COS Chapter Seven: "Mudbloods and Murmurs"

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

 

* Collin’s really acting like an obsessive stalker here. I wonder if that’s how Harry appeared to Draco in HBP?

* Ron’s malfunctioning wand actually sounds quite dangerous, but nobody thinks it might be a good idea to replace it. Although OTOH having a lax attitude towards safety seems to be one of the few things about the WW that seems consistent throughout the books (they’ll show it again when Percy tries to stop people using dangerous cauldrons), so maybe I should be thankful that it isn’t just one of these things that changes whenever the plot demands.

* I assume that JKR’s just forgotten to mention the try-outs that every Quidditch team apparently does each year.

* I’m just going to tune out while Harry recaps the rules of Quidditch for Collin.

* Everyone’s not bothering to pay attention to Wood’s new tactics. Remember kids, teamwork’s for suckers! You just do what you want to do!

* Wood is still upset over Gryffindor losing last year. Serves him right for being too thick to have a reserve Seeker, IMHO.

* Note how Wood’s first reaction upon seeing Collin is to jump to the conclusion that he’s a Slytherin spy. Not that he’s in any way biased against Slytherin, or anything like that.

* Remember chaps, looking like a troll = evil. Part-giant, OTOH, = misunderstood woobie. Even though trolls don’t really seem much worse than giants.

* There are no girls on the Slytherin team, just to remind everyone that they’re sexist, and therefore evil. JKR hates sexism, which is why she took care to include so many liberated, independent-minded women in the novels.

* Wood’s “spitting with rage” now. Christ, Oliver, calm down, it’s not the end of the world. Maybe the Gryffindor and Slytherin teams could just play a friendly, or something.

* “Aren’t you Lucius Malfoy’s son?” says Fred, looking at Draco with dislike. Remember kids, it’s wrong to judge people based on their family.

* Is it possible to smirk so broadly that your eyes are “reduced to slits”, or is Draco actually grinning with happiness here?

* I don’t think that Malfoy did buy his way onto the team. For a start, Seeker is the most (i.e., only) important position in the game, and I don’t think that flying on better brooms would compensate for having an inferior Seeker. Secondly, he’s on the team for at least three years, when the Slytherins could easily have ditched him as soon as they’d got the brooms. They’d even have had a good excuse after losing that Quidditch match in “The Rogue Bludger”.

* Lucius seemed like quite a harsh, demanding father when we saw him in Borgin and Burke’s, IMHO, so the thought that he’s pleased daddy enough to make him buy new brooms for the team is probably making Draco grin even more.

* I bet he looks adorable in this scene.

* Now I can’t stop thinking of Lauren Lopez in A Very Potter Sequel. “Don’t worry, daddy, you’ll love me after this! I’ll catch that Snitch, mark my words!”

* Just thought it interesting to note that Malfoy wasn’t involved in the conversation until Ron brought him in. It’s not like he was strutting up and down, boasting about his new broom, or anything like that.

* Hermione’s the one who starts with the personal insults. Really, I think that the good [sic] guys are acting worse than the baddies here.

* If the theory that Draco’s really just happy because he’s finally made his daddy proud is right, then implying that he’d just bought his way onto the team is probably one of the most offensive things Hermione could say. Unsurprisingly, he responds with one of the most offensive things that he could say.

* Draco calls Hermione a “Mudblood”, despite the fact that she’s a Muggleborn, and therefore cannot be expected to know what it means, suggesting that either she’s upset him so much he’s not thinking straight, or that he wants to keep face in front of his teammates by responding to her insults, but at the same time doesn’t want to upset her. If the latter, it could be evidence for some kind of D/Hr ship.

* JKR seems to be expecting us to go “ZOMG Draco’s an evil racist!” suggesting that she’s forgotten why exactly it is that racism’s considered so wrong. I don’t think it’s just that you’re looking down on people for the way they were born – if it were, then jokes about stupid blondes would be considered as bad as jokes about stupid black people. Rather, it’s wrong because minorities often suffer from discrimination (and in many cases have suffered from it even more in the relatively recent past), and racist language helps to reinforce and normalise the prejudiced attitudes which lead to such discrimination. Because we haven’t really see people suffering from anti-Muggleborn prejudice, it’s hard to think of “Mudblood” as a particularly serious insult.

* This, BTW, is why I disagree with people who say things like “Rowling uses the Harry Potter books to teach children not to be racist.” If she were really doing that, she’d show how racism affects people’s lives (cf. To Kill a Mockingbird). What she’s actually doing is taking real racism and using it in lieu of actual worldbuilding and characterisation. We already know that racism is wrong, and we think Draco’s a bad person because his use of the term “Mudblood” is superficially similar to real-life examples of racism; we don’t learn about how racism is bad from its effects on HP characters, because it doesn’t really have any.

