Wizarding aristocracy (rather long)

[Ebony]

No: HPFGUIDX 9766

I *really* like this thread...


--- In HPforGrownups at egroups.com, "Marvin Long" <msl at f...> wrote:
> If JKR is patterning the wizarding world on Britain, then there's
> probably a Lords/Commons split in magical society, perhaps one more
> pronounced than what exists today since one doesn't get the feeling
> that the wizarding world has heavily influenced by Marx and Engles,
> say.  

Exactly.  Perhaps magical society is the last bastion of feudalism, 
of a sort?  The values and mores seem to be different from those of 
modern Western culture... I'd say they're more conservative.

> I wonder if Britain has any magic schools other than 
Hogwarts...surely one school per country isn't enough to educate all 
the wizards and witches who populate the magical world!  I seem to 
recall seeing it implied that Hogwarts takes all kids with magical 
ability, but that strikes me as improbable.  My guess is that they 
offer places to children based on parentage (Hogwarts being the most 
prestigious of institutions) and talent; and kids who don't meet the 
criteria go to lesser schools or maybe even the wizarding equivalent 
of trade-school.  That, or Hogwarts must have a LOT of dropouts....

This ties in with the threads about "Number of Students in 
Hogwarts".  It's one of the more popular debates--stick around.  
There are Large Scale Hogwarts advocates, while others lean towards a 
smaller school.  If Hogwarts can hold 1000+ students, I'm very 
comfortable with it being the only wizarding school for the UK and 
Ireland (which seems to be part of the same magical jurisdiction, 
judging from Seamus Finnegan and the officiants of the Quidditch 
World Cup).  

I lean more toward a small Hogwarts/small wizarding world myself.  
Listmom Penny gives some great arguments for this.  This was a pre-
fandom assumption of mine,  if only because the interpersonal 
relations within this milieu seem *so* intimate.  Also, Hagrid does 
make the statement "if we hadn't married Muggles we'd have died 
out".  

So it doesn't bother me that Hogwarts is the only UK school for 
magical kids.  If a larger percentage of the British population were 
magical and produced magic kids, it would be very difficult to keep 
all evidence of it hidden.  

GoF made me curious about the nature of magical education in this 
fictional society worldwide.  Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang 
are mentioned as the three largest (?) schools of wizardry in 
Europe.  However, what of the rest of the world?  Club member Rita 
Winston (also known as Catlady) has some of the *best* theories about 
magical societies throughout the world.  Among other topics, she and 
I have talked in the past about the effects that events like the 
Spanish Inquisition, the conquest of the Americas, and the 
transatlantic slave trade might have had on the development of 
Hogwarts-like (what I mean is structured) educational systems... 
she'd be a great person to talk to, and I really hope some of her 
posts from the Yahoo! group makes it into the appropriate FAQ.

Rita, if you're around, why don't we start the thread re: Magical 
Schools Worldwide going again?  It's been a while since we've 
discussed it here.

> >How does this world deal with poverty?
> 
> I have no idea...I wonder if there are wizards who "slum" by getting
> jobs in the Muggle world if they can't find a position in the
> wizarding occupations.  I get the impression that their world tends
> towards a kind of relaxed oligarchy.

Hmm.  The only poor family we've seen thus far are the Weasleys, and 
they're not destitute.  I'm still forming my opinions on this.  In 
most children's literature, groups such as the socioeconomic 
underclass (aka "the dregs of society") seem to be marginalized out 
of the picture.

What do you read between the lines?  Most of the Hogwarts kids seem 
to have come from solidly middle class backgrounds.  Well, I work 
with kids in a city where an estimated 50% of families live below the 
poverty line... and I don't mean the Weasleys.  Would such kids in 
England get letters from Hogwarts, if they had magical ability?  What 
if they had no home for the letters to be sent to?  What if their 
parents could not afford the books/robes/wand?  Are there funds 
available?  Or is this kid, magical though they might be, just out of 
luck?

Again, great post!  Thanks for giving me something else to think 
about besides shipping.  ;-)

>(ps, what's your major/discipline, that you get to study
> history of rhetoric?)

Thanks so much for the information--that was a good start and I may e-
mail you off list later if you don't mind.  I'm in a combined 
M.A./Ph.D program in English Composition and Rhetoric (with a minor 
in Creative Writing)... so the class was required.  In undergrad, the 
original intention was not to become an academic, so I took the 
secondary education track rather than the humanities one when earning 
my English undergrad degree.  Tsk, tsk, tsk...

--Ebony