The Wizarding World of Harry Potter (a thread for Potterheads)

You know it's funny because Patricia Briggs recently did an interview with Goodreads about how her biggest mistake (she feels) was ever giving Mercy the skinwalker name, even though she repeatedly and firmly states that it's a white settler misunderstanding of her (and even says what real skinwalkers are) within the text of the novel. This is someone with a degree in history that focused a lot of attention on the Natives in her particular state and even consulted with some of them while writing-- saying that even hinting at a perception of monolithic beliefs in Native Americans was the biggest mistake she, as a writer, ever made.

And then we have this shit.



Rowling I love your books and I like the worlds you think of but please stop doing the thing where you clearly don't actually understand the cultural context behind what you're talking about. I mean hell, you have canonical Dark Wizards™ in the books, it would have made more sense for you to say "ah, see, they were evil animagi, that was the problem there."

 

The terrible thing is I'm going to read these things anyway probably.
And then write more of my shattered glass au

 

i'm still boggling in shock over how effectively jk rowling literally just crashed the hogwarts express into the harry potter 'verse

like how the fuck even do you even fuck up so throughly

how the fuck even

is this just a dream?

an extremely early april fools joke?

how the fuck even

 

i've kind of always assumed jkr's harry potter world to be basically magnostadt academy from magi: the kingdom of magic. sometime a long time ago, wizards and muggles got along, and then some muggles started taking advantage of wizards and some wizards saw themselves as more because they could do magic, so the wizards broke off and became their own thing and eventually muggles forgot they existed completely. it even has the " your societal standing is based on how powerful/ how high you were born" stuff. they also do the whole rescue thing where they take magic kids out of normal families for their protection. for their protection actually meaning whatever they want, as long as magic kids aren't being raised with muggles.

this wouldn't make sense for the whole world though because different countries have different magic and would have developed differently than the rest of the world since contact wasn't a thing for a long time. honestly with the way squibs are treated in the potterverse i'm pretty sure jkr meant for relations between muggles and magicians to be pretty damn hostile, at least in her own country.

 

I thought it was only Americans who thought that we were involved in more than the tail end of the first world war. Also, from what I know of thunderbirds, they really aren't that similar to phoenixes... They're more like rocs, aren't they?

 

So we've got a wand permit-- something that I think, even if it wasn't mentioned, was implied to exist in the Ministry of Magic too, based on what Hagrid said about his own wand and their ability to track underage magic (though now I'm wondering why Voldemort didn't just use that to track down the rebellion when he and Umbrige had an iron grip on the Ministry? Maybe it was because the takeover had someone sabotage whatever means they were using to track that)-- and a complete disregard of the Prohibition, which is whatever. I do find it hilarious that there were apparently concerns that wizards would stand out for drinking when that's sort of... the keynote of the Prohibition. That's like saying that all wizards are stoners and therefore conspicuous in this day and age where weed is illegal.

Still no mention of how No-Maj born wizard kids are actually dealt with I notice.

fake edit: And yeah, Thunderbirds tend to be more like rocs in terms of mythological equivalency afaik. I do like how the wandmaker that uses feathers is cunningly named 'feather', but at least that's more effort into naming than something fake but ~mystical~.

 

Oh yeah, I know that Rocs come from Middle-Eastern myth, I'm just saying that if you're gonna conflate two mythical birds you can pick a better comparison than the thunderbird and the phoenix, where basically all they have in common is 'magic bird.' Where the roc and thunderbird have 'magic GIANT bird' in common.

 

I've spent the past couple days reading about this whole clusterfuck with increasingly strained expressions of incredulity on my face, and yeah, at this point I've just moved on to sighing, shrugging, and going "hey, I'm glad you're having fun writing up your headcanons on the rest of the wizarding world, JKR, you should really do actual research before trying to share them in all this detail in the future though, fyi". And then going back to better discussions and interpretations. Besides, Alexandra Quick is obviously the canon version of the American wizarding world. :P

 

..........hahah whaaaat, speakeasies existed, drinking was still rampant, it was just suddenly illegal. and if witches and wizards limit their interactions with the non-magical community anyways (I'm sorry, i flat out refuse to use the term "no-maj", ugh) they're probably using like. disillusionment charms n shit to avoid notice. so....that is astounding silly logic.

and besides, prohibition didn't actually stop anyone from drinking :"D

 

Yeah, that's just weird. The whole point of Prohibition was that it DIDN'T work, if you've ever seen a movie or anything set in Prohibition that's pretty clear!