* Anyway, back to the actual story…

* Once again, the good guys are the first to use force. Why am I not surprised?

* I think it’s sweet the way Flint dives in front of Malfoy to stop him being attacked. The Slytherins often seem to look out for each other the most (see also Lucius patting Snape on the back when he’s first Sorted). Contrast this with the Gryffindors in PS, who refuse to speak to Harry, Hermione, Ron or Neville after they lose some House Points.

* What’s this, one of the good guys has suffered some negative consequences as a result of attacking someone else? Hold on while I go make a note of this in my diary.

* Again with the clothes! Lockhart’s wearing robes of “palest mauve” today. Harry’s really starting to look rather gay now; given JKR’s fondness for stereotypes (viz. the Finnegans) and inability to write a decent romance (chest monster!), I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find her way of showing homosexuality would be having someone spend all their time looking at their crush’s clothes.

* Note how Hagrid doesn’t remonstrate with Ron for trying to curse Malfoy. Clearly he’s a responsible adult and an excellent candidate for a prestigious teaching position.

* I know Hagrid doesn’t like Lockhart, but he really should know better than to undermine him like that in front of his pupils.

* So the jinx on DADA has been in place for what, forty or so years now? And people are only just starting to twig? I know wizards are slow learners, but really…

* Also, couldn’t Dumbledore find ways to either discover how Riddle jinxed the position and undo it somehow, or to get around it, such as hiring two teachers who each teach on alternate years or getting rid of DADA and replacing it with a class which is functionally indistinguishable but has a different name (“battle magic”, perhaps?).

* I think that this scene was one which the film actually did better than the books. Yes, having Hermione getting all upset may not have been fully logical, but it at least made Draco look like a hurtful bully rather than an eccentric crank. It also suggested that someone might have called Hermione that before, hinting at actual day-to-day anti-Muggleborn prejudice, which is more than the books ever managed to do.

* “Maybe it was a good thing yer wand backfired.” Wait, is Hagrid glad that Ron got to be on the receiving end in the hope that he’ll be less likely to curse people in future? No, of course not, he’s worrying that Ron might otherwise have got in trouble.

* Hagrid comes across as so judgemental when he says “’Spect Lucius Malfoy would’ve come marchin’ up ter school if yeh’d cursed his son.” Clearly, caring about your children being attacked is a sign of great evil. Good guys know that being randomly hexed is what makes a man out of you.

* Although Lucius doesn’t seem to have done much when Draco was hexed into unconsciousness on the train (twice!), which probably foreshadows the Redeemed!Malfoys situation at the end of DH.

* Hagrid’s been breaking the law to make his pumpkins grow faster. Which couldn’t possibly be dangerous in any way, oh no.

* Suddenly, Draco’s gossip about him getting drunk and setting his bed on fire looks awfully plausible.

* Everybody hates Filch, which is entirely understandable, given all the times he complains about having to clean up the mess children make and, erm, gives them detention for breaking the rules. Yep, entirely understandable.

* So how does Parseltongue work, then? ’Cause surely Lockhart ought to have heard it, even if he didn’t understand what it was saying? Or is it a sort of telepathy? But then Ron managed to speak it in DH…

* Awfully convenient the way the basilisk goes around describing its evil plan to itself, isn’t it? Do basilisks just have really bad memories, and need to keep repeating their plans to themselves in case they forget?

* Part of me can’t help but feel pleased that Ron vomited slugs over that trophy. Maybe next time he’ll think twice before hexing someone. Or not.
 

 

Comments

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

/* Wood is still upset over Gryffindor losing last year. Serves him right for being too thick to have a reserve Seeker,/

I did find it odd that whenever Harry couldn't play due to being in the hospital wing, his team would automatically lose. What were they doing before Harry joined the team?

In HBP, Harry taunts Harper about Draco paying him to take his place during a Quidditch match. Did it ever occur to Harry that maybe Harper was Draco's replacement because he wasn't feeling well (especially since he'd noticed all year how pale and sickly Draco was)? I know that Harry was bent on proving his conspiracy theory about Draco (which ended up being right, admittedly), but if the situation was taken wholly out of context, it wouldn't be a big deal.

/* There are no girls on the Slytherin team, just to remind everyone that they’re sexist, and therefore evil./

JKR also noted in PoA that Cho was the only girl on the Ravenclaw team. Are the Ravenclaws sexist, too?

