muggleborns; they hate anything that isn't one hundred percent wizard.
This of course, begs the question of how the hell half-bloods fit into this whole scheme. One would think they would be considered "impure" by virtue of having Muggle blood, and so equally targeted for elimination, yet that is not the case.
It appears the half-bloods get to choose sides: As long as they can claim one wizarding parent, and as long as they align themselves with the wizarding parent and reject allegiance to the non-wizarding parent, they have "purified" themselves in the eyes of Voldemort and the blood-purity crowd. Sort of a twisted version of confession and absolution, as it were: Repent of your Muggle ancestry, and you shall be pure as the driven snow. It requires having a wizarding ancestry that remains after the non-wizarding ancestry has been thus purged--which might actually explain why the "purification" of those with no wizarding ancestry (and it only seems to go back one generation, this analysis) means eliminating them, because they have no wizarding ancestry to survive said "purification."
(As a side note, is anyone else disturbed by the fact that a series that supposedly is all about the message that Blood Lineage Is Not What Really Matters In A Person ends by proclaiming Harry the Last Living Descendant of the Peverells and thus the Rightful Heir to the Hallows? What WAS the point of that whole side plot, anyway--other than to give Harry a super-powerful invisibility cloak, a super-powerful wand allegiance by which to defeat Voldy, and a super-powerful stone that could bring back his parents and their friends in time to escort him on his Death March?)
On using the term "racism"
What I'm raising for debate is how we use and apply the term "racism" in discussion about the wizarding world and its prejudices, not whether any parallels can be drawn between anti-Muggleborn prejudice and real-world racial prejudice. Of course parallels can be drawn, and yes, it's clear that anti-Muggleborn prejudice was meant to be a metaphor for real-world racial prejudice. But that does not mean that anti-Muggleborn prejudice and our real-world experiences of racial prejudice are one and the same thing. They have different historical roots, different cultural contexts, different rationales and assumptions and ideologies underlying them. They are analogous, not identical.
Someone remarked that substituting "prejudice" for "racism" seemed to be "too tame" to apply to anti-Muggleborn prejudice. That was exactly my point: to suggest we use a less volatile, more "tame" term that doesn't automatically elicit strong personal associations when discussing, for example, the rights and wrongs of the Snape's Worst Memory scene.
What happens, otherwise, is that we begin conflating our own cultural and personal experiences of racism (e.g., black and white in America), and beliefs about racism and the moral weight that should be given to it in conflicting interests--all of which are rooted in a huge tangle of historical and ideological associations--with the wizarding world's prejudices against Muggles and Muggleborns. And pretty soon, we are talking about our own situations, not what's happening in the books. Analogies and interpretive filters are not necessarily bad, but we do need to consciously recognize them for what they are, employ them intentionally, and keep aware of the boundaries between the filters and that which we are filtering through them.
This is NOT to say that racism, itself, should be "tamed" or minimized in importance; on the other hand, neither should other forms of prejudice be "tamed" or minimized in importance. While we do need to see the parallels in terms of specific real-world experiences of racism, we also need to be able to back away from those specifics--and all the strong and volatile emotions through which we filter any discussion based on them--and view the broader picture of prejudice in this scene and in the books.
Prejudice is bad. ALL forms of prejudice are bad. I do not believe in making a "pissing contest" between various groups targeted for oppression. In applying only the narrow term "racism" in discussion of anti-Muggleborn prejudice, we risk focusing on one rationale for prejudice and thus failing to see the broader problem of prejudice in ALL of its manifestations, whether based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and/or the social construction of any of the above.
This, I submit, is the major flaw underlying JKR's moral universe: In writing a parable about racism, she turned a blind eye to sexism, classism, appearance-ism (I know there's a word for it, somewhere), and so forth. If the books were meant to be a celebration of diversity, they failed on several important counts.
Ethical considerations in the scene in Snape's Worst Memory
Was Lily wrong? Was Severus wrong?
Both of them were wrong.
Lily felt threatened by Severus' allegiances, but Severus also felt threatened by Lily's allegiances. We are so used to seeing Gryffindor and the Order through the filter of Being The Good Side that we need to remind ourselves that they were not always good, especially if one happened to be a Slytherin.
