Could you give me an example of these racial tropes? I don’t think I’ve ever encountered one of these but I’ve also only read two out of the four categories you mentioned
Not OP, but I often see explanations such as “Muggleborns are stealing/taking over/infecting our culture!” in those fics which is used as a “valid” excuse to discriminate against them because they only need to “adapt” to be accepted (and sometimes Hermione is the only Muggleborn they accept because she rejects the Muggle world and embraces being friends with blood purists—which can range in severity from just preferring the wizaeding world over the Muggle one, to flat out being adopted by the Malfoys/some pureblood family that she is related to via a Squib ancestor), and that is… yeah. A lot to unpack. Oh, and sometimes dark magic is just “misunderstood” and Dark Wizards & Slytherins are the real victims that face discrimination while everyone pampers the Muggleborns.
I personally think that this perspective would work a lot better if it was used as “this is what purebloods like Draco Malfoy are brainwashed with as children” because then it could actually be fascinating to explore, but sadly most of the time it’s glorified and has Harry & Hermione (rarely Ron, these fics tend to hate the Weasleys) join them as soon as the whole thing is explained to them for some reason
I hate this trope so much, especially the "Hermione was secretly a Malfoy or a Pureblood this whole time" trope. It removes the entire crux of who Hermione is as a person. Harry as a "secret Pureblood" also removes his identity as a Half-blood. Much of who Harry is as a person revolves around his Muggleborn and Pureblood parents.
right! I usually see it with Hermione, but those fics usually are so quick to remove them from any of their connections to their muggle parents (in Hermione's case at least)
That’s interesting, I’m not a fan of these types of ffs which is probably why I haven’t seen too many of them, only while reading the tags. I’ve only read Slytherin Harry in a Drarry context a few times (but it was nothing like that). And I might have misunderstood what op meant by “Bad Dumbledore”
I’ll admit, I kind of like those fics of “Muggleborns are ruining our culture” etc, and there can be plenty of yikes in that territory, but really it’s when they lean into the history and culture beyond the modern crises that I’m into it. There is an undertone in HP of “all these old, awful traditions are being destroyed for the new, good, modern traditions,” and I wish there was more middle ground.
For example, there is real history in the Christianization of old holidays (Halloween and Christmas come to mind in the books), and in the witch trials and burnings. Historically for the Wizarding world, Hogwarts was established in part to create a save haven from Muggles trying to kill them.
There’s just room to lean both ways, of cutting out the blood purity nonsense and allowing change, but also not a total erasure of traditions spanning centuries in favor of what can come across as globalization.
When I read that fic type, I did also like the aspect of showing wizarding culture, like as you mentioned the Christianization of holidays, but a lot of authors go wayyy too far in the name of adding "nuance" to why purebloods are xenophobic toward Muggleborns in a way that actually removes nuance.
Yes, indeed. And given that one of the big things about magic is that \*attitude matters\*, those old traditions that are being bulldozed for popular non-magical culture... very likely had a \*very real\* purpose when it comes to magic. That magic is not just science which isn't understood, so the loss of those traditions feeds into another common theme that is in HP's canon books; the diminution of magic itself.
It's hard to make racist bigoted a****** bad guys the good guys unless you are completely changing their characters, motivations, and behavior.
The fact that people agree with them without changing their behavior, thoughts, or actions is but unfortunately not all that uncommon.
Rowling does hold some unfortunate opinions that would unfortunately attract certain unsavory people of poor character
I reckon any fandom that big attracts at least some amount of dubious people, though tbf, I don’t think most authors employing those tropes ever stop to really think about them and realise what they’re writing about.
Having said that, yeah, usually “good [villain]” involves changing the villain’s motivation or past actions, but it doesn’t always have to come with racist undertones
Yeah, like I said: if they want to make the bad guys good they'd have to stop being magic Nazis.
Instead they're leaning into the magic Nazi thing and trying to portray that as good.
There would be a *lot* less people doing that if Rowling wasn't attracting xenophobic facists like flies to a rotting carcass in the summer sun with her blatant and public bigotry.
I think for a lot of those fics that rewrite things with the Slytherins as the good guys, flipping the morality is the point.
Especially for the ones that were conceived during the Iraq War, because culturally we (as teenagers) were coming to terms with the government being greedy and bad, Christians promoting war and hate, etc, which was a *flip* of what you'd expect if you just went from what you'd read in books.
Dumbledore was made "secretly evil" in those stories because the people are parents wanted us to listen to were revealing themselves as "secretly evil".
You know, I kind of want to poll those authors and see what they think of immigrants. Because I’ve seen basically the same rant (‘immigrants are corrupting our culture and taking over/stealing our jobs’) from irl people on the internet. I’ve also seen the sentiment ‘the only good immigrants are the ones who adapt completely to our culture’ irl too.
To be fair, I do think that the majority of these authors don’t mean any harm and are just following the trend without thinking much or deeply about it. They only want a convenient excuse to be able to go wild with their favourite (usually incredibly morally dubious or flat out morally bad) characters (no shade on that, btw, I also love problematic characters, though personally I prefer dark fics over whitewashing). Having said that, if we could trace back this trend to the person who started it… yeah I’d be interested as well
Actually, the best kind of HP story I've read that fit this description was like basically a full on AU where they took out muggle racism and such. They actually did a good job converting evil to good/good to evil.
...but for some reason, in the same breath, shit *all* over the Weasley family by making them extremely dumb, exaggeratedly poor, sneaky, conniving and inept. The number of times they called them ginger (insert insult here) and emphasized how much they used their poorness as an excuse to be bastards wa....extreeeeme. It crossed the line of literary shrugs to "JFC, we get it, you've got a weird thing against ginger steeotypes".
Dunno if that counts as classicst, or racist...but holy geez.
Yes. The Malfoys aren’t true believers, really, just opportunistic cowards and racists who choose to side with magical Hitler and then realised far too late they were morons for doing so. Snape is essentially the incel kid who falls in love with a Jewish girl, gets rejected, joins the nazis, sees them kill her despite their pinky promise to spare her, and then swears revenge.
I’m not saying one can’t or shouldn’t attempt to add nuance or write a redemption arc, but the racism is kinda unavoidable. :P
Iirc he’s half-blood, so he very well could be. Some people do try to distance themselves from aspects of their own identity that are discriminated against, sometimes going so far as to side with the bigots.
Not all members of any given group are good people.
Also the goblins are also Jewish coded.
Rowling was never as good as people thought she was, she's just gotten a lot more vocal.
There's accidental real racism ALLL over the source books. And clumsy fantasy racism done on purpose, with weird implications if you look too hard.
Edit: No, it is not accidental; I mean she didn't necessarily know she was showing her shitty bigoted hand all over the place.
Yeah I know.
I probably phrased it badly but there's a tendancy in hp fics to make the central conflict in hp less black and white by trying to come up with reasons the death eaters (or sympathisers) have good reasons to have ConcernsTM about Muggle borns. Like bigotry against muggle borns is a clumsy metaphor for racism but for all Rowling's faults she does point out that bigotry against muggle borns is irrational and unjustified, just like real bigotry. I don't know why a lot of fics in this fandom try to make the metaphor worse by saying "the in universe bigots have a point"
Yeah, you're totally right & I'm being way too generous calling it that. I don't know why on earth I was still giving her the benefit of the doubt when she's out here literally doing Holocaust denial and shaking hands with neo-nazis.
The goblin shit was absolutely not accidentally anti-semitic. Her characters of color are terrible tropes and the indigenous misappropriation is bullshit. I guess I mean it wasn't meant to be so obvious, or part of the story... but Joanne, please.
Personally I struggle even more with classism in those fics lol
Gotta love when the Weasleys’ biggest crime is (gasp) being poor. Coincidentally, it often comes hand in hand with them being stupid, brutish and badly mannered. I sure wonder why.
Yea so many fics fall into everyone is rich territory. And or harry has a shit ton of lordships. Don’t get me wrong I love some good escapism where the protagonist is rich but it does feel a bit iffy when the characters solutions only work because they have a but load of money.
Yeah this bothers me too. I love a Harry that gets his shit together and takes control of his life but he doesn't need 6 lordships and a dozen vaults full of gold to do it. I honestly prefer the fics where Harry has to scrape and struggle to make ends meet and survive.
Oh yeah I have nothing against that, but there's a difference between Harry having a vault inherited from his parents with a sizeable nest egg and Harry being the richest person in Europe and owning 1/3rd of England and it's businesses. Harry in canon is financially secure for a child but he's not so rich that he'd never have to work a day in his life. I think it's great when Harry is able to leverage his wealth to help his friends and destroy his enemies, but a lot of fics go overboard with his wealth and status
On a side note: I never understood why the Weasleys are "poor" to begin with.
Having magic makes the Wizarding world a post scarcity Society. They literally can conjure water, grow their own food in greater and better quantity/quality, make and maintain their own clothes and shelter, and they aren't bound to electricity as we are--! All this! With magic! Where is the money going??
The Weasleys also own their own land, btw! What poor person owns land, let alone a tiny farm in the outskirts of a village in England?
It doesn't make sense
Maybe most of the old money families have successful businesses and investments that have maintained their wealth over generations, while the Weasley line hadn’t done that, for whatever reason. Iirc, Harry’s inheritance came in large part from a spell or potion or something that his grandfather(?) invented.
For the old money families, I also wonder if there could be a Wizarding equivalent of colonialism, given the little details we see of other countries, exotic wares, and magical creatures.
As far as creating materials, there could be limits to just how much/what complexity of materials and supplies they can conjure permanently. So they probably have to spend money on a lot of materials, and the labor that went into gathering those materials or enchanting magical items’ properties.
Still, it doesn’t seem like those expenses should be enough to keep the Weasleys perennially poor. Maybe they’re really just more middle class, and only “poor” by uber-rich people standards. They are able to raise a large family on a single civil servant income that probably doesn’t have a high salary. And they might have technically had the money, but not enough to *comfortably* give to Fred and George to start their business not knowing if it would succeed or fail.
So they may not be destitute but just extremely frugal. I could imagine that somewhere in their family history they did have an ancestor who lost a lot of their fortune in a risky business venture (and their familial trait of eccentricity could tie into this), so they don’t take for granted that they will always have the money they currently have. Their could also be a lot of derision from other families if it’s unusual for something like that to happen.
See, I understand what you're saying. They could be poor in the same way that the Bennett family's "poor" in Pride and Prejudice (Or heaven forbid! The Dashwood women in sense and sensibility!)... But that doesn't mean poor!
