(no subject)

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

Am I the only one a little bothered by Dumbledore? Not only with the fact he could end up in the Guinness Book Of World Records for "Most Incompetent Headmaster of All Time" (though I'm sure there's worse. :P), but also because...he just bugs me. I know JKR was trying to write him as the "flawed Yoda", so to speak (and to be fair, he's nowhere near Yoda. XD), but it's also how...preachy he gets. Towards Fudge, for example. You know, in Goblet of Fire, with, "You place too much importance on purity of blood, yadda yadda et cetera et cetera" -- which considering how he treated Tom Riddle and the Slytherins is...slightly hypocritical isn't it? Probably bad writing on JKR's part, though. :/

Anyways, sorry 'bout the rambling. Thoughts?

Comments

Why Lily Was Not an Oppressed Minority, Part 2

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

The magical population is so small that bigotry in it is not like RL bigotry, where racist groups may enjoy the broad support of a large population one has to live in all the time (e.g., the KKK). In that situation, racist groups must be opposed, even if they're small. That's not just because they're potentially dangerous, but also because society has to make clear its opposition to such vile ideas.

The "racism" in HP is more like going to a college with a few thousand students where a certain social group or club bullies you. If you don't want to put up with their garbage, just go to another school. You can easily leave the bigotry behind by disappearing into the larger population of non-magicals, so do that. Given how ludicrously low-tech the WW is, they'd never be able to find anyone who truly wanted to escape them.

That's another example of Rowling's logic fail. She takes the internecine squabble of a tiny population that killed a few dozen people in a single country and equates it with the biggest war in history, one that involved 5 continents and killed over 50 million people. I kept thinking how silly that was while reading DH.

Speaking of WWII, if anybody from the Rowling nether kiss forums sees my remarks and is offended by them, I can do no better than to quote FDR: "They are unanimous in their hate for me. And I welcome their hatred!"

Re: Why Lily Was Not an Oppressed Minority, Part 2

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

http://www.gifbin.com/bin/1233928590_citizen%20kane%20clapping.gif

Re: Why Lily Was Not an Oppressed Minority, Part 2

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

/The "racism" in HP is more like going to a college with a few thousand students where a certain social group or club bullies you. If you don't want to put up with their garbage, just go to another school./

Yes, but the problem is that Lily and Severus literally can't go to another school. As far as we know, Hogwarts is the only wizarding school in Britain. If they wanted to go somewhere else to learn magic, they'd have to go abroad. So, Snape doesn't have a way out to escape the bullying at school and Lily can't go to another school where blood purity isn't an issue.

But you are right; Severus seems much more trapped than Lily does.

/She takes the internecine squabble of a tiny population that killed a few dozen people in a single country and equates it with the biggest war in history, one that involved 5 continents and killed over 50 million people./

I agree. That's why Grindelwald's reign of terror seemed much more massive and bore more of a resemblance to WWII, since it involved more of Europe. England was familiar with him, but so was Viktor Krum and his family, as well as Gellert's home country of Germany. I used to wonder why only Britain (not even Britain - mostly England) was affected by Voldemort. The Bulgarian prime minister knew who Voldemort and Harry Potter were at the Quidditch World Cup, but did that mean that Voldemort's influence had spread to Bulgaria during the First War?

Re: Why Lily Was Not an Oppressed Minority, Part 2

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

Well, that and the fact that Gellert Grindelwald's methods bore...much more of a resemblance to Hitler's. /is uncomfortable. "The Greater Good", blah blah blah. (Hell, in an alternate universe, Albus and Gellert could have been...okay, I'm not touching that one with a ten foot pole. :/)

By contrast, Voldemort seemed to be more of a dick. True, he did evil things, but he seemed more like a plot device than a villain in his own right. In short, a dick. :/

Re: Why Lily Was Not an Oppressed Minority, Part 2

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

Yes, but the problem is that Lily and Severus literally can't go to another school. As far as we know, Hogwarts is the only wizarding school in Britain. If they wanted to go somewhere else to learn magic, they'd have to go abroad. So, Snape doesn't have a way out to escape the bullying at school and Lily can't go to another school where blood purity isn't an issue.