/* I don’t think that Malfoy did buy his way onto the team. For a start, Seeker is the most (i.e., only) important position in the game, and I don’t think that flying on better brooms would compensate for having an inferior Seeker./

In PS/SS, Harry admits that Draco does fly well, which I thought was supposed to foreshadow his future position as Seeker. I think that because Draco's a nasty rich boy, we're supposed to assume that everything he gets is due to his wealth and not due to any merit on his part.

/* Hermione’s the one who starts with the personal insults./

True, but Draco does insult the Weasleys' brooms beforehand, saying that they can raffle them off and that he expects that "a museum would bid for them." So, Hermione's retort is clearly meant to be retaliatory.

/* Draco calls Hermione a “Mudblood”, despite the fact that she’s a Muggleborn, and therefore cannot be expected to know what it means/

Maybe Hermione wouldn't have known what it meant in her first year in the wizarding world, but since this is her second year, I don't think Draco was unreasonable to expect her to have heard of the term by now.

I've always found it curious that Draco never once called her "Mudblood" during their first year. I know that from a storytelling standpoint, it wouldn't have been possible since JKR intended to introduce the blood prejudice theme in the second book, but it's still odd. Some people say it's because Draco hadn't yet heard of the epithet in first year or didn't know that Hermione was Muggle-born. Other people say that he didn't have much of a reason to use it since Hermione really didn't do anything to him personally. Others say that this scene was the breaking point.

/Contrast this with the Gryffindors in PS, who refuse to speak to Harry, Hermione, Ron or Neville after they lose some House Points./

That made me so upset the first time I read it. It wasn't just because I sympathized with Harry and his friends, it was also because I couldn't believe that their *entire House* would ostracize them over that. The entire school's opinion of Harry fluctuates so often that it's ridiculous. Was the House Cup really such a big deal that it was worth shunning their own classmates? What was Slytherin House's reaction to Draco, I wonder?

/* I think that this scene was one which the film actually did better than the books. Yes, having Hermione getting all upset may not have been fully logical, but it at least made Draco look like a hurtful bully rather than an eccentric crank./

I know, but I still disliked the change because Hermione stole Ron's lines and his thunder. and it made no sense. Ron's a pureblood who has grown up in the wizarding world; Hermione is a Muggle-born who is just as much of a newcomer as Harry is. Since he has the background and experience, it's only fitting that Ron be the one to tell them about racism in the wizarding world.

/Clearly, caring about your children being attacked is a sign of great evil. Good guys know that being randomly hexed is what makes a man out of you./

So, Harry's treatment by the Dursleys wasn't awful at all because it didn't break him? What a terrible attitude to have. Parents have every right to be concerned about their children's welfare, no matter who they are.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Well, Harry is a special case. It wasn't wrong in principle (according to twisted Potterverse logic), but it was wrong and terrible because they didn't respect that he was HARRY POTTER, the Chosen One and Savior who Never Is Wrong and Must Get Everything On A Gold Platter. And possibly because they were lowly Muggles abusing a wizard.

But wizard-on-wizard violence, even by parents, is totally ok. In the Potterverse. (Not to me. The books are sick.)

[oryx_leucoryx]

I've always found it curious that Draco never once called her "Mudblood" during their first year. I know that from a storytelling standpoint, it wouldn't have been possible since JKR intended to introduce the blood prejudice theme in the second book, but it's still odd. Some people say it's because Draco hadn't yet heard of the epithet in first year or didn't know that Hermione was Muggle-born. Other people say that he didn't have much of a reason to use it since Hermione really didn't do anything to him personally. Others say that this scene was the breaking point.

In first year Hermione wasn't on his radar. He was not yet interested in her in any way. Until they got their grades at the end of the year and he realized she was better than him in everything (note his complaints to his father). The only reason Hermione was affected by anything Draco did in PS was indirectly, via Harry (going after Harry and Ron for their expected 'Midnight duel' and getting caught with Norberta).

But note that not only Draco, nobody at the school called her names regarding her background.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

I assume that JKR’s just forgotten to mention the try-outs that every Quidditch team apparently does each year.

They materialised only when Harry became captain in HBP, right? Or when she needed to write Ron into the team in OotP?

I remember being surprised when the notion that every member of the team had to compete again for his/her position as a regular annual event was announced as a matter of course by Katie in book 6. A small case of Rowling waving her hands and making a retroactive continuity adjustment. Dwarfed in insult by the calamitous Hallows she brought in with book 7, of course. Oh, and the about-turn in wand lore. And the Trace. And ...

