deathtocapslock | The Endless Possibilities of Squibs (Reply)

Diddle's posts always bring out waves of comments, and for good reason. The points brought up are thought provoking, if not a little depressing. To me, people who would call this community a "bunch of bitter, angry shippers" are incapable of having intellectual discussions. This place is a beautiful thing: we love the series so much that we can point out every miserable, bad, stupid, or nonsensical point and at the end of it, we still know we like the series. That's love right there. Aint it, Will?

Jo, your breath seriously reeks.
But enough flattery. Let's talk Squib.

* Filch is obviously ashamed of being a Squib, suggesting that they suffer from prejudice from fellow wizards, unlike Muggleborns. “Mudblood” is still a worse insult than “Sneakin’ Squib,” though.
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for_diddled

I can't even begin to try to put together the hierarchy and "ism" here, so I'm going to speculate on what could have been.

Rowling said magical blood was dominant, so squibs were extremely rare. Wouldn't it be nice if instead of the wizard world being such an easy place to lose respect, they all looked for opportunities to lift people up?

Imagine it- someone is born and it's discovered that they're a squib, meaning resistant to magical blood. The wizard world takes this to mean that this person will have a strong, resistant personality and that they are good to have around medical wards. They make good healer's assistants, consultants. They go to school like everyone else, but instead of transfiguration, charms, and other classes requiring magic, they can elect to take extra potions and herbology classes.
(Which is sort of pigeon-holing, but at least there isn't the shame factor.)

What if squibs were seen as great community organizers? The symbolism there would be that a person is born and has no natural defenses (wizards do place so much emphasis on magic) so the loved ones all band together to protect him/her.

Or how about if Squibs were seen as bridges between magical people and non-magical people and so were thought to be natural peacemakers, diplomats, and counselors?

The ideas are pretty superstitious, but compared to Human House Elf and outcast, it’s a better deal. If only wizards weren’t so damn clique-y and quick to group everyone. Worst part is, I can’t even tell if it’s wizards or if it’s Rowling herself. In the case of the latter, is it because she was raised in a place that obsessively sectioned people off? I'm going to just assume it's that. I had a psychology professor who came from the United Kingdom and she was always telling me about how bad the classism was and how her own daughter had a teacher make a really nasty (and wildly inappropriate) classist remark regarding the subject matter of her art gallery project.

Edit: I think we all learned something interesting here today- there's a lot of ambiguity about the class "Potions" as far as methods, grading, and procedure goes.