But you are right; Severus seems much more trapped than Lily does.

I'm not talking about Hogwarts specifically, but the wizarding world as a whole. I used the simile of a school and bullying because the total number of magicals in Britain is about the same as the number of students at a medium-sized college or university, and the small number of bad guys resembles a group of bullies or a particularly hateful fraternity rather than a real-life terrorist group. When I said, "Leave the school if you don't like the bullying," I meant "Leave wizarding society behind if you feel they're threatening you." Lily can do that after graduating Hogwarts.

And much as I like Snape, I didn't mention him or the Slytherins in either of my posts.

My overarching point about Lily is that she's a white Baby Boomer, and so am I. I'm really tired of people who aren't either of those things telling me they understand her character better than I do, or holding her up as some kind of heroine of the struggle for minority rights when the only thing she seems to have struggled for was to get herself the cushiest life possible ASAP. There's nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't make her a brave warrior for minority rights, either.

Re: Why Lily Was Not an Oppressed Minority, Part 2

[sunnyskywalker]

Hypothetically she could - if she could convince the Muggles that her education hadn't ended at age 11, and learn some skills so she can actually get a Muggle job. Would she even know how to use a typewriter? Readjusting to the Muggle world would probably be almost as much of a wrench as leaving it in the first place. Which isn't an insurmountable barrier, of course, but I can see why it might be more psychologically difficult than transferring to a different school in the district. It's more like transferring to a school in another country, where they might speak the same language but are culturally quite different.

But it doesn't seem like she faced a whole lot of prejudice from what we know, being popular and in Slughorn's special club and marrying into a rich old family and everything. So she is not a good representative of disadvantaged minorities as written. If JKR had said Lily was denied jobs at the Ministry and everywhere after graduation, and was horribly bullied in school rather than being popular, that would be another story, but she didn't.

Re: Why Lily Was Not an Oppressed Minority, Part 2

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

I don't know the UK, or the times Lily grew up in, but in the US today you could probably claim to have been homeschooled. You'd have some make-up work to do first, of course, but it could be done.

Going to college in another anglophone country might be best, because that cultural difference would help hide the WW-related differences. Then, once you have college behind you, you've got enough history in the Muggle world to proceed from there. This is something that Hermione the education-obsessed might have done... if she still valued anything Muggle after seven years in the WW.

Re: Why Lily Was Not an Oppressed Minority, Part 2

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

"She takes the internecine squabble of a tiny population that killed a few dozen people in a single country and equates it with the biggest war in history, one that involved 5 continents and killed over 50 million people."

Tell me about it. Besides the rampant discrimination against non-magics, this is probably my biggest beef with the series. How she thinks she's showing the horrors of World War II in a dinky fantasy series with a plot-device villain and a bunch of children I have no idea. But here's the thing: World War II, the Holocaust, and related subjects were such horrible and influential events in the history of the world that they can't BE duplicated in a fantasy setting, especially not one as childish as Rowling's. I am Jewish, I've studied the Holocaust on and off for several years, and to say that the situation Rowling's set up is in any way equivalent to the Nazi war crimes is just plain insulting.

Re: Why Lily Was Not an Oppressed Minority, Part 2

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

*This*, just this! :D

And even worse, she never really explains why the Death Eaters join Voldemort. Regarding Hitler, the reason he managed to win Germany to his cause -- when the sane response should have been, "Cart the crazy man off to a mental institution, plzthx?" -- was that Germany was bitter, down on their luck, and in a really bad economic depression. In a way, they saw Hitler as the only person who could really save them (and you know how the rest went. :/).

If Rowling had at least given the Death Eaters motivations -- which is good no matter what the circumstances -- if the whole Nazi comparison had a goddamn *point*...maybe it wouldn't have been so bad. (YMMV)