OOTP Chapter Seven: "The Ministry of Magic"

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

* Jeans and a t-shirt seems like quite a scruffy combination for a hearing, even if they are freshly laundered. Doesn’t Harry have a suit or something he could wear?

* So why is it again that moving Harry to No. 12 required a small battalion of witches and wizards to keep him safe, but taking him to the Ministry requires just one middle-aged guy?

* Kudos to Mr. Weasley for getting excited about automatic ticket machines, instead of just assuming that they’re an inferior substitute for magic like everyone else does. Still, it does make one wonder why he hasn’t learnt more about Muggle technology.

* To enter the Ministry, type 62442. This is where the letters MAGIC are on a numberpad. Just thought I’d point that out.

* Nothing triumphalist about that Statue of Magical Harmony at all, is there? Still, it does make the pureblood supremacists look a bit less bad. Wizards clearly think that they’re better than sapient magical creatures; all Mr. Malfoy et al. want to do is add sapient non-magical creatures to the statue.

* So does St. Mungo’s rely on charity to keep itself afloat, then? ’Cause you’d have thought that the WW would be able to fund at least one hospital, especially if it’s literally the only hospital available to them. But then, why get people to donate to it at all, if you can just fund it out of general taxation? And why would people put coins in the well? After all, you never hear people saying “I think the NHS is such a good thing, I’m going to voluntary pay more tax to help fund it.”

* And do we ever see the Department for Experimental Breeding investigate Hagrid?

* An “Official Gobstones Club” just sounds silly to me. Yes, let’s have all these senior governmental officials using public office space to play a game which squirts foul-smelling liquid into your face! I mean, I get that the HP books have a lot of whimsy in them, but the series is supposed to be growing up at this point. Official Gobstones Clubs just don’t fit with the serious atmosphere JKR’s trying to create.

* Does a society as small as the WW really need such a big government? Or are they all just so stupid that they need two bureaucrats to every normal citizen to constantly tell them what to do?

* The fact that the Goblin Liaison Office is part of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magic Creatures should tell you all you need to know about the wizarding world’s mindset when it comes to other sentient beings.

* If it’s any consolation, though, the Goblins do control the WW’s only bank. I bet they laugh about the wizards whilst secretly holding the Minister to ransom by threatening to use their power to take down the entire wizarding economy.

* A bit like Jews in anti-Semitic literature, now that I come to think of it. Normally, I’d just brush this off as a coincidence, and say that anyone trying to compare Goblins and Jews is reading too much into the text. In light of the fact that Rowling constantly bludgeons us over the head with her heavy-handed Nazi analogies, though…

* Oh, and now they have a “Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee” as part of the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. Once again, “Muggle” is being used as a term of abuse, despite the fact that it’s the Wizarding World, not the Muggle, which is a corrupt, authoritarian, nepotistic dictatorship which breeds Dark Lords like a rotting log breeds toadstools.

* Once again, though, it makes the Pureblood Supremacists look a bit better. After all, if you were brought up to believe that Muggles were inherently stupid, wouldn’t you want to keep their (no doubt equally stupid) offspring at arm’s length?

* In fact, sod it – the Supremacists are actually better than mainstream society. At least their sense of superiority is consistent with their society’s views on Muggles – none of that hypocritical “Oh, Muggles are stupid and inferior – but whatever you do, don’t say so!” crap.

* And now I’m going to shut up on the topic for the rest of this chapter, lest my blood pressure climbs to unhealthy levels.

* Percy appears to have walked out of the photograph. So does this mean that magical photographs are able to know and react to events around them? But how would Photo!Percy have known about the argument? And isn’t there a scene later in the book when Moody shows Harry a picture of the Order of the Phoenix, and Harry thinks something along the lines of “They had no idea that they’d shortly be killed”? Probably Arthur’s removed his son himself.

* So why was the hearing time changed? Was it just to discredit Harry by making him look too arrogant to show up to his own hearing? But then, surely it would emerge that he was meant to turn up several hours later, thereby defeating the purpose of the change?

 

Comments

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

>>>>Yes, but since one can never be multicultural enough and yet not appear to be forcing oneself (unless one's life circumstances are rather unusual) so it's a no-win. People who attempt to place me in no-win situations are best ignored.

