Voldemort vs. Hitler

[DariaJones]

No: HPFGUIDX 69084

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "bluesqueak" <pipdowns at e...> wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "DariaJones" <dariajones at y...> 
> wrote:
> 
> > Owlery 2003>>>> OK, given the mod's caution, here's a superficial 
> > stab. I've studied the World War eras pretty extensively, and the 
> > rise of nazism ties in quite well with Voldy's quest to dominate 
> > the Wizarding world. We don't know enough about Grindelwald to 
> > claim he's the precursor equivalent to WWI. <<<<<
> > 
> > Daria:
> > I thought that the first Voldemort war was the analogy for WWI.  
> > If you are working from a British perspective they had to go to 
> > war with the same people twice in thirty years.  This doesn't hold 
> > together very well at a detailed level but it is close enough be a 
> > loose metaphor.
> 
> There are definite analogies between VW1 and WW1. For one thing, the 
> high death rate. The Order of the Phoenix suffered 50% casualties in 
> VW1; this is on a par with certain regiments slaughtered in major 
> battles like Ypres or the Somme. Total British and Commonwealth 
> casualties were around a million killed. No one knows the exact 
> figure, because many bodies were never found. 
> 
> And this isn't some remote, distant history. It's only just passing 
> out of living memory. Even today, bodies from WW1 are being 
> discovered, and sometimes identified, and then buried with full 
> military honours after the Ministry of Defence has traced any 
> surviving descendents/relatives.
> 
> I was told, by my grandmother, that everyone was completely 
> terrified at the start of World War Two, because they thought it was 
> going to be the same terrible slaughter as the First war. A mother 
> like Molly, with six boys all of (or shortly to be) fighting age, 
> would have been completely convinced that only some kind of miracle 
> would see all her children survive. 
> 
> So yeah, the analogy is definitely there. Not exact, but that same 
> feeling of disbelief and despair that all the slaughter the first 
> time round had somehow not solved the problem. And the same period 
> of pre-war hoping that if we just stuck our heads in the sand it 
> would all go away.
 
If this analogy holds then Fudge is Neville Chamberlain and Dumbledore
is probably Winston Chruchill.  I forgot Churchill in my original post
regarding people who warned about Hitler but Churchill was one of them
.  Much as it galls me to admit that Churchill got anything right he
was right about Hitler from very early on in the piece.  The
differnces between Dumbledore and Hitler are quite marked however in
their attitudes to political power DD does not seek it Churchill most
definately did.  As well as the fact that DD is not a racist and an
imperialist wheras Chruchill was.  The thing I am not sure about is
whether JKR is using the myth of CHurchill the war hero who defeated
Hitler or if she is aware of Churchill the idiot who screwed up
royally in WWI and was a racist and an imperialist.  I presume if the
DD=Churchill analogy holds we will only see the war hero myth because
DD suddenly turning into a racist is probably too much of a reversal
even for JKR.   
It seems to me that if this 30s/WWII analogy hold then the non-humans
centaurs/house elves/goblins/giants represent the empire.  I'm fairly
sure there is not a straightforward paralell such as giants=India or
centaurs =Ireland.  But I think some of the themes are coming through
already such as the centaurs hating all wizards so much they can't
bear to ally with them even against a greater evil which is a problem
that the Irish and Indians both had in WWII.    

> Daria: 
> > This is my first post to this list.  I hope I have not strayed too 
> > far from the topic at hand.  I could go on for hours about my  
> > theory that the WW is in fact a society that is stuck in the 1930s 
> > and that JKR is actually going to destroy the WW society in the  
> > last two books in the same way that British society of the 30s was 
> > destroyed by WWII and that this will NOT be a bad thing because 
> > the society itself is corrupt.  But I will leave that to another 
> > time.
> 
> I'd agree that the WW is likely to be changed beyond 
> recognition. 'The old order changeth, giving way to new'. There are 
> too many signs. The last of the Blacks is dead. The last of the 
> Crouch's is dead. The last of the Potters is on Voldemort's hit 
> list. JKR keeps using that phrase - 'the last of..'. This is a 
> society that is dying. 
> 
> Whether it will be *completely* destroyed, I don't know. 
> 
> JKR keeps including this Phoenix in the plot. ;-)

Well think about what happened to British society after the war.  The
old order was completely destroyed (the destruction admittedly began
with WWI) but what rose in its place was significantly better.  In the
fifties standards of living rose significantly, public housing was
made available to all, education became more accessible, the NHS
happened, the dole and other social security payemnts became more
universal and then in the 60s the country managed to have a cultural
renaissance.  Post war british society was a phoenix that rose from
the ashes of the old world.  
> 
Daria

> Pip!Squeak