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Hello, everyone!
I would like to get your opinions on whether Severus attended a Muggle school before going to Hogwarts or was he home-schooled (by his mother)? Or perhaps he mainly taught himself?
Everyone attends Hogwarts at age 11 or 12. By this age, students know how to read and write, etc. Given that Severus is a half-blood and resided in a Muggle town, do you think he went to Muggle school? If so, he should've met Lily there and need not introduce himself in the playground (it is possible, of course, that their town has more than one school and they went to different ones). He seems to be totally into his wizarding roots that he dislikes anything Muggle. His mother could've taught him the basics (along with his quite extensive knowledge of magic, etc.). On the other hand, he seems to be very neglected so I'm not very convinced that his mother or father spent a lot of time with him (besides Tobias not liking anything much as he put it)....
I'm very interested to hear your take on this.
I would like to get your opinions on whether Severus attended a Muggle school before going to Hogwarts or was he home-schooled (by his mother)? Or perhaps he mainly taught himself?
Everyone attends Hogwarts at age 11 or 12. By this age, students know how to read and write, etc. Given that Severus is a half-blood and resided in a Muggle town, do you think he went to Muggle school? If so, he should've met Lily there and need not introduce himself in the playground (it is possible, of course, that their town has more than one school and they went to different ones). He seems to be totally into his wizarding roots that he dislikes anything Muggle. His mother could've taught him the basics (along with his quite extensive knowledge of magic, etc.). On the other hand, he seems to be very neglected so I'm not very convinced that his mother or father spent a lot of time with him (besides Tobias not liking anything much as he put it)....
I'm very interested to hear your take on this.
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I think we'd be talking about at least $5000 per term for an "inexpensive" day school.
How anybody affords it is beyond me!
I wouldn't rule out that Lily was educated privately, but I honestly don't think it's likely she went to a private junior (called Prep schools to prepare you for public school) school.
Was your town well-populated to have 4 primary schools? Lily and Severus' town does not seem very prosperous to me. Were mill towns there still prosperous in the 70s in Northern England?
Oh, I am familiar with prep schools, we have those where I am from. Also, would one's locality affect one's earning capacity in the UK? For example, how likely it is that Lily's family lived in one town while her parents worked in another so that they can afford to send their daughters to a private junior school...I may be wrong, but my impression is that a mill town does not present lots of well-paying jobs...
Yes, I would say that people in the major cities earn more than the provincial towns - I don't think that's changed. But I don't think people were as mobile in the 70's - they tended to live and work in the same place.
Again, private junior schools are a bit thin on the ground - and, anyway, what would be the point? Ordinary primary education would have been just as good.
Lily and Petunia (the names alone) strike me as being middle class (perhaps their parents were teachers, or doctors - again it's just speculation), but that doesn't mean they wouldn't have gone to the local school. No, the more I think about it, the more unlikely it seems.
It's always good to get a 'local' perspective such as yours, that way non-British people can have a better understanding of the way things are there. And it's perfect that you came from an industrial town. I also thought being mobile was not yet very common the 70s. It's interesting to know it strikes you that Lily and Petunia are middle class names. I read that Evans is a very common surname in the UK, with Welsh roots. And it isn't an aristocratic surname, right?
Of course, where I live, it's really better to go to a private school if your parents can afford it. But I've always thought that (ordinary) British education is, yes, good enough. Then parents can save for 'public schools' later on.
My neighbours, both doctors, had three sons. The first they sent to prep and later public school, because he wasn't terribly bright and a bit shy - they thought he'd benefit from smaller classes and more individual attention. The other two didn't need that, so they went to the local schools.
I've never thought the Evans were an aristocratic family, thanks for confirming! That's why I never thought much of fanfic stories depicting Lily as a 'princess' or similar......
I always thought the Evans family sent their kids to a better school than the local default one, too, and also that this wasn't a socio-economically natural move for their class/status. Like others have noted, I also based this guess on the parents' reported enthusiasm in Lily's magical education (and yeah, a parent who was about to comfortably send her kid to Eton gets *disappointed* when he decides to go to Hogwarts) as well as the way Petunia becomes obsessed with social class and appearances... Which in DH we discover has been an attitude she already had when she was a child. And yeah, generally speaking, kids growing up in a higher-class *and* affluent family don't tend to become so obsessed.