Severus was being ABUSED. TORTURED, for crying out loud. Severus broke. And Severus later tried to make amends, only to be kicked while he was down. It is just amazing to me that so many people cannot or will not see that this matters in the moral calculus. And it is a perfect example of why we need to stop viewing this scene solely through the filter of "racism" and all the connotations and baggage that holds for each of us: The prejudice against Severus, based on class, appearance, House affiliation, and so on, exhibited in this scene is just as morally and ethically objectionable as the prejudice against Lily based on her circumstances of birth.
I refuse to blame the young man for breaking under torture.
No, it doesn't make it right to use the term "Mudblood," and it doesn't make it right to aspire to a career among the people who practice violent, genocidal bigotry against the Muggle-born. But neither is it "right," strictly speaking, when a real-life victim of torture says or does something unethical. We don't--or at least I should HOPE we don't--say, oh, you horrible bastard, how could you say or do such a horrible thing? We DO take into consideration the context, the extenuating circumstances, and the fact that every human being has a breaking point.
Both were wrong. Both were wronged.
One thing we need to be clear about, and this is a point that only recently has struck me: Severus referred to Lily as a "Mudblood," but he did not, as is commonly interpreted, address the insult to her. He spoke the word about Lily, but it was James he was addressing.
Consider the implications of that. He did not intend, even under the breaking-point of torture, to hurt Lily herself--though it's easy for us, standing outside of the situation, to see that obviously it would and did hurt her. He was lashing out at James, trying to offend James, and trying to reassert his "manhood," as it were, in retort to a humiliating taunt that he (especially given his presumably sex-traditional working-class background) would perceive as undermining it.
What we are seeing, in the breakdown of the friendship between Lily and Severus, is a typical real-world dynamic of setting members of differing oppressed groups against each other--especially when they threaten the existing order by starting to form allegiances across group lines.
If Severus was so godawful, why would Lily have remained friends with Severus for so long, till the end of fifth year? Surely his friendships with people harboring anti-Muggleborn prejudice were known to her long before fifth year. Perhaps she saw and empathized with the fact that he was targeted for bullying because of his "oddballness" in terms of appearance, economics, social presentation, and House affiliation, and so she (like Severus) filtered out the things about him she did not want to see, such as where his questionable friendships would lead him, until she could no longer deny seeing them.
And why would Severus have remained friends with Lily if he were so thoroughgoingly steeped in anti-Muggle prejudice? Partly, no doubt, because of the place she held in his heart as his first friend, but perhaps also because at some subconscious level he was questioning the very blood prejudice his mother had instilled in him and his housemates expected him to pay allegiance to. The very fact that he apologized showed that he had not fully internalized the belief that Muggleborns were "Mudbloods." He had used the word as a weapon against his enemy, and ended up injuring his friend, who could not or would not believe that he did not really mean it.
In an ideal world, this conflict between Severus and Lily could have been a crisis that opened the way to real moral growth for both of them, bringing out into the open the question of whether Severus really believed that Muggleborns were worse than purebloods; if he thought he did believe that, then why did he still care so much about Lily? It could have been the opportunity for Severus to bring up the practical realities of what Lily apparently expected of him: If he were to spurn his friendships in Slytherin, to whom could he turn? Where would he find support? Would he be putting himself in danger by taking a stand against his housemates and against the organization to which they aspired?
The wizarding world, however, was not an ideal world. People on both sides of the divide would have objections to such a friendship. In Snape's Worst Memory, we see James take advantage of that social tension (consciously or subconsciously) to play Lily and Severus against each other.
- Severus is caught unawares by James and Sirius, targeted for bullying and subjected to physical and psychological torment. Severus retaliates against his abuser, and is subjected to further torment.
- Lily comes up and does not attempt to intervene magically--which may reflect her conflict of loyalties: Like Remus Lupin, she may know what is right but doesn't quite have the required dose of Gryffindor CourageTM to act on it. Or maybe it just doesn't occur to her to directly challenge James by countering his spells against Severus. Or maybe she is afraid, based on what she knows of him: He does, after all, end up threatening to "hex" her when she finally does pull out her wand--and projecting the "blame" for being hexed by him onto her. But she does come to Severus' defense verbally, taking his side as much as she dares.
- James banters with her, patronizes her, teases her, threatens her, then relents, but not without futher denigrating Severus, making his very rescue from torture cause for humiliation instead of relief. Even in relenting, James Potter still comes out "Alpha," on top.