JKR hates sexism, which is why she took care to include so many liberated, independent-minded women in the novels.

... who all went to pieces when it came to matters of romance - Ginny submissively waiting forever until Harry noticed her, Hermione in a holding pattern until Ron grows up. Neither boy put under any pressure or concern regarding losing their girl, who would always be there waiting for them.

(She *tried* to make out that Ginny was independent and dating other boys (quidditch and dating, that's Ginny Weasley in a nutshell) independent of Harry, but that all dissolved when she told him/us that she'd "never given up" on her crush!hero.)

So Rowling's women are liberated and independent career-wise, but not when it comes to matters of the heart. They're totally dependent on their men on that score.

Now I can’t stop thinking of Lauren Lopez in A Very Potter Sequel. “Don’t worry, daddy, you’ll love me after this! I’ll catch that Snitch, mark my words!”

I haven't watched it; does Lopez play Ginny? 'Daddy'?

What she’s actually doing is taking real racism and using it in lieu of actual worldbuilding and characterisation. We already know that racism is wrong, and we think Draco’s a bad person because his use of the term “Mudblood” is superficially similar to real-life examples of racism; we don’t learn about how racism is bad from its effects on HP characters, because it doesn’t really have any.

An interesting observation. Hermione's treated just like anyone else to this point. The use of the 'mudblood' term does increase throughout the series, doesn't it - Draco using it, the DEs all using it - but that's it. Until DH when Rowling brought it all out with the muggleborn being thrown into concentration camps (if I remember correctly).

Fan fiction stories often trot out actual 'real magical world' examples of where the blood purity bias is actually implemented in real life - Hermione is barred from advancing in the Ministry for example, or is told she'll have career problems because of her background. But there was none of that in the series, other than taunts which weren't backed up by any actual evidence. "All was well" in this interstitial period between the two Voldemort wars, just as it was in the epilogue.

Perhaps the blood purists were a *tiny* part of the population, just the Death Eaters and super evil Slytherins, so the prejudice wasn't seen until Voldemort took over the Ministry? Ron tells us that it's just "some wizards - like Malfoy's family", after all. But he reacted pretty quickly/violently to the epithet, didn't he; out of all proportion to an insult which is barely used?

I guess ... perhaps all the anti-muggleborn stuff came out in the first Voldemort war, but then was repealed by an appalled population immediately after the dark lord's apparent demise? But that was only 11 years earlier ... it's hard to equate such a concerned and active populace with what we see in HBP and DH; an apathetic community who seem content to allow the Ministry to be overrun with no objection, who don't resist the round-up of the muggleborn and who passively wait for a teenager to save them.

The reaction of Ron and others to the word doesn't match up with what Rowling shows us of the wizarding population as a whole and its lack of resistance to the sudden adoption of the pureblood beliefs as policy in books 6 & 7.

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

does Lopez play Ginny? 'Daddy'?



She plays Draco, and such a brilliant, fabulous, hilarious Draco, too!

(first appears at 2:44)



I laugh so hard at Draco's scenes. 'Wait, don't tell me! Red hair, hand-me-down clothes and a stupid complexion. You must be a Weasley.'

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

(hope you don't mind me making a few replies to the same comment, I'm off-and-on the internet at random)

I remember being surprised when the notion that every member of the team had to compete again for his/her position as a regular annual event was announced as a matter of course by Katie in book 6. A small case of Rowling waving her hands and making a retroactive continuity adjustment

I've re-read that section and at first, it doesn't sound like it's an annual event:

"I thought you'd get that, well done," she called over, pointing at the Captains badge on Harry's chest. "Tell me when you call trials!"
"Don't be stupid," said Harry, "you don't need to try out, I watched you play for five years. . . ."
"You mustn't start off like that," she said warningly. "For all you know, there's someone much better than me out there. Good teams have been ruined before now because Captains just kept playing the old faces, or letting in their friends...."
Ron looked a little uncomfortable...(heh)

So it sounded like something sensible to do now there's a new captain- assess the team, check out any new talent, etc. So I was okay with that, it didn't have to be a ret-con, but then...

"You didn't try out last year, did you?" asked Harry, taking note of the breadth of McLaggen and thinking that he would probably block all three goal hoops without even moving.
"I was in the hospital wing when they held the trials," said McLaggen, with something of a swagger

So Katie's statement wasn't that big a deal, but Harry himself clearly establishes yearly try-outs are the norm. Even though I don't remember him ever having to fight for his position as Seeker! O.o

[harpsi-fizz.livejournal.com]

Nah, Lauren plays Draco. No, I'm not making that up :) I haven't seen AVPM and I refuse to because I can't stomach R/Hr (and because I pine for my days as a theater boy).

