Muggles v wizards redux

[a_svirn]

No: HPFGUIDX 183234

> Carol:
> Muggles are caricatured either because the characters have known 
only
> unpleasant Muggles (which helps to account for the anti-Muggle
> prejudice) 

a_svirn:
Actually it doesn't, which is the trouble. It is highly unlikely that 
the characters, even the much abused Harry knew only "bad" muggles. 
Nor Harry is the only character to have any contact with muggles. And 
yet all the muggles we do see in the books somehow seem to be less 
than satisfactory human being. Even the two specimens from that short 
800-word story. We are shown repeatedly, even persistently, that 
muggles are either mean, or stupid and always just plain inferior.  
Such persistence is conspicuous. It requires an explanation. And any 
explanation I can come up with makes me uneasy. 

> Carol:
or because they're unknown and misunderstood. (Compare
> nineteenth-century cartoons of African natives, for example.)

a_svirn:
Well, such cartoons were not exactly innocuous. They represented the 
views that led to certain polices of discrimination and persecution.  
a_svirn