The secrecy motif/magic & muggles

[a_svirn]

No: HPFGUIDX 179984

> lizzyben:
> 
> Uh, yes, magic does run in families. Magical/wizarding parents have 
> wizarding kids. Muggles do not have wizarding children because they 
> don't have the wonderful magical gene. Magic is totally based on 
> family & heredity.

a_svirn:
Yes, because wizards are a breed apart. Literally. 

> > a_svirn:
> > Do musical people share a different and distinctive culture? A 
> > culture that is quite foreign to all the non-musical people? Do 
> > people with blue eyes get together and found a separate 
> civilisation? 
> > Not even the Nazis did that – would have been a little difficult 
> > considering that Hitler himself wasn't exactly blue-eyed and 
blond. 
> > However, the wizarding world is called *wizarding* for a reason. 
It 
> > is a world separate from the muggle one. And superior to it. 
> 
> lizzyben:
> 
> Ugh, basically what I'm not understanding is why you consider the 
> wizarding world "superior". 

a_svirn:
Because that's how it is presented in the books. Look at how muggles 
have been described from the book 1 onwards. Reread "the Other 
Minister" chapter in HBP -- you can't deny that the muggle 
civilization is shown as distinctly inferior. 

> lizzyben:
Pretty much everyone agrees that it's 
> backwards, cruel, nasty, etc. 

a_svirn:
Pretty much everyone agrees that the gods of the Ancient Greece were 
a brutish and rowdy lot. Some humans were more beautiful and 
talented, some were even known to have beaten gods in musical and 
other contests.  But gods were immortal and that made them superior 
to humans and centaurs. Same with wizards. They have magic and 
muggles don't. Magic is might.  

> > a_svirn:
> > You know what? You are right. It is. Rowling's world is one huge 
> and 
> > *successful* experiment in eugenics. 
> 
> lizzyben:
> 
> Doesn't that bother you a little? 

a_svirn:
It does. 

> lizzyben:
After all, I thought the message 
> was that bigotry was bad, that the Slytherins are evil because they 
> believe in superior bloodlines, etc? And yet the entire fictional 
> world is a "successful" experiment in eugenics? Just that very 
phrase 
> creeps me out - eugenics experiment.*shiver* W/o even intending to, 
> we're slipping into the same type of language that the Nazis used. 
> And by "successful", you mean that she actually managed to create a 
> superior race? 

a_svirn:
It creeps me out too. Though to be fair, I don' think that Rowling 
herself realised just what she had said in that interview. She would 
have done better to have left this genetic stuff well alone. 

> > a_svirn:
> > I don't know about "we". I am happy to say that *I* am not a 
> muggle, 
> > any more than I am a witch. I live in a real world, not the 
awkward 
> > universe of the HP books. Though of course, I can't help 
> identifying 
> > with muggles. 
> 
> lizzyben:
> 
> In the Harry Potter novels, you are a Muggle. So am I. 

a_svirn:
We do not live on pages of those novels, thank Merlin. 


> > a_svirn:
> > It's no more hypocritical than having a born slave to serve you a 
> > sandwich. In real life it would be hypocrisy to say that there 
are 
> > men and women whom Nature has ordained to serve you a sandwich. 
In 
> > the Potterverse it would be hypocrisy to deny that elves' very 
> nature 
> > is to serve. 
> 
> lizzyben: 
> 
> And why, why, why would JKR create such a world? 

a_svirn:
Search me.