- THIS is the point at which Severus breaks, snapping, "I don't need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her!" Not because he truly regards Lily that way, but because he knows that the words will not only offend James, as a Righteous GryffindorTM, but because James "fancies" Lily and so an insult against Lily is a way to injure James. Of course Severus doesn't articulate any of this rationally; it's the lashing-out of a wounded animal, as it were, a scream against his own pain.
- And this is James' moment of triumph. Lily grows cold, insults Severus with the derogatory nickname that James used (and had created?) for him, and then mocks his present vulnerability and his economic-class status by commenting on his embarrassingly old and graying underwear. Lily also insults James, then leaves, and James has succeeded in what has surely been his long ambition: to create a rift between Lily and Severus. He has not, however, succeeded in getting Lily to go out with him, and so his immediate reaction, besides confusion, is anger.
- James takes out his rage at Lily's snubbing of him by tormenting Severus some more, presumably to the continued amusement of their fellow students.
- Severus later repents and tries to reconcile with Lily, but she refuses to accept his apology, fires questions and judgments at him, often without waiting for him to answer, or cutting him off when he stammeringly attempts to answer, and ends the friendship, then and there.
If we want to apply real-world concepts of prejudice to the wizarding world, then let us see this scenario (and the five-year history leading up to it) for what it really is: divide and conquer. One reason oppression continues in the real world is because the various oppressed groups are set against each other. To see Lily alone as right and Severus alone as wrong is to miss the bigger picture of multiple bigotries that interweave and permeate the social and relational dynamics at Hogwarts and in the larger wizarding world--and in our own. Racism, sexism, classism, status-ism, affluence-ism, beauty-ism: It's all connected. None is better, or worse, than another. None should be set against another. Tug at one string in the web of life, and everything begins to unravel.
Suggested terminology
Faithism: prejudice based on religion. Generally, Christian good, others bad; sometimes Christian-with-agnostic-leanings good; any strong faith bad.
Linguism: prejudice based on language. English good; everything else bad.
Disablism, sometimes just Ablism: prejudice based on physical/cognitive abilities & differences. Easy to use as a template for Wizard/Muggle situations.
Housism: unique to the Potterverse; anti-Slytherin sentiments.
Speciesism: Originally used in the Pratchett books. Prejudice based on "race" as exists in scifi/fantasy books, rather than human skin color & cultural background. Umbridge is a speciesist. (Yes, it's a ridiculous-sounding word. It's Pratchett; I'm surprised it flows as well as it does. Suggestions for alternatives are welcome.)
Re: Suggested terminology
But, Elfwreck, I don't think we need to use any terms other than "prejudice" with some qualifying adjectives. It's a perfectly clear and acceptable word. I, for example, have serious problems with "faithism" and with your definitions of it. Anti-semitism is a perfectly good word, in that it clearly describes a repellent attitude - prejudice against Jewish people and (if so defined) other Semites. Anti-Catholicism, anti-paganism, anti-agnosticism -- these are all perfectly good words, and we don't need something unclear like "faithism" to describe what's going on in the Potterverse (where I and others have spotted anti-Semitism and a few other such prejudices).
Racism means specifically treating others as inferior/seeing them as inferior because of their race. I do see anti Muggle/anti Muggleborn sentiment as being a close analogue to racism in our world, but I can still see why it might be better not to use the term "racism" in connection with the Potterverse, because the term carries so much real-world baggage.
Good essay.
Re: Suggested terminology
Isms, to me, are also not aimed at a particular category, but at "not like me" or "not like the majority/right category." So my hypothetical astrologism wouldn't be "anti-Virgo," but "anti-everything-but-Leo and Aries," maybe.
Faithism isn't anti-semitism or anti-catholicism or anti-paganism... it's prejudice against any religion that's not the mainstream-majority one. -Isms exist by lumping together all categories other than the "right" one, and by refusing to address the diversity of human experiences. (Or sentient experiences, I suppose, in the case of nonhumans.)
-Isms are a binary arrangement: they divide the world into "Privileged Category X" and "everyone else, who is lesser."
But I'm not trying to push these terms as "the proper ones to use," just offer some vocabulary for consideration.
Re: Suggested terminology
I think you hit it right on the spot with that.
We were all in high school once and everyone has been the victim of cruelty and even participated in cruelty at one time. I was horribly picked on in high school because of being different. But I remember a girl who was so pathetically poor and unsocial and I know I wasn't kind to her. I feel terrible about it twenty+ years afterward!