[harpsi-fizz.livejournal.com]

And, Ohgoddamnit...

Neither boy put under any pressure or concern regarding losing their girl, who would always be there waiting for them.

Thanks for giving me another realization that the romances in this book are ForeverFail.

Then again, Rowling has that stupid *thing* about Noah's Arking, doesn't she?

My God, she does. Everyone marries people they went to school with, even Molly and Arthur who were apparently tromping around the school grounds together. Then there's Dumbledore who quote "lost his moral compass completely when he fell in love and I think subsequently became very mistrusting of his own judgment in those matters so became quite asexual".

Everyone has just one person, only one, and everyone else before them is just a stepping stone to get to the end (Lavender, Cho, Michael, that chucklehead Hermione went to the ball with, Dean). My God is that self-indulgent fanficcy juvenile horseplop if I ever heard it.

And hey, Jay-Kay- saying "he became quite asexual" in this context is basically the same as saying "She became quite heterosexual." You don't ... it's... it...

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

/So Rowling's women are liberated and independent career-wise, but not when it comes to matters of the heart. They're totally dependent on their men on that score./

You forgot to mention Tonks. She certainly went to pieces once Remus first rejected her attentions. And she was an adult Auror.

It's not only that some of the female characters become submissive when it comes to matters of the heart, it's that they become downright *vicious.* Merope gives Tom Riddle Sr. what is essentially a date rape drug, Lily throws her friendship with Severus away in favor of going along with James' mating dance, and Hermione browbeats Ron constantly, goes out with boys solely to make him jealous, and, to top it all off, conjures up a flock of dangerous birds to attack him for the crime of dating a girl who wasn't her. That kind of behavior doesn't send a very positive message about women, either.

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

* So the jinx on DADA has been in place for what, forty or so years now? And people are only just starting to twig? I know wizards are slow learners, but really…

My theory is that it didn't have particularly drastic effects until Voldemort's newest Horcrux started hanging around its victim. I'm guessing that before Harry turned up, it just produced natural-seeming reasons why they had to keep replacing the teacher.

* Also, couldn’t Dumbledore find ways to either discover how Riddle jinxed the position and undo it somehow, or to get around it, such as hiring two teachers who each teach on alternate years or getting rid of DADA and replacing it with a class which is functionally indistinguishable but has a different name (“battle magic”, perhaps?).

This may have been what he was trying to do with only hiring Moody for a year. It may also explain why he didn't seem in the least bit concerned about Umbridge's appointment, since he knew she'd get her come-uppance by the end of the year.

* I assume that JKR’s just forgotten to mention the try-outs that every Quidditch team apparently does each year.

You think Dumbledore would let Harry go through try-outs?

JKR and Math

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

*So the jinx on DADA has been in place for what, forty or so years now? And people are only just starting to twig? I know wizards are slow learners, but really…

My theory is that it didn't have particularly drastic effects until Voldemort's newest Horcrux started hanging around its victim. I'm guessing that before Harry turned up, it just produced natural-seeming reasons why they had to keep replacing the teacher.

I have to wonder if JKR really thought about the math of how many years went by between Voldemort's visit to Dumbledore to get the job and when Harry got to Hogwarts in 1991.

I just don't believe she really sat down and filled a notebook with that kind info/timelines.

I just don't see her as the kind of writer who actually plotting out Voldmort visited Dumbledore to get the job for DADA and also placed the Horcuxes in 19(--), and that means X number of years went by of DADA teachers not teaching but 1 year.

I think she just wrote the scene out of Voldie's visit and after that didn't go back and think about when this was occuring or even rationalized X number of teachers would have to fill the position for X number of years.

I know she says she has notebooks filled with information but I just have to ask what kinda info it is; I'm thinking it's probably just dialgue, character tidbits and bits of chapter and story that probably never got used.

I just feel like she writes in her notebooks but this writing doesn't have outlining timelines and that kinda stuff in it. I don't even know if early on it ever occur to her to do that or at least not in a serious enough way to make sure her canon conforms to a logical proper timelines.

Even she admited she didn't know about the missing time between Lily and James being attacked and Baby Harry ending up on the Dursleys doorstep. Which sort of attests to not have plotted out a effective timeline. That is the main event for how the story stars and she doesn't know exactly what happened and why there is missing time?

So I'm going to question the whole concept of time before Harry was born. I think she had general ideas on where she was going with the story but I don't know if she sat down and figured it all up and plotted out the timeline for each scene, in an effective way.

