[HPforGrownups] Classist Hogwarts (was ... was .... was...)

[GulPlum]

No: HPFGUIDX 45547

At 17:21 18/10/02 -0500, James P. Robinson III wrote:

>This is my first post here.  I will try not to break too many rules.  Go 
>gently with me.

Welcome aboard! Watch the hurricane, though! (current TBAY-related 
reference, if you were wondering). :-)

I shall try my best to be gentle. If anything indicates a different tone, 
please accept my apologies in advance for badly phrasing my thoughts.

>Not that "boarding school" doesn't imply some level of elitism; it does.

As an alumnus of a particularly un-elitist boarding school, I beg to differ 
on the absolute applicability of that statement. :-) However, in canon, 
Hogwarts is NEVER referred to as a "boarding school". OK, it is a boarding 
school, as the pupils live on campus, but this isn't necessarily an 
indication of elitism, but of practicality. For one thing, the pupils have 
lessons late at night (e.g. astronomy). For another, the wizarding 
community appears quite thinly distributed around the country, and thus it 
makes sense to have them all together so that they can get to know each 
socially, not just strictly academically. On top of that, as magic is 
potentially very dangerous, it helps for the kids to be in a controlled 
environment while they are learning.

>But Ron Weasley's presence at Hogwarts, to me, reinforces that elitism rather
>than negating it.  Ron is poor, certainly, but that has no impact on his
>class.  In fact, I would argue that Ron is at Hogwarts primarily because of
>his class.  He is from an old family, is a pure-bred, is a child of
>Hogwarts alumni, speaks with a "good" accent (cf. Stan Shunpike), but seems
>to have only meager magical ability.  Would he have a place at Hogwarts
>aside from the circumstances of his birth?

I apologise for using the same arguments over and over again, but I really 
can't stress this enough: what about Black Dean Thomas or Lee Jordan, the 
self-confessed almost-Squib Neville Longbottom, the Muggle-born Hermione 
Granger or the Muggle milkman's kids the Creevey brothers, etc., etc.? Each 
of these fit into categories which by your rationale above would not give 
them a place at Hogwarts.

As for Ron's "meagre" magical ability, I leave the Ron-philes to take you 
task. :-) Suffice to say, that whilst his grades don't appear to be 
particularly impressive, he's by no means at the bottom of his year. Any 
opinion of Ron's limited abilities is primarily his own, not other people's.

And as for Stan Shunpike, I've just made my thoughts clear in another thread.

<snip>

>I believe this could just as easily point to a basically elitist school 
>system with a certain number of scholarship cases (what would have once 
>been called "charity boys") thrown in.  Ron Weasley and Neville Longbottom 
>may be good examples of students given a place at Hogwarts because of 
>their class (as in the circumstances of their birth) and in spite of their 
>meager or even negligible magical talent.  I agree that wealth seems to 
>play no part in selection for
>Hogwarts.  I just think wealth is irrelevant to class standing.

So, going by what you said in the bit I excised, race comes close to being 
important. Hogwarts accepts half-bloods and Muggle-borns, and it accepts 
non-WASPs.

Almost everyone in Harry's year (let's face it, these are the pupils we 
know best and by whom we can best judge Hogwarts' acceptance principles), 
has some kind of foible of birth which puts them into a category which 
would prejudice them. Whichever measure of "class" one wishes to use as a 
benchmark, *someone* in Harry's year fails it. To say that each of these 
pupils has been granted a place on exceptional grounds for whatever reason 
is, frankly, insulting, both to them, and to JKR. :-) Within the storyline, 
and (meta-textually) as an indication of the "moral" JKR is trying to put 
across in the books, it quite simply doesn't make sense.

>But what do we really know about the sorting hat's selection criteria?

We have the two songs it sang, and Dumbledore's little speech at the end of 
CoS. We don't know everything there is to know about how the Sorting Hat 
makes its decisions, but I repeat that JKR has been very careful in mixing 
each House's pupils in such a way that their family circumstances in terms 
of "class" don't come into it at all, although some families seem to have 
in-bred traits. For instance, Malfoy knows that his family's always been in 
Slytherin, and both Creevey brothers are Gryffindors. But the Parvati twins 
are sorted into separate Houses.

--
GulPlum, who hopes this reply hasn't put Jim off HPFGU completely... :-)