We all grow up with our family's influence on what we believe and are more molded by it when we are young. But by the time we are approaching adulthood, we start developing our own ideas. My own family, though humble middle-class, never looked upon socializing with the very, very poor as acceptable. As I grew, I saw the wrong in a lot of the things I was taught.
Who is to say that if all of those kids had grown into adults (and lived!) that later they would not have developed into much more rational people who deeply regretted their childish behaviors and cruelty. Maybe they did anyway. (Except Sirius who remained a bit of an ass!) It could have been that later in life they may have developed "working relationships" amongst each other and healed old wounds. But the war sort of took care of an hopes of future healing.
So the idea of prejudice is a valid one, but also I think we should examine the effect of juvenile bravado and peer pressure along side it.
About the growing up and getting smart. Yes, I would have liked to believe that. But DH and the following evidence points otherwise. If it were just for the books... if only she'd shut up... Sigh.
I'm thinking of writing a really short essay - more in list forms - called "J.K. Rowling and 19th-century Mores". What do you think?
(And yes, I agree that it is not good that she throws in all this heavy-handed symbolism without thinking it through. I find the nazi symbolism particularly offensive.)
So yes write your essay. If I had the gift of words, I probably would be writing one myself. More essays about this subject are needed.
Classism
And I must write a proper essay on that...
Re: Classism
Re: Classism
No, it's no good. Will have to do the research and write it properly - even if it will be a futile exercise.
And yes, there will be Snape - he will poke that nose in everywhere.
Re: Classism
Re: Classism
19th Century Mores
Also, on intention, I do feel that JK Rowling's problem began with the fact that she started out writing a fantasy for children (remember the "St Brutus' School for Incurably Criminal Boys" as just one example of a title reeking of childhood fantasy stories) but then had to somehow straddle the divide between children and adult in the later books, and, IMHO, at least, failed horribly. Her one-size-fits-all approach to morals I found frankly appalling.
And then to later go on, AFTER the series was finished, and reveal that, in her opinion, Dumbledore had been gay was incredibly banal. I mean, so what? Even ignoring the fact that homophobia went hand-in-hand with homoeroticism in what James and Sirius did to Severus in "Snape's Worst Memory" ("Who wants to see me take down Snivelly's pants?") I can't see that the Headmaster's putative sexual orientation had anything whatsoever to do with the series.
I get the feeling that JK Rowling is uncomfortable with the very idea of homosexual relationships, and threw that one in after the series was finished, conveniently ignoring the fact that she had already created an extremely gay-seeming relationship between Lupin and Black.
Alison
Moral red herring (1/3)
See, I don't like to call the HP world's blood purism "racism" either, but that's not because I don't think JKR sees it in those light, or because I don't think the purist ideology of the WW is dissimilar to our world's racism. No, it's precisely *because* JKR seems to want to paint that fictional discrimination as the evil "racism" in her story, and because I feel that this fictional ideology that is clearly vilified by the narrative is concealing the rampant (yet always hidden) racist messages that the story metaphorically speaks of and endorses, that I find the labeling of people like the Malfoys the HP universe's racists to be extremely objectionable. Just as some fangirls use the term "racism" to shut up all arguments against their heroes and for the Slytherins, so JKR uses the imagery of purebloodism as "racism" as a means to silence any criticism of her story as anything *but* vocally advocating tolerance.
Take the various sentient creatures that we encounter in this world. We are told Hagrid is a half-giant, and looks terrifyingly different from normal people. But oh, don't discriminate against him! He's a very kind, gentle man with a completely humane heart. Well, yes he is and Harry treats him completely equally, and that's all greatness, but then we learn that Hagrid is such a half-wit that he constantly lets slip secrets of national-security level importance, and that this stupidity of his leads both to Voldemort almost getting the Stone and to Harry and friends jumping in after him and nearly getting killed. Lupin OTOH is a werewolf, and has ugly scars all over him, but we're not going to treat him any less than a human, are we? Only meanies like Snape and the bigoted society treats him as a danger to the people around him. Harry knows he's good, because he's completely humane and kind... Only, this kind and intelligent man (or intelligent enough to be the best DADA teacher Harry has ever had) somehow forgets his condition and his need for a potion on the night of the full moon, and fails to remember this fact until he *sees the moon*, which endangers three children and two men, almost killing at least one of them. Then we learn that full-blown giants are mindless creatures that really can't be trusted to have moral capacities at all, as we first watch Grawp and then the other giants that demolish the school in DH. We also get to meet Grayback, the werewolf who exhibits his werewolfy side even when it's not full moon... So we learn that Hagrid and Lupin have rather been the exception. But we won't discriminate against them for who they are, of course! But just let's make sure they only ever date or marry other less-than-fully-human creatures, like other half-giants or metamorphs. And just so we can feel doubly secure, let's make sure the sons of such unions only ever fall in love with and date daughters of quarter veelae married to slightly-werewolfy guys. Oh we don't need to know what became of Harry's blood relatives in the epilogue, this is a much more important a thing to be told and reassured of!
