Hogwarts: Real or Cartoon? (was:Scene with likeable James WAS: Re: Eileen Pince

[Marion Ros]

No: HPFGUIDX 156369


Betsy Hp:

>>>I don't know, I think maybe the inclination to color the Potterverse 
as a cartoon is ducking the big questions. If it was bad for a 
teacher to make Harry carve words into his hand, might it not have 
been equally bad for a teacher to slam Draco repeatedly into the 
floor? And what does it say about us that we were amused at first?

A lot of this depends on the outcome of book 7, of course. Are the 
Slytherins as real as the Gryffindors? Is Draco just as much a 
human being as Harry is? I think JKR will take the real rather than 
the cartoon path. I think. Though I'm betting the Voldemort bits 
are going to be pure fantasy.<<<



Marion:

I think that the tendency to see the 'bad guys' being hurt, humiliated or terrified as 'cartoonish' (and therefore fun and unimportant) is an example of dehumanization.
I know this is a rather heavy subject, and I hope I convey it well, so please bear with me.
IMO, JKR is making characters we're not supposed to like and situations where these characters are being hurt or humiliated grotesk and cartoonish on purpose. We are invited to laugh off their misery because they are so over the top ugly, stupid, fat or shrewish and the way they are hurt so grotesk. We are invited to laugh off their hurt because they are the 'bad guys', and what does it matter if someone hurts the bad guy? They probably deserved to be hurt, right?
The bad guys are Them. We are not supposed to care about Them. They are weird, nasty, ugly. They probably smell funny too.

(yes, I know that some of you are probably itching to write a scathing reply at this point, but please read the rest, I'm trying to make a point)

I'm convinced that this is the whole idea of the series. The books are about racism and prejudice, right? That trying to keep your blood or your culture 'pure' is futile and plain *wrong*. And every HP fan would agree with this: they are certainly not racist! All the little ten-year old HP fans that I have spoken to would love to be Sorted into Gryffindor so they could bravely fight those nasty racist Slytherins.

Ah. 

I admit it, I've tried the first three times a child-fan said something about Gryffindor being Good because the fight Evil Slythering to explain that the books are about Harry and that Harry has been told before entering Hogwarts that all evil wizards were from Slytherin (which wasn't true in the first place) and that Harry doesn't like certain Slytherins, but that just because Harry was fed misinformation and has certain opinions, it doesn't mean that his opinions are facts. I even tried to tell them that even *if* all Slytherins were supposedly 'bad' because a magical hat had sorted them into that House, that didn't mean that 'good' Gryffindors could just go ahead and do really nasty things to them *because* they were Slytherin.
I tried. Didn't work though. I got nothing but glassy looks. And I even didn't use big words like 'dehumanization' and 'scapegoating'.

Although I know that my listsibs know the term dehumanization, I'll include the definition from trusty Wikipedia (who could live without it!) underneath:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehumanizing

"Dehumanization is a process by which members of a group of people assert the "inferiority" of another group through subtle or overt acts or statements. Dehumanization may be directed by an organization (such as a state) or may be the composite of individual sentiments and actions, as with some types of de facto racism. <snip> A common theme (or meme) is that of scapegoating, where dehumanizing the target provides a release from guilt for the person that scapegoats them, who typically begins to see themselves as a victim of the dehumanized person, rather than as a potential oppressor."

Marion again:

Now, I know that Slytherin is the 'pureblood House', but we also know that it's Head is/was a Half-blood. That it's previous Head happily invited muggleborns into his prestigeous club. We also know that 1/4 of wizarding population remains pureblood, 1/4 is muggleborn and 1/2 has muggleborn somewhere in it's ancestry (whilst I'm typing this I wonder if these numbers are correct: a full quarter of the population being first generation 'immigrants' is a rather high number. But then, wizards have a longer lifespan. Hmm.) There are four houses. If a quarter of the population (and therefore the children entered at Hogwarts) are pureblood, then every pureblood child must be in Slytherin, and none in the other Houses. There just aren't enough pureblood kids to go around. But then, what about the Weasleys? Purebloods all, but in Gryffindor. So were the Potters and Sirius Black. What about Cedric? Wasn't he a pureblood? And Susan Bones? 
What?! Purebloods in Hufflepuff and Gryffindor? But that must mean that Slytherin might have.... (drumroll) children of mixed blood! 
In fact, of the three known halfbloods (Seamus, Snape and Tom Riddle are the only wizards known to have a Muggle parent, not a Muggleborn parent), *two* were in Slytherin!

But they're all supposedly racist? (well, I mean, more racist than the average wizard-on-the-street, of course)

They're all supposedly *bad*?

No, of course they're not. I've read an interview with JKR where a young reader asked her why Hogwarts didn't do away with House Slytherin because all the members were 'Junior DeathEaters'. JKR explained that not all Slytherin children were bad, and that several children in the other Houses had DE's as a parent.
I am convinced, however, that she has deliberately planted this suggestion, with several cunning devices, the 'cartoonish' and the 'grotesque' depiction of 'bad characters' and their suffering is but one of them.
I believe she does this for a very specific reason.

Have you ever heard of the book 'The Wave' (it was made into a movie as well) by Todd Strasser? It is based on a true experiment by an American High School Teacher in 1963. The teacher starts a club which claims to things like chilvalry, bravery and brotherhood as its virtues. If you become a member you get a badge. You also get a few privileges. And they organise sporting events ("a healthy mind in a healthy body!") and parades. The club is popular and members encourage their friends to become members. There are, however, kids that do not want to belong to the club. Soon the clubmembers start to bully and terrorize the non-members. This is not seen as wrong, since the Wave members are chivalrous, brave and brothers. Those who do not choose to be a member must therefore be cowardly cads and deserve to be harassed.
The climax comes of course when it is revealed that the Wave is patterned on the Hitler Youth movement of the thirties. It uses exactly the same propaganda techniques and dehumanization techniques.

In my opinion, JKR is showing us in exactly the same way how easy it is to laugh at people being hurt or humiliated because we were told that they were bad and deserved it, or because they looked different or were from another group, because they were somehow less human than the characters we're supposed to love.



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