Disillusionment (Part 2)

This post contains descriptions of racism and other stereotypes.

"So," you're wondering, "you're a Harry Potter fan. Why is your big "disillusionment at discovering someone is transphobic" post about Heather Mallick rather than J.K. Rowling?"

And the answer to that is I got emotional closure on Harry Potter at the end of Book 7. All was well, I closed the book and walked away. I have no need to revisit Hogwarts - I may well go my entire life without ever looking at another Harry Potter fic, and not even notice its absence.

But there's another problem.

When it J.K. Rowling's transphobia reached my Twitter feed, people also started posting about various stereotypes contained the Harry Potter series. (The linked article is but one example - there were many examples, but I'm struggling to re-find them.)

I'm not worldly enough to have spotted these stereotypes.  I'm not worldly enough to extrapolate from the examples given in these articles to spot other stereotypes.

All of which is a problem because last year, completely ignorant of all these issues, I gave Fairy Goddaughter Harry Potter for her seventh birthday.


Harry Potter is one of the fandoms I share with Fairy Goddaughter's mother (who really needs a blog nickname!). We read the books together. We were high school classmates when it began, Fairy Goddaughter's Mother was a newlywed when it ended.

In the months leading up to her seventh birthday, Fairy Goddaughter was expressing interest in the character of Hermione Granger. Who is she? Is she smart? Is she powerful? So her mother decided Fairy Goddaughter was ready, and allowed me the honour of giving Fairy Goddaughter her metaphorical Hogwarts letter.

Then I had a creative idea - literally my first creative idea since my head injury! Fairy Goddaughter should be invited to Hogwarts with an actual Hogwarts letter!

Inspired - and rejoicing in the sensation of inspiration, which I never thought I'd feel again! - I ran around the neighbourhood looking for everything I needed.  Hogwarts letters are written on parchment! But it turns out real parchment doesn't look like I'd imagined. Luckily, Deserres had stationery that looked more like a Hogwarts letter than actual parchment does. Hogwarts letters are written in green calligraphy! I've tried calligraphy pens before, they just make a mess. Luckily, Deserres had these markers with slanted tips that produce writing that looks more like calligraphy than I can produce with a calligraphy pen. Hogwarts letters are delivered by owl! They don't yet have a service where you can get an actual owl to deliver a letter to a given address, so instead I ran around to every store that sells toys, looking for the closest approximation of a Hogwarts owl.

Using my green calligraphyesque marker and my parchment-emulating stationery, I wrote Fairy Goddaughter a letter about how these books have meant so much to her mother and to me, and I hope she has an equally magical time at Hogwarts.

I packed up the beautiful Harry Potter box set in a shipping box, rolled up the letter like a scroll, tucked it under the owl so it would look like the owl was holding it, and sent it off to Fairy Goddaughter, full of pride and anticipation that she gets to set off on her magical journey, and full of glee and delight that my post-head-injury brain actually thought of and implemented a creative idea.


And, completely unbeknownst to me, I was handing her a book full of harmful stereotypes that I'm not worldly enough to detect. And I have every reason to believe Fairy Goddaughter's parents aren't either. (Fairy Goddaughter's Mother and I have talked at length over the years about how our sheltered upbringing in a small town with very little diversity didn't equip us to detect things like stereotypes and racism.) And we all enthusiastically presented it as a magical happy place.


What do you do about this?? How do adults who are too sheltered to notice stereotypes learn about stereotypes in order to guide children appropriately?


In life in general, people likely become aware of stereotypes because people around them use stereotypes with a critical mass of frequency. The lack of diversity where I grew up meant I didn't have this exposure. I can't say with confidence that no one was racist (and, as I learn more about the world, I'm coming to realize that fallacies like white saviour syndrome and othering were rampant), but rather that there was no one for the racist people to be racist towards, at least not with enough frequency for us to notice patterns and develop awareness of stereotypes. 


Most, if not all, of the stereotypes I've become aware of in my life have been from people pointing out examples of racism. They provide a screenshot or a link: "See, this is racist!"

And I wouldn't have been able to determine that independently, by which I mean that the racist words or images read as a sequence of nonsense to me.

For example, some 20 years after I started watching Monty Python, I learned that the embassy scene in Monty Python's Cycling Tour episode involves what I learned is called "yellowface" - racist, stereotypical depictions of Chinese people. Watching it the first time as a teenager, I didn't even realize that they were trying to depict Chinese people. I thought it was just a bunch of people in strange costumes and silly voices behaving erratically (to be expected from the comedy troupe that brought us Gumbies).

But I can't extrapolate from this to see what else might be racist. I can't even tell you with certainty that Gumbies aren't racist. (What I've read about their origin suggests that there's no racial or ethnic or stereotyping component, but I can't rule out the possibility that I'm just not seeing it.)

So how do I learn this? Do I have to go around listening to racist people, or is there another way? I do try to read books by people of a variety of races (and am always open to new recommendations), I try to pay attention and believe people when they say something is racist, but that's insufficient for me to learn what I need to know. Even though I'm reading, paying attention, listening, and believing people, the next example of racism that's pointed out to me always ends up being a completely different thing that also read to me as meaningless nonsense, that I  couldn't extrapolate from previous things. I fully recognize that I need to educate myself and not put the burden on racialized people to teach me, but . . . so far it isn't working, and I don't know what else to do.


My parents would have told you that it's a good thing that I don't know anything about racism or stereotypes. And, if that were true of every single child, they would be right. If no one knew any stereotypes, there would be no such thing as stereotypes.