Re: Moral red herring (1/3)
Hagrid is a very kind, gentle man with a completely humane heart. Well, yes he is and Harry treats him completely equally, and that's all greatness
Something tells me Dudley might disagree. But then, he's a muggle so it doesn't count. And the Slytherins might disagree given that Hagrid lies to Harry about wizards who go bad all being in Slytherin, and so indoctrinates Harry from the start to hate Slytherins. But then, they're Slytherins so it doesn't count.
Lupin endangers three children and two men, almost killing at least one of them.
But the only one actually hurt was Snape, so it doesn't count.
Other creatures, and true-blue Muggles
Also, thanks for pointing out the Goblins down below! I just knew there were some important species I was missing there... Goblins, how I *hated* DH for that depiction of the Golbin race as actually, factually cunning and untrustworthy, and for the reason it gave for this badness of that race (which was that they held a completely different value system than the Normal People, which we're not even supposed to try to understand), *and* for the "correct" solution it proposed for dealing with this situation -- deception! How can any single aspect of that tale be part of a series that even pretends to be conveying the message of tolerance!? So yeah, there were those Goblins (and if I from a country in the Far East caught a strong impression that they were a caricature of the Jewish race, it's probably not so very subtle) and then there are the centaurs, and then the giant spiders. All of these "talking creatures" are sentient and humane-seeming to differing degrees, but they are each "incomprehensible" to some extent and correspondingly dangerous. This tying in of cultural diversity (different values that perplex the POV character) to monstrous danger is especially troubling for me. Why did the centaurs have to be weird star-gazing philosophers *and thus* in the habit of attacking any human beings that dare get into their way? And the Goblins? And every single other talking creature in this universe? Arrrgh. This whole creature thing just makes me so sad.
The Slytherin thing, I would say is slightly different matter than a straightforward metaphor for any racial distinction, since (even if we do see some families whose members "always" get sorted into one House or another) sisters and brothers are routinely separated by that Evil Hat of Pre-natal Determinism. See Sirius and Regulus, Padma and Parvati, etc etc. After all, if race equaled house there's no need to put the hat on the kids' head at all. No, what that ceremony signifies is that each and every one of us has a predestined future, and that future is determined by the core of our very beings so there's no use trying to fight it. (Unless when there is, in which case "the hat has sorted too early" -- there's still nothing deemed wrong in the fundamental system.) Yes, it's a disgusting message being sent, but it's not a message about race or even about class I don't think... It's more a metaphor of the (rightful) entitlement and condemnation based on non-inherited types of identity categories, such as gender, sexuality, beliefs, disability, etc.
Re: Other creatures, and true-blue Muggles
Alison
Moral red herring (2/3)
And then, of course, there are the house elves. House elves! That appellation alone is enough to make you shudder. But don't worry, Hermione is shuddering right along with you! So we are about to watch the revolutionary battle through which slaves are eventually freed, right? Look, Harry has already freed one slave, Dobby. Go Harry! Oh how we have been wrong on that one. First we learn that Hermione's cute Human Rights efforts (called "SPEW" just in case you didn't catch exactly how cute and unrealistic it is) is laughed off as a pipe dream that is never to be accomplished. It will never be accomplished because, and get this, the house elves all genetically *want* to be enslaved. It makes them very sad when you try to free them. Does that sentence bring you dark memories and a sense of nausea? Funny, it doesn't seem to affect JKR in the same way. In fact, she has her cool and handsome Sirius mistreating Kreacher extremely viciously, while letting us feel that his frustration with Kreacher is personal, and he has his reasons. Not *good* reasons, mind you, but it's not unreasonable. And this plot ties in with Harry and his gang later treating the same slave with *kindness*, and this generosity of the masters makes Kreacher do all sorts of favors for Harry, completely for free. But we're not even supposed to wonder about that, since he's a slave and he wants to do everything to please his master. So does the freed slave Dobby, for all that he's supposed to have been freed. He starts worshiping Harry with an unfettered adoration from day one, *before* Harry knew what house elves were (never mind thought of freeing one), and eventually dies to save Harry's life, and the lives of five other people (four of whom are also members of the enslaving race). And looking extremely *happy* about dying in Harry's arms this way. Can I say ew? Oh and let's not forget the speech style of this fictional species of human-yet-not-human people.