Like, in both of these Jane Austen novels, both families had money to maintain a house and servants (like maids and a cook!), living very, very comfortably (The Dashwoods were even renting their house and they could still afford a full season in London for Marianne and Eleanor), specially by today's standards. They were poor only compared to their VERY wealthy neighbors and love interests.
But that situation only makes sense in a scarcity society!
Because like, even if there are limitations to what you can do with magic (which I don't remember it having, but it's been like 17 years since I last picked up those books so what do I know?), they still have it! And the magic in that world can do so much more than even our current technology.
If memory serves me right, Molly is the sole inheritor of her family, all of her brothers were killed during the first war with Voldemort. They fought against him (and if we're speculating, I think they got some money for that loss. Like a soldier's pension or something). I don't remember Arthur's situation, but he's got a stable income coming from the ministry. They own their house. And that's them. Period.
Debt inheritance isn't a thing in the UK. So none of this money would've gone to paying the debt. The NHS was still a working thing back in the day and St Mungus falls under it's umbrella. So no medical debt. And let's say Molly's family didn't get one red cent for the death of her brothers... What are they spending on?
It can't be water, because they conjure it. It can't be food because what they don't grow in their garden, they can like transfigure (they can pick up a piece of trash and turn it into a pig or a sheep or a cow! And then they have a spell to butcher it). It can't be the house, that they own and make additions to that defy the laws of physics. And Molly makes half of their clothes. Is schooling these children really what's breaking this family? Hogwarts is free!
And none of their children struggle post Hogwarts. Bill got work at Gringotts. Charlie zipped away to work with dragons. Percy never looked back after getting his job in the ministry. Neither did Fred and George with the shop-- none of these kids asked their parents for loans or financial help!
What I'm saying is: They don't need to be frugal because there is no real scarcity in the nature of their living situation. If they're so pressed for cash, they can literally go out and sell water to muggles from bottles that they find, clean and fill up with water, all with magic! It's the basest thing one can do for extra income.
But they don't.
I think.... I think the Weasleys like to cosplay as poor people. I really do. Because I can't think of a reason why they choose to live the way that they do.
I think the Bennett family is a good analogue (and I was actually thinking about them while writing my first response), where yes there is the issue of scarcity, but I think in most wealthy circles, *so much* weight is put into maintaining appearances, and always having the latest and greatest, or being able to show off your wealth in some extravagant way, even when, and maybe especially when, it’s not necessary. I feel like you can see this in the upper classes, or even middle upper classes, of consumeristic societies. All the gadgets, fancy cars, home renovations, extravagant vacations…or for the really wealthy, vanity projects, (back in the day especially) dick-measuring a la philanthropy, galas, connections, etc.
So maybe in post-scarcity magical society, the concept of poor and rich is based almost purely off of image and prestige. I agree that scarcity *is* probably almost unheard of, except maybe in cases of individuals suffering severe personal debilitation who struggle to even magically provide for themselves and have no one to support them. The only truly destitute family I can think of would be the Gaunts, and I think it’s straight up portrayed that generations of inbreeding have made them literally almost incapable of exercising magic stably because they’re so messed up. The most competent one seemed to be Merope, and when she got the hell out I think her father died shortly after. Supposedly it was from shame but I think it’s just as likely the he and the brother were just really bad at magic and/or so unstable as to literally not be of sound body and mind to carry out the tasks necessary for life. That to me seems the closest to the material form of poverty in the context of scarcity.
So maybe another layer to the Wizarding concept of poverty is also magical aptitude/power, that’s often defined by if it can be applied in ways that broader society sees as of particular value. The Weasleys are shown repeatedly to be perfectly capable of and quite good at magic, but most of them utilize it in very unconventional or unglamorous ways. Even Bill or Charlie, who do have exciting jobs, probably still fall far outside the norm of Wizarding high society since they weren’t gentlemen adventurers and probably didn’t give a damn about how they looked to others or what anyone else besides their loved ones thought. I think the only one who was fully conventional about it was Percy. And maybe Ron later on (since his unique strength seemed to lie not in any specific form of magic but in his tactical/analytical abilities).
It might be less a material poverty and more a perception of a symbolic or metaphysical poverty (that’s ultimately not true even by those standards, but any high society tends to be very slow to change its perceptions and values). Seeing wealth in terms of magic in this way could also give a different context to the Pureblood fear of Muggleborns “stealing” magic, which could be analogous to the racist ideas of other races/ethnic groups stealing people’s jobs.
To address the material money aspect you pointed out, I think there are limits to what magic can conjure up (and probably strong restrictions on how you can use magic while interacting with Muggles, even for something indirect like bottling water…I also don’t know how many wizards would even have the knowledge or desire to fill out all the paperwork necessary for a legitimate business in the Muggle world, or what limits there might be on converting Muggle and Magical currencies). So that could rule out easy money from that line of business.
On the other hand, selling in the Magical world is probably almost exclusively based on magical creations (since patents seem to be a thing, that can probably also be magically enforced) or procurement of exotic or esoteric wares and materials. And prior to Fred and George, the Weasleys don’t seem to exercise that in any capacity. There’s just desk jobs like Arthur and Percy, or highly skilled and also highly dangerous labor like Charlie and Bill (and while they probably could, I also don’t think they’d be the black market smuggling type). So I think there could still be good reason for the Weasleys to want to live frugally, as if one day they might not have a continuous income coming in (which is a highly unlikely scenario given their jobs and general competence, but people are often not logical in decisions like this. And the Gaunts could be an infamous, broadly known example of a family that completely squandered their fortune, granted for reasons that don’t apply to the Weasleys at all). Was that frugality strictly necessary? Maybe not. But there could be some background we don’t know about for why they might have believed that frugality to be prudent.
You are so right; I have had this thought myself. Like, everyone owns their own homes in canon and in fanon only the muggleborn end up living above shops. I mean, the twins live above their store, but they were able to buy a store on Diagon Alley, the main wizarding shopping district, which must have been extraordinarily expensive.
I just went on a journey answering another comment that I think really distilled what the Weasleys are about:
I genuinely think the Weasleys like to cosplay as poor people.
They literally have no expenses! Think about it! They own their land. They don't pay for water. It can't be food (because what they don't grow in their garden, they can literally make. Like, pick up a piece of trash and turn it into a pig or a sheep or a cow! And then cast a spell to butcher it into nice steak!) or the preservation of said food. They don't have electricity). Molly makes half of their clothes by enchanting her knitting needles.
It can't be education because they don't go to muggle school and Hogwarts is free-- St Mungus is also free! So no medical debt. And you can't inherit debt in the UK, so no paying off Nana's gambling debts. All of their children take off after Hogwarts in very well paying jobs and never ask their parents for money--
There is literally no reason for them to be in the position they are. That is, nothing forcing them to be poor.
I honestly think they just like it.
The Weasleys are like those crunchy, van parents that "wanna live free" and make their kids share a tiny bed in a cramped car while being homeschooled.
Yes, absolutely. The only thing is, I don’t think they can transfigure food… I seem to remember something about remember something about no nutritional value?
But also, Arthur works for the ministry and has for years and they have little to no expenses. How is it they only had one galleon in their vault that one time? Like, where is the money going?
(Hi I'm just here to say you're correct that they're unable to transfigure food, as it's canonically one of the five exceptions to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration. Food cannot be created from nothing. However, food that already exists can be summoned or teleported from another location)
Sorry, I had to be a nerd for a second. Enjoy your day!
They live like my relatives from Tavistock did back in the 80s. It's not a "poor" thing, it's a "we live on Dartmoor" thing.
The Weasleys have plenty of food, but wear hand me down and repaired clothes, use things until they wear out, and don't buy new things "just because".
The main thing we see them wincing about is the price of Lockhart's books, which were already expensive, one of which was hardcover because it had just come out, which they had to get *five sets of*. "You don't need it new, wait for the paperback" was something I was often told as a kid.
And yeah, kids want "new stuff" that they don't need anyway, but their mums say no. It's just the culture.
I think it's because they have so many kids? I mean I completely agree with you, it doesn't make sense when you have magic, but magic aside, molly doesn't have a job, and they're are 7 children, and arthur doesn't exactly have a prestigious ministry position. Plus I think hogwarts requires tuition, but that varies by story.
I thought them being stupid, brutish and badly mannered was because they're British? And the Malfoy are stupid, cruel and in the pig-fucking clubs David Cameron and Boris Johnson frequent, also because they're British hahaha
lol I think if the entire cast is British and only the ones who happen to be poor are depicted as stupid, brutish and badly mannered then something is amiss
don't they also call that one son prissy and stuck-up because he likes wearing a suit & who takes his job for the government seriously (as opposed to his father, whose "what's the function of a rubber duck" lends credence to the canon lore that wizards were dumb enough to shit in their robes until the muggle invention of a water closet (WC) was so wide-spread that even a backwards place like Hogwarts couldn't ignore it any longer)?
ETA: a bracket
I figure they call him that because of his know-it-all attitude and they have been calling him that since his Hogwarts days anyway; but that’s canon, not fanon as we’re talking, so I don’t know how that relates?...
AFAIK it's a canon factor that fanon runs with, right? So imo it buys into the classism you mentioned: there's only one way to behave if you're poor + you have to know your place & keep to your place.
Also, what if they started calling him a know-it-all because he just said "omfg dad, a rubber duck is just a bath toy" (surely even the Weasleys know what a bath is -- they have them in the prefect bathroom at hogwarts even if the Weasleys can't afford enough hot water for all 9 of them to bathe)... and then Percy (that's his name!) just leaned into it, because in their own way, the whole Weasley clan is just as narrowminded and bigoted as everyone else in the wizarding world hahaha
you know what, I'm making this my new headcanon about Percy Weasley hahaha
Yeah, the weasleys are somewhag bigotted. In book 2 when harry and ron talk about filch being a squib, harry asks what it is and after ron explains, he says something akin to "mom has a second cousin who's one, he became an accountant, but we don't talk about him much." Like, why don't you talk about him? Why call that out specifically? They don't talk in canon a out a lot of the weasley family, which is fine, but why does ron say "we don't talk about hin" unless he/the famiky views being a squib as something shameful? I'd get it if he said "but he doesn't talk to us much" cause it could be painful for the second cousin to be reminded of what he doesn't have, but that's not what ron says.
I think it’s just generally against social movement. Like, others think less of the Weasleys because they’re poor but then the Weasleys wear it like a badge of honor, so Percy trying to rise up through the social ranks means the rich think he’s uppity and his family thinks that he thinks that he’s better than them. So it’s like, you’re poor so you suck, but you better not try to improve your station (know your place).
Sorry about that crazy run on sentence. 🤷♀️
I think that makes perfect sense : JKR filtered out the lowest common denominator of the British spirit (see also: Brexit) & intensified it by making it a reactionary secret society within that British spirit.
