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]

No, I should rephrase that. I apologize for referencing a site that's quite a bit more controversial than I realized. I honestly hadn't thought that carefully about it before. I've also gone through periods of feeling like I'm supposed to feel guilty for being white.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Oh, I understand the sentiment of your last sentence. I must say that what I particularly find offensive about the site is the notion that it's ok and somehow not offensive to judge people of one race according to a set of stereotypes or the actions of some individuals, when that sort of thing is rightfully condemned when applied to people of any other race. I mean, if the site was "Stuff Black People Like" or "Stuff Asians Like" etc. imagine the criticism (which would be deserved).

And I don't honestly care if the *intent* is not to offend. Not all whites acting out of privilege intend to offend, but the hurt is still there. Why should that stop mattering when the one with pale skin is the offended party? There's a genuine and important difference between pointing out individual examples of hypocrisy and privilege, or discussing patterns of such behavior on the part of *some* white people, and making negative generalizations about all white people. But it seems to me that too often all white people are expected to put up with such generalizing and apologize for their race regardless of their own behavior; it's acceptable to treat them in ways it's not for people of other races and to apply the worst motivations to their every action. Which to me is, frankly, wrong. I thought the idea was to move towards seeing and treating people of all races equally, not turn the tables on who is victim and who is aggressor.

(Not ranting at you personally, just being frank. I hope I have not offended.)

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

it seems to me that too often all white people are expected to put up with such generalizing and apologize for their race regardless of their own behavior; it's acceptable to treat them in ways it's not for people of other races and to apply the worst motivations to their every action. Which to me is, frankly, wrong.

Yes! Thank you! I came across this site a few weeks ago when I was looking for a definition of the word "whitesplaining," and I definitely got the impression I was supposed to feel guilty about being white, and feel personally responsible for the white privilege built into our society centuries before I was born.

What you wrote is a lot of what I was getting at on the Dumbledore discussion, when I said I was tired of this attitude some minority fans of HP have towards Lily. That is, because the text wants us to regard her as a minority, and certain nonwhite fans have decided to adopt her as a minority role model, white fans are not allowed to criticize her even though she is white and lives in both a country and a subculture that are over 90% white. If a white person criticizes her, they're accused of being racist and/or misogynist (even if they're a woman). No other character gets this privileged treatment. In fact, her privileged position is the antithesis of racist oppression.

[sunnyskywalker]

That's too bad the term has gotten so vague and broad - when I first heard of it it was something more like "that annoying thing some white people do where they tell non-white people what is best for them, despite having no experience being not white and in particular having no clue about this specific problem." Sort of the "what these people need is a honky" trope boiled down to one word, which is useful to have, not a general slur. (Ditto "mansplaining," which when I first heard it was not "a man said it" but "some particular clueless guy telling women what sexism really is and some really obvious thing we should do to fix it, which he'd know we already tried if he actually knew anything about the issue.")

JKR cheated so badly with her "minorities" actually being not minorities even in their fictional context that it's kind of offensive. Way to minimize all the actual prejudice in the world, Jo!

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

No, I should rephrase that. I apologize for referencing a site that's quite a bit more controversial than I realized. I honestly hadn't thought that carefully about it before. I've also gone through periods of feeling like I'm supposed to feel guilty for being white.

You have a unicorn as your avi photo - that gives you free pass.

And it's just a dumb website, you didn't make it. It was probably made by some guy who had a hard time getting a girlfriend, so he needed to come up with something catchy to sell so he could get a woman.