Compassionate hero (WAS Re: Appeal of the story to the reader)

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 175981

Nora: 
> There's Fudge, as well (comments Dumbledore makes about his 
valuation
> of blood, and comments Molly makes about those who have an 
interest in
> Muggle things being passed over), although, to be slightly snide, I
> can already see how those references can and will easily be tossed
> onto the "token reference/JKR is trying but doesn't convince me 
that
> it's really a problem/etc." barge.

Magpie:
True, and there's also Ernie Macmillan saying his family is 
Pureblood back 9 generations. But it seems like there's a 
distinction between that and calling people Mudbloods. (The first 
time Harry hears the word he can tell Malfoy's said 
something "really bad.") I mean, I completely do see the connection 
of showing that the prejudice is there and the Malfoys are just the 
extreme end of it--I'm not sure the book sees the same connection I 
do, especially judging by conversations I've had about it in fandom. 
Ernie, for instance, seems to be best friends with Justin. 
Presumably he's fighting there with the good guys in the RoR. 

Since Fudge and Ernie's instinctively being impressed with being 
Purebloods (as opposed to the attitudes of other Purebloods like 
James, Sirius and the Weasleys) isn't addressed as the root of the 
problem I don't know what I'm supposed to get from that. Is it 
really something that's just there and can't have anything done 
about it?

Nora: 
> The good guys have a certain amount of social power, but it's
> certainly not unquestioned, given the ongoing conflict with the
> Ministry, and Lucius Malfoy on the Board of Governors; it takes his
> own spectacular incompetent idiocy (threatening other members) to 
get
> himself removed.

Magpie:
Of course, idiocy is what DEs do best.:-) Although Lucius himself 
seems to keep his views under wraps--we all know he's a big flaming 
racist but he seems like he tries to make it more subtle in public 
and not talk quite like a DE in polite company. He's on the Board of 
Governors in CoS (having distanced himself from LV by claiming to be 
under Imperius) but he's also already on the defensive in CoS with 
Arthur raiding his house and passing Muggle-protection acts. (Lucius 
is threatening people by force.) Fudge leans more towards him, I 
think, when he wants to lean away from Dumbledore, who is very 
powerful and whom Fudge was said to lean on before. Dumbledore has 
more titles, it seems, than Lucius and there are powerful Wizards 
that respect him.

It's true that there seems to be plenty of people who could be 
swayed by people like Lucius (as opposed to people like Neville's 
Gran, for instance), but it still doesn't seem like JKR is really 
presenting a logical, detailed, thought-out picture of a society 
falling the way it does in DH. There are certainly people in the 
government who are vulnerable to DEs, but the whole situation in DH 
still just seems like a plot point I accept for the sake of the 
story. I know to look out for people who are DE-like (or DE-lite) in 
canon, but not to get overly sensitive any time a regular person 
says something that might be bigoted-ish.

Nora: 
> > Hogwarts puts up a far greater resistance than the WW as a 
whole, it 
> > seems. And Hogwarts is what we see.
> 
> Agree that the focus on Hogwarts does lessen the impact that a 
view of
> society-at-large might have given us.  I think that's why it's
> important to take every reference that we're given to the larger
> outside world as important, since it's most of what we've got.

Magpie:
Oh, I think they're important, I just don't think they're explained 
in a way that says something about racism. It seems more, like I 
said, like it's just a given. The microcosm we know at Hogwarts 
seems to follow the logic of previous books more closely imo. She 
makes a few stabs at that idea with the books--I think she suggests 
that somebody keeps making it rain in one of the DE's offices 
(Arthur?) but of course that just looks weak given the situation.

I'm not saying it couldn't happen, but it doesn't logically follow 
for me and it's not explained. I understand it more through plot 
devices of books past--everybody always believes the opposite of 
what Harry believes, so now they think he killed Dumbledore. The 
adults of Harry's world are relatively useless. Society at large 
crumples like a paper canoe when Voldemort takes over except for the 
Order, and they, too, have to wait for Harry to do his thing. 
Voldemort is killed and things go away, and racism lives on just as 
it always did, we can't do anything about it. A metaphorical blow 
has been struck against racism as an entity as personified by 
Voldemort, but nobody thinks to do anything about it as actual 
racism on the level of individual people. 

Most of how I understand what's going on in DH on that level is to 
bring in real world stuff that it's supposed to be like (like the 
registration committee is scary because it's like Nazis registering 
people). That's where I felt a lot of the weight came from for me. I 
think I'd have a harder time suspending my disbelief if I couldn't 
just say--oh, it's like racism in our world. So in the end the canon 
really doesn't seem to be using fantasy to explore racism, but using 
racism to fill out a fantasy world. 

-m