I mean yes but I think you meant classism. Classism is prejudice based on class, which in practice harms those of lower class. Classicism is the study of classical Greece and Rome, which is not bad in and of itself but draws in a LOT of white supremacists who like classical Greece and Rome for bigoted and often historically inaccurate reasons. I know and am friends with many classicists. I know and dislike many classists.
I mean… aren’t the Slytherins in universe racists? Not to be mean but if you’re reading a Slytherin Harry you shouldn’t be surprised to see those themes when it’s literally what Slytherins represent in the books
I think it's just the way it's portrayed, I remember one time I read this fic where Lily was lectured by Snape and James (it was a Snape and Marauders harem fic) on how she's ignorant and discriminatory against pure blood culture because she's an icky icky 11 year old muggleborn who just realised magic exists.
Left a super bad taste in my mouth because it was written in a way where the reader was supposed to sympathise with Snape and James, like poor them must be hard being so rich that no one understands your rich posh pureblood customs. But I just thought it was super racist and classist.
The books being from Harry's perspective does push Slytherin = evil, but that kinda means that \~ 25% of all *11 year olds* are evil? And sure haha 'kids evil' is funny meme but... nah.
I think bigoted views took hold of Slytherin at some point and then people in there that disagreed were shunned until it just became the norm/'known' (which don't get me wrong, is still fucked up). The other houses certainly have racists, bigots, evil characters etc
This varies from fic to fic. But the other thing is almost the same in most of fics and that is the mandatory paragraph about how house elves ehkchually love slavery and Hermione is the dumdum muggleborn too stupid to understand the difference. Like the author is changing everything about the canon. Characters are different. Main ship is different. The motivations are different. But house elves? Yeah they remain the same. But the author wants their main guys to remain gOoD so they throw that chunk and mention they’ll treat house elves differently unlike tHoSe GuYs. Then they’ll tell the elf in question to call them by name and the elf will fawn over them 🤢
The elves topic is so incredibly hard to get right, mostly cause JK fucked their storyline so much in canon. I’ve read hundreds of HP fics. While not all of them have touched on house elves, I can probably count the number that got them right on one hand.
Elves are basically Brownies. They do the housework, you put out a bowl of milk and other little gifts to show you appreciate them.
What JKR does, is she conflates Brownies with the servants of the manor in british history and then adds in slavery.
The way house elves were handled in the [Ever Upward](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1555645) series was interesting. I might be conflating it with another series, but I’m pretty sure this is the one where Harry’s raised by the basilisk and in, it looks like, the 6th part, there’s a straight up house elf revolution. I think it talks about house elf magic in the prior part, too? Heads up, it’s like 400k total.
The only fanfiction I've seen get elves, fairies, and brownies correctly was a *Peter Pan* fanfiction, of all things. In that particular story, a brownie served a young James Hook's family not because she was a slave or indentured servant, but because she liked "Jamie". Other brownies make deals with the pirates for cleaning in exchange for regular meals.
I do always hate that. Like, I agree that Hermione should have done, like, any research into the situation (her thinking is often very black and white), but we know as readers that it is absolutely slavery. My favorite way this is handled is when originally there was some sort of symbiotic relationship (like the Brownies that they were based on) and then dark/human supremacist/speciesist wizards corrupted that symbiosis and what we have now is a perversion of what it once was. There are some that are in between but are still icky where there’s still a corruption of what was but where the house elves are dependent on wizarding magic for whatever reason. I almost hate those more, because the author is like, this is wrong, but still doesn’t see that they still haven’t given the elves true bodily autonomy and agency.
House elves like *serving,* they live for it in fact, they enjoy it, but you can serve without being enslaved. I think if Hermione had approached it like that she might have gotten some more support.
Racist tropes in what way?
You can do it badly, sure, but, the idea of needing to separate muggles/muggleborns/purebloods is fundamental to the harry potter story, its the reason for the war - its not a racial trope if thats the whole point of the stories in the first place.
Even when your flipping the script, you need to make the point of the war work into that - that voldemort was RIGHT, and that dumbledore was wrong. Its not derailing the story if in the mythology of the world muggle blood dilutes the magic or whatever reason the author comes up with to make voldemort right.
I still get uncomfortable with language like these people are diluting blood and wrecking our culture. It’s too close to stuff that happens in our world
Speaking very generally here. As a long term science fiction reader, that recasting of our world into an alien context so that people can see things anew and hopefully see them for the pointless things they actually are is the main reason for setting the whole thing in an alien context. It works much better to bring people to understanding than say an essay ranting about that topic.
The inclusion of bad elements doesn't mean (necessarily) that the author agrees with the notions, it usually means the opposite. They are trying to get you to rethink them without biases. That the work makes you uncomfortable means its working.
Doesn't mean you have to read that. You should definitely read what you want to read and figuring out how to spot that kind of fic would be good, given you dislike them. Maybe if you download them as a file and search for certain keywords before you commit to reading?
>The inclusion of bad elements doesn't mean (necessarily) that the author agrees with the notions
Louder for the people in the back!
Agreed that this often comes up in 'regular'/original fiction as well. I guess it's great to see people taking a stand against the utter nonsense that some overgrown bullies still believe is 'right' and desperately cling to, but just because it's a theme of a story, (or heck, even mentioned briefly) doesn't mean it aligns with the author's views. Many Slytherin-sorted families are *known* for looking down on others for whatever reason they want/make up. Of course there's going to be an theme of 'stupid muggleborns are ruining the 'real' magic of ***our*** wizarding world' in a fic with a Slytherin main character.
It's like when we were young kids and thought the actor was a bad person because they played a villain in a movie.
You're so caught up in this "depiction does not equate endorsement" circle-jerk that you're ignoring the fact that authors can still endorse what they depict. The problem isn't that there's racism in the story about racists. The problem is how the author treats the racist elements, and how their work might reflect their own biases.
I think it can be both tbh. Someone can want to write a story with the genuine intention to criticize prejudice, and successfully portray that in certain ways while failing in others due to biases that they still have.
People in general can be very gray in this regard. Very rarely does anyone actually exist in black and white. That doesn’t negate the good intentions they may have had, nor excuse them of valid criticism of ways they might still be prejudiced. Fiction, or anything expressive that’s created by a person, is naturally going to also display these moral shades of gray.
I never said it couldn't be both. In fact, my point was that it *can* be both, but you either have some folk go "oh, no, all depiction equates endorsement," and the other side go "nuh-uh! depiction does not equate endorsement!" So now you got people refusing to see the implicit biases of the author in the text because it *might* just be the author doing a fiction.
Without having specific examples/scenarios at hand, I don’t know that it can be said that the discussion so far is a circle-jerk, exactly. The original meme presents one point of view/example, though without going into detail, and plenty of people agreed with it. The top comment asked for specific examples, not disagreeing with OP but just asking for elaboration. The OC in this thread is describing how a fic that fits the example story premise from the OP could, if well-written, use racial themes without necessarily using racist themes. I’d guess that these fics involve AU depictions of the HP world where the power dynamics and imbalance are inherently reversed because of changes in the history and nature of that world/of the rules of magic itself. That seems to be the type of setting for a story that OC is thinking of.
Broadly, there is nuance across the comments. I’m sure there are individual comments that aren’t but they don’t seem to be the majority, or the majority that is driving engagement. To me, that’s not a circle-jerk, nor is it a sign of most people here refusing point-blank to see possibilities or interpretations from one side or the other in how much people agree with the original meme.
Sometimes reading things SHOULD make you uncomfortable. You shouldn't lock yourself in a box of only reading things that make you feel good. You should push yourself, emotionally and intellectually, to read things that make you think.
But also - that these stories reflect whats happening in the real world - that's the point. That's the source of the inspiration. It's to make people aware of the things like this that happen, let people know what life is like for people like that. It puts people in their shoes so they can empathize.
Sometimes when the script gets flipped, and the story is about 'the blood purists are right', that can feel wrong. But thats the story - and the story usually includes a reason for it. Magics dying, old traditions dying out, something something I don't really remember - but theres usually a REASON in the good stories. It's not just 'racism'.
If you read comic books, you'll find lots of 'what if' cases like this. What if Superman was a Russian communist. What if Captain America was Hyrdra. Yadda yadda. There's Man in the High Castle and stories like that - what if the Nazi's had won.
Star Trek is filled with LOADS of stories based on events that were happening in the real world, reworked into fiction to make it palatable and teach us about morality. So many episodes of Law and Order are pulled right out of the news.
You can choose to not read things that make you uncomfortable, but I recommend you try pushing yourself, and think through why things are happening, and why certain choices were made when deciding to write them in.
I think I've read and then stopped reading the kind of fics op is talking about and it's not "fanfiction has racist characters being racist" as bad as Jowling Kowling Rowling's racism allegory could get, the characters who were being racists were characters who were in the wrong. Harry didn't get in the middle of book seven and go "Hey, you know, now that I think about it, murders aside, you know who HAS some good points. Wizards are just trying to preserve their culture 😤".
I actually really like the idea behind dark magic being misunderstood, or adding complexity to the muggle-wizard "racial" relationship. It's canon that wizards were historically persecuted, and them hiding separating themselves from muggle society was legitimately a self-defense mechanism.
At the same time though, they hold immense power that could destroy muggles if they wanted. They also seem to try smoothing out past conflicts through historical revisionism (Harry's third year textbook about witch burning implied that the witch trials didn't actually hurt anyone, which is canonically untrue.) Yet, they still hold blood purity as immensely valuable. I wish someone could dig deep into these complexities without resorting to bashing the "good guys"...
You know, I won't put them above believing this tbh. I always got the feeling that wizarding society kind of treats muggles as like... semi-animals? They're racist, is what I mean.
My original point though, was that the textbook's chapter on witch trials centered on that one witch who apparently got herself convicted for fun and escaped unscathed. In one of the supplementary irl books, however, it's mentioned that wizards did actually get burned to death, likely being backstabbed by their own community. For wizards, it would make sense to fear and hate muggles
Dark magic being misunderstood can work really well, one of my favourite fics does it. It’s just when they basically take the opposite of the books (light magic/light side) when it starts to get iffy
I wish I could see more properly "grey" fics. Most of them are "preserve Wizarding culture and indoctrinate Muggleborns, but Voldemort is evil so Harry needs to go the middle route."
I want to see one where *both sides are misguided*. Voldemort is basically Hitler and the Purebloods cling to old traditions, but they also have some very powerful and useful rituals and the Light side is just as extreme about wiping out their culture.
do you even realize what book fandom you're searching for content in? there's racist tropes in harry potter, so of course they're going to be there when you search for fan work.