Re: Moral red herring (2/3)
Moral red herring (3/3)
So the HP world systematically shows us a myriad of characters that look and sound very different from our heroes, and tells us that they are each and every one of them Different From Us and somehow genetically or inherently Stupid or Weird or Wanting to Be Enslaved by Us, or any number of combinations of these inferior characteristics. Meanwhile, the story points its finger at Hermione and Harry, who both look and speak *exactly* the same as everybody else in this world (Hermione isn't even magically less talented despite her blood status -- quite the contrary), and says, "Look, look! She's a Muggle-born and Harry's a half-blood, and some people want to discriminate against them because of that! Oh, isn't that bigoted? Isn't that *wrong* ? Don't worry, kids, Harry will destroy the evil Nazis and bring us racial equality!" Which is accomplished, and so all is good, and our story is wonderfully anti-racist, apparently. Hermione reportedly still struggles to fight for the rights of house elves, but that factoid is neatly never mentioned in the epilogue... And who thinks her struggles will ever bear any tangible fruits, anyway? Who *wants* them to? Since if they do, who will fight courageously to aid Harry in the final battle and then happily bring him sandwiches?
No matter which way you slice it from the perspective of race, this story is pretty disturbing. But JKR found a wonderful way to tell such a nostalgically backwards story while calling it a "moral tale of a struggle for racial equality" -- by creating a fictional racial distinction that doesn't make any actual racist people feel icky about treating equally!
This exact same style of hiding the true flag under a pretend one applies to sexism and homophobia, too, though. It's not an isolated issue with race, if that can give us any sort of solace.
Re: Moral red herring (3/3)
And: since you post with OpenID: if you want to write and post your own essays, write to me and I'll post them for you. Just in case you're thinking of such a thing... ;)
Re: Moral red herring (3/3)
As a taste, here are my headings:
1. Shoemaker, stick to your last; weaver, stick to your loom (or, why ambition is evil in the Potterverse)
2. What's bred in the bone will come out in the flesh (or, why "good" and "evil" character are heritable in the Potterverse)
3. Spare the Rod and Spoil the child (and, a woman's place is in the home)
4. Ooh, those awful foreigners! (and, the White Man's burden)
Because even if my eyes are pretty well tuned for the xenophobia thing and the race thing (from my POV anyway), and obviously the homophobia thing (too well tuned perhaps *g* so that I rather have to watch out for false positives), I'm completely clueless about the historical context of it all, and utter pants at understanding the classism and regionalism issues as they apply to the UK culture. I'd really love to learn more from you. (Wow, look at me here, getting lessons on morality and ideological integrity out of HP, who'd'a thunk!?)
So yeah, can't wait to read your essay. Please take your time preparing :) And feel free to use any portion of my ramblings here if they can help in your essay. They're not even my original thoughts to begin with, I'm sure hundreds of fen have moaned about the exact same things by now.
Re: Moral red herring (3/3)
Every 19th century book I've ever read shows that hard work, good manners, honesty, kindness and responsible behaviour is to be lauded and rewarded and those who are lazy, irresponsible, dishonest, rude and violent are to be punished. Not so in the Potterverse, alas!
Re: Moral red herring (3/3)
(am I the only one who is utterly, *utterly* disgusted by Molly Weasley?)
Re: Moral red herring (3/3)
Or, as Jodel put it, "she's a bully."
Which brings me back to your point about "spare the rod and spoil the child". I think we are meant to admire Molly and see the Weasleys as a healthy family. But I don't, quite.
More to come - the essay's coming along well, and I might have a draft of it finished by Tuesday.
Re: Moral red herring (3/3)
Harry will destroy the evil Nazis and bring us racial equality!" Which is accomplished, and so all is good
And the promptly turns around and condones his buddy's hexing muggles out of laziness. And this is as the head of the Auror Department, in which Rowling assures us he was brilliant and rooted out corruption! Of course, Harry's own corruption is just peachy. After all, they're only muggles, so they don't count.