Which makes me wonder -- if Lily's parents were burdened by the educational costs of their two daughters, and struggling to give them both the best education possible, then what effect would Lily's admission to Hogwarts have thrown into the family dynamic? Come to think of it, how much Muggle money did her Hogwarts education cost her parents? Surely not zero, but was her tuition higher or lower than the school they had been planning for her? Did she get one of those scholarships?
What I'm imagining in analogy is an ordinary Muggle household with more children than the parents can comfortably afford good education for, which they still struggle very hard to do. And they're struggling to give *equal* good education to both of the daughters, because they don't want to pay for just the firstborn and have her sister resent her or them for the rest of her life. But it's hard on them. And suddenly, out of nowhere, the younger daughter receives a letter saying she's got a special talent (a very very rare talent) and therefore allowed admission into this magical boarding school somewhere up in Scotland. If you can't afford her tuition and school things, we'll provide them for you, it says. Because your daughter is that special.
So suddenly, the elder daughter can go to that slightly better other school from senior-high onwards. Or she can think about college. Or can afford a better college. Or something. All because her little sister, without ever even *working* for it, developed some magically wonderful ability that's recognized by someone higher up and rewarded by a cheaper yet fancier sort of education, which alleviated the burden of the family considerably.
The elder sister is jealous. It's all in the genes? Why couldn't *I* get that gene then? I'm the firstborn! Now she can't surpass her sister no matter how hard she works at school, because she just doesn't have the magic. And it adds insult to injury that her parents don't understand her frustration, since from their POV Petunia should be thankful to her sister for the educational leg-up that she owes her.
That would actually paint a much more palatable picture of the Evans parents than I'd assumed until now. Even allowing Lily to show off her magic at home without consideration for her sister. What's wrong with you, they would think, no need to get jealous, you're getting a really good education and doing well in your own way. In the normal way.
Or not. This all hinges, of course, on the Hogwarts education costing less than whichever Muggle school Lily was headed for. But if it did, the whole sister dynamic becomes much more comprehensible for me...
I've always wondered how Hogwarts is funded. There is no mention of tuition fees and boarding costs, only that students are supposed to buy their own books and equipment, clothing, and other supplies. And those things can be had through a funding assistance for poor students. So I assume the Ministry of Magic operates the school and it's partly funded by it and there are some fund-raising being done at the same time.
Even if Lily went to an ordinary Muggle school, where everything is free except for certain fees like for field trips, I would think her parents spent a bit more for her Hogwarts education. I think JKR said the exchange rate to is around 5 pounds to 1 galleon and Harry's NEWT level potions book costs 9 galleons so that's not cheap. However, if she did go to a fee-paying school, then the cost of a Hogwarts education for her parents is definitelyl cheaper. And she need not go to college anymore, of course.
It the school is government-funded, then that might explain why the Ministry is always trying to meddle in school business, because they feel they have the right to since they're paying for it. As for private funding, maybe that explains why Lucius had so much control over the board of school governors--because he'd contributed a lot of money to the school? Although I'd expect him to be the type who wants a wing named after him if he gives a big donation!
Tax, Squibs, and HP's take on disability
I mean, assuming all wizarding families pay taxes, or else that there's some monarchy-like system or *something* that's funding the government and public services, it's a system that makes all wizarding people share the burden while no Muggle person has to, right? You can't very well collect gold from unsuspecting Muggle households (or the Muggle government) while still keeping the whole existence of the WW a secret. So what this means is that Muggle-born children, especially Muggle-born children who get scholarship to come to Hogwarts, are "usurping" the resources that should rightfully belong just to the heirs of wizarding families -- or so it must seem from certain people's POV. Never mind stealing magic from wizards, there's a big economical issue, directly paraleling the "children of illegal immigrants" debates in all Western countries. But kids who do have the wizarding abilities should have the right to education, yes? Regardless of their blood status. It's their basic wizarding human rights.
Well, what about children that are squibs, then? Their parents pay the same taxes, or customs or whatever, as all other adult wizards. But they can't get any proper education? Or do you suppose Filch and Mrs. Figg were given some alternative schooling? We don't encounter a single student that's described as a real squib, so presumably there's none attending Howgarts, right?