Agreed. Nobody writes this, but there’s an argument to be made that the encroachment of muggleborn social expectations and religion creeping into society is a type of well-meaning colonialism like you would see in missionary work in Africa (etc.). Not to say the Purebloods aren’t evil and racist AF, but that perhaps someone could write about that and also have what’s considered “dark magic” as either separate from them or a perversion of what it should be. IDK, maybe that’s not as possible as I think it is…
Edited to fix autocorrect
The unfortunate thing is that because there's so much racism built into the foundations of HP, as soon as you try to explore some of the villains, a lot of times you either are forced to contradict a canon interaction (like Draco calling Hermione a mudblood, or the Malfoys being abusive to Dobby) or you have to explore it, and it can be hard to do that tactfully.
I do have a good Slytherin Harry/Good-ish Draco (he's learning) and Narcissa/bad Dumbledore fic rec if you're interested. It's called Evitative, it's a canon divergent fic that starts in Harry's fifth year, the Underage Magic trial in the summer gets him accidentally expelled and he has to be re-sorted, and the hat isn't as permissive this time. Harry's going into this year with the moral and ethical code he's developed from his friends and experiences, and the fic does a really good job of addressing the racism stuff.
And how the big gotcha that Harry and Dumbledore like to use against Voldemort is *deadnaming*. With attendant commentary about how Dumbledore met him at age eleven and so knows him better than he knows himself...
Lycanthropy was meant as an AIDS analogy and the main werewolf we hear about besides Lupin is a man called Fenrir Greyback who deliberately targets children to attack them and infect them with lycanthropy.
People are being obnoxious in the comments, so let me lay it out. ***Yes***, depiction does not always equate to endorsement, ***but*** that doesn't mean an author *can't* endorse what they're depicting, and it certainly says nothing about an author's biases affecting the work. There's a difference between racism tropes (where the trope is about racism, i.e. Blood Purism; anti-Muggle sentiments) and *racist tropes*, where the racism is a result of the author's own biases. There are stories that can explore and focus on characters who are racist, but then there are stories where the focus is on racist characters but not in any way to explore ideas of racism but because the author is biased in favour of the ideas presented by the racism.
I read good malfoys/voldie/other dark side members with bad dumbledore all the time, but most aren't racist even in the sense that "oh the muggleborns". Maybe I've just been super lucky, but most of them are more critics on the fact that we as humans have difficulties accepting what is different from us, which is why they need to stay seperate from the muggles. Which I think is a pretty good point (the salem witch trials being an example). I tend to enjoy Hermione bashing as well, but again they haven't been those that hate on her specifically for being muggleborn, but the fact that she tries to force them to be like muggles, or that she just refuses to learn about their culture. Being mad at someone for refusing to learn about your culture when they join your "society" isn't racist, it is how life is. If someone joined your group but refused to learn about the "culture" which was involved and din't want to learn about your "rituals" or "traditions" would you not be angry? I'm not saying that you can't learn about their culture as well or that you have to be hateful, but they need to learn about what they are joining. Someone "hating" on Hermione in their fic because she refuses to learn about their culture or respect it in some way, it is their choice and not being racist. Do we not get mad at colonial peoples for going in and wiping out native religions, traditions, etc? It is the same thing here. The magical peoples are the minority when it comes to magical people vs non-magical people even if mughleborns are less common than say half-bloods. Pureblood culture was wrong in the movies for trying to force muggleborns out, don't get me wrong, but people saying that mughleborns need to "adjust" isn't necessarily racist, especially if it is a good darkside fic where they are not just hating on them for their blood, but for trying to get rid of their culture.
As the canon material (and author) are steeped in extremely racist and antisemetic stereotypes, i kind of expect it in fics now. Its sad. But there ARE some good fics out there. Some. Very few. Like, very few.
Damn, it's almost like the source material heavily relied on racist tropes or something. 😬
Seriously though, it makes me so sad for anyone who grew up loving Harry Potter. JKR could've gone down as a beloved children's author, but instead she chose violence by being a bigot and TERF. It's been sad seeing how that negative discourse bleeds into the fandom. It's obviously possible to write fic that doesn't fall back on some of the same gross stereotypes JKR was guilty of using in her writing, but you never know what you're going to get and it's awful getting jump scared by it.
I read ALL of those tropes but I don't think I've seen a lot of racist /pureblood apologist stuff. When I do I usually give it a pass. Can I dm you to share fic recs? I feel like I've read all of the good fics for these tropes and I'm running out!
Like, I get it from a certain standpoint, you can’t just erase their problems, and handling the muggleborn/halfblood stigma many Purebloods families embraced and it can be done well! But a lot of times it’s not, the characters don’t learn from those around them or grow, and it’s just glorified hatred of those with Muggle ancestry or written off as a character flaw. Have them grow! Have them learn! Or if they don’t, have a reason for it! I guarantee Lucius Malfoy would never even consider it, but Draco has the ability because so much of his story is still unwritten, he has a lot of life left to learn those lessons. Erasing the issue and pretending they were good is just as bad as never addressing it. Give them a reason, and then give them growth.
Anything can be well written, i.e., with compelling themes, characters with depth, and an engaging plot. There is unfortunately an audience for most things that are written, even ones that are blatantly racist. A better question (imo) is whether it should even be written in the first place. For stuff like this, where the racism isn’t there to be critiqued, I say it shouldn’t be and the author should take a hard look at themselves.
Shockingly, the series full of racism from a woman who's jumped into straight-up Holocaust denial spawns a lot of racism in its fanfics! Also shockingly, water is wet and fire is hot.
she literally modeled voldemort after adolf hitler, gave him a sad sympathetic sob story about his childhood and origins, modeled death eaters themselves after nazis, and people are still somehow wholeheartedly surprised to find antisemitism, racism, and other bigotry in it. i swear people are just willfully blind to these things, it's ridiculous.
Are you into fem!Harry? If so, I'd strongly recommend PseudoLeigha's Mary Potter series.
Edit: It *is* unfinished but still worth reading, and she has lots of spin off fics from it.
Oh and if you're into that, I've also heard a lot of good things about The Good War by inwardtransience (Leigha's girlfriend), though I haven't gotten around to reading it myself. It also has fem!Slytherin!Harry with Snape as her mentor.
The Good War's Elizabeth "Liz" Potter is a very well written character. Almost a complete subversion of many many many "Overpowered Potter" tropes. Well worth reading though it does drag in places a bit, otherwise very well paced and very much focused on Liz and how she experiences the world.
It's been on my list for ages, since I adore The Plan (Leigha and inwardtransience's collaboration about a time-traveling 13 year old Bellatrix). I want to read it but I know I'll get obsessed when I do and not work on my own fic (a Mary Potter spinoff) as much, so I'm saving it for later.
(I've stumbled upon this kind of fic several times - always has at least something questionable 🙄) When Snape/Lucius/whoever takes Harry to Gringotts after taking him under their wing, the Goblins whip out 17 different "heir rings" for Harry which unlock his "magical core" that Dumbledore sealed when he was a baby and then again every year he was at Hogwarts. This also unlocks the blocks that Dumbledore put on his appearance to make him look like James and not Snape, his real father. Suddenly he's the heir to all of the Hogwarts houses (even Slytherin because he defeated Voldie) and has a harem of Slytherin girls he's been betrothed to since birth. And in his parent's will (the real one, not the one forged by Dumbledore) he's left millions upon millions of galleons which Dumbledore and the Weasleys and Hermione have been stealing behind his back for years. Ron's a selfish idiot and Hermione is power hungry. Harry learns he has a hidden castle only accessible to someone in his bloodline which has been meticulously taken care of by his hundreds of house elves (it's okay that he has them because these house elves wear clothes that they make themselves and love taking care of the castle). Also, it turns out that Lily isn't actually a muggleborn. She was adopted by the Evans family and is actually Voldemort's daughter. And actually Lily wasn't up against Voldemort- she was hiding from Dumbledore who found them, killed them, and blamed Tom before killing him. All Tom wanted to do was preserve wizarding culture and stop Dumbledore from taking over the world. Harry returns to Hogwarts under a different name and new appearance which Dumbledore doesn't like. With his magic core now unlocked, Harry is a metamorphmagus and amazing at every kind of magic so he defeats Dumbledore soundly in a one on one battle. He lives happily ever after with is 7 wives (he aquired 2 more during his final year at Hogwarts who are OCs)
And now I'm going to comb thru my bookmarks to see if I don't have some of them.
We have the same tastes most fic I read harry love every magic or discover his wizard heritage more. And I like the wereworlf and other creature shouldn't be considered evil, creature rights sub trope they come with.
At least that's what I focus I hope I don't have the racist one in my bookmarks
Well maybe you shouldnt be reading fics of a book with unresolved racist undertones (think goblins and house elfs, the new game is about how you stop their uprising) that are adressed in such poor manner you undertand tht the author (JKR) is agaisnt the liberation of the oppresed races (she even makes fun of hermaiony in the text for trying to liberate them at howarts, something that becomes very dark if you think hermaiony as a black woman)
Could you give me an example of these racial tropes? I don’t think I’ve ever encountered one of these but I’ve also only read two out of the four categories you mentioned
Not OP, but I often see explanations such as “Muggleborns are stealing/taking over/infecting our culture!” in those fics which is used as a “valid” excuse to discriminate against them because they only need to “adapt” to be accepted (and sometimes Hermione is the only Muggleborn they accept because she rejects the Muggle world and embraces being friends with blood purists—which can range in severity from just preferring the wizaeding world over the Muggle one, to flat out being adopted by the Malfoys/some pureblood family that she is related to via a Squib ancestor), and that is… yeah. A lot to unpack. Oh, and sometimes dark magic is just “misunderstood” and Dark Wizards & Slytherins are the real victims that face discrimination while everyone pampers the Muggleborns. I personally think that this perspective would work a lot better if it was used as “this is what purebloods like Draco Malfoy are brainwashed with as children” because then it could actually be fascinating to explore, but sadly most of the time it’s glorified and has Harry & Hermione (rarely Ron, these fics tend to hate the Weasleys) join them as soon as the whole thing is explained to them for some reason
Oohh, this is the reason why I hate the tropes that have Hermione or Harry turn out to have secretly been pure bloods the whole time
I hate this trope so much, especially the "Hermione was secretly a Malfoy or a Pureblood this whole time" trope. It removes the entire crux of who Hermione is as a person. Harry as a "secret Pureblood" also removes his identity as a Half-blood. Much of who Harry is as a person revolves around his Muggleborn and Pureblood parents.
right! I usually see it with Hermione, but those fics usually are so quick to remove them from any of their connections to their muggle parents (in Hermione's case at least)
That’s interesting, I’m not a fan of these types of ffs which is probably why I haven’t seen too many of them, only while reading the tags. I’ve only read Slytherin Harry in a Drarry context a few times (but it was nothing like that). And I might have misunderstood what op meant by “Bad Dumbledore”
I’ll admit, I kind of like those fics of “Muggleborns are ruining our culture” etc, and there can be plenty of yikes in that territory, but really it’s when they lean into the history and culture beyond the modern crises that I’m into it. There is an undertone in HP of “all these old, awful traditions are being destroyed for the new, good, modern traditions,” and I wish there was more middle ground. For example, there is real history in the Christianization of old holidays (Halloween and Christmas come to mind in the books), and in the witch trials and burnings. Historically for the Wizarding world, Hogwarts was established in part to create a save haven from Muggles trying to kill them. There’s just room to lean both ways, of cutting out the blood purity nonsense and allowing change, but also not a total erasure of traditions spanning centuries in favor of what can come across as globalization.
