Homosexuality: Was: Snape as the lover of Regulus Black

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 154711

Pip!Squeak wrote: 
> I don't think it's to avoid controversy. I've had a theory about JKR
avoiding openly gay characters (and openly religious characters) since
before OOP, and it's to do with the way she wants to examine 
prejudice. I think that she has made a deliberate choice to examine 
prejudice by means of a form of discrimination that only exists in the
world of the books and which makes the reader the target. 
<snip> Race is treated like that. 
> People's race in the WW becomes merely a description; it has no
other significance. The only 'race' in the WW is 'pure-blood,
half-blood and muggle-born'.
> 
> But both homosexuality and religion are utterly ignored; they're not
needed as descriptive markers, so they are dumped. JKR doesn't want to
confuse her exploration of a fictional prejudice by introducing
anything that might activate real-world prejudices in the minds of
some of her readers. <snip>
> 
> JKR wants to explore prejudice, and she thinks the best way to do
that is to stick with the fictional invention. That way, she knows
(hopes) that all her readers have the same information - rather than
bringing in their real-life views.

Carol responds:
I agree completely. But I think that JKR also takes for granted
certain (modern Western) values in her readers. They don't approve of
slavery (which no longer exists in their part of the world but has not
been wholly abolished) and they don't approve, at least in theory, of
prejudice or intolerance (though some people who preach "tolerance"
mean tolerance of their own views; I once had a student who told me
that other students had called him a bigot because he was Catholic and
he was beginning to believe it was true).

At any rate, I think that JKR expects her readers to make their own
analogies rather than having allegorical equivalents forced on us
(werewolfism = AIDS, for example).

While the prejudice against Muggleborns has some applicability to our
world (and the prejudice against Muggles is a prejudice against us!),
the whole question of "half-breeds" in the WW really bears no relation
to our world. In RL, an interspecies marriage couldn't exist because
there are no other human or near-human species now that Neanderthals
are extinct. (I don't think any sane person would contemplate a union
with a chimpanzee, and the unfortunate offspring of such a union, if
it could even be conceived, would be placed in a zoo or a scientific
laboratory.)

On one level, the existence of "half-breeds" like Hagrid is almost
comical in its improbablilty (and painful to contemplate). On another
level, prejudice against such unions, and against giants themselves,
is perfectly understandable. Imagine Grawp wanting to marry "Hermy,"
or even special remedial classes for giants at Hogwarts. (Even Crabbe
and Goyle must be able to speak and read and use a wand, and they're
not so large that they require a whole classroom with an extra-high
ceiling just for themselves.) And though Flitwick is supposedly part
goblin, who can seriously contemplate such a union? Surely not even
Millicent Bulstrode or Marcus Flint would marry a goblin. Or how about
a human/house-elf marriage? Winky or Dobby as your husband or wife,
anyone?

Not only that, but the so-called part humans aren't even part human.
Merpeople appear to be their own species, not half-human, half-fish,
and Centaurs are "a race apart," who hold humans in contempt (reverse
prejudice carried to extremes in the case of Umbridge, whose insults
and spells would have been better answered by a show of Centaur
superiority than with mockery and brutality--not that she didn't
deserve whatever they did to her, but it certainly didn't demonstrate
the superiority of their laws and behavior to those of humans). And
werewolves aren't "part humans" at all; they're human beings who once
a month lose all vestiges of their humanity--mind, body, perhaps even
soul--and become dangerous beasts who certainly need to be controlled
or contained in some way for their own sake as well as that of other
people. Nothing in our world is analogous to a person who is only
contagious--and genuinely dangerous--once a month. (No PMS jokes, please.)

For all its applicability, which as Tolkien says, "resides in the
freedom of the reader," prejudice in the WW is unique to that
imaginary world, and some of it is not only understandable but
inevitable. Perhaps it doesn't even deserve to be called prejudice.
Who besides Hagrid would really want a giant for a neighbor? Or a
troll, even if they can be trained as security guards? And even
species with "near-human intelligence" like Centaurs and house-elves
or goblins (all of them actually as intelligent as humans and at least
as gifted magically) don't need the same education as witches and
wizards since none of them use wands.

What's the answer? Discourage the use of inaccurate and disparaging
terms like "half-breeds" (applicable only to a few characters in any
case) and let them run their own lives (live and let live)? End abuse
of house-elves and let them serve the human family of their choice?
what else would a house-elf do? I doubt they'd go off somewhere and
form their own society.

At any rate, as Pip!Squeak says, JKR has deliberately omitted
questions of religious and racial prejudice because they would
interfere with and complicate the types of prejudice she's discussing,
including the important question of why those prejudices exist and
whether, at least in some cases, that prejudice is justified.

Carol, who is not talking here about pureblood ideology but about the
views that seem to predominate throughout the WW, even among
liberal-minded Muggleborns like Hermione, who for some odd reason
prefers boyfriends with two legs