In which I make a very in-depth analysis of a fictional world
The subject of wizard relations to Muggles in Harry Potter is no doubt a very important part of their history – one they probably study if anyone can stay awake in History of Magic class long enough. And yet if you look closely, the wizards we see in Harry's time seem to have changed very little, as far as their attitudes towards Muggles go, since the time of the Hogwarts founders.
Salazar Slytherin, as we find out in Chamber of Secrets, not only left the school because his fellow founders wouldn't agree to make Hogwarts exclusively for children of wizard families, but he also built a secret chamber designed to attack Muggle-borns before he left. Many of us fans came to the conclusion from this that Slytherin was unquestionably a Bad Person, and yes, from our point of view his ideals look pretty hard to excuse. But is this the only side of the story? Don't forget, all this was happening in the medieval era – right at the time of the witch hunts. Which definitely also existed in Harry Potter wizard lore: Harry studies them as part of a homework assignment at the beginning of Prisoner of Azkaban; and if you read The Tales Of Beedle the Bard, the accompanying notes to The Wizard and the Hopping Pot, which are written to be Dumbledore's commentary on the story, tells us that a story with a moral about helping Muggles would not have resonated with the audience of the time, as many wizards preferred to distance themselves from Muggles and avoid helping them rather than risk getting tried and executed for witchcraft. (Sound familiar? In Philosopher's Stone the fear of getting executed is not present, yet Hagrid still tells Harry the reason wizards keep themselves secret is because Muggles would just want magical solutions for everything.)
So was Slytherin's concern about letting in Muggle-borns really so unfounded? Or was it just that the other three founders were unusually openminded, and even a little bit reckless? What made the founders think that nothing could go wrong if they let all those Muggle parents know that witches and wizards existed and that their children were going to a school to learn how to become one? How could they be so sure there wouldn't be a single parent who would object and tell the authorities? Maybe some Muggle parents would even agree to send their children but secretly use them to bring down the witches and wizards from within. The subject was about much more than just prejudice and tolerance at that point; the other founders would actually have been taking a great risk by letting so many Muggles know about their magic school. We're talking about a time in history when most people were terrified enough of anything supernatural to unjustly murder any innocent person who had the flimsiest connection to it.
I heard a theory, I believe it was on the YouTube channel SuperCarlinBrothers, that Slytherin really built the Chamber of Secrets as a form of protection, in case Muggles ever attacked the school and the Muggle-born students sided with their parents. The theory made a lot of sense, and presented Slytherin in quite a new light. Was he really such a villain, or was he just, in traditional Slytherin way, trying to protect his own? Meanwhile, it's easy to imagine Gryffindor, who probably felt it was cowardly and ignoble to deny certain witches and wizards access to learning out of fear; Ravenclaw, who was probably too openminded to assume people would behave a certain way because of who their parents were; and Hufflepuff, who seems to have just liked everyone, objecting to his suggestions. These three must all have been rather ahead of their times, and most likely Slytherin for his part felt hurt that his friends were rejecting his protection and preferred to endanger themselves this way! It makes so much more sense to think that as a good friend of the other founders, Slytherin was coming from a good place and the other three just didn't share his viewpoint, than that he was simply “the evil founder”.
Whatever Slytherin's fears, we know that Hogwarts was not invaded or exposed. Throughout the centuries it stayed protected and secret, well into the modern era when people had long since stopped hunting witches and the need for secrecy was no longer as dire. So at that point, did the wizards and witches decide there was no need to hide anymore and they could just openly practise magic? No, and I mean, you can't blame them for not revealing themselves the minute the witch hunts were over. The Muggles had probably stopped hunting them mostly because they were convinced there was no such thing as magic after all, only focused on the mundane world before their eyes. It would be suicide to alert them to the fact that wizards and witches really existed so soon. And naturally the wizarding population would still be wary of their old enemies, less than willing to mingle with the very same Muggles who would have happily murdered them, or their parents, or their grandparents. But what about in more modern times, where we might be a lot more open to considering there might be positive magic and not immediately dismiss it all as unholy and bad? By the time the Harry Potter books take place, it seems a much safer time for the wizards to reveal themselves, but no matter how much time goes on and how much social attitudes change, the wizards insist on staying hidden.