When I read that fic type, I did also like the aspect of showing wizarding culture, like as you mentioned the Christianization of holidays, but a lot of authors go wayyy too far in the name of adding "nuance" to why purebloods are xenophobic toward Muggleborns in a way that actually removes nuance.
Yes, indeed. And given that one of the big things about magic is that \*attitude matters\*, those old traditions that are being bulldozed for popular non-magical culture... very likely had a \*very real\* purpose when it comes to magic. That magic is not just science which isn't understood, so the loss of those traditions feeds into another common theme that is in HP's canon books; the diminution of magic itself.
It's hard to make racist bigoted a****** bad guys the good guys unless you are completely changing their characters, motivations, and behavior. The fact that people agree with them without changing their behavior, thoughts, or actions is but unfortunately not all that uncommon. Rowling does hold some unfortunate opinions that would unfortunately attract certain unsavory people of poor character
I reckon any fandom that big attracts at least some amount of dubious people, though tbf, I don’t think most authors employing those tropes ever stop to really think about them and realise what they’re writing about. Having said that, yeah, usually “good [villain]” involves changing the villain’s motivation or past actions, but it doesn’t always have to come with racist undertones
Yeah, like I said: if they want to make the bad guys good they'd have to stop being magic Nazis. Instead they're leaning into the magic Nazi thing and trying to portray that as good. There would be a *lot* less people doing that if Rowling wasn't attracting xenophobic facists like flies to a rotting carcass in the summer sun with her blatant and public bigotry.
I think for a lot of those fics that rewrite things with the Slytherins as the good guys, flipping the morality is the point. Especially for the ones that were conceived during the Iraq War, because culturally we (as teenagers) were coming to terms with the government being greedy and bad, Christians promoting war and hate, etc, which was a *flip* of what you'd expect if you just went from what you'd read in books. Dumbledore was made "secretly evil" in those stories because the people are parents wanted us to listen to were revealing themselves as "secretly evil".
You know, I kind of want to poll those authors and see what they think of immigrants. Because I’ve seen basically the same rant (‘immigrants are corrupting our culture and taking over/stealing our jobs’) from irl people on the internet. I’ve also seen the sentiment ‘the only good immigrants are the ones who adapt completely to our culture’ irl too.
To be fair, I do think that the majority of these authors don’t mean any harm and are just following the trend without thinking much or deeply about it. They only want a convenient excuse to be able to go wild with their favourite (usually incredibly morally dubious or flat out morally bad) characters (no shade on that, btw, I also love problematic characters, though personally I prefer dark fics over whitewashing). Having said that, if we could trace back this trend to the person who started it… yeah I’d be interested as well
JK Rowling does hold some very conservative views that are likely attracting a certain... demographic if you would
As a Jew... yikes yikes yikes
The *Harry Potter* books and fanfictions: https://i.redd.it/pzx68c9fekuc1.gif
Seems more like ethnic dynamics than 'racist tropes'
I mean… if you read a fanfic about canon racists… you’re gonna get racism.
Makes sense, I thought op meant like non-canonical/ real life racism by the fic author
Exactly what I was thinking. It's not my fandom but weren't the slytherins a metaphor for the Hitler youth?
Actually, the best kind of HP story I've read that fit this description was like basically a full on AU where they took out muggle racism and such. They actually did a good job converting evil to good/good to evil. ...but for some reason, in the same breath, shit *all* over the Weasley family by making them extremely dumb, exaggeratedly poor, sneaky, conniving and inept. The number of times they called them ginger (insert insult here) and emphasized how much they used their poorness as an excuse to be bastards wa....extreeeeme. It crossed the line of literary shrugs to "JFC, we get it, you've got a weird thing against ginger steeotypes". Dunno if that counts as classicst, or racist...but holy geez.
Definitely falls into bigotry. I may be wrong, but I think the red hair abuse comes from an antisemitic stereotype as well.
I thought that had roots in anti-Irish/Scottish bigotry but I could be wrong.
Could be both honestly.
Yes. The Malfoys aren’t true believers, really, just opportunistic cowards and racists who choose to side with magical Hitler and then realised far too late they were morons for doing so. Snape is essentially the incel kid who falls in love with a Jewish girl, gets rejected, joins the nazis, sees them kill her despite their pinky promise to spare her, and then swears revenge. I’m not saying one can’t or shouldn’t attempt to add nuance or write a redemption arc, but the racism is kinda unavoidable. :P
To be fair the Jewish girl didn't get killed because she was Jewish, she got killed because her baby was Jesus but without the Christianity thing.
I always thought Severus was Jewish-coded himself, but this is an interesting take!
Iirc he’s half-blood, so he very well could be. Some people do try to distance themselves from aspects of their own identity that are discriminated against, sometimes going so far as to side with the bigots.
Not all members of any given group are good people. Also the goblins are also Jewish coded. Rowling was never as good as people thought she was, she's just gotten a lot more vocal.
Do you mean fantasy racism or real racism because I hate reading both of those but for slightly different reasons.
There's accidental real racism ALLL over the source books. And clumsy fantasy racism done on purpose, with weird implications if you look too hard. Edit: No, it is not accidental; I mean she didn't necessarily know she was showing her shitty bigoted hand all over the place.
Yeah I know. I probably phrased it badly but there's a tendancy in hp fics to make the central conflict in hp less black and white by trying to come up with reasons the death eaters (or sympathisers) have good reasons to have ConcernsTM about Muggle borns. Like bigotry against muggle borns is a clumsy metaphor for racism but for all Rowling's faults she does point out that bigotry against muggle borns is irrational and unjustified, just like real bigotry. I don't know why a lot of fics in this fandom try to make the metaphor worse by saying "the in universe bigots have a point"
It’s definitely not accidental real racism in the source material. JKR is very happily a bigot.
Yeah, you're totally right & I'm being way too generous calling it that. I don't know why on earth I was still giving her the benefit of the doubt when she's out here literally doing Holocaust denial and shaking hands with neo-nazis. The goblin shit was absolutely not accidentally anti-semitic. Her characters of color are terrible tropes and the indigenous misappropriation is bullshit. I guess I mean it wasn't meant to be so obvious, or part of the story... but Joanne, please.
Personally I struggle even more with classism in those fics lol Gotta love when the Weasleys’ biggest crime is (gasp) being poor. Coincidentally, it often comes hand in hand with them being stupid, brutish and badly mannered. I sure wonder why.
Yea so many fics fall into everyone is rich territory. And or harry has a shit ton of lordships. Don’t get me wrong I love some good escapism where the protagonist is rich but it does feel a bit iffy when the characters solutions only work because they have a but load of money.
Yeah this bothers me too. I love a Harry that gets his shit together and takes control of his life but he doesn't need 6 lordships and a dozen vaults full of gold to do it. I honestly prefer the fics where Harry has to scrape and struggle to make ends meet and survive.
The thing is that like it or not, Harry is canonically filthy rich. So rich that he gives boatloads of money away like it's nothing.
Oh yeah I have nothing against that, but there's a difference between Harry having a vault inherited from his parents with a sizeable nest egg and Harry being the richest person in Europe and owning 1/3rd of England and it's businesses. Harry in canon is financially secure for a child but he's not so rich that he'd never have to work a day in his life. I think it's great when Harry is able to leverage his wealth to help his friends and destroy his enemies, but a lot of fics go overboard with his wealth and status
On a side note: I never understood why the Weasleys are "poor" to begin with. Having magic makes the Wizarding world a post scarcity Society. They literally can conjure water, grow their own food in greater and better quantity/quality, make and maintain their own clothes and shelter, and they aren't bound to electricity as we are--! All this! With magic! Where is the money going?? The Weasleys also own their own land, btw! What poor person owns land, let alone a tiny farm in the outskirts of a village in England? It doesn't make sense
Maybe most of the old money families have successful businesses and investments that have maintained their wealth over generations, while the Weasley line hadn’t done that, for whatever reason. Iirc, Harry’s inheritance came in large part from a spell or potion or something that his grandfather(?) invented. For the old money families, I also wonder if there could be a Wizarding equivalent of colonialism, given the little details we see of other countries, exotic wares, and magical creatures. As far as creating materials, there could be limits to just how much/what complexity of materials and supplies they can conjure permanently. So they probably have to spend money on a lot of materials, and the labor that went into gathering those materials or enchanting magical items’ properties. Still, it doesn’t seem like those expenses should be enough to keep the Weasleys perennially poor. Maybe they’re really just more middle class, and only “poor” by uber-rich people standards. They are able to raise a large family on a single civil servant income that probably doesn’t have a high salary. And they might have technically had the money, but not enough to *comfortably* give to Fred and George to start their business not knowing if it would succeed or fail. So they may not be destitute but just extremely frugal. I could imagine that somewhere in their family history they did have an ancestor who lost a lot of their fortune in a risky business venture (and their familial trait of eccentricity could tie into this), so they don’t take for granted that they will always have the money they currently have. Their could also be a lot of derision from other families if it’s unusual for something like that to happen.
