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

[harpsi-fizz.livejournal.com]

I forget if the description was Harry's or the textbook's. I really hope it was Harry's so that I can give at least some benefit of the doubt to some wizards. We all know how biased Harry is.

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

It was the textbook. Written by Bathilda Bagshot, iirc, so it looks like that sort of attitude runs in the family.

[harpsi-fizz.livejournal.com]

F**k! This is what I get for trusting Joanne "Everyone fits into neat little boxes" Rowling. You'd think I'd learn from how she made the houses so that all wizard years fit into 4 neat little personality types.
Or how she generalizes all the Slytherins.
And "all the girls".
And all the witches ("Failproof way to charm witches" book)
And all of those stupid muggles.

In Rowlingverse, if you fit into a group, you will exhibit all of the traits of that group ever. Ain't that convenient?

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

To be fair, the witch-charming book seems more like the wizarding version of real-world "get any girl" books - it's just that in the Wizarding World it apparently works (at least on Hermione - maybe because it's sort of like a textbook she feels compelled to react in the prescribed way?)

[harpsi-fizz.livejournal.com]

It wasn't the book I was griping about in the aforementioned rant, it was that it worked. On Hermione and on Molly, apparently, two women with very different personalities.

Wait, what am I saying? They both have the same basic wants- to get married and spit out babies. 'Cause they have vaginas and those are like trigger words for sleeper spies, making the owner suddenly become ravenous for a ring and little boots.

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

It worked on Molly? Do I even want to know who used it on her?

As to your second statement, it was probably for the best that Voldemort killed Madam Bones offscreen - can't have women taking up political careers after all, or Molly Weasley will have to smite them with her mighty wand of Symbolic Motherhood. (I'm now imagining her going round in a superhero costume cursing every unattached or lesbian witch she can find (we all know there's no such thing as surrogate mothers in these books)).

For more unfortunate implications, apparently Voldemort is evil because he wasn't conceived in love, so what does that say about people born of unhappy marriages, one-night-stands, or rape? Or are the emotions of witches and wizards just that much more special than Muggles?

[harpsi-fizz.livejournal.com]

Harry does.

No, seriously, at breakfast, Harry tries out one of the techniques in the book and Molly's all "giggleBlush" and Ron's like "I'm RonWeasley and I approve this message".

See "The Will of Albus Dumbledore" if you don't believe me!

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

Word on Amelia Bones! I've heard people talking about how the Wizarding World is more egalitarian than ours (again, the Wizard-Muggle problem, if I do say so myself-Rowling called attention to it explicitly in her Beedle the Bard business, for no good reason), but that's just a classic example of showing, not telling. For all the talk of female Ministers of Magic we never see them; despite the fact that two of the four Hogwarts founders were female their houses are completely unimportant compared to those of the male founders; and the female characters we do see (Hermione, Ginny, LILY, etc.) are nowhere near as powerful as the narrative insists they are!

"For more unfortunate implications, apparently Voldemort is evil because he wasn't conceived in love, so what does that say about people born of unhappy marriages, one-night-stands, or rape? Or are the emotions of witches and wizards just that much more special than Muggles?"

Remember as well that the OTHER reason Voldemort went evil was because his FAMILY was evil! Yup, if your family is evil then you will be evil as well. Even if you never knew your family because your mother was abandoned by them and died when you were born. It's in the blood!

(Sheesh and there are actually people who suggest that Voldemort does have a reason for being that way and simply never becomes sympathetic for it because he's evil....)

You know, sort of like how Harry is the son of Saint Lily and therefore loving and virtuous by definition?