The Status Quo: Thoughts on the Flaws of the Wizarding World

[gehayi]

ignipes wrote a marvelous essay about the Harry Potter series vs. actual subversive fantasy that alters or transcends the genre. Go and read it, for it is brilliant.

I concur with ignipes--Rowling's world is not subversive. It is a traditional battle between good and evil, with Harry on one side and Voldemort on the other. The general belief of the wizarding

Comments

[fluffy_duck_211]

I agree completely, very well done.

[wordplaywright]

Hmm, you have some very interesting ideas here

[gehayi]

The Wizengamot reminds me of the House of Lords - originally, they acted as the main legislative body AND as Supreme Court.

If they were the highest court in the land, I could tolerate that. The problem is, they seem to be the only court, since the Wizengamot is the court that holds the hearing on whether Harry should be expelled from school for underage wizardry. It would be more logical if there were a court for minor crimes, or a court for civil matters as well as criminal...but no. The only court we ever hear of is the Wizengamot. And if that is the only court, then there is no court to whom anyone can appeal, either

[wordplaywright]

The problem is, they seem to be the only court

That's true. I don't agree with that either. Still, I guess it could be explained away - it's a close thing, I admit, but there's an explanation. The www.statistics.gov.uk page says there are approx. 13 million kids in the UK. JKR in her Mugglenet interview says that there are 600 wizarding children in the UK. Now, counting with these data, you get an x=2751 total of wizards and witches in the UK, where 600(wiz kids)/13000000(all UK kids)=x(all UK wiz population)/59600000(all UK population).

A population of 2751 - that's the size of a village. And villages usually don't have more than one group of people to deal with law issues. So, I think the reason why there's only one Wizengamot might be that it would be expensive to have more courts. The Ministry of Magic already seems like a huge monstrosity compared to the size of the Wizarding population.

I was surprised that Harry didn't ask something along the lines of, "Why do I have to have a hearing in front of the Wizengamot? Isn't that

[gehayi]

I try to ignore her interviews, actually. She doesn't interview well, and she tends to come up with "information" that contradicts previous interviews or contradicts the books themselves.

If you can see elf slavery is bad, and I can see too, and, well, most of the fandom can see it, too - then don't you think JKR has made a point, after all?No, I honestly don't. I get the "no racism" message from society, not from her books--where it's played for laughs, after all. Wizarding society is very bigoted in many respects (often to the point where the prejudice is being exploited by Voldemort), but it's presented as "good, if it weren't for Voldemort." So on one side you have something that's supposed to be completely good, threatened by something on the other side that's supposed to be completely evil

Re: Wizarding Slavery

[cygna_hime]

Today I got to attend a seminar on Dobby and Gollum as related to Greek and Roman slavery concepts--it was very enlightening. Essentially, you've got two different ideas: The Aristotlean one (the House-Elf principle), which states that some people (Greeks/wzards) are naturally inclined to freedom while others (non-Greeks/House-elves) are naturally inclined to slavery; and the Stoic one (the Gollum principle) which states that being enslaved is a moral state of being, and can be altered--by becoming virtuous, a slave can become free, and vice versa

Re: Wizarding Slavery

[gehayi]

I never heard of the Greek model of slavery, but it does sound exactly like the house elf slavery in the books.

I wish I could go to a seminar on something like that. It sounds immensely cool.

[starkittyn]

Hi. I'm here via underlucius and eumenides1, I can't think why I haven't friended you before!

Anyhow, I wanted to say that I agree with you totally. I've thought for a long time that there are a lot of dysfunctional attitudes in the books.

No one seems to think twice about Harry living in a cupboard and acting as a virtual slave to the Dursleys. I mean, in our world, a child like that would be in a foster home and probably suffering from emotional disorders yet Harry is just fine and dandy and it's all very peachy keen.

I could not get over the fact that in HPB, Dumbledore just handed Tom Riddle a pile of money and expected him to use it responsibly. Um, I don't know any 11 year olds that I'd trust with more than a twenty at most.

There are so many oddities in the books that I tend to assume that the only explanation for them is that they are "kids books" and that the issues we see as adults are meant to be glossed over for the kids. It seems sort of stupid to me.

Great essay, very cogently presented and interesting besides.

[astaria51]

Wow, this is a fantastic essay. I came lurking from fandom_rants after your extremely well-put rant about grammar. Anyway, everything in here is right on the mark