F**king Muggles (How do they work?)
Sep. 26th, 2010 04:32 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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deathtocapslockI 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
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
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no subject
Date: 2010-09-26 12:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-26 01:01 pm (UTC)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?
Most definitely.
Anthropologists recognize that the respectful thing to do is to name groups of people by the name they call themselves. As a result tribes and nations that were not aware of there being other people around often end up being named what translates as 'people' in their own language. Following this the correct terminology should be 'people' for us. They can call themselves wizards if they want. And together the two groups (and whatever others that might exist) are humans.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-26 02:26 pm (UTC)And the official attitude towards Muggles, as indicated by the Ministry's policies and what Harry learns from his textbooks, has the same sort of irrationality to it that one sees in RL examples of demonized groups. Muggles are conceived of as being at once not only inconvenient to wizards (supposedly wanting them to do everything for them) but actually dangerous to wizards (Statute of Secrecy, obliviation squads, etc.), and yet also imbecilic, unobservant and harmless, far inferior to wizards (all the laughing at Muggles for not figuring out about wizards, the textbook's story of Wendelin the Weird). Compare this attitude to RL examples of antisemitism, for instance - Jews were supposed to be inferior and yet an ever-present threat. It's all a way of "justifying" any atrocities against the demonized group as "self-defense" without putting oneself in the position of actually *feeling* threatened by the supposedly threatening other, still upholding the comfortable fiction that the demonizing group is superior in all ways to the other. It's utter BS and it's sick to see that JKR *upholds* this vision RE her non-magic characters.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-26 06:19 pm (UTC)Hear! Hear!
I so agree with you, so much so (not to pimp my own work) I actually devote a chapter to it in my fanfic...
To me the word "muggle" is worse than "mudblood", because the latter is meant as an insulting racial slur, while the former is considered an acceptable "polite" alternative.
But it is still a "slang" term used to lump a group of people together so that the person using the term can dismiss them from the speaker's own demographic group -- a verbal way of ghetto-izing another group of people.
Maybe because I'm American and most immigrants who came here worked with their hands and their backs "down in the dirt", but I actually wouldn't find being called "mudblood" insulting, I'd laugh at the person trying to insult me with that word: "Yeah, my ancestors worked in the mud as farmers and ditch diggers, what of it?"
I think one of the major drawbacks of Rowling's universe is the decided lack of real CULTURE in wizarding society. As you point out, why aren't there magickal musical instruments? Magickal operas, where the scores are spells. Ditto theater, dance, literature, poetry, fine arts (and tacky moving paintings don't count)....
Hey, and wizards didn't get us to the moon, either! LOL
no subject
Date: 2010-09-26 07:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-26 11:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-27 01:14 am (UTC);-)
no subject
Date: 2010-09-27 03:58 pm (UTC)I really hate that story. Let's all laugh at how the Muggles couldn't burn any real witches and how the only people they managed to kill were Muggles! What larks!
no subject
Date: 2010-09-28 01:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-28 05:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-28 06:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-28 05:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-28 05:43 pm (UTC)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?
no subject
Date: 2010-09-29 12:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-29 12:26 am (UTC)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.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-29 02:54 am (UTC)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?
no subject
Date: 2010-09-29 03:25 am (UTC)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!
The 'muggle'
Date: 2010-10-05 03:37 am (UTC)There are a lot of instances in the HP books where the author makes it perfectly okay for the 'good guys' to call people muggle. And it's rarely if ever favorable how they talk about non-magicals. The word has been used by 'good guys' in a negative sense or to speak badly of someone who has no magic.
For Harry and company it becomes a offense worth fighting about, they get bent out of shape over draco calling Hermione a 'mudblood' but never even give a second thought to how they themselves have used the word muggle.
Hell, Lily totally banishing her 'best friend' - Lily practically tells Severus he can go to the devil. He was being totally humiliated and tortured by a 'goodie'. Lily practically says: Yea, just go join an evil group that wants me dead...see if I care.
On some level Lily comes across as pretty damn shallow character when you think about it. She ends up marrying a guy who's actions she finds offensive. I mean ya know, it wasn't just Severus who was getting his knickers yanked off. We have a few comments throughout the series that James had a ego problem and would hex random people for no reason.
It's another example of it's okay for Mr. Pefect hero type to be an asshole - he'll still gets the girl no matter how much of a abusive bully he actually was. Lets just forget he was an bully since he spawned the Chosen One! You get brownie points for being the sire of "PURE LOVE".
I mean ya know, first thought I would have if I was in Lily's position is, Even if my best friend was a jerk to me, I would certainly have a lot of second...third...and fourth thoughts about ever dating a guy who publicly humiliates someone who was or had been my friend. But hay...Old boy James and Harry get passes right...They're the heros!
Hell, what about poor Hermione's parents - clearly they didn't have a choice in their memory getting screwed around with by their magical daughter and her sending them to live in Australia.
Hermione is one of the 'good' people so we're not supposed to question it, we as readers must just accept what JKR writes about her 'goodies' because we are supposed to accept that they are 'good' and they're not REALLY doing bad.
Muggle, it's only a bad word if you wear grey or black. If you are clearly defined in the story as wearing a white hat...you get a big pass on being prejudice. They can't be prejudice they're the good guys.
Don't even get me started on the epilogue where Ron 'suppsedly' using magic to pass a muggle driving test. Explains why there are so many morons behind the wheel - those bad drivers are actually wizards and witches who couldn't figure out a muggle test. So much for wizards being 'smarter' than muggles.
