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I think Drk is a genius, too. :D
It's not that I think it's wrong to ask people why they have the opinion the have, but trying to use that question (constantly) to tear down someone's credibility, arguments, etc., is just getting so tired.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheFifthElement
First of all: My use of the Jargon-Heavy was meant to point that we are putting it in a critical context as if it has intended to do these things as themselves. For instance, lots of fantasy takes place in parallel worlds, is Rowling using this device in the tradition of the device's use, or is she separate from the tradition, and using this device as something devoid of tradition. Fantasy, as you know, as a genre is only about 200 years old. It emerged out of fairy tales and later solidified into Victorian children's literature. Pulp novels kept it floating in many ways in the early 20th, and by the 50s it had Tolkien.
20 years after, the idea of it as a marketable genre kicked off. Of course, with a new concept of genre as a separate form, a new criteria of judgment emerged. We have terminology, encyclopedias, histories, and yes, courses and research on the specific genre. My question though, is does Rowling actually belong to this genre at all, or is she more rooted in early forerunners, who saw themselves as a continuation of the fairy-tale, myth-makers of the early 19th century. She would seem to be more in line with C. S. Lewis, not a fantasy author, than with Raymound E. Feist. The problem of genre then emerges, in that she is not, from my reading, even aware of the genre.
The genre as a form of judgment came up with its own criteria and scholarship as a form of legitimation. A genre exists because it sees itself as different. So we invented a new vocabulary to state the difference. I am more than capable to look up the word, which I did, but that wasn't my point. You are putting the text into a critical framework where it does not necessarily belong. I see no reason to put it there, when it can easily be put into any other frame, for instance, the tradition of More, the tradition of Swift, the tradition of Victorian schoolday books. Heck, even Treasure Island functions on this trope, and its opening poem invites the reader to play a Harry in these wild away-from-school adventures.
That being said, we can put it in a context, but we must realize pretty much all fiction does this. We can apply critical terms to it, but there must be a reason for doing so. Categorization implies there is something inferred from a unique trait.
As for the racial themes, I will just argue with more of the text, rather than address the specifics you mentioned about whether or not it is an allegory. My argument would be it fails. Though the magical world is, shall we say, divided between those worthy and unworthy, there is clearly a very unworthy world. The muggles are dismissed as freaks from the beginning, and though are studied as a curiosity, as one would study an animal, they are always regarded as being beneath. The janitor, for instance, is what they call a squib, and treated by the magical world as mentally impaired.
But beyond that, there exists something within the magical world that creates this major problem. That of class and its influence on race allegory. The rich are all racist, whereas the poor aren't. Slytherin may be pureish in blood (there exists a little "mud" in everyone, the text argues), but they are also the richest, and most connected. Malfoy has a manner, and has a hereditary slave. The others wear nicer stuff, and enjoy more money. As if all rich people are racist, and all poor people are good little innocent christians.
We cannot then read it as the same time as a class allegory, or class-conflict novel, and racial-conflict novel. Simply put, if it is a racial conflict novel, then the hatred and divisions between good are bad are between those racist and not racist. If it is a class conflict novel, then the divisions are between those who are an old elite, who think sharing the wealth with new emerging people is a crime.
I would say this is a flaw in the novel, in the sense that half the novels divide over class, and half divide over race. The first novel is undoubtedly divided over class. The idea of race never enters the question.
You are of noble blood, to Slytherin, of middle-class family upbringing, Ravenclaw, of emerging middle-class blood, Gryphondor, and all the poor bums to Hufflepuff. There is a clear divide, and Harry, being of actual noble birth through his parents, and his huge pile of cash in his bank, decides to break protocol and associate with the middle class, and renounce is class superiority in favor of friendship and loyalty, and overall comfort.
The next novel introduces this idea of "blood", which is completely absent from other novels. It here can be interpreted as "poor" or "unworthy" but not racially, class-wise. You are new money, etc. It gets corrupted when it attempts to cross over into race, because race is such a weird term in England and in the novels. Does Malfoy hate Hermione because of her race or her class? A good question. She is clearly lower-class in his terms, and when Malfoy's father sees her parents, he basically thinks them the worst kind of low-class bumpkins, uncultured and stupid.
Now, lets say this was taking place in Harrow, or in any other number of private schools in the world. It would not be out of place to see a similar class conflict. I have seen my classmates in China rip on each other for not being rich, or for their parents not being party members, or not having the right ID card. It is worse in younger people here, where the parents compete over who picks their kids up in nicer cars. England and Harvard are similar. You have money, you go to Harrow, you go to Oxford, you inherit. There are always those who didn't go to harrow in Oxford though, and always those who are not as rich in Harrow, which forms the conflict - Hermione is not from the rich background, she is hated, and others think she is invading her school.
Book three continues this, with Malfoy and friends trying to kill the hippogryph, and them almost getting away with it because of class-connections. The executioner is Malfoy's dad's friend. He probably has the best lawyers, etc. That is what is implied - the class-conflict continues.
Book four seems to be keeping with this too, the idea of racism or even classicism barely enters the text in the way it did in the first two. Instead it is about adventures more. The book gets thicker, a tradition repeated later, and we have a text more about education and adventures, that does not explore these themes.
Next we have book 5, where it reemerges, but not to the extent in book 2. It is still a class thing - the rich girls make fun of Hermione, for instance. The idea of race, as it is, is overshadowed by the idea of class.