I don't really think JKR planned for the DADA job to be cursed that long. I think its another case of she just wasn't doing the math.

[sunnyskywalker]

There ought to be a club for former DADA teachers, with rankings for best and worst ways to leave the job and a betting pool on how the latest one is going to bow out. I bet Lockhart would start the club up now, if someone told him he used to have the job!

Henry VIII's wives

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

I'm suddenly reminded of that jingle:

Divorced, beheaded, died;
Divorced, beheaded, lived....

[harpsi-fizz.livejournal.com]

You're the great equalizer, you know that? With your point of view, the books take on a new dimension. It's good to be taken out of Harry's head, where he clearly spends far too much time.

he Slytherins often seem to look out for each other the most [...] Contrast this with the Gryffindors in PS...
This point... I can't even... it's... yes. Oh, yes.
But so we don't go privately insane wanting to point this out to people, let's pretend it's only because of the Slytherin "any means" thing.

It also suggested that someone might have called Hermione that before
I never considered that. I used to really hate what they did in the movies because when Hermione didn't know what it meant, it did a lot of things. Firstly, since she never got worked up about being called that, it showed how class/bloodlines have to be bred into someone and how you have to be taught disdain for a virtually undetectable trait (really, line up seven wizards and tell us which is fourteenth gen and which is first gen). Since she never grew up with the stigma of that word, it didn't hurt.

Second, it gave Harry and Hermione a chance to show their ignorance while Ron got to show that he wasn't completely useless he has the culture of the Wizard World and can help them that way.

Third, it gave the Wizard World a culture that wasn't superior to non-wizards, just different. It can hurt, but for Hermione, for whom the word really does mean fuck-all since she's tops in her class, it just wouldn't. Now it might have gotten her thinking about how wizards view non-magical people, but I guess not.

(Seriously, though, I can't get over it! Potter Stans know they aren't wizards, and yet they don't mind this slur being thrown at them all the time?)

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Since she never grew up with the stigma of that word, it didn't hurt.

I've always considered Hermione's fear of saying Voldemort's name as a flaw in the series. She was brought up as a muggle, just like Harry; therefore, just like Harry, she shouldn't have any fear of the name. And yet she does; it's only in OotP, when she's trying to convince Harry to run the D.A., that she says the name for the first time, if I recall correctly. That never made sense to me.

Rowling wanted Harry to be super-special in being the only one to say 'Voldemort', so she happily ignored Hermione's muggle upbringing just to get that special effect.

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

"You're the great equalizer, you know that? With your point of view, the books take on a new dimension."

Why, thank you. :)

"But so we don't go privately insane wanting to point this out to people, let's pretend it's only because of the Slytherin "any means" thing."

It could be that. Maybe it's because they sense each other's inherent evil, as well.

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

, it gave Harry and Hermione a chance to show their ignorance while Ron got to show that he wasn't completely useless he has the culture of the Wizard World and can help them that way.

THIS. I just get so fed up when I look at the series and see what a dumbass he is. Ron should've been the one who knows about Muggle-repelling charms and schools like Durmstrang and so on. This is his society, these are important features of his world and he's all 'huh, what, IDK, Hermione, tell me more about things in everyday life that I should be aware of', ARGH, it's so annoying! It would've put him and Hermione on a more equal footing, she needs him for some things because even though she devours books, there are some nuances you can't figure out by reading, you need a native of the society to explain it to you, but no, more often than not, it's Hermione telling Ron about how his world works!

It can hurt, but for Hermione, for whom the word really does mean fuck-all since she's tops in her class, it just wouldn't

THANK YOU, ITA.

[oryx_leucoryx]

* So how does Parseltongue work, then? ’Cause surely Lockhart ought to have heard it, even if he didn’t understand what it was saying? Or is it a sort of telepathy? But then Ron managed to speak it in DH…

No, on-Parselmouths can only hear parseltongue when spoken by humans, not by snakes. On Halloween Harry heard the basilisk, but neither Ron nor Hermione did.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Ack, I meant 'non-Parselmouths'.

[mmmarcusz.livejournal.com]

* “Aren’t you Lucius Malfoy’s son?” says Fred, looking at Draco with dislike.

What a nasty thing to say to someone. Fred really is a prick. Has the same overtone as "Wasn't your grandfather a Jew?"

