Muggles, David hunting, killing wizards, humanism, House-Elves, Parselmouths

[Amy Z]

No: HPFGUIDX 31150

Emily (persephone) wrote:

>The general consensus seems to be wizards good, muggles bad.

I am so glad you brought this up!  My dh, who finally read PS under pressure 
6 days before the movie came out, was uncomfortable with the WW's attitude 
that Muggles are inferior.  I was actually delighted, because it gave me an 
opportunity to say "Actually, I believe that Rowling agrees with you, it's 
quite clear that this attitude is wrong, and this issue gets brought to the 
surface in the next book," hint hint.  I even told him that one of 
Voldemort's main motivations is hatred of Muggles.  I hope this ropes him in 
to read on (mwahahahahaha).

The only line in the books that really bothers me this way is Hagrid's "it's 
your bad luck you grew up in a family o' the biggest Muggles I ever laid 
eyes on."  Unlike McGonagall's "the worst kind of Muggles," which is not 
very polite but refrains from generalizations about Muggles, this equates 
"Muggle" with "bad":  the less Muggle-ish you are, the better.

Another instance I don't like is JKR's own "Don't let the Muggles get you 
down!" (said as parting words in an interview).  Perhaps she's simply 
expressing solidarity with the wizard children in her audience who have to 
tolerate life among the people who don't understand them <grin>, but it does 
imply that Muggles per se are a drag.  (Ron's letter to Harry saying the 
same thing is *almost* okay because he's talking about the Dursleys, not 
Muggles in general, though it's still kind of like writing to your black 
friend whose entire family is white, "Don't let the white folks get you 
down!"--it's a racist thing to say, even if they *are* perfectly horrible 
people.)

All the other anti-Muggle statements I can think of seem to be statements 
we're supposed to disagree with, and/or are in the mouths of characters we 
are supposed to despise.

>I know we have the muggle borns, like Hermione or Lily, but even that seems 
>to have an attitude like "you dont have to be ashamed of your muggle 
>heritage - youre still a real witch no matter what your parents were."

Hmm, I'm not getting this.  When Hagrid says this kind of thing about 
Hermione right after Malfoy calls her a Mudblood (CS 7), it seems to be in 
the spirit of "you're not inferior even though he says you are."  The 
difference is subtle, but important because it doesn't buy into Malfoy's 
view of Muggles; the issue is whether Hermione belongs in the wizarding 
world, not whether she deserves a high rank.  Can you or someone else who 
thinks this is anti-Muggle give some specific examples?

Eileen wrote <L.O.O.N.-qualifying post listing all the Muggles in HP>

>Are there any I missed?

I have only one quibble: the characterization of the Masons as "stupid and 
awful" seems unfair--we really don't know anything about them.  They might 
not even like the Dursleys, for all we know.

Besides Seamus's and the Creevey's dads and Hermione's parents, there are 
two other sets of Muggle parents who, as far as we know, are supportive of 
their wizard children:  Dean's and Justin's.

I don't think Muggles are portrayed less positively than wizards.  Some are 
evil, some are stupid, some are kind, some are tolerant, some are 
intelligent.  It's true that we don't get any well-rounded Muggle characters 
to get to know, but it's okay by me.  I open these books to enter a world I 
don't live in, and as much as I like Muggles, I get to see them all the 
time.

Dave H wrote:

>Dave  (Whose grammar school's favorite pastime was called
        "David hunting")

::pats Dave sympathetically, offers him a Chocolate Frog::

Sonja wrote:

>Someone said that besides the usual ways (normal ways to kill muggles) 
>there are probably other magical ways.  (Implying that wizards can die from 
>the same things that kill muggles.)  In most circumstances, I do not 
>believe that a wizard can die in the "usual" way.  In SS/PS, Chapter 4 - 
>Keeper of the Keys, Hagrid said,

>"'CAR CRASH!' roared Hagrid, . . . 'How could a car crash kill Lily an' 
>James Potter? It's an outrage! A scandal!'"

>This is assuming that what Hagrid says is accurate, but I believe it is.

It was me, and I agree that Hagrid's probably being accurate here.  My 
thinking is that wizards aren't by nature immune to being killed in a car 
crash, however, but are very unlikely to be because they use protections not 
available to Muggles.  If Lily were walking down the street, no special 
spells on her, and a car veered onto the sidewalk and hit her, she'd be hurt 
the same as any woman.  But if L&J had any reason to travel by car, they'd 
invoke various protections against being crushed and so forth.