Book 6 - here we have an about-face of sorts. Class and race begin to cross in the form of Snape. Snape is noble, but only half-noble - a Half-blood-prince, meaning half a prince. This is when the idea of race and blood get added, but it is still in keeping with the British sense of hereditary lines - think of Richard II's line in shakespeare: "Not all the water in the rough rude sea / Can wash the balm from an anointed king."
That is how the idea of race actually enters the text, in a conflict between money, and class, class in the English mentality as being horribly hereditary. What we see as a race conflict is merely a conflict of class. The poor plebeians, the muggles, are always absent and in the dump, and they are always abused by the magical elite. The wizards amongst themselves are class divided, and each represent a fundamental part of England.
I think we as North Americans are not predisposed to see class in the British sense, but something like this in any number of British texts is common place. The idea of the hereditary class, for instance, is present in much of Victorian fiction, and even more present in older 18th century works. Tom Jones, as you will have it, has to be of noble birth, even though he is a foundling.
We like to think of this as about race, but is it actually? As an American, I can see how racial interpretations would be appealing - the US has been particularly hit by a history of racial dividing and segregation, and violence. But English history, especially immediate history, has, to my knowledge, always been more concerned with class. Class in England is ingrained in every level of culture.
So as you put it, it can be taken as an allegory, or just read as such, but my problem then, now upon reflection, is that it doesn't hold, and none of the issues are resolved. Voldemort dies, but the class issues remain, and are never fully developed.
Malfoy goes from rich slave owner to converted-cowardly-oppurtunist under a sense of guilt and after a change of fortune. He is like a factory owner who decides he cannot bear to whip his workers.
Slughorn in contrast is a rich calculating man, enjoying his power and connections through betting on his students - the best athletes, the best minds - knowing they will return profits in the form of gifts, connections, and reputation. He does not care about background, merely about what he will get in the long run, and he screws up by betting to highly on a student who turns out to be a psychopath. He feels guilty, in that he actually has an emotional connection to his students, or one student in particular, Harry's mother.
As for caricature, Scrouge would not be a good example. Dickens has a mix, usually his protagonist will be slightly dynamic, often through a deus ex machina reason, but his supporting characters will be completely flat. For instance, Hard Times - the characters are all flat, except for the father (whose name I forgot) who learns to stop being so calculating and obsessed with fact. Not much dimension in terms of character, but it serves Dickens well.
Rowling's supporting characters are also flat. They are cute, but they never say a line that they could not have said the first time they opened their mouth. The fat kid is the fat kid in book 1, who acts nobly despite being a buffoon - he does the same thing at the end of book 7. Malfoy is always Malfoy - a self-proud snob but a coward. All the teachers are always the same. There is nothing dynamic about anything there.
That being said, it is not necessary for that to happen - but the problem is Harry does not change, so the book does not really give me what I am looking for in a novel. If harry doesn't change, the plot has made no progress that matters. The plot merely functions as a filler for Harry's adventures, not his growth.
My use of other examples was mainly to point out that we cannot call these things original or unique, and therefore we cannot credit Rowling with being original or unique. I also wanted to point out that she wasn't even particularly clever at creating this alternative or using these devices, and others have done it better before.
The idea of evaluation against other books is not new, the same way we compare movies we like or dislike to other movies, or we compare action movies to other action movies, or television sitcoms to other sitcoms. We have a sort of general sense of what should be expected, and then we want to see the form manipulated to give us something interesting. IF all sitcoms knocked off Seinfeld to a point, nobody would watch sitcoms anymore, they would just watch Seinfeld.
The sitcom is an interesting example, in that each episode is required to do something new so that it remains interesting. You can have flat characters, like Seinfeld, but you need to manipulate them to create comedy.
If an episode, or a whole sitcom fails to do this though, then they are undoubtedly criticized for their lacking. They are held up, like everything to a standard based on comparison. IT is not wrong to hit Rowling with the tradition, because she is part of it, and must be judged by it. My remarks were there to dispel this belief that Rowling was an inventor. As Leguin put it, there is good in the books, but they are not original, or particularly imaginative.
Her real skill lies in the cuteness of her stuff - the magical frogs and beans, and such. It sort of reminds me of 18th century tea parties with all its quaintness. Is that enough to carry the books for me, well, not really. Maybe the first novel could have been well received, but the later volumes are progressively worse.
The first volume could have been interpreted as a continuation of this Victorian tradition, and therefore stood better from that context - but her decision to write 6 other of virtually the same novels was seriously a deterrent. She should have just rewritten the first one in 10 years to modernize it as this sort of fairy-tale morality-tale, and resolved the conflicts. Then we would have been spared a lot of this stuff. All the "good" if you will in these books is delivered and resolved in the first book.
I had a long response, but my browser crashed. So we'll make this succinct and quick.
1) Based on your long response about muggles, you still don't seem to understand how the racial themes work. The Muggle/Wizard divide is precisely what makes the arbitrariness of Wizarding racial ideology work. The readers are Muggles and for us the divide is between people who can do magic and people who can't, a mudblood and pure blood can perform magic equally, so when the ideology suggests one is not as good as the other it reveals just how arbitrary the racial ideology is precisely because they aren't different from our perspective. I disagree with how you think Muggles are portrayed; the ideologies of the villains are anti-Muggle, while the heroes in general are Pro-Muggle. The only time when characters study the culture of Muggles is with Mr. Weasley. The Mr Weasley episodes of exploring Muggle culture are comical and have little to do with the racial theme; the function of these episodes is similar to the Little Prince coming to different planets in Antoine de Saint Exupery's book and experiencing different elements of the "adult" world as an outsider (businessman, alcoholic, king, etc.), which unveils the strangeness and silliness of elements found in our everyday experience. That's what is happening there. Basically, you're fostering one misreading after another.