That's another aspect of the HP series that I'm getting increasingly interested in: squibs, and Muggles, as they are contrasted to the wizarding people, and how they symbolically represent the "haves" and "have-nots" in terms of mental or physical abilities. Squibs, for one, are a pretty clear metaphor for disabled individuals in this tale. And if they are, then the whole Muggle population has to become a functionally very similar category, because basically Muggles are genetically caused Squibs -- lacking some fundamental ability that separates them from the "majority" (for all that they're the ones that numerically stand as the majority). But the idea that there is in the world a physical disability that's hereditary and as wide-spread as to be numerically in the majority... What *is* that, eugenics? Oh no, are we back to that 19th century mentality thing again?
It's just, the whole physical and personality portrayal of Filch, Figg, and the whole Gaunt family (especially Merope), and the narrative's attitude towards what the *right* fate should be for persons with *any* mental conditions, and how that fate should be perceived/evaluated (Ariana, the Longbottoms, Lockhart) are plenty disturbing on their own right. And when we look hold up the Muggle/Squib/wizard continuum and the narrative depictions of these categories, the alignment of the attitudes is very frightening. Powerless people -- be they people missing limbs by birth, or people gone crazy due to trauma inflicted by themselves or their enemies, or people who just lack that magical talent necessary to succeed in this world -- are amusing and embarrassing and doomed to cruel fates, and there's nothing to be done about it, the narrative seems to be saying. By the time we reach the happy-ending epilogue, Ariana is dead, the brain-victim Bartha Jorkins also killed off, and Neville's parents, the whole Dursley family, and all other Muggles and squibs neatly forgotten... And oh, coincidentally, all is well. (*And* also incidentally there's no character of color to be seen as far as the eyes can reach in the HEA train station, but that's another matter.)
...Argh. Sorry for rambling on. And completely deviating from the topic! It's just, this whole "power is might" attitudes seem so tightly inter-connected at all levels, ending up as a commentary on not only race and sexuality but also on things like disability. And creepily, the distinction is blurred between "disability" (lack of magic = Squibs) and "being too normal, untalented" (lack of magic = Muggles) -- or between the genetically disabled and the *racially* ridiculed.
Re: Tax, Squibs, and HP's take on disability
I think that is a great question and one I have been thinking of. Aren’t squibs basically muggles and wouldn’t it be in their best interest for them to attended muggle schools and live in that world? What is their position in the wizarding world?
Re: Tax, Squibs, and HP's take on disability
People in the wizarding world are also 'recorded' in the muggle world. Amelia Bones and Emmeline Vance did (Book 6). Mrs Figg was known to the Dursleys who would've shunned her if they knew her wizarding roots. So I guess it would be easy to send squibs to muggle schools, at least it won't seem that they came out of nowhere!
Re: Tax, Squibs, and HP's take on disability
Re: Tax, Squibs, and HP's take on disability
Come to think of it, when a wizard conjures things out of nowhere, where do those things come from? Their own stuff or from muggles? It has to come from somewhere, right? I remember briefly that there are certain exemptions like food....
Well, Filch was learning magic through a 'correspondence' school so they have an alternative education, I think. But in Ariana's (who thought to be a squib) time, it was mentioned by Aunt Miuriel that wizarding families send squibs to muggle schools where they will have a better 'position' than in their own world but Kendra was 'too proud' to do it.
Re: Tax, Squibs, and HP's take on disability
HPverse in its whole is violent, ruthless and follow the "law of jungle" mentality (Harry is the epitome of this mentality imho). Not a single relation between people are made as equals and in respect of each others. It's always unhealthy relations (I still cringe at how Hermione is always the one isolated and bullied by her supposed friends, until she cry for forgiveness towards Ron and Harry, SS/PS& PoA was clear examples of it).
Luckily, the fandom gave life and expand the HPverse, giving love and necessary qualities for the work to feel human; and it helps to heal from the negative feelings the HP canon left to me, and that is something to appreciate. The topic raised is very interesting indeed, who paid to maintain the WW's institutions working ? (donations à la Malfoy ? Or taxes ?), which legal statut each member have ? How function international laws, identities, travels ? We would never know with canon (since all is well for Harry and its shallow-minded cruel author). I guess their is taxes took directly from salaries, shop benefices, and donations of "pureblood" wizards, to maintain WW institutions, and non-magical parents of witch/wizards who accept to send their childs (because what happens to the one that refuse for X Y reason ?) have to paid depending on their ressources, an entry fee ? No matters how it works, it will still raise ressentment from each sides....
Re: Tax, Squibs, and HP's take on disability
Thanks for the inputs!