It's "a scandal!" for three reasons:  magical folk are not easily killed by 
such accidents to begin with; James and Lily were a very good wizard and 
witch and so it's a slander against their Charms talents; and they died not 
by accident, but as a direct result of their brave struggle against a 
powerful wizard who murdered them.  It's like suggesting that the 
firefighters who died trying to save people from the WTC died in an 
accident--it denies their heroism.  A fourth reason could be what others 
have stated, which is that J&L wouldn't be likely to be in a car, but that 
doesn't quite qualify as scandalous, just unlikely.  Hagrid himself is on 
the Underground not 24 hours later.

fourfuries wrote:

>It is highly debatable that HP turns on Humanist notions of "to thine
>own self be true".  Tom Riddle has done a very nice job of being true
>to himself, having achieved several of his life long goals, but I
>don't think any of us confuse his success with merit.

Nice to see you back--it's been awhile!  You too, Koinonia!

To the extent that humanism's central tenet is "to thine own self be true" 
(not a bad summary, though it isn't what I would have said), it is not to be 
confused with "do your own thing" or still less, "look out for number one."  
It tends to be paired with an article of faith that despite the evil that 
men (and women) do, the core of a human soul is good.  Some humanists have a 
very optimistic view of human nature, believing that humans are born good; 
others, including yours truly, believe that evil is inborn and real but that 
the religious task is to realize our "best selves."  True integrity 
therefore leaves no room for evil, and Tom Riddle is not being true to his 
deepest self.  This squares with my understanding of him as someone who is 
fundamentally alienated from his own true nature, as seen in his bitter 
hatred of his father and his own Muggle heritage.  There is a distinctly 
humanist message in the story of TR, namely that one cannot be a whole nor a 
good person as long as one denies one's true nature.  It's a message that's 
perfectly compatible with Christianity, to be sure, but it's also humanist.  
(Humanism isn't incompatible with Christianity, for that matter, but here I 
am drifting OT.)

Long ago, Margaret wrote:

>Ask yourself this:  if you were a being from another planet,
>whose culture didn't have marriage in any form (hard to imagine,
>I know), and came to Earth, and the first Earthling you met was a
>victim of severe spousal abuse [Dobby], what impression would you
>get of the institution as a whole?

Excellent point.  There is one difference, however:  assuming Dobby is 
telling the truth about house-elves' experience and isn't just globalizing 
based on his own miserable situation, "house-elves must be *set* free" (CS 
2, emphasis mine); they can't just request their freedom, or a transfer for 
that matter.  If someone could say that about marriage, they would be 
talking about a world in which there might be good marriages, bad marriages, 
and criminally cruel marriages, but in which even the best marriage was not 
equal:  only one partner is allowed to initiate divorce.

Also long ago, Elizabeth wrote:

>And note how quickly even Hermione picked up the prejudice
against Parselmouths.

I don't see evidence that either Ron or Hermione is prejudiced against 
Parselmouths.  Their shock that Harry speaks Parseltongue comes in a very 
specific context:  the Heir of Slytherin is on the rampage and one thing 
they know about him/her is that he/she is likely to be a Parselmouth.  Even 
then, their concern isn't that Harry is a bad person but that it means 
trouble for him with the rest of the school.

Actually, now that I think about it, it's interesting that neither of them 
seems to worry that Harry might be the Heir of Slytherin.  As Hermione 
herself says, for all they know, he might be--yet if any of Harry's friends 
entertains the thought, none betrays the slightest mistrust of him.

The most disturbing prejudice in the books, to me, is that against 
Slytherins, especially since JKR seems to affirm the Sorting system which, 
while attending to one's choices as well as one's abilities, does seem to 
channel people into a particular path at a very early age.  However, we may 
be being set up.  Snape, after all, is emerging as one of the great heroes 
of the story.  I hope Harry and we are going to be challenged to question 
our assumptions about Slytherins before the end.

Amy Z

----------------------------------------------
However, it is easy to repulse the Pogrebin
with simple hexes or Stupefying Charms.
Kicking has also been found effective.
     -Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
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