2) Sure, class plays a role, but the racial themes are more prominent. As far as a rich versus poor allegory. As already noted, the main hero is rich and from an old wizarding family and isn't part of Slytherin. Sirius Black would be another example. She's not writing allegory; she's writing fiction that deals and explore certain conflicts, but as already noted in fairly interesting ways. Also, there are hints of the racial theme even in the first book. Granted it appears most prominently in book 2 and the final volumes, and there are other issues explored, but its always there in the background of every book. I never said the racial theme is the ONLY theme or issue at stake in HP. Mudblood is very obviously a racial term. Malfoy clearly hates Hermione for her "race" and Weasley for his "class."
That's really the only points I was interested in addressing, although I'm not giving it the space and point by point that I did before my post got gobbled.
I am disagreeing. You are reading an allegory that I do not see in the text and dismissing my reading as secondary. I am reading it as a novel about class, you have somehow cOme to this conclusion that it is about race. I do not see thisas textually supportable.
The Weasleys are blood traitors, those who mingle with the lower new money classes. Hermione is one degree lower - she is from the bottom with no hereditary connection to the ruling classes. Harry is from a good Rich family, but makes the moral choice to associate with the bottomers.
I am enjoying the back and forth between the two of you. Your essay is also vigorous and cogent, JBI.
There is no simple correlation between race and class in the HP books.
Malfoys - Rich, upper class, pureblood
Harry - rich, upper class, half-blood
Gaunts - impoverished, pureblood, class?
Snape - poor, working class, half-blood
Voldy - poor, half-blood, class?
Weasleys - not much money, middle class, pureblood
Hermione - comfortably off, middle class, muggleborn (mudblood)
Lily - same as Hermione
and so on.
Well, I don’t feel there is much to address in your disagreement because mudblood and pure blood are clearly presented as racial terms:
Notice in this textual example the way people react as if Malfoy had spoken the N-word. There isn’t really a class equivalent. It is quite clear that Malfoy dislikes Hermione because she is a mudblood (a racial category), not strictly on grounds of class. Whereas in the first book, he rejects Weasley on class grounds, but accepts he is from a pure wizarding family.Quote:
The smug look on Malfoy's face flickered. "No one asked your opinion, you filthy Mudblood," he spat. Harry knew at once that Malfoy had said something really bad because there was an instant uproar at his words. Flint had to dive in front of Malfoy to stop Fred and George jumping on him, Alicia shrieked, "How dare you!" and Ron plunged his hand into his robes, pulling out his wand, yelling, "You'll pay for that one, Malfoy!" and pointing it furiously under Flint's arm at Malfoy's face."
I believe the racial "mudblood" term reappears in some shape or form in every book after the 2nd one. Therefore, we can conclude that the racial issues never disappear and always remain in the background of the story, even when the story is exploring other young adult issues in the forefront that I already mentioned: like trust, etc. Like I said, it’s a major theme, not the ONLY theme of the book series.
The class issues are there, but are more for background of characters. We see characters from all different classes among our heroes and villains. I would agree Rowling seems to be suggesting that the rich tend to be racist and they tend to be the villain, but as already noted there are quite a few examples of the rich not associated with Death Eaters along with the poor joining up with the Death Eaters. So a strict class reading isn't sustainable.
If only, there were more respectful and intelligent debates like this in both real life and the internet.
Clearly? Is racism the only prejudice in the world? You are interpreting. It is not clearly stated.
The statements could easily be made of countryfolk, or of poor people. You are American, therefore you conceive of hate in racial terms, whereas an Englishman may conceive of it in terms of class.
Think of this as a contrast - No one asked your opinion, you fucking peasant/pleb/hick/cunt. It could be any with the same reaction.
To her credit, fantasy allows her to create an allegory of hate without the clearly stating what is being hated. You interpret it as race, I think class is more fitting with the text and with the authors politics outside the text.
It's like a rich guy telling a girl she should shut her trap because she is a from a dump family. In England, the cross between hereditary titles and class is so ingrained that this is possible.
How dare you speak to me, I am of noble birth, from an old family. Or how dare you speak to me, I am white and you are black. The distinction is too difficult to hold. As you put it, it is clearly offensive, but the whole point is there is no appearance related advantage.
What is weird is the number of hereditary magical properties - Voldemort can talk to snakes through hereditary means - Tonks can transform through hereditary traits. IT seems that being pure blood has its advantage.
Now, upon reading the summary on Wikipedia of Dumbledore, I am presented with another idea, - is the conflict not the rich trying to purify their reign over the world (and muggles) as reassuring their class superiority in a war against emerging newer classes offending their authority? Is this not apparent in English history, from, for instance, The English Civil War? This is far more keeping with the tradition Rowling is working within. You are American, of course you are going to read race into it. You are not from the tradition of classicism like an English person is.
