F**king Muggles (How do they work?)

[harpsi-fizz.livejournal.com]

I tried posting this in two different places and while I'm not looking to be agreed with per say, I should have known better than to post it in places where the two laws are "JoRo can do no wrong" and "If you say one word against JoRo, it means you hate her".




From the Harry Potter Riff Trax:
Hagrid: I suppose a great muggle like yourself's gonna stop him, are you?
Harry: Muggle?
Hagrid: *Snide* Non-magic folk.
Mike Nelson: *Riffing* You see, Harry, when a group of people is different, it helps to come up with a funny sounding word, or "slur", to describe them.

I've always really hated the term muggle. Use of it in the books aside, even the sound of the word itself is unappealing- almost an onomatopoeia for someone beig nauseated. You can't say "muggle" without the middle part kind of vomiting from your mouth.

People get bent out of shape over 'Mudblood' but I think Muggle is worse. If magic is so convenient, then not having it is a disadvantage. It's like calling someone out on their deficiency in a rude way.

A woman I know said "taking one characteristic and defining them by that characteristic".

Here's what I don't understand- why haven't the defenders of the term realized that the entire insult "mudblood" stems from a disdainful attitude for "muggles"? One argument I heard was "I think 'mudblood' is definitely worse - there's just something so vile about the concept of having dirty blood, I suppose."

But what is it that makes that blood "dirty"? Having it mix with "muggle" blood. It isn't that much of a jump to make, so why hasn't it been made?

On a side note, ever since I read book one, it always bothered me how quick Harry was to "other" non-magical people the moment he found out he was one of the "elite" people. Specifically, I mean his description of the Quidditch hoops looking like things "muggle children used to blow bubbles".

Honestly, sometimes the distinction between "muggle" things and "wizard" things just gets out of hand. "Muggle studies" couldn't be called something a little less dehumanizing? "Muggle culture" perhaps? Wizard rock- music is universal. It'd be one (more interesting) thing if Rowling had invented instruments that wizards play or if she said that there was a particular sound that came from water or fire when enchanted with a spell and that some wizards had talent for making music from it. Hell, even if she said that they recorded mermaid songs. As it is, "wrock" is just singing a song and replacing words with stereotypical wizard things.

Going to close this up with a quote from the always funny Mike Smith:

Before he can think of another way to find his train, Harry overhears other passengers approaching from elsewhere in the station, complaining about all the Muggles crowding up the joint. Gee, I'm sorry there's too many of us Muggles in the London Underground. You know, the one that was built by Muggles. Let's just shut down the main artery of commerce in the fifteenth largest city in the world, so you high-faluting assholes can use one platform on one train station twice a year to get your little brats to and from their jackoff school. Sheesh.

So the fact that the speaker used the term "Muggles" and carries on like a jerk immediately tips Harry off that they're wizards, and thus they can help him find his train.

- From Mike Smith's review of Chapter 6

Comments

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I agree with what you say about the implications of the term "Muggle". One other thing that you haven't mentioned: we see wizards' condescending attitudes having a practical effect on their treatment of Muggles (e.g., their willingness to mind-wipe them whenever it's convenient), but we never really see any examples of Muggleborns being treated differently (excluding Voldemort's "Muggleborn Registration Committee", which was obviously tacked on by Rowling because Nazis = evil, rather than rising organically out of the story/setting). Even Draco Malfoy does nothing more than call Hermione a "Mudblood"; we never see him bullying and Muggleborns because their parents were Muggles. All in all, it often seems as if the good guys are actually more prejudiced than the baddies, which seems a bit odd in a series supposedly arguing for tolerance.

[robina1984.livejournal.com]

Except for the Basklisk, that only went after muggleborns, you have a point.

[oryx_leucoryx]

The Basilisk went after Muggle-borns because Tom directed it at them. (And Penny may have been a half-blood, if we believe Hermione in DH). The basilisk doesn't discriminate on its own, the person controlling it chooses whom it attacks.

[robina1984.livejournal.com]

...I didn't mean to imply the Basilisk choose it's targets, I merely mentioned it as an example of a time where being Muggleborn had an effect on how one would be treated. Which, while caused by Tom Riddle, still changed some of how others were treated and how secure a Muggleborn would feel in the school. Sorry for not being clear.