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

I really love your thoughts on the 'racism' in HP.

she’s forgotten why exactly it is that racism’s considered so wrong. I don’t think it’s just that you’re looking down on people for the way they were born – if it were, then jokes about stupid blondes would be considered as bad as jokes about stupid black people. Rather, it’s wrong because minorities often suffer from discrimination, and racist language helps to reinforce and normalise the prejudiced attitudes which lead to such discrimination

Thank you so much for this! I love the way you've pinned it down there- racist comments are objectionable largely because of the way society has discriminated against minorities, and those offensive terms are a way of dehumanizing them so it makes it easier to treat them like inferior beings. It's not just making nasty comments about the way a person was born, because as you pointed out, other things like dumb blonde jokes don't inspire furious debate and rallies and everything. Speaking as a short-sighted person, I got paid out enough for my glasses at school and while annoying, it's nothing on the level of racism because it's not like I'm going to miss out on job opportunities because I wear glasses or whatever.

What I hate is how people revere JKR for incorporating serious themes like racism and slavery and death into her series when it comes off like cheap gimmicks, they're just there to make the books seem really deep and insightful when it's the opposite, because it's not treated in a meaningful manner and people don't respond in realistic ways or the way the world works doesn't jive with these issues she's trying to shove in there. I love this article (When Harry Met Buffy) which describes it as 'Harry Potter uses real-world issues as a cheap way to add colour to an otherwise unconvincing fantasy world'.

Because we haven’t really see people suffering from anti-Muggleborn prejudice, it’s hard to think of “Mudblood” as a particularly serious insult.

ITA. Hermione didn't even know what the word meant at first- she got that it was an insult, obviously, from the tone and context, but it meant absolutely nothing to her. Gosh, I can really feel the prejudice against Muggle-borns, can't you, that she managed to get through a year and a bit without ever realizing there was all this active hatred towards her kind?

Even after she realized what the word meant, it was just a nasty thing that a kid she already hated used to put her down, it had no emotional impact, it didn't make her feel inferior or threatened because it doesn't have the context of a society that's been crapping all over her and keeping her from living up to her potential and barring her from opportunities because of her birth. It'd piss her off that he's throwing such a spurious remark at her- because he has nothing else he can really use against her- but it's not something she'd be insecure about or cry herself to sleep at night over! It's not like she turned up to Hogwarts and people shunned her when they found out she was the daughter of Muggles. Because that would've totally burned, meeting new school-mates who discuss their family lineage, and then when she mentions her dentist parents, all of a sudden these friendly, easygoing kids ostracize her. But no, if anything, it's Hermione distancing herself from her roomies because she despises girly girls.

Was it hurtful? Yeah, there's this ass being mean to her, but I'd say it wasn't any more hurtful than her calling him a twitchy little ferret- and I thought that was bad because it was a teacher that had assaulted him and then it was reinforced by another teacher threatening his safety and humiliated him.

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

But when I tried to raise this point on a HP comm, I got told:

It's clear that house means a lot AT HOGWARTS, but it doesn't define you the way that a bullshit social construct like blood purity does and it's disingenuous and ignorant to imply otherwise...

'Mudblood and proud of it!'- Hermione Granger, Deathly Hallows. DID YOU READ DH AT ALL? Yes, you're right, Hermione NEVER defined herself by her blood. Damn, canon, get your facts straight.

Your comments make it seem like you have very limited knowledge about how prejudice affects people. Maybe it's because I'm a person of color who is incredibly aware of how prejudice works, but it's clear to me that JKR (and she's even said so SEVERAL TIMES in interviews) made blood purity akin to racial hierarchy. I can't help but have a really fucking good understanding of some, perhaps, more subtle things going on

So the books are from Harry's POV, maybe I don't realize how Hermione handles the few times Draco uses the word 'mudblood' against her, but it seems to me that the boys get more upset on her behalf and she's mostly indifferent or just annoyed because it's Draco, but not particularly wounded by the word itself. (personally, I think she has healthy self-esteem, knows she outperforms him in every class and hates him anyway, so what he says doesn't affect her- which isn't to excuse his remark, but my point is that the racism analogy doesn't work for me because it lacks meaning to her)

Anyway, most of the time Draco's insulting Harry and Ron, who have 'purer' blood than she does, so it's hard to take the blood purity notion seriously. Draco put down Ron the first time they met about how he was the 'wrong sort', which is an interesting perspective from one pureblood to another.

we don’t learn about how racism is bad from its effects on HP characters, because it doesn’t really have any.