And why do they stay hidden? We're offered only the one reason, that moment in Philosopher's Stone where Hagrid explains to Harry that if Muggles knew there were wizards, they would just want magical solutions to everything and the wizards are better off just left alone. It seemed a flimsy reason to me right from the first time I read it, even before I got to the parts about just how much effort the wizards were putting in to make sure no Muggle ever finds out about them, way more effort than they would be using to give Muggles a helping hand every now and then. So what if that isn't the true reason, but simply the story wizards tell themselves, the story they've come to genuinely believe is the truth? It gives them a good explanation for why they should cling to their old patterns, solid enough that no one ever questions it and sees how it completely falls apart on closer examination. Because deep down, I believe the real reason wizards don't want Muggles in their lives is a longstanding internalized prejudice, stemming from the time of these witch hunts. And no, it's not just wizards like the Malfoys who have this prejudice against Muggles. It's everyone.
I believe some fans have said that you really can't blame Draco Malfoy for his attitudes towards Muggle-borns, because they came from his father. And I say, no, that's very true, you can't blame Draco for believing something he was told his whole life by the people he trusted most. And where did his father's views come from? Lucius Malfoy would have learned the same beliefs from his father, who learned it from his father, who learned it from his father, and so on and so on all the way back to the Malfoy ancestors who lived in the Middle Ages when a fear of Muggles was a very reasonable attitude to have. Okay, you say, but there was no need for Lucius Malfoy to keep those beliefs. He's a grown adult; doesn't he know better? To which I reply: why are there people who just vote for the same political parties their parents do without looking into whose platform they actually most agree with? Why are we still using an education system invented in the Industrial Revolution to train factory workers? Is it really that uncommon to just go along with the same beliefs the generation before you held, without ever really questioning why? If you're going to hold Lucius accountable, Draco as a teenager is also old enough to start questioning the beliefs he grew up with.
And it's not just the Malfoys, but every wizarding family in the world, who would have ancestors dating back to the time of the witch hunts, and who would presumably have hated and feared Muggles because back then they were real enemies. Is it likely the other wizarding families wouldn't also have their own negative beliefs about Muggles, which then got passed on from generation to generation? Just look at what some of our more positive characters have to say on the subject of their non-magical counterparts.
When Professor McGonagall protests against sending Harry to live with the Dursleys in Philosopher's Stone, she says very little about their negative personality traits which would make them an undesirable family to live with. She does talk about Dudley being spoiled – this is McGonagall, of course she would notice a person's actual behaviour – but also says “You couldn't find two people who are less like us” and “these people will never understand him”, mostly talking about how famous Harry was going to be in their world, and sounding very much like she thought the Dursleys' attitudes were because they were Muggles and not because they were stubbornly against anything the slightest bit abnormal. I'm sure a lot of Muggles would have been able to understand on some level how Harry was famous and celebrated because he caused the disappearance of someone whose followers would kill them for fun! When Hagrid comes to collect Harry from the Dursleys and give him his Hogwarts letter, he doesn't complain about Harry living with an abusive family; he says “It's your bad luck you grew up in a family o' the biggest Muggles I ever laid eyes on”, as if “Muggle” summed up everything wrong with the Dursleys. He also keeps insulting Uncle Vernon by calling him a “great Muggle”, and when Harry expresses concern because Malfoy told him that he thinks children from Muggle families shouldn't be allowed into Hogwarts, Hagrid's first words of comfort are not to assure him that both types of families are equal, but “Yer not from a Muggle family”. (Hagrid, I think, may have particular triggers around anyone who isn't a “normal wizard”, due to being expelled from Hogwarts before he could complete his wizard training, and facing prejudice for being a half-giant.) It does make me wonder what either of them would have said if Harry had been living with an abusive wizard family, or a family of kind and loving Muggles! Ron says in Philosopher's Stone that his family never talks about this second cousin of Mrs Weasley's who is an accountant – which used to surprise me, because you wouldn't think the Weasleys would be the type to be ashamed of having a Squib in the family, would you! Even Arthur Weasley, who loves Muggles, seems to love them more as a fascinating species of animal, forever in awe of the way they can actually manage to find clever solutions to problems and function in a magic-less society the same way we might be fascinated to realize whales can have conversations or that chimpanzees make tools. Even the word “Muggle” itself is the sort you might take as an insult if someone called you one! Even the wizards and witches who fully believe they don't have any prejudice against Muggles, and are completely against pure-blood supremacists like the Malfoys or the Blacks, still never question this idea that Muggles are separate and inferior. They almost do seem to see Muggles like animals, without quite realizing that they do – is it any wonder Voldemort was able to spread his anti-Muggle propaganda so easily?? (So the wizards have this opinion of Muggles stemming from a time when they were trying to kill all wizards, and it culminates in a group of extremist wizards trying to kill all Muggles. I have to say I'm a little unsettled by how believable that is!) And no one questions any of this except perhaps Dumbledore, who has an unusually open, questioning mind.