Re: The 'muggle'
Date: 2010-10-05 04:55 pm (UTC)If a Slytherin does something, it's reprehensible; if a Gryffindor does the very same thing, well that's okay and the recipient of their bullying "deserves it". :-P
Or the farming family whose land is used for the World Quidditch match...oh, it's terrible what the DEs did to them at the end of the match, but what about the "good" wizarding society? They didn't tell the farmers what REALLY was going to happen on their land, and it was considered perfectly acceptable to just confound them so that they COULDN'T see what was really happening, nor remember anything afterwards.
Sounds equivalent to a date rape drug to me... :-/
Re: The 'muggle'
Date: 2010-10-12 07:31 pm (UTC)I can't help but hope that Ron ended up knocking down and seriously injuring either Hermione or one of his children. It might have taught him that there is actually quite a good reason why Muggles only let qualified people drive cars.
Re: The 'muggle'
Date: 2010-10-12 10:41 pm (UTC)... Alright, I'll indulge a little.
F.D, you just made me realize another crappy point about my one hated pairing. Ron, who is always being slighted and made to feel less than, doesn't need yet one more thing to make him feel like a clueless moron. Now he's got aspects of non-wizard life to deal with like driving instructions and licenses? That's not going to make him feel the need to overcompensate more.
In fact, that's what happened to Ron after book three, isn't it? First few books, he was able to contribute information and be useful. After that, Harry got more comfortable navigating Wizard spaces and grew into his "chosen one" role (kinda...) and Hermione became the oracle and poor Ron was rendered completely useless.
Damn... now I'm tempted to just make this into a post.
Re: The 'muggle'
Date: 2010-10-12 11:20 pm (UTC)Well somebody else has to build the bridge. I make signs IRL so...I could make the road signs for the bridge.
I could even put up the sign and direct Ron where to drive but since he cheated the driving test I have to wonder if he'd understand it.
So much for being a responsible adult.
Wait a minute, now that we're lost on this bridge in our travels through the plot of Potter, How old are they during the epilogue?
It's 19 years later so..they'd be what? 36?
Nothing like cheatin' on the driving test at 36!
Dangit, muggle driving tests are so hhharrddd!
Re: The 'muggle'
Date: 2010-10-13 12:45 am (UTC)Rowling's very own "Teen Talk Ronald" doll. "Math class is tough!"
At least when I degrade Ronald Weasley, he gets an orgasm out of the deal and barely anyone sees it *Refers to icon*
no subject
Date: 2010-11-15 05:16 am (UTC)"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?
no subject
Date: 2010-11-15 05:26 am (UTC)And let's not forget that the Wizards treat everything Muggles invented to make their lives better as inferior substitutes for magic. You know, despite the fact that Muggles INVENTED things instead of just having all conveniences they could ask for handed to them on a silver platter?! All that technology requires a lot of intelligence and skill to produce, you know!
I think Rowling and possibly a few others have paid lip service to the idea that the Wizards are more arrogant than actually superior. The trouble is that there is never any evidence of this in the books! Not once do we see any Muggle actually face down a Wizard or complain about the treatment they receive; and the only Muggles we see with any regularity are the moronic, abusive Dursleys.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-15 04:49 pm (UTC)Except for that train that takes students to and from Hogwarts.
And that radio the Weasleys in OotP, and The Trio in DH, listen to.
Or that Night Bus...
;-)
no subject
Date: 2010-11-27 06:19 pm (UTC)Why "Mudblood" is a compliment
Date: 2010-12-20 01:42 am (UTC)1) "Muggle" is structurally identical to two real world slurs, "nigger" and "faggot." All three words are two syllables, with a short vowel in the first syllable, a double G in the middle, and a gutteral in the second syllable.
2) "Mudblood" is not just silly sounding (in fact, when I first read it, I thought, "What a dumb-sounding word! Am I actually supposed to consider that an insult?"); I can also think of several ways in which it qualifies as a compliment:
a) Little kids love to play with mud, including "eating" mud pies and modeling with clay.
b) "Muddy" blood has to be thicker and richer than ordinary blood, thus more capable of carrying nutrients to the body's cells.
c) Mud has been used since the beginning of civilization to create many necessary and beautiful things: bricks, adobe houses, clay pots, vases, eating dishes and utensils, and sculptures.
d) In mud (dirt mixed with water) grow almost all the plants on Earth: the trees that provide the oxygen we breathe, not to mention furniture and houses, and the crops people grow to eat, feed to their livestock, and make clothing. Without mud, most life on Earth would cease to exist. Certainly humans would die out. Magic's no good without food.
So when you call somebody a "Mudblood," you're telling them they have something in their blood that has been an essential component of all the civilizations in history, something necessary to human life itself. That's not an insult. It's the highest of compliments.
Re: Why "Mudblood" is a compliment
Date: 2010-12-20 03:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-11 02:57 am (UTC)Re: Why "Mudblood" is a compliment
Date: 2011-01-11 03:01 am (UTC)I suppose you could say she thinks of "Muggle" as just a funny-sounding word- and it is if you're a little kid, but once you've heard the real-world slurs, then the associations become obvious.
No doubt "Mudblood" is a made-up slur put in there so that children can get the idea of a slur without being led onto too many real-life slurs. Sort of like that childrens' book series about owls where they had their own versions of real-life swearwords.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-13 12:00 am (UTC)