 

Some thoughts from a guy in an online writing community I'm in.

Spoiler: Quoth Huinesoren

The thing about the south is especially interesting. I did see someone else in that thread point out, hey, majority of the culture is in the South, lots of focus on segregation... Anyone want to make guesses on where the title of 'Grand Wizard' might have come from... (I'm sorry. I'm very sorry. But it seemed an idea worth bringing up.)

 

Ughhh now that it's been pointed out, I'm seeing it. And if this all a lead up to "American Magical Government Is Secretly The KKK" I'm going to scream. (Though, point of note: I assumed, and I feel like a fair few people would too, that Beauvais is almost definitely black. It just makes the glaring lack of mention of black wizards all the more galling.)

So here's the question: if African Wizarding Schools are wide and varied, and the oldest Great Wizarding School is in Africa, and if the magical community doesn't discriminate based on race, why haven't we seen what the wizarding community did about slavery? I'm already skeptical about the "magical community came together" based on the pretty clear continuation of genocide (both in terms of actual life and culture) of Native Americans, but if there is actually a huge, powerful, well respected magical community in Africa... why haven't they done anything?

I mean, wizards vs muggles etc etc, but I feel like even if all the wizards in the world somehow never got interested in Muggle Issues (which is clearly a lie if they were involved in WWI and usually interact with muggle governing bodies) there would still be a little animosity between a lot of the countries with existing indigenous populations and the colonizing genocidal force of Europe at the time.

 

@KarrinBlue *discreetly snatches mini-Boarder*

 

oops i read the first three books of Alexandra Quick's misadventures

what have you guys done.

i was sposed to finish that really boring chapter on business ethics yesterday

i kid, this is great

 

... :D

:D :D

I would apologize, but... I'm having trouble feeling very sorry. I'm sorry, I just love Alexandra Quick too much. Beautiful, beautiful world-building and one of the most important unlikeable female protagonists of my heart. <3

 

I want t o yell at Alexandra SO BADLY and also whack her on the back of the head but i also want her friends and i SUPPOSE her to stay alive XD XD

still haven't really read the last book. am sitting in disturbed suspense.

 

Who is alexandra

 

hah sorry for the confusion, i meant the fan fiction keltena brought up a page ago XD

 

Hi yes I'm here to help complain about the terrible Pottermore releases at least until the time machine is finished and we can go back and force JKR to both a) write most of the Pottermore material as secondary sources a la Dragon Age codex entries and b) do some basic goddamn research

I'm not an expert on any particular thing in US History, but I would love to contribute to this.

You know what the tragedy of the stupid "NA wizards are totally segregated from Muggles" thing here is?

It's passing up the possibility of wizard-run speakeasies.

Like, the Muggles have no idea magic is involved. But they're loaded up with all sorts of spells so they're Unplottable or the door goes to an empty room if your intent is hostile toward the establishment or people can only see it at night. And the drinks are far less likely to make you go blind because they've got professional brewers with the same spells so they don't have to worry about being shut down no matter how obvious their operation is, so there's no need to do terrible things to denatured alcohol or run a shady still in your bathtub (and in a pinch it's REALLY easy to Apparate overseas and buy something Muggle-produced when your supplies run low).

And it's an incredible headache for the wizard authorities, because they need to figure out where to set the legal limits on what magic is ethical in situations like this, then find and prosecute the people that are running establishments where they slip illegal potions into the drinks, or don't bother with the outward protections and just Memory-Charm any cops who come in so hard they can't remember their own names.

 

Oh, and incidentally, I realize this is way at the bottom of the list of reasons to be angry about that "wizards aren't ever racist" tweet, but you know what one of the things about it that just plain bugs me is? It's throwing away the best and simplest answer to the "why didn't wizards interfere with/prevent [horrible historical event]" question. "There were wizards on both sides."