So what would happen if the wizards did decide to reveal themselves to the Muggles, and integrate with them into one society, allowing each group to bring their own unique strengths and talents? Well, after some difficulty at the beginning, where there would be a transition period and a lot of shock, it would ultimately save both groups a lot of trouble. Just read the parts in Goblet Of Fire where they talk about all the trouble they had setting up the Quidditch World Cup somewhere Muggles wouldn't notice it, and we see the harried officials running themselves ragged spoiling their own and everyone else's fun because they're afraid Muggles might notice something. Or Order Of the Phoenix where they talk about how hard it was to find a place to build a hospital – they literally couldn't find a place where seriously ill wizards could be healed, because they were so concerned about secrecy. And all this is seriously supposed to be less trouble for wizards than being asked to mend a Muggle neighbour's broken sink every now and then??
And what about the Muggles? Think of all the proud parents like Lily Evans', who would be unable to tell anyone about their children and what they were up to these days, possibly seriously damaging their relationships with others as topics of conversations become restricted, and maybe as their friends and other family members can tell they're hiding something. And think of all the memory wipes, which in addition to being a lot of trouble for the wizards who perform them, are probably not nearly as harmless a solution as they appear to be on the surface. Most of what Muggles see that wizards want them to forget would be shocking at best, and a lot of the scenarios we hear about cross the line from shocking into full-on traumatic. Just think about the poor Roberts family in Goblet Of Fire, captured by Death Eaters and paraded through the campsite suspended in midair unable to move of their own free will, or the Muggles Arthur talks about in Order Of the Phoenix who had their fingers bitten off by doorknobs. Even if the Memory Charm made their conscious minds forget all of that, their subconscious minds would remember. And their subconscious minds will trigger that same fear any time a similar situation comes up. Just imagine having a terrible, triggering memory in your past like that, and never being able to come to terms with what happened to you or heal the trauma, never being able to move on or even know why you have such a negative reaction to your particular triggers (maybe you would never want to touch a doorknob again!), all because some other group of people still thinks it would be too inconvenient to let you know they exist because of something that happened to them back in the Middle Ages.
I have to say, it's only too easy to believe that a group of people would really act like this. Which is why I say most of the wizards have probably never considered the negative consequences of their beliefs, probably never even questioned “what's done” enough to consider these things. But it might be time, in the wizarding world in which we will never know what events take place after the seven Harry Potter books, for wizards to rethink those beliefs and attitudes. Even with Dumbledore gone, there are still others who could carry on the questioning mind torch – Harry himself, for example, seems to be very openminded, and he's certainly in a position to get other people to listen to him! And maybe after all of Voldemort's anti-Muggle propaganda, fewer wizards will want to see Muggles as the bad guys, and begin to question the society's whole attitude towards Muggles, wondering if they can really be so bad as someone like Voldemort made them out to be. Maybe enough wizards will realize how silly it is that they're still hiding from a group of people who stopped trying to get rid of them centuries ago. Maybe Harry and friends' children will live to see a world where wizards and Muggles can truly live together in harmony.
Comments