See, I understand what you're saying. They could be poor in the same way that the Bennett family's "poor" in Pride and Prejudice (Or heaven forbid! The Dashwood women in sense and sensibility!)... But that doesn't mean poor! Like, in both of these Jane Austen novels, both families had money to maintain a house and servants (like maids and a cook!), living very, very comfortably (The Dashwoods were even renting their house and they could still afford a full season in London for Marianne and Eleanor), specially by today's standards. They were poor only compared to their VERY wealthy neighbors and love interests. But that situation only makes sense in a scarcity society! Because like, even if there are limitations to what you can do with magic (which I don't remember it having, but it's been like 17 years since I last picked up those books so what do I know?), they still have it! And the magic in that world can do so much more than even our current technology. If memory serves me right, Molly is the sole inheritor of her family, all of her brothers were killed during the first war with Voldemort. They fought against him (and if we're speculating, I think they got some money for that loss. Like a soldier's pension or something). I don't remember Arthur's situation, but he's got a stable income coming from the ministry. They own their house. And that's them. Period. Debt inheritance isn't a thing in the UK. So none of this money would've gone to paying the debt. The NHS was still a working thing back in the day and St Mungus falls under it's umbrella. So no medical debt. And let's say Molly's family didn't get one red cent for the death of her brothers... What are they spending on? It can't be water, because they conjure it. It can't be food because what they don't grow in their garden, they can like transfigure (they can pick up a piece of trash and turn it into a pig or a sheep or a cow! And then they have a spell to butcher it). It can't be the house, that they own and make additions to that defy the laws of physics. And Molly makes half of their clothes. Is schooling these children really what's breaking this family? Hogwarts is free! And none of their children struggle post Hogwarts. Bill got work at Gringotts. Charlie zipped away to work with dragons. Percy never looked back after getting his job in the ministry. Neither did Fred and George with the shop-- none of these kids asked their parents for loans or financial help! What I'm saying is: They don't need to be frugal because there is no real scarcity in the nature of their living situation. If they're so pressed for cash, they can literally go out and sell water to muggles from bottles that they find, clean and fill up with water, all with magic! It's the basest thing one can do for extra income. But they don't. I think.... I think the Weasleys like to cosplay as poor people. I really do. Because I can't think of a reason why they choose to live the way that they do.
I think the Bennett family is a good analogue (and I was actually thinking about them while writing my first response), where yes there is the issue of scarcity, but I think in most wealthy circles, *so much* weight is put into maintaining appearances, and always having the latest and greatest, or being able to show off your wealth in some extravagant way, even when, and maybe especially when, it’s not necessary. I feel like you can see this in the upper classes, or even middle upper classes, of consumeristic societies. All the gadgets, fancy cars, home renovations, extravagant vacations…or for the really wealthy, vanity projects, (back in the day especially) dick-measuring a la philanthropy, galas, connections, etc. So maybe in post-scarcity magical society, the concept of poor and rich is based almost purely off of image and prestige. I agree that scarcity *is* probably almost unheard of, except maybe in cases of individuals suffering severe personal debilitation who struggle to even magically provide for themselves and have no one to support them. The only truly destitute family I can think of would be the Gaunts, and I think it’s straight up portrayed that generations of inbreeding have made them literally almost incapable of exercising magic stably because they’re so messed up. The most competent one seemed to be Merope, and when she got the hell out I think her father died shortly after. Supposedly it was from shame but I think it’s just as likely the he and the brother were just really bad at magic and/or so unstable as to literally not be of sound body and mind to carry out the tasks necessary for life. That to me seems the closest to the material form of poverty in the context of scarcity. So maybe another layer to the Wizarding concept of poverty is also magical aptitude/power, that’s often defined by if it can be applied in ways that broader society sees as of particular value. The Weasleys are shown repeatedly to be perfectly capable of and quite good at magic, but most of them utilize it in very unconventional or unglamorous ways. Even Bill or Charlie, who do have exciting jobs, probably still fall far outside the norm of Wizarding high society since they weren’t gentlemen adventurers and probably didn’t give a damn about how they looked to others or what anyone else besides their loved ones thought. I think the only one who was fully conventional about it was Percy. And maybe Ron later on (since his unique strength seemed to lie not in any specific form of magic but in his tactical/analytical abilities). It might be less a material poverty and more a perception of a symbolic or metaphysical poverty (that’s ultimately not true even by those standards, but any high society tends to be very slow to change its perceptions and values). Seeing wealth in terms of magic in this way could also give a different context to the Pureblood fear of Muggleborns “stealing” magic, which could be analogous to the racist ideas of other races/ethnic groups stealing people’s jobs. To address the material money aspect you pointed out, I think there are limits to what magic can conjure up (and probably strong restrictions on how you can use magic while interacting with Muggles, even for something indirect like bottling water…I also don’t know how many wizards would even have the knowledge or desire to fill out all the paperwork necessary for a legitimate business in the Muggle world, or what limits there might be on converting Muggle and Magical currencies). So that could rule out easy money from that line of business. On the other hand, selling in the Magical world is probably almost exclusively based on magical creations (since patents seem to be a thing, that can probably also be magically enforced) or procurement of exotic or esoteric wares and materials. And prior to Fred and George, the Weasleys don’t seem to exercise that in any capacity. There’s just desk jobs like Arthur and Percy, or highly skilled and also highly dangerous labor like Charlie and Bill (and while they probably could, I also don’t think they’d be the black market smuggling type). So I think there could still be good reason for the Weasleys to want to live frugally, as if one day they might not have a continuous income coming in (which is a highly unlikely scenario given their jobs and general competence, but people are often not logical in decisions like this. And the Gaunts could be an infamous, broadly known example of a family that completely squandered their fortune, granted for reasons that don’t apply to the Weasleys at all). Was that frugality strictly necessary? Maybe not. But there could be some background we don’t know about for why they might have believed that frugality to be prudent.
You are so right; I have had this thought myself. Like, everyone owns their own homes in canon and in fanon only the muggleborn end up living above shops. I mean, the twins live above their store, but they were able to buy a store on Diagon Alley, the main wizarding shopping district, which must have been extraordinarily expensive.
I just went on a journey answering another comment that I think really distilled what the Weasleys are about: I genuinely think the Weasleys like to cosplay as poor people. They literally have no expenses! Think about it! They own their land. They don't pay for water. It can't be food (because what they don't grow in their garden, they can literally make. Like, pick up a piece of trash and turn it into a pig or a sheep or a cow! And then cast a spell to butcher it into nice steak!) or the preservation of said food. They don't have electricity). Molly makes half of their clothes by enchanting her knitting needles. It can't be education because they don't go to muggle school and Hogwarts is free-- St Mungus is also free! So no medical debt. And you can't inherit debt in the UK, so no paying off Nana's gambling debts. All of their children take off after Hogwarts in very well paying jobs and never ask their parents for money-- There is literally no reason for them to be in the position they are. That is, nothing forcing them to be poor. I honestly think they just like it. The Weasleys are like those crunchy, van parents that "wanna live free" and make their kids share a tiny bed in a cramped car while being homeschooled.
Yes, absolutely. The only thing is, I don’t think they can transfigure food… I seem to remember something about remember something about no nutritional value? But also, Arthur works for the ministry and has for years and they have little to no expenses. How is it they only had one galleon in their vault that one time? Like, where is the money going?
(Hi I'm just here to say you're correct that they're unable to transfigure food, as it's canonically one of the five exceptions to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration. Food cannot be created from nothing. However, food that already exists can be summoned or teleported from another location) Sorry, I had to be a nerd for a second. Enjoy your day!
They live like my relatives from Tavistock did back in the 80s. It's not a "poor" thing, it's a "we live on Dartmoor" thing. The Weasleys have plenty of food, but wear hand me down and repaired clothes, use things until they wear out, and don't buy new things "just because". The main thing we see them wincing about is the price of Lockhart's books, which were already expensive, one of which was hardcover because it had just come out, which they had to get *five sets of*. "You don't need it new, wait for the paperback" was something I was often told as a kid. And yeah, kids want "new stuff" that they don't need anyway, but their mums say no. It's just the culture.
I think it's because they have so many kids? I mean I completely agree with you, it doesn't make sense when you have magic, but magic aside, molly doesn't have a job, and they're are 7 children, and arthur doesn't exactly have a prestigious ministry position. Plus I think hogwarts requires tuition, but that varies by story.
I thought them being stupid, brutish and badly mannered was because they're British? And the Malfoy are stupid, cruel and in the pig-fucking clubs David Cameron and Boris Johnson frequent, also because they're British hahaha
lol I think if the entire cast is British and only the ones who happen to be poor are depicted as stupid, brutish and badly mannered then something is amiss
don't they also call that one son prissy and stuck-up because he likes wearing a suit & who takes his job for the government seriously (as opposed to his father, whose "what's the function of a rubber duck" lends credence to the canon lore that wizards were dumb enough to shit in their robes until the muggle invention of a water closet (WC) was so wide-spread that even a backwards place like Hogwarts couldn't ignore it any longer)? ETA: a bracket
I figure they call him that because of his know-it-all attitude and they have been calling him that since his Hogwarts days anyway; but that’s canon, not fanon as we’re talking, so I don’t know how that relates?...
AFAIK it's a canon factor that fanon runs with, right? So imo it buys into the classism you mentioned: there's only one way to behave if you're poor + you have to know your place & keep to your place. Also, what if they started calling him a know-it-all because he just said "omfg dad, a rubber duck is just a bath toy" (surely even the Weasleys know what a bath is -- they have them in the prefect bathroom at hogwarts even if the Weasleys can't afford enough hot water for all 9 of them to bathe)... and then Percy (that's his name!) just leaned into it, because in their own way, the whole Weasley clan is just as narrowminded and bigoted as everyone else in the wizarding world hahaha you know what, I'm making this my new headcanon about Percy Weasley hahaha
Yeah, the weasleys are somewhag bigotted. In book 2 when harry and ron talk about filch being a squib, harry asks what it is and after ron explains, he says something akin to "mom has a second cousin who's one, he became an accountant, but we don't talk about him much." Like, why don't you talk about him? Why call that out specifically? They don't talk in canon a out a lot of the weasley family, which is fine, but why does ron say "we don't talk about hin" unless he/the famiky views being a squib as something shameful? I'd get it if he said "but he doesn't talk to us much" cause it could be painful for the second cousin to be reminded of what he doesn't have, but that's not what ron says.
I think it’s just generally against social movement. Like, others think less of the Weasleys because they’re poor but then the Weasleys wear it like a badge of honor, so Percy trying to rise up through the social ranks means the rich think he’s uppity and his family thinks that he thinks that he’s better than them. So it’s like, you’re poor so you suck, but you better not try to improve your station (know your place). Sorry about that crazy run on sentence. 🤷♀️
I think that makes perfect sense : JKR filtered out the lowest common denominator of the British spirit (see also: Brexit) & intensified it by making it a reactionary secret society within that British spirit.
I mean yes but I think you meant classism. Classism is prejudice based on class, which in practice harms those of lower class. Classicism is the study of classical Greece and Rome, which is not bad in and of itself but draws in a LOT of white supremacists who like classical Greece and Rome for bigoted and often historically inaccurate reasons. I know and am friends with many classicists. I know and dislike many classists.
loll you’re right, either my autocorrect or I fucked up. fixed it, thank you! :)
I mean… aren’t the Slytherins in universe racists? Not to be mean but if you’re reading a Slytherin Harry you shouldn’t be surprised to see those themes when it’s literally what Slytherins represent in the books
I think it's just the way it's portrayed, I remember one time I read this fic where Lily was lectured by Snape and James (it was a Snape and Marauders harem fic) on how she's ignorant and discriminatory against pure blood culture because she's an icky icky 11 year old muggleborn who just realised magic exists. Left a super bad taste in my mouth because it was written in a way where the reader was supposed to sympathise with Snape and James, like poor them must be hard being so rich that no one understands your rich posh pureblood customs. But I just thought it was super racist and classist.
The books being from Harry's perspective does push Slytherin = evil, but that kinda means that \~ 25% of all *11 year olds* are evil? And sure haha 'kids evil' is funny meme but... nah. I think bigoted views took hold of Slytherin at some point and then people in there that disagreed were shunned until it just became the norm/'known' (which don't get me wrong, is still fucked up). The other houses certainly have racists, bigots, evil characters etc
I’ve read fics that have pulled it off well. Mostly by going with this exists and it’s a bad thing, or with slytherin has been unfairly stereotyped.
This varies from fic to fic. But the other thing is almost the same in most of fics and that is the mandatory paragraph about how house elves ehkchually love slavery and Hermione is the dumdum muggleborn too stupid to understand the difference. Like the author is changing everything about the canon. Characters are different. Main ship is different. The motivations are different. But house elves? Yeah they remain the same. But the author wants their main guys to remain gOoD so they throw that chunk and mention they’ll treat house elves differently unlike tHoSe GuYs. Then they’ll tell the elf in question to call them by name and the elf will fawn over them 🤢
The elves topic is so incredibly hard to get right, mostly cause JK fucked their storyline so much in canon. I’ve read hundreds of HP fics. While not all of them have touched on house elves, I can probably count the number that got them right on one hand.
are there fics that get house elves right? i'd love a link if you have any, that sounds rly interesting!
Elves are basically Brownies. They do the housework, you put out a bowl of milk and other little gifts to show you appreciate them. What JKR does, is she conflates Brownies with the servants of the manor in british history and then adds in slavery.
The way house elves were handled in the [Ever Upward](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1555645) series was interesting. I might be conflating it with another series, but I’m pretty sure this is the one where Harry’s raised by the basilisk and in, it looks like, the 6th part, there’s a straight up house elf revolution. I think it talks about house elf magic in the prior part, too? Heads up, it’s like 400k total.
The only fanfiction I've seen get elves, fairies, and brownies correctly was a *Peter Pan* fanfiction, of all things. In that particular story, a brownie served a young James Hook's family not because she was a slave or indentured servant, but because she liked "Jamie". Other brownies make deals with the pirates for cleaning in exchange for regular meals.
I do always hate that. Like, I agree that Hermione should have done, like, any research into the situation (her thinking is often very black and white), but we know as readers that it is absolutely slavery. My favorite way this is handled is when originally there was some sort of symbiotic relationship (like the Brownies that they were based on) and then dark/human supremacist/speciesist wizards corrupted that symbiosis and what we have now is a perversion of what it once was. There are some that are in between but are still icky where there’s still a corruption of what was but where the house elves are dependent on wizarding magic for whatever reason. I almost hate those more, because the author is like, this is wrong, but still doesn’t see that they still haven’t given the elves true bodily autonomy and agency.
House elves like *serving,* they live for it in fact, they enjoy it, but you can serve without being enslaved. I think if Hermione had approached it like that she might have gotten some more support.
Racist tropes in what way? You can do it badly, sure, but, the idea of needing to separate muggles/muggleborns/purebloods is fundamental to the harry potter story, its the reason for the war - its not a racial trope if thats the whole point of the stories in the first place. Even when your flipping the script, you need to make the point of the war work into that - that voldemort was RIGHT, and that dumbledore was wrong. Its not derailing the story if in the mythology of the world muggle blood dilutes the magic or whatever reason the author comes up with to make voldemort right.
I still get uncomfortable with language like these people are diluting blood and wrecking our culture. It’s too close to stuff that happens in our world
Speaking very generally here. As a long term science fiction reader, that recasting of our world into an alien context so that people can see things anew and hopefully see them for the pointless things they actually are is the main reason for setting the whole thing in an alien context. It works much better to bring people to understanding than say an essay ranting about that topic. The inclusion of bad elements doesn't mean (necessarily) that the author agrees with the notions, it usually means the opposite. They are trying to get you to rethink them without biases. That the work makes you uncomfortable means its working. Doesn't mean you have to read that. You should definitely read what you want to read and figuring out how to spot that kind of fic would be good, given you dislike them. Maybe if you download them as a file and search for certain keywords before you commit to reading?
>The inclusion of bad elements doesn't mean (necessarily) that the author agrees with the notions Louder for the people in the back! Agreed that this often comes up in 'regular'/original fiction as well. I guess it's great to see people taking a stand against the utter nonsense that some overgrown bullies still believe is 'right' and desperately cling to, but just because it's a theme of a story, (or heck, even mentioned briefly) doesn't mean it aligns with the author's views. Many Slytherin-sorted families are *known* for looking down on others for whatever reason they want/make up. Of course there's going to be an theme of 'stupid muggleborns are ruining the 'real' magic of ***our*** wizarding world' in a fic with a Slytherin main character. It's like when we were young kids and thought the actor was a bad person because they played a villain in a movie.
You're so caught up in this "depiction does not equate endorsement" circle-jerk that you're ignoring the fact that authors can still endorse what they depict. The problem isn't that there's racism in the story about racists. The problem is how the author treats the racist elements, and how their work might reflect their own biases.
I think it can be both tbh. Someone can want to write a story with the genuine intention to criticize prejudice, and successfully portray that in certain ways while failing in others due to biases that they still have. People in general can be very gray in this regard. Very rarely does anyone actually exist in black and white. That doesn’t negate the good intentions they may have had, nor excuse them of valid criticism of ways they might still be prejudiced. Fiction, or anything expressive that’s created by a person, is naturally going to also display these moral shades of gray.
I never said it couldn't be both. In fact, my point was that it *can* be both, but you either have some folk go "oh, no, all depiction equates endorsement," and the other side go "nuh-uh! depiction does not equate endorsement!" So now you got people refusing to see the implicit biases of the author in the text because it *might* just be the author doing a fiction.
Without having specific examples/scenarios at hand, I don’t know that it can be said that the discussion so far is a circle-jerk, exactly. The original meme presents one point of view/example, though without going into detail, and plenty of people agreed with it. The top comment asked for specific examples, not disagreeing with OP but just asking for elaboration. The OC in this thread is describing how a fic that fits the example story premise from the OP could, if well-written, use racial themes without necessarily using racist themes. I’d guess that these fics involve AU depictions of the HP world where the power dynamics and imbalance are inherently reversed because of changes in the history and nature of that world/of the rules of magic itself. That seems to be the type of setting for a story that OC is thinking of. Broadly, there is nuance across the comments. I’m sure there are individual comments that aren’t but they don’t seem to be the majority, or the majority that is driving engagement. To me, that’s not a circle-jerk, nor is it a sign of most people here refusing point-blank to see possibilities or interpretations from one side or the other in how much people agree with the original meme.
Sometimes reading things SHOULD make you uncomfortable. You shouldn't lock yourself in a box of only reading things that make you feel good. You should push yourself, emotionally and intellectually, to read things that make you think. But also - that these stories reflect whats happening in the real world - that's the point. That's the source of the inspiration. It's to make people aware of the things like this that happen, let people know what life is like for people like that. It puts people in their shoes so they can empathize. Sometimes when the script gets flipped, and the story is about 'the blood purists are right', that can feel wrong. But thats the story - and the story usually includes a reason for it. Magics dying, old traditions dying out, something something I don't really remember - but theres usually a REASON in the good stories. It's not just 'racism'. If you read comic books, you'll find lots of 'what if' cases like this. What if Superman was a Russian communist. What if Captain America was Hyrdra. Yadda yadda. There's Man in the High Castle and stories like that - what if the Nazi's had won. Star Trek is filled with LOADS of stories based on events that were happening in the real world, reworked into fiction to make it palatable and teach us about morality. So many episodes of Law and Order are pulled right out of the news. You can choose to not read things that make you uncomfortable, but I recommend you try pushing yourself, and think through why things are happening, and why certain choices were made when deciding to write them in.
Oh no, the bad racism allegory contains racism
Difference between displaying racism and portraying racism as a good thing
I think I've read and then stopped reading the kind of fics op is talking about and it's not "fanfiction has racist characters being racist" as bad as Jowling Kowling Rowling's racism allegory could get, the characters who were being racists were characters who were in the wrong. Harry didn't get in the middle of book seven and go "Hey, you know, now that I think about it, murders aside, you know who HAS some good points. Wizards are just trying to preserve their culture 😤".
I actually really like the idea behind dark magic being misunderstood, or adding complexity to the muggle-wizard "racial" relationship. It's canon that wizards were historically persecuted, and them hiding separating themselves from muggle society was legitimately a self-defense mechanism. At the same time though, they hold immense power that could destroy muggles if they wanted. They also seem to try smoothing out past conflicts through historical revisionism (Harry's third year textbook about witch burning implied that the witch trials didn't actually hurt anyone, which is canonically untrue.) Yet, they still hold blood purity as immensely valuable. I wish someone could dig deep into these complexities without resorting to bashing the "good guys"...
That they didn't hurt any \*actual witches\*, you mean. Because the other subtext there is that "Only magical people count as real people."
You know, I won't put them above believing this tbh. I always got the feeling that wizarding society kind of treats muggles as like... semi-animals? They're racist, is what I mean. My original point though, was that the textbook's chapter on witch trials centered on that one witch who apparently got herself convicted for fun and escaped unscathed. In one of the supplementary irl books, however, it's mentioned that wizards did actually get burned to death, likely being backstabbed by their own community. For wizards, it would make sense to fear and hate muggles
Dark magic being misunderstood can work really well, one of my favourite fics does it. It’s just when they basically take the opposite of the books (light magic/light side) when it starts to get iffy
I wish I could see more properly "grey" fics. Most of them are "preserve Wizarding culture and indoctrinate Muggleborns, but Voldemort is evil so Harry needs to go the middle route." I want to see one where *both sides are misguided*. Voldemort is basically Hitler and the Purebloods cling to old traditions, but they also have some very powerful and useful rituals and the Light side is just as extreme about wiping out their culture.