OMG, EXACTLY. But again, I try to have a rational discussion and yet I got people disparaging me and making all sorts of offensive remarks. It's ridiculous the way people get so caught up in 'ZOMG RACISM' that they don't actually look at the way our main Muggle-born character is treated. Hermione doesn't suffer wide-spread discrimination (I saw an article in which she's described as 'struggling to overcome prejudice against her Muggle-born heritage', wtf, like when did that ever happen? In DH, sure, they were out to get her, but no more or less than they were out to get Harry and Ron, halfblood and pureblood), she's not an outcast at school because of her Muggle parents, we've gotten no indication that she'll have trouble with finding a job because of her background or anything relating to discrimination because she was born to two Muggle parents. In fact, she's acknowledged as the brightest girl at her school, most of her teachers shower her with praise and she goes on to have a brilliant career in the Ministry!

Again, sure, in DH, there was the Muggle-born Registry thing, but that was something implemented by the DEATH EATER REGIME. This is something put in place by terrorists, it's not reflective of the whole wizarding world; it's like saying the KKK represented the beliefs of all of Western society or something.

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

The main arguments I got about the racism were:

It's like blood purity or even people like Slughorn being surprised that a Muggleborn can perform as well as a counterpart didn't happen in your mind. It's pretty damn clear that Muggleborns are at the bottom of the wizarding hierarchy

I'm starting to wonder if JKR was too subtle when it came to the WWII/Klan comparisons because Slytherfen just refuse to get it even while crowing about how ~intelligent~ they are. Or maybe you're just okay with racism. Idgi.

What, you think the Death Eaters just appeared out of thin air? Go on JKR's website and find me the Muggle-born Ministers for Magic anf Muggle-born Headmasters of Hogwarts. I'll wait. Go, look for them. While you're on that wild goose chase, let me remind you that in the books, Muggles are looked down on and there was even talk of Sirius' ancestors trying to pass Muggle-hunting legislation. Muggle-borns are thought to be Muggles who have stolen magic as stated by Umbridge.

So yeah, unconvinced. I've really not seen anywhere that shows Hermione would be at the bottom of the hierarchy (people acknowledge her skills above purebloods like Neville), I don't accept terrorist ideology as representative of the wider community's beliefs or treatment of Muggle-borns and most of the discrimination/abuse that happens is against Muggles, which is a huge difference from Muggle-borns. And that whole 'Muggle-borns steal magic' is just nonsense that JKR shoehorned in to try to make people ooh and ahh over her WWII comparisons, which is so stupid, because nobody ever mentioned it before, we never got any indication that this was even a theory, let alone wide-spread belief, and it came off like something people like Umbridge trumpeted to justify what they were doing, rather than like something people actually bought into.

[oryx_leucoryx]

The odd bit is that while Hermione suffers no discrimination at school the adult Muggle-borns are all but invisible. The only canonical Muggle-borns from previous generations are: Kendra Dumbledore - forced to be at home parent of an insane or otherwise damaged child (what did the family live on? were they poorer than the Weasleys? did Kendra run an owl-based business from home? did she sell goat cheese to the Muggle neighbors?); Lily Potter, nee Evans - wife of rich heir, fighter turned stay at home mother; Ted Tonks - married to renegade Black, father of an Auror, occupation unknown; Mary McDonald - mentioned in passing (was she actually a Muggle-born or was this a fanon assumption?); Mary Cattermole - wife and mother, not clear if she had any other occupation; Dirk Cresswell, husband and father, head of the Goblin Liaison Office. As you see, Dirk was the only one with a known career. And he got there with Slughorn's help. We keep getting descriptions of wizards who dress in non-Muggle fashions and are unfamiliar with Muggle terminology (eg Arthur and elekticity or whatever, Kingsley and 'firelegs') but the only adult wizard Harry sees who looks 'normal' to Harry is Crouch Sr the pureblood. So either adult Muggle-borns do have difficulties in their careers once they leave Hogwarts, or they make an effort to appear as wizardly as possible, maybe even dressing deliberately in the more extreme wizarding fashions and pretending not to know about Muggle stuff, just to fit in, or there are fewer of them than we thought there should be.

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

The stomping on Harry's face - this is revenge for what was previously done to Draco himself. We are told (I forget whether in GOF or OOTP, but I think GOF, because it's the twins?) that, after he and his friends had been hexed into slug-like forms and were lying helpless, the twins stomped on them heavily when leaving the train. For all Draco knew, that was Harry stepping on him.

Just a minor correction. It's really true that Draco's insults don't seem to bother Hermione at all. OTOH, it's also true that, just as much as any other character, Draco can be truly mean. What he said at the end of GOF was cruel, and so was his (possibly unwitting) comment about Neville's parents.

As I said, this is only a minor point. For the most part, I agree with what you're saying; it's odd how verbal violence and abuse are so much worse than physical abuse in these books.