Hermione reportedly still struggles to fight for the rights of house elves
But note that house elves are at least magical beings. She treated her parents barely above the level of cattle for her own convenience born out of laziness and that's supposed to be ok. Because not only are they muggles but, as Rowling said, they're dentists and "not interesting."
Re: Moral red herring (3/3)
This exact same style of hiding the true flag under a pretend one applies to sexism and homophobia, too, though. It's not an isolated issue with race, if that can give us any sort of solace.
No, it's not an isolated issue. There are fundamental rifts and inequalities in the books that were initially presented as Issues, to later become red herrings, as you say, or seemingly outright misrepresentations. I'd actually hate to think this process was deliberate. I called it doublethink elsewhere, but that doesn't give me any solace, either. I'm not sure how much thinking went into some of the purported themes.
Maybe it's just the hallmark of a novice writer who got carried away, as many of us did, with a fundamentally banal story about a fundamentally banal boy. She went back to the original story, but we had far exceeded her by that point.
My problem with Lily isn't that she broke up with Sev. That's sad, but in a way, understandable. My problem with her is that she married James Potter.
Thanks. It certainly seems to have generated a "killer" load of comments and discussion! ;-) I'm just starting to wade through them, now, and hope people will be patient. I am, after all, working on two fics for the Summer Fest...
Bravo for looking at the whole picture.
THANK YOU. I have been wanting to write something like this for a long, long time. The SWM analysis is what I would like to have written for the "Severus and Lily" challenge, had my brain been in the right "space" at the time to compose it. But here it is now. I hope it encourages others to look at the whole picture.
My problem with Lily isn't that she broke up with Sev. That's sad, but in a way, understandable.
I don't have a problem with it, either, per se. I do have a problem with HOW she did it, kicking him while he was down, in the wake of an abusive incident. But beyond the whole DE issue, I think that the two of them (in a healthy universe, anyway) would have grown apart as they grew up, even if Severus never became a Death Eater. I just see serious long-term compatibility issues, as far as marriage goes--which I certainly will be exploring in future years of "Severus Evans," my AU in which he got his heart's desire to marry Lily.
My problem with her is that she married James Potter.
Yes. THAT leaves me wondering WTF. Out of all the other guys she could have married, why him? Even if she broke off the friendship with Severus, why would she consider his long-time abuser a prime candidate for a boyfriend/husband? Huh??? Because he made like Saddam Hussein the South Park Movie and did the "I can CHANGE!!!" song and dance??? Um, yeah, read a bit about the real-life dynamics of abusive personalities and relationships and tell me how well that would work...
Not that anyone ever claimed there was an intersection between the Potterverse and mental health. :-P
Yeah... I mean call me a cynic, but to me the argument scene in front of the Gryffindor common room sounded like a girl who has finally grasped a legit excuse, for ditching her friendship without losing her good girl credentials, hanging onto it for dear life and talking all over him, not even expecting (nor wanting) the boy to give her a response that pleases her.
Sev is Slytherin. And has evil Slytherin friends. Sure, that really makes him a not-very-suitable friend material for Griffindor Lily. But he also happens to be very poor, from a working-class half-Muggle family (where the wizarding parent is not even the father but rather his mother), and vehemently opposed to Lily's suitor James because he also harbors romantic feelings for her. It seems like he's the only one telling Lily that James is not a glorious jock boy, so basically he's the only one standing between Lily and her prospect of marrying him, just as soon as she decides she can stand the "toerag," or else find some magic charm to turn him into prince charming. Marrying James signifies not only wealth, and becoming part of the celebrated Dumbledorist hero clan, but also gaining an "in" into a welcoming wizarding bloodline (as James seems to *come* from a family tolerant of muggleborns unlike Eileen who seems to be cut off from her family now) and consequently finding good connections in the wizarding society. OTOH the only thing Sevvy could provide for Lily was his own talent and ambitions.
But of course Lily didn't ditch her childhood friend for such reasons. Not at all! She couldn't, because she couldn't let herself be anything less than the shiningly good girl. No wonder she latches onto the Mudblood comment and refuses to even hear Snape's apology -- the last thing she wanted him to do at that moment was offer a legitimate and genuine demonstration of repentance.
Or so I think it might have been. As I said, this might be a way too cynical view of her character. But you know what, the narrative voice seems to take that kind of attitude toward Snape from the moment he spies Lily from behind the bush -- "greedily." Apparently, it's decided that Snape is too *something* to deserve her, since even before either of them enter their adolescence.