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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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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