[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: Editing literature to conform to current custom

[Jennifer Boggess Ramon]

At 3:20 AM +0000 7/1/02, catlady_de_los_angeles wrote:
>
>I wish JKR had decided, even under a publisher's nagging, to call
>female mages wizardesses instead of witches. That small change would
>have saved so much conflict with confused Fundamentalists and so much
>confusion with Wicca.

I agree that it would have spared a few people a certain amount of 
confusion, but I think most people can tell the difference between, 
say, the Good Witch of the North in the Wizard of Oz and the average 
Wiccan.  Rowling is drawing on that same cultural meme-pool.  I can't 
think of any precedent for the term "wizardess;" it would have to be 
"sorcerer" and "sorceress," and that would change the flavor quite a 
bit.  The nice young lady with the wand and the cauldron and the 
pointy hat is, in common culture, a witch, and personally, I am 
rather fond of people getting over the "all witches are EEEEEVILLLL" 
meme, whether the witches in question are fictional or not.

Besides, the Fundamentalists in question would have gotten upset over 
anything that portrayed people who use magic, cauldrons, broomsicks, 
etc. in a positive light, even if JKR had called them Pfurgleblatzes.

-- 
  - Boggles, aka J. C. B. Ramon			boggles at earthlink.net
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