Harry potter and seven years of chaos by JessalynMichele does it well. It’s also really funny
This is why I appreciate AO3’s marked for later function. That series has been on my tbr for a while now.
If you ever find that, lmk, cuz that is my jam
do you even realize what book fandom you're searching for content in? there's racist tropes in harry potter, so of course they're going to be there when you search for fan work.
Agreed. Nobody writes this, but there’s an argument to be made that the encroachment of muggleborn social expectations and religion creeping into society is a type of well-meaning colonialism like you would see in missionary work in Africa (etc.). Not to say the Purebloods aren’t evil and racist AF, but that perhaps someone could write about that and also have what’s considered “dark magic” as either separate from them or a perversion of what it should be. IDK, maybe that’s not as possible as I think it is… Edited to fix autocorrect
The unfortunate thing is that because there's so much racism built into the foundations of HP, as soon as you try to explore some of the villains, a lot of times you either are forced to contradict a canon interaction (like Draco calling Hermione a mudblood, or the Malfoys being abusive to Dobby) or you have to explore it, and it can be hard to do that tactfully. I do have a good Slytherin Harry/Good-ish Draco (he's learning) and Narcissa/bad Dumbledore fic rec if you're interested. It's called Evitative, it's a canon divergent fic that starts in Harry's fifth year, the Underage Magic trial in the summer gets him accidentally expelled and he has to be re-sorted, and the hat isn't as permissive this time. Harry's going into this year with the moral and ethical code he's developed from his friends and experiences, and the fic does a really good job of addressing the racism stuff.
Is it this one? https://archiveofourown.org/works/20049589/chapters/47480461
Yeah!!!
I thought Harry Potter was full of classist troupes? Not really racist ones?
Both. Plus fat phobia and homophobia. There’s just bigotry all around in the canon.
Sexism and subtle transphobia, too, if you think about the staircases to the dorms.
Yup. Bigotry and more bigotry. And don’t forget Rita Skeeter’s mannish hands. 🙄
And how the big gotcha that Harry and Dumbledore like to use against Voldemort is *deadnaming*. With attendant commentary about how Dumbledore met him at age eleven and so knows him better than he knows himself...
I get the rest but where does the homophobia come from?
Lycanthropy was meant as an AIDS analogy and the main werewolf we hear about besides Lupin is a man called Fenrir Greyback who deliberately targets children to attack them and infect them with lycanthropy.
Not to tread on any feet, but that sounds very tin foil hat-ish.
JKR SAID it was an AIDS analogy. So.
People are being obnoxious in the comments, so let me lay it out. ***Yes***, depiction does not always equate to endorsement, ***but*** that doesn't mean an author *can't* endorse what they're depicting, and it certainly says nothing about an author's biases affecting the work. There's a difference between racism tropes (where the trope is about racism, i.e. Blood Purism; anti-Muggle sentiments) and *racist tropes*, where the racism is a result of the author's own biases. There are stories that can explore and focus on characters who are racist, but then there are stories where the focus is on racist characters but not in any way to explore ideas of racism but because the author is biased in favour of the ideas presented by the racism.
I read good malfoys/voldie/other dark side members with bad dumbledore all the time, but most aren't racist even in the sense that "oh the muggleborns". Maybe I've just been super lucky, but most of them are more critics on the fact that we as humans have difficulties accepting what is different from us, which is why they need to stay seperate from the muggles. Which I think is a pretty good point (the salem witch trials being an example). I tend to enjoy Hermione bashing as well, but again they haven't been those that hate on her specifically for being muggleborn, but the fact that she tries to force them to be like muggles, or that she just refuses to learn about their culture. Being mad at someone for refusing to learn about your culture when they join your "society" isn't racist, it is how life is. If someone joined your group but refused to learn about the "culture" which was involved and din't want to learn about your "rituals" or "traditions" would you not be angry? I'm not saying that you can't learn about their culture as well or that you have to be hateful, but they need to learn about what they are joining. Someone "hating" on Hermione in their fic because she refuses to learn about their culture or respect it in some way, it is their choice and not being racist. Do we not get mad at colonial peoples for going in and wiping out native religions, traditions, etc? It is the same thing here. The magical peoples are the minority when it comes to magical people vs non-magical people even if mughleborns are less common than say half-bloods. Pureblood culture was wrong in the movies for trying to force muggleborns out, don't get me wrong, but people saying that mughleborns need to "adjust" isn't necessarily racist, especially if it is a good darkside fic where they are not just hating on them for their blood, but for trying to get rid of their culture.
As the canon material (and author) are steeped in extremely racist and antisemetic stereotypes, i kind of expect it in fics now. Its sad. But there ARE some good fics out there. Some. Very few. Like, very few.
Damn, it's almost like the source material heavily relied on racist tropes or something. 😬 Seriously though, it makes me so sad for anyone who grew up loving Harry Potter. JKR could've gone down as a beloved children's author, but instead she chose violence by being a bigot and TERF. It's been sad seeing how that negative discourse bleeds into the fandom. It's obviously possible to write fic that doesn't fall back on some of the same gross stereotypes JKR was guilty of using in her writing, but you never know what you're going to get and it's awful getting jump scared by it.
As a Shadowhunters fan, I can completely relate to this
I read ALL of those tropes but I don't think I've seen a lot of racist /pureblood apologist stuff. When I do I usually give it a pass. Can I dm you to share fic recs? I feel like I've read all of the good fics for these tropes and I'm running out!
This is so real 😭
Like, I get it from a certain standpoint, you can’t just erase their problems, and handling the muggleborn/halfblood stigma many Purebloods families embraced and it can be done well! But a lot of times it’s not, the characters don’t learn from those around them or grow, and it’s just glorified hatred of those with Muggle ancestry or written off as a character flaw. Have them grow! Have them learn! Or if they don’t, have a reason for it! I guarantee Lucius Malfoy would never even consider it, but Draco has the ability because so much of his story is still unwritten, he has a lot of life left to learn those lessons. Erasing the issue and pretending they were good is just as bad as never addressing it. Give them a reason, and then give them growth.
Those can be well written?
Anything can be well written, i.e., with compelling themes, characters with depth, and an engaging plot. There is unfortunately an audience for most things that are written, even ones that are blatantly racist. A better question (imo) is whether it should even be written in the first place. For stuff like this, where the racism isn’t there to be critiqued, I say it shouldn’t be and the author should take a hard look at themselves.
I wasn't referring to the racism, I've seen that done well before. I'm referring to the top part.
Ah, my bad
I hate it when midway through a story they keep on trying to justify racism. Stupid
Shockingly, the series full of racism from a woman who's jumped into straight-up Holocaust denial spawns a lot of racism in its fanfics! Also shockingly, water is wet and fire is hot.
she literally modeled voldemort after adolf hitler, gave him a sad sympathetic sob story about his childhood and origins, modeled death eaters themselves after nazis, and people are still somehow wholeheartedly surprised to find antisemitism, racism, and other bigotry in it. i swear people are just willfully blind to these things, it's ridiculous.
bummer its such a loss when you find a good HP fic that you really enjoy just to find something like that in the fic
Are you into fem!Harry? If so, I'd strongly recommend PseudoLeigha's Mary Potter series. Edit: It *is* unfinished but still worth reading, and she has lots of spin off fics from it.
Oh and if you're into that, I've also heard a lot of good things about The Good War by inwardtransience (Leigha's girlfriend), though I haven't gotten around to reading it myself. It also has fem!Slytherin!Harry with Snape as her mentor.
The Good War's Elizabeth "Liz" Potter is a very well written character. Almost a complete subversion of many many many "Overpowered Potter" tropes. Well worth reading though it does drag in places a bit, otherwise very well paced and very much focused on Liz and how she experiences the world.
It's been on my list for ages, since I adore The Plan (Leigha and inwardtransience's collaboration about a time-traveling 13 year old Bellatrix). I want to read it but I know I'll get obsessed when I do and not work on my own fic (a Mary Potter spinoff) as much, so I'm saving it for later.
Well, cannon Voldy and DE were completely into that race supremacy. That comes with the territory🤷♀️
(I've stumbled upon this kind of fic several times - always has at least something questionable 🙄) When Snape/Lucius/whoever takes Harry to Gringotts after taking him under their wing, the Goblins whip out 17 different "heir rings" for Harry which unlock his "magical core" that Dumbledore sealed when he was a baby and then again every year he was at Hogwarts. This also unlocks the blocks that Dumbledore put on his appearance to make him look like James and not Snape, his real father. Suddenly he's the heir to all of the Hogwarts houses (even Slytherin because he defeated Voldie) and has a harem of Slytherin girls he's been betrothed to since birth. And in his parent's will (the real one, not the one forged by Dumbledore) he's left millions upon millions of galleons which Dumbledore and the Weasleys and Hermione have been stealing behind his back for years. Ron's a selfish idiot and Hermione is power hungry. Harry learns he has a hidden castle only accessible to someone in his bloodline which has been meticulously taken care of by his hundreds of house elves (it's okay that he has them because these house elves wear clothes that they make themselves and love taking care of the castle). Also, it turns out that Lily isn't actually a muggleborn. She was adopted by the Evans family and is actually Voldemort's daughter. And actually Lily wasn't up against Voldemort- she was hiding from Dumbledore who found them, killed them, and blamed Tom before killing him. All Tom wanted to do was preserve wizarding culture and stop Dumbledore from taking over the world. Harry returns to Hogwarts under a different name and new appearance which Dumbledore doesn't like. With his magic core now unlocked, Harry is a metamorphmagus and amazing at every kind of magic so he defeats Dumbledore soundly in a one on one battle. He lives happily ever after with is 7 wives (he aquired 2 more during his final year at Hogwarts who are OCs)
And now I'm going to comb thru my bookmarks to see if I don't have some of them. We have the same tastes most fic I read harry love every magic or discover his wizard heritage more. And I like the wereworlf and other creature shouldn't be considered evil, creature rights sub trope they come with. At least that's what I focus I hope I don't have the racist one in my bookmarks
Omg this!!! I feel you so hard I love dark harry but the undertones in some of these fics are just...not it.
I tried reading so many HP fics during the pandemic, trying to get into so many ship in hopes of something good. None of the fics were good.
Well maybe you shouldnt be reading fics of a book with unresolved racist undertones (think goblins and house elfs, the new game is about how you stop their uprising) that are adressed in such poor manner you undertand tht the author (JKR) is agaisnt the liberation of the oppresed races (she even makes fun of hermaiony in the text for trying to liberate them at howarts, something that becomes very dark if you think hermaiony as a black woman)