Oh yes, I agree that the ideals are nearly impossible to live out. I should clarify. This isn't simply talking about well-meaning people who fail to live up to their values. This is about how some people can be rather self-righteous about how open-minded and tolerant and multicultural they are, while being blind to their own ignorance and prejudice... much like how Dumbledore is.

>>>>BTW is coffee drinking a white thing in the US? In Israel 'real people' drink coffee, regardless of ethnicity. Tea is for the sick and for bureaucrats, according to the common stereotype.

Umm, I could be wrong, but I think drinking coffee is pretty universal in the U.S. But drinking fancy gourmet blends from shops like Starbucks is more of a hipster thing to do.

>>>>(Also, I never got the definition of 'white' in the US. Are darker Caucasians white or brown?)

Umm, that's a good question. Our census currently defines "white" as being descended from people originating in Europe, the Middle East, or Northern Africa. But not everyone whose ancestors originated in those places self-identifies as white, I don't think.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Looks like a non-white person can like wearing t-shirts because they are practical, but a while person wearing a t-shirt is probably doing so out of some kind of agenda. Right, the authors of the site are totally non-hypocrites.

I'm so uber-white I don't have a TV and therefore have no idea about many of the items on their list. OTOH I'm so white I make my own hummus (OK, I grew up eating it). I wonder if baking my own bread makes me even whiter. But I ride the bus regularly, which according to them means I'm non-white. 28/134 whiteness score, even after being very generous.

I wonder what they call a non-white person who likes some items on the list.

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

Instead of "Stuff White People Like," the blog should have been titled something like "Stuff that well-educated, affluent, politically progressive Americans like." That is the group that the blog is sporking. "Hipsters" and "Yuppies" are labels that are often used to describe this group.

Never mind anything else, it doesn't surprise me that very little of the list applies to you since you live outside of the U.S.

In Chicago, for instance, more black people ride buses than white people because fewer rail lines run through the black neighborhoods.

[oryx_leucoryx]

I have been living in the US for the last decade. Being well-educated, politically progressive and affluent enough to withstand the occasional crisis is a good thing to be.

In Chicago, for instance, more black people ride buses than white people because fewer rail lines run through the black neighborhoods.

The comparison in the relevant list item wasn't bus vs rail but bus vs assorted forms of personal transportation. Plenty of white people riding the bus with me. Also plenty of non-white people. The problem with buses in my area is that they are becoming expensive. Fortunately my employer pays for my bus pass.

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

I sincerely apologize. I thought you were still living in Israel.

>>>>Being well-educated, politically progressive and affluent enough to withstand the occasional crisis is a good thing to be.

I agree. But I don't think it makes someone above reproach.

>>>>The comparison in the relevant list item wasn't bus vs rail but bus vs assorted forms of personal transportation.

Umm, well, that doesn't change my point that a smaller percentage of white people in Chicago ride buses compared to black people because white people have better access to other, faster options, whether its rail transportation or enough money to afford personal transportation.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

It doesn't put someone above reproach to be those things, true. But nor does being those things mean that someone necessarily behaves the way the sporkers assume. The problem is that they are generalizing about a group of people. That is what is offensive IMHO, no matter who the people in question are.

Same with the bus thing. It may be true in Chicago and several other places, but it doesn't necessarily hold true everywhere, nor for the same reasons in every situation.

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

No, being well-educated, affluent, and progressive does not necessarily mean that one behaves the sporkers assume. In fact, very few people, in reality, behave that way, for the site is meant to be a satire and is thus greatly exaggerating behaviors and attitudes. I realize, however, that there is a fine line between satire and offensiveness.

I think the challenge, though, is to recognize that we are all part of a racist, classist, globally unjust, environmentally harmful system, no matter how much we do not want to be a part of that system. No matter how progressive one may try to be, s/he is still participating in an unjust, unsustainable system. And, no matter how self-aware and open-minded one may try to be, it's still very easy to hold prejudices on a subconscious level.

If someone is part of a privileged group--white, affluent, educated, etc.--the even greater challenge, I think, is to be able to acknowledge this without succumbing to overwhelming guilt and self-loathing.

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

I concur. Sounds more like just yuppies to me.