In fact, race is less apparent in English hierarchies than class. Class is everything in England, a country that has a queen simply due to her "pureblood" relationship to a deceased monarch. There have been things in English history described as class warefare. Read Engels' writings on the lower Class in Victorian England to get an idea, or Marx's Capital. The idea of class behaves differently in England. It performs itself in an hereditary fashion.
Ultimately, the text is not clear, as the weird distinction between muggle-born and pure-blood is so arbitrary that it is ridiculous - you are dealing with a group of ex-muggles and never-muggles. The never-poors dislike the new rich, because they challenge their crumbling authority, like how the new middle class destroyed the aristocracy in the late 18th and 19th century in England. They claimed the ground of money and authority, got seats in parliament, and began to displace the old families. The bottom still didn't change much, so the muggles, basically remain out of the contending. Such a time period led to much resentment, and yes, verbal abuse. The same can be said of systems in other places of the world, most apparently in places with class systems ingrained, like India, or China.
Clearly? Is racism the only prejudice in the world? You are interpreting. It is not clearly stated.
The statements could easily be made of countryfolk, or of poor people. You are American, therefore you conceive of hate in racial terms, whereas an Englishman may conceive of it in terms of class.
Think of this as a contrast - No one asked your opinion, you fucking peasant/pleb/hick/cunt. It could be any with the same reaction.
To her credit, fantasy allows her to create an allegory of hate without the clearly stating what is being hated. You interpret it as race, I think class is more fitting with the text and with the authors politics outside the text.
It's like a rich guy telling a girl she should shut her trap because she is a from a dump family. In England, the cross between hereditary titles and class is so ingrained that this is possible.
How dare you speak to me, I am of noble birth, from an old family. Or how dare you speak to me, I am white and you are black. The distinction is too difficult to hold. As you put it, it is clearly offensive, but the whole point is there is no appearance related advantage.
What is weird is the number of hereditary magical properties - Voldemort can talk to snakes through hereditary means - Tonks can transform through hereditary traits. IT seems that being pure blood has its advantage.
Now, upon reading the summary on Wikipedia of Dumbledore, I am presented with another idea, - is the conflict not the rich trying to purify their reign over the world (and muggles) as reassuring their class superiority in a war against emerging newer classes offending their authority? Is this not apparent in English history, from, for instance, The English Civil War? This is far more keeping with the tradition Rowling is working within. You are American, of course you are going to read race into it. You are not from the tradition of classism like an English person is.
In fact, race is less apparent in English hierarchies than class. Class is everything in England, a country that has a queen simply due to her "pureblood" relationship to a deceased monarch. There have been things in English history described as class warefare. Read Engels' writings on the lower Class in Victorian England to get an idea, or Marx's Capital. The idea of class behaves differently in England. It performs itself in an hereditary fashion.
Ultimately, the text is not clear, as the weird distinction between muggle-born and pure-blood is so arbitrary that it is ridiculous - you are dealing with a group of ex-muggles and never-muggles. The never-poors dislike the new rich, because they challenge their crumbling authority, like how the new middle class destroyed the aristocracy in the late 18th and 19th century in England. They claimed the ground of money and authority, got seats in parliament, and began to displace the old families. The bottom still didn't change much, so the muggles, basically remain out of the contending. Such a time period led to much resentment, and yes, verbal abuse. The same can be said of systems in other places of the world, most apparently in places with class systems ingrained, like India, or China.
the conflict actually parallels class history in England rather well. Old-families (pure bloods) seeing their authority usurped by new families, new families moving into the ranks of the older families, and bottom families remaining poor and beaten.
There is a good book called The Crisis of the Aristocracy which deals with this historical phenomenon of the decline of aristocratic authority. The text can be read within this tradition, and seems more in keeping than with class conflict, which was never as significant in English history as in American history.
JCamilo miserably may be too harsh a word, but I still think that she failed at her attempt to do a proper character development. I don't mind, I liked these books for other reasons.
As for the evil and good division. It's clear that the bad people go to Slytherin (they all leave in the last book during the last battle) and the good people go to Gryffindor or other houses.
I didn't like the villains in Harry Potter. They consist of arrogant idiots or idiots. Voldy was supposed to be one of the most powerful magician, but the killing of one boy is for him an insurmountable obstacle and it seems that he tries very hard not to kill Potter, for example, by coming up with an overcomplicated plan or by finding a time to tell the story of his life when he can kill Potter in the fourth book.
While I'm not keen on turning to the author, Rowling has discussed these issues in multiple interviews. She does at times claim she wasn't trying to do a one for one allegory with Nazi Germany and you can see parallels to Stalinsim, and there is a lot of political Isms, she's trying to address in Potter via the Death Eaters, such as class, but has also stated that the blood purity laws in the wizard world are similar to Nazi blood purity laws. In other interviews she talked about the series in terms of race. All of this suggests she definitely had race in mind. So I'm not just reading it as an American, Rowling herself has suggested she meant to invoke race.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
Your example of turning mudblood into a class issue is pushing the boundaries of common sense. In the series, the Death Eaters make clear that one Muggle grandparent disqualifies you as being pure blood. Sounds a lot like Nazi law and white American blood purity laws to me (1/8 drop of black blood means your black).
It is not hard, is it? Class and race are related in the past. (Not so far past). The house hierarchy from medieval ages was also based on supposed racial traits. There was low level classes simple based on ethinic birth in the past in several system. So, it may be race issues even if the book is not an "Alice Walker" kind of book.
