Realism in HP - alluding to at least 3 current threads, and ESE!Grangers

[dan]

No: HPFGUIDX 114524


Several current discussions on the list bring up something that 
hasn't fully been discussed, I think, in these threads, and that is 
what kind of "realism" are we talking about in this series of books?

There are a couple of peculiar, particular, singular things about 
Rowling's books - there is no physical "entrance" to witchwizardry, 
for instance. Nor is there a time-based entrance. witchwizardry 
exists in the same time/space as muggleness, shares the same 
geography and language, the same weather - and when the geography is 
magically altered, it is intentional, and based on the fact that the 
time/space IS shared. If it wasn't shared, there'd be no need for 
anti-muggle charms.

Magic is done to the world space by space, alley by alley, castle by 
castle, phonebooth by phonebooth, and may be quite temporary, or may 
be semi-permanent - there is no generalized separate space for magic 
to happen. It happens in the world, and alters time/space perception. 
It's a state of mind, as it were, even more a state of knowledge, a 
slip of paper that announces acceptance to Hogwarts, for example. 
These things separate the inhabitants of the world, and even if a 
perception-of-geography spell is cast, this is no physical 
separation. In this, Rowing is entirely unlike Tolkien, or Lewis, or 
the Thomas Covenant series, where magic exists in entirely separate 
time/space.

So, what does this imply about realism as it relates to Rowling?

For one thing, the description of witches in medieval texts is 
somewhat similar. They ostensibly set up "charms" against 
their "secret places" being discovered, they ostensibly perverted 
youth to their cause, and they existed in the 
world the same as everyone else - it was only their 
contraband "knowledge" that separated them, a knowledge reputedly 
jealously guarded, but also radical, anti-clerical, and therefor 
dangerous to have at all, the existance of which was dangerous to 
even acknowledge.

Some think this description of witchcraft is purely a projection of 
the church itself, which invented witchcraft from a collection of non-
Christian practises that straddled philosophy, herblore and numerous 
nature/fertility/seasonal practises, but gave it a theme and 
structure that related purely to the churches own heirarchy and 
structure - so closely, in fact, that it posited black masses long 
before some entrepeneur/abbott decided to hold them.

Whether or not this is in fact how the description came to be, one 
thing was always clear - it was the world, not "a" world, that was 
being worked upon, by magic/witchcraft, and it was the world the 
church wanted dominion over, wanted tithes from, not "a" world.

>From this, we can see many similiarities with Rowling's HP world, but 
there are striking differences.

Voldemort hasn't seemed bent on dominion over the world, only the 
parts of it related to magic folk. (We may, to our hearts content as 
yet, postulate the degree of relation between once-mentioned 
Grindelwald and his possible muggle counterparts in 1945.) My first 
question is, why not? Is all that is muggle truely that irrelevant?

My second question is - If there were a group of people doing cool 
magic next door, would I; a) not want to know about it? or b) sure as 
hell want to know about it? or c) want a piece of it?

Generally, the stance of muggles in HP is a), not wanting to know 
about it, or, in the case of the only muggles we've seen in Diagon 
Alley, that is, those sinister secret agent anti-magic parents of a 
Rita Skeeter-like muckraking daughter (sure it's a letter to Krum, 
Hermione, and not sensitive information to help your parents in their 
quest to pull magic from the world like a rotten tooth)  ... wait... 
I mean those dentists, Hermione's parents, a kind of (questionable) 
bemused interest. So much for Rowling's muggles. But I think most of 
us would feel more like, well, c), wanting a piece of it. What do you 
think?

So, there's one thing that comes across less than realistic in 
Rowling - that is, the muggle response to nextdoor witchwizardry.

In another way, I've always thought muggleness in Rowling was 
hyperbolized society and culture, and that witchwizardry was the more 
socially and culturally sophisticated layer of the books, the layer 
that corresponds thematically to the so-called Real World. This is 
the kind of realism I think some of the current threads are 
addressing. Yes, evil leaders are a knut a dozen in Rowling as they 
are in the Real World. Yes, there are inequalities in Rowling as 
there are in the Real World.

But recently, it has seemed to me that I was mistaken about the 
separation of muggleness and witchwizardry. Perhaps Rowling's realism 
lies as much in the relationship between the peoples stigmatized by 
either muggleness or witchwizardry. After all, it is the encroachment 
of muggleness into witchwizardry at the core of pureblood prejudice. 
And if that is so, then it is the very structure of the separations, 
their intentionality, their localness, the fact that they are 
discontinuous, which I referred to at the top of this post, that 
accounts for the virulence of the movement. And Death Eater 
encroachment into muggleness is viewed, as dangerous/thrilling beyond 
compare, in witchwizardry.

My final question, then, is: what detailed information is Hermione 
passing to her parents?

Dan