Plus, I think, as the commercial success happened, she started to play more with other themes, which may just be part of the scennary at begining, but more interesting as the market grows. The suggestions of race may come from her understanding of her public - even the treatment is not as clear. She filled the book with school conflicts, I can see she trying to play with racism too.
Meh. The idea that the book uses its own allegory to represent racial prejudice is hardly new (and arguably quite tired) in the fantasy genre. It's how the books address and handle these themes that's important--merely throwing them in there without much though (and most fantasy does this) isn't very deep or thought provoking.
There's no allegory representing racial prejudice. It is handled directly. Some wizards think they are better than the others, based on their blood purity, and Voldemort cashes in on that. It's thrown in there because Rowling wanted the magic world to be a true reflection of our own. "“I wanted Harry to leave our world and find exactly the same problems in the wizarding world. So you have the intent to impose a hierarchy, you have bigotry, and this notion of purity, which is this great fallacy, but it crops up all over the world. People like to think themselves superior and that if they can pride themselves in nothing else they can pride themselves on perceived purity." - J K Rowling
Drk's point is (I think) that when we see our own world in this magic mirror, it gives us a certain objectivity, just as allegory does, and shows up its absurdities much more effectively than any amount of direct preaching will do.
Maybe for the last book. But it is not as strict as you put it. Snape is half-muggle. Voldemort is half-muggle - everyone is a little muddy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Drkshadow03
The hitler allegory is kind of dry and cliche, and her use of it I attributed to the movie directors for the 7th film, but I guess it's explicit in the book too. It's kind of weak writing in my eyes.
That being said,the idea of race as I believed you were constructing it, would be in the North American sense. Being Jewish is not a racial thing.
So now we have a problem. Is Rowling paralleling Hitler, with the concept of Jew or Muggle as fundamentally different, and does she support such a divide? The muggles are not allowed at Hogwarts, they are studied as a curiosity, and live separate. They are "other" if you will, the same way the Jews, gypsies, and others become "other" in Nazi Germany. If we are reading this as racism, then we must accept there is a racial divide in the magical world.
The muggles are not the wizards. Muggle is not a pejorative, but they are clearly and fundamentally beneath and different. IF we were to take this as demonstrating racism, then this issue would need to be addressed properly. As it is there are any number of things to make us thing otherwise. For instance, the Black family tree is clearly a symbol of class and hereditary roots - the fundamental of British hierarchy and class keep in mind. He is on the tree, and those who marry commoners are cast out like the Duke of Windsor.
That would be your classical example about how the racial politics as you see them work - in terms of hereditary class. Queen Elizabeth in her day would not have been able to marry a commoner. Prince Charles married his cousin to keep the blood pure - this is English history, this is the War of the Roses legacy at its fullest. Blood in England is class, or at least was until recently. There were schools where you needed to be royal to go, and there were clubs for royalty.
This is the tradition Rowling is working in. The racial traits merely come in perhaps in the last 2 books to add a little bit of preachiness to the text. Basically slytherin is the royal house. For an American, I think you have a hard time understanding how class and blood have played a role in shaping the political and cultural structure of England.
Now, as for Race, that is trickier because anyone who studies racism will tell you that racial divides are arbitrary and meaningless. the Muggle-Magic divide is present from day 1 - the Dursleys are just muggles, Hermione`s parents are muggles, Ron`s dad works with muggles - they are like dismissed.
This is never resolved in the book - Hermione is un-mugglefied, one can say, as are other mud-bloods - those who have risen beyond their muggleness. The Slytherins think they aught not to, they come from the muggles so they should stay with the muggles. The question in the text then is not whether muggles are discriminated against for no reason, but rather whether one should or should not be able to be amongst the wizards if you have the ability to get past your muggleness.
The Hitler and nazi parallels are mere late appendices to a class-driven conflict. Let me remind you of other points.
Malfoy senior buys the whole Slytherin team new brooms, because they deserve it. Rich families, like the Blacks, have house slaves, and "manors" like the Slytherins, or even Voldemort's relatives. We have politically connected wizards from these old families too. We have also hereditary abilities in wizarding, and hereditary magical items that can be passed down as heirlooms.
The old blood, or pure Blood resembles class and royalty more than anything. You see it as race because you are programmed to think along racial lines, but there is nothing to indicate race, as much as their is to indicate a caste system over class. Muggles on the bottom, and no muggle-borns allowed to raise up - if you marry down, either a muggle or a muggle-born, then you are creating mud-bloods. IF you support them, then you are a blood-traitor. This is the system that still governs in certain countries of the world, and it has nothing to do with race, as in Black, White, Asian, Hispanic, Whatever (race doesn't actually make sense outside a context of discrimination). This is also a conflict that rocked England for centuries.
Hitler was working with a new idea of race, which was rooted in obscure and violent misunderstandings of genetics and origins, and, also downright hatred. "Jew" is not a racial category, it is a religious category. Therefore it does not fit as an exact model - there were Jews on every level of German and European society, even members of the nobility. It's a big problem to try and play with race there, and how it fits to Harry Potter, in that muggles are not Wizards, and that fundamental divide is present throughout the text.
Now lets say she is paralleling Hitler and nazi policies - that does not mean we are dealing with race, we are just dealing with systematic hatred in the 20th century sense. I haven't read the last book, but I somehow doubt she switches to a case where Wizards and Muggles are not fundamentally different. She never breaks that divide.
So what is the resolution then? the idea of nobility as represented in pure Blood makes more sense for the first few novels, up until maybe 6 or 7. Snape even sees himself as half-nobility, given his father's racial superiority over his mother - he is a "prince", if you will. He is like the Bastard son of an aristocrat who lives with the fact that he will not inherit and be legitimate because he is not from the noble-wife. Maybe in the 7th one Rowling got carried away with racial categories and junk, but they aren't the determining factor in the books, and in fact, are often contradictory.
She is after all writing about class explicitly throughout much of the novels, and spent much of her new novel, if my understanding is correct, discussing class. If we want to talk about the author, the author has continuously supported social mobility, and even donated 1million pounds to the Labour party. Class is in her life, and is important in determining her politics. Therefore it is not a stretch to say the books are about class, and less about race. They borrow from race when the two link, because the way she set up the magical world, she cannot play out her morality tale about social class without touching on the overlap.
Yes, pretty much that. I'm not sure why JBI keeps whipping out the term allegory when I clearly don't mean allegory and explained why it's not an allegory. The fact that Voldemort and Snape are half-blood is there to reveal the hypocrisy of the whole idea of racial purity and fits perfectly well with the theme as I presented it.Quote:
Originally Posted by mona amon
I already addressed his point about the Muggle/Wizard divide:
It serves as part of the racial ideology, but not in an overly symbolic way. Instead it creates the genre contrast that I mentioned, which allows the racial parallel to work in the first place. However, in itself it shouldn't be read symbolically since the readers are muggles and aren't about to go: Oh my G-d, we're inferior! I need to persecute myself!Quote:
The readers are Muggles and for us the divide is between people who can do magic and people who can't, a mudblood and pure blood can perform magic equally, so when the ideology suggests one is not as good as the other it reveals just how arbitrary the racial ideology is precisely because they aren't different from our perspective. I disagree with how you think Muggles are portrayed; the ideologies of the villains are anti-Muggle, while the heroes in general are Pro-Muggle. The only time when characters study the culture of Muggles is with Mr. Weasley. The Mr Weasley episodes of exploring Muggle culture are comical and have little to do with the racial theme; the function of these episodes is similar to the Little Prince coming to different planets in Antoine de Saint Exupery's book and experiencing different elements of the "adult" world as an outsider (businessman, alcoholic, king, etc.), which unveils the strangeness and silliness of elements found in our everyday experience. That's what is happening there. Basically, you're fostering one misreading after another.
JBI then expresses his typical anti-Americanism with his bizarre comment: "For an American, I think you have a hard time understanding how class and blood have played a role in shaping the political and cultural structure of England."
As if all Americans do all day is eat donuts and watch TV and it's amazing we can even tie our own shoes, let alone know something about British history. Apparently for JBI A Passage to India is also strictly about class, not race.
You miss my point. If we are reading race into this, we must note that muggles are inferior to Wizards. Take your pick. We are muggles reading wizards, right, but we are still muggles - and muggles don't get portrayed well - The Dursleys, Voldemort's Dad, etc. - And they cannot go to hogwarts, they need to be brainwashed every time they get out of hand. How do you address this with your racial reading - they are just not special, or not worthy? They are not born with the talent? Or are you dismissing this as an overstatement, or is this just a kids book and not that intelligent.
What is a muggle, if not something non-wizardly. Some may be able to unmuggle themselves, and some wizards may be able to marry muggles, but they are still muggles. Is the lesson we need to learn to tolerate muggles, and live with the fact that some can get lucky and be "born with the ability" to become wizards?
A wizard is fundamentaly different from a Muggle in a way that one race can never be different from another, so you are right about that. However, it's clearly shown that the magical gene always predominates, so that nullifies any eugenic arguments based on that difference. It is clearly stated in book 2 that that there were so few wizards that they would have died out if they had not married Muggles.Quote:
So now we have a problem. Is Rowling paralleling Hitler, with the concept of Jew or Muggle as fundamentally different, and does she support such a divide? The muggles are not allowed at Hogwarts, they are studied as a curiosity, and live separate. They are "other" if you will, the same way the Jews, gypsies, and others become "other" in Nazi Germany. If we are reading this as racism, then we must accept there is a racial divide in the magical world.
The muggles are not the wizards. Muggle is not a pejorative, but they are clearly and fundamentally beneath and different. IF we were to take this as demonstrating racism, then this issue would need to be addressed properly. As it is there are any number of things to make us thing otherwise. For instance, the Black family tree is clearly a symbol of class and hereditary roots - the fundamental of British hierarchy and class keep in mind. He is on the tree, and those who marry commoners are cast out like the Duke of Windsor. - JBI
When wizards marry Muggles, the children are always wizards. And even Muggleborns are the result of some magical ancestor somewhere in both the parents' bloodlines.
The Janitor Filch is a squib. They have a word for the unworthies amongst the bunch.Quote:
Originally Posted by mona amon
Okay then, to recap the thread thus far:
OP - Hey everybody, whaddaya think of this new book?
- Sux
- No it doesn't
- Yes it does
- It doesn't suck, you suck
- No I don't, and you're a moron
- Oh yeah, well, you can't even tie your own shoes
- Can too, and I heard your mother swims after troop ships
- She does not, and your mother's a syphilated whore
Moderator - People, People! No personal attacks, or I'll shut down this discussion.
- I suppose the book has some value
- Thank you, I knew you'd come around to reason
- For instance, it'd be valuable in an outhouse when you're out of TP
- Moron!
- Idiot!
Moderator - People!
- I read a review by a very important reviewer of books and he said it sux
- He's an imbecile
- No he's not. He's a genius and he's read more books on the crapper than you've read your whole life
- He's a snob and I've read a bunch of books. What've you read?
- I've read Kierkegaard. I bet you read Dr Seuss.
- Yeah, well, you're weird and I hear you have carnal knowledge of farm animals
- Do not! And I heard you didn't graduate 3rd grade until age 16
- Pig F***er
- Retard
Moderator - I'm not going to warn you people again!
- Okay, suppose your book is like food
- Then it'd be caviar
- No it wouldn't. It'd be pork rinds
- You would know, Pig F***er
- I'm no Pig F***er. I'm a really smart guy. I usually only ever read cuneiform directly from cave walls
- Elitist snob
- Special Ed
Moderator - * sigh *
- Okay, back to my analogy: if your book was food, it'd be on the menu at McDonalds
- I like McDonalds
- Figures
- Oh, and I suppose you only ever eat filet mignon and escargot
- I only eat organically grown vegetables
- What! You don't eat no meat!?
- Occasionally, but only free-range, hormone-free, chicken, who had an emotionally-fulfilling relationship with a left-leaning farmer
- Uhhh...
Moderator - People, Keep it on topic, please.
El Sancho - You know, that McDonalds is a pretty good stock, pays a nice dividend, good PE ratio, big time growth potential in China.
- What the hell?
- Yeah, What the hell!?
- Well, at least we agree on that, but your book still sux
- No it doesn't. You suck
- Nuh-uh, but now, since I'm so much smarter than you, I'm going to make a really really long and tedious, somewhat pretentious post that nobody's going to read because it's so long and tedious with lots of obscure references and questionable logic, but that won't matter because I'm going to use a bunch of big words that nobody understands and nobody will bother to look up and that won't matter either because it'll make me sound smart and anyway when you get right down to it that's what's important to me - sounding smart. Have I mentioned that I took my first doctorate in Interpretive Literature at age 12 from the Sorbonne in Paris? And I'm presently studying the effects of Elevator Maintenance on the Consciousness of Racial Minorities in Minsk, Russia? Yes, well, it's a fascinating area of research, with far reaching ramifications to the broader global society, blah blah blah. Blah, blah blah blah.
- I'm sorry, can you repeat that? I sort of glazed over right after, "Nuh-uh."
- I'd be happy to, my dim witted little friend, as I was saying...
And so it goes, on the Lit-Net.
I was wondering when someone was going to post something like this but you did leave it awful late. I mean, 21 pages on Harry Potter.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sancho
:lol::lol::lol:
Sancho, really, this is a serious discussion! 10 demerits for not taking it seriously!
Actually, the discussion has been remarkably civil-kudos to all the participants for that.
I'm disinclined to continue this conversation for the most part. I have other things to do with my time and we've been having this SAME EXACT conversation for years. The essay I posted in this thread was an adaptation from an earlier essay I posted in a different HP thread from 2009. I edited it and cut out parts. Below are the parts I cut out, which directly pertain to your comments above and were written in response to similar comments you made back in 2009 (bolded for the parts that describe my position most directly):Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
Heck, even Emil, is making the same points he made back in 2009.Quote:
It is precisely through the divorcing quality of fantasy, by creating an ideology that exists only in a different world, yet bearing similarities to our own ideologies, that allows us to see the extent of racism’s arbitrary nature. However, the opposite is not true in regards to the Muggle and Wizard divisions as possibly encouraging racist ideology.
It is important to remember that the Muggle and Wizarding worlds exist separately from each other much like two counties adjacent to one another, which is an inherent part of the Wainscott genre (the larger world needs to be ignorant of the magical sub-culture world living among or beside them). The Muggles live their everyday lives completely ignorant of the Wizarding World for the most part. The story never claims that Muggles are inferior to Wizards, at least not from the perspective of the heroes, only from the viewpoint of characters we are meant to despise. The Wizarding World and Muggles are merely different, not inferior or superior; this I think is the position of the story, and likewise, is present more for the sake of telling a fantasy story in the Wainscot tradition than serving as any effectual commentary on our society. After all, in real life there are no Wizards. These distinctions are merely conveniences of the genre, for the story’s sake, and most readers will recognize that instead of reading a particular theme of racial inferiority into it. After all, the readers of the books are all Muggles. It is ridiculous to think that readers will identify Muggles as inferior and bad when they themselves are Muggles. For this reason the real distinction between Muggles and Wizards doesn’t uncut the earlier anti-racial themes because readers will not identify this as any sort of real message that is applicable to their real lives, but merely as a genre trope, a convenience serving the nature of the story. The divorce between fantasy and reality is much greater in this instance. The racist belief that some races are superior to others in intelligence, physical prowess, and ability is too large of a metaphorical leap from the fantasy logic that some people can perform magic and others cannot for most people to read anything into this idea.
Even with all that said, Rowling paints the interrelations between these two dichotomous societies more complexly than just one having power over the other. Although most of the book shows the Wizarding World threatening to conquer the Muggle world, there are instances in the book when Muggles kill, torture, and harm wizards. The most obvious case being Dumbledore’s sister who is tortured by Muggles when they see her performing magic, but even Tom Riddle, the boy who would grow up to be Voldemort, lived also experienced a life being tortured by Muggles for being different in the orphanage. Harry Potter himself is verbally and psychologically abused by his adopted Muggle aunt and uncle. The Muggle world is just as much a threat to the Wizarding World as certain elements in the Wizarding World are a threat to the Muggle world. This explains why the Wizarding World needs to stay a secret. When Ministry officials tweak Muggle memories it is not out of some elitist joy of manipulating Muggles as rulers, but a general measure of preemptive self-defense.
LOL, Sancho! :smilielol5:
Well, I must say I didn't think my humble topic would get such a huge response. :coolgleamA:Quote:
Originally Posted by Emil Miller
So your answer is, it's a genre trope, and should not be taken seriously. Therefore I say the whole good vs bad in the books is a genre trope, and should not be taken seriously - these tropes have played out in fantasy for 200 years now.
I don't think I could take another 200 years of Harry Potter.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
Yep, that's the basic gist. You can think whatever you'd like; I already explained some of the ways Potter takes common fantasy tropes, such as good vs. bad and twists them around.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
Well, perhaps we will still be reading Potter 200 years from now, the first book is still being read after 16 years.Quote:
Originally Posted by Emil Miller
Only 16 years? Judging by this thread it already feels like 200.Quote:
Originally Posted by Drkshadow03
Nicolas Flamel, is that you?Quote:
Originally Posted by Emil Miller
This was a very enjoyable and successful thread, mona amon.Quote:
Originally Posted by Drkshadow03
Hopefully, we are not at a market top for McDonald's, Sancho, but it looks like MCD is a good stock to own.
I guess I will have to be reincarnated to be reading HP 200 years from now. However, that was an excellent commentary on the series, Drkshadow03. You have shown that literary criticism can offer value to the reader.
Also, and probably this has been said before, that what was so interesting about the books is that Rowling created this whole magical world, much like Tolkien did in Lord of the Rings. I compare Rowling to Spielberg. It doesn't seem like there's much new there, but the author is capable of creating a work that holds whole populations of readers spellbound, and that they even return to time and time again. It's not what the story is, it's how it's told. And therein lies her magic.
And since we're all (more or less) friends here, we know how you feel, you know how we feel-and you respect that. Ahhh! Thank you!
To be honest, for the past 2 months I have been using Rowling as a textbook for teaching children, and Bloom's criticism now seems far truer than before. The use of adverbs and cliches is almost every other sentence. It is dreadful writing. The second book shows improvement, as does the third, which I am going to assume is the hiring of a proper editor.Quote:
Originally Posted by qimissung
The book is riddled with bad prose, or at least the first one. It is not terribly crappy in terms of story, but not exactly original. To me the books are not bad, just dull. The second in terms of plotting is inferior to the first, but in terms of writing is superior. The third is perhaps the strongest in the series in terms of pacing, development, and plot, though the ending could have used a reshuffle. The repetitive use of red-herrings had already tired on me.
I feel, using it as a teaching material, that the book is an example of poor writing (the first). The use of too many adverbs is rather silly at times, and grouping adjectives in clusters is just weak sentence structure. She does a lot more telling than showing too, which is a bit weak on her part. As a teacher I need to keep advising my students, do not use adverbs like she does, do not use adverbs to modify adjectives like she does, these cliches are dry do not use them. I use the book because the kids in China (who pay me quite well mind you) like them because they are trendy, and their parents are glad to have them reading English, but they are not a good example of good prose, or a creative use of language. Le Guin was spot on in one of her essays on fantasy writing where she noted fantasy must pay particular use to language. Much of fantasy literature would be better, and better received if such was the case. Writing by thesaurus just reads like redundant prose.
I can see now why Mortalterror likes Hemingway so much, he at least knew how to reduce prose to the bare essentials, the raw and necessary. Rowling lacks this form of censorship. Everything is obvious, everything is overly exposed, everything is modified by 2 adjectives and an adverb. It is sickening. A paragraph is usually 2 sentences too long, and each sentence 2 words too long. Repetition is dull.
Oh heck, here we go again...
Well at least now no one can say that people haven't been in-depth with their criticism of the series.
Yay! Rowling's written another book! It's been out since April and no one knew it was her. :D I've bought it for my kindle but haven't started reading yet. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013...uckoos-calling
My four year old niece is very excited about it.
Finished a couple of days back. It was a very enjoyable read. The Cuckoo's calling by Robert Galbraith (J K Rowling) is a detective novel with good plot, excellent story telling and well drawn realistic characters. It's nothing as wonderful as the quirky and endearing Harry Potter novels, but she has succeeded here where she failed in The Casual Vacancy, which, though it wasn't bad, just failed to hit the mark. Now she's back in a genre that plays to all her strengths, I think she's got another winning series on her hands. Go Jo Rowling!
One cannot help wondering how much of the harsh criticism The Casual Vacancy had received was due to the fact that it was written by JK Rowling.Quote:
Originally Posted by mona amon
I will be reading either or both books sometime soon just satisfy my curiosity.
I heard The Casual Vacancy was pretty good, but that it could have been better if it had been better edited, if the editor had reigned her in a bit. The qualities that served her well in the Harry Potter books just didn't in this more adult outing.
I'll have to check out this latest, but I've got a lot to read already, so it will be awhile. It's good to hear that you enjoyed it, Mona. That presages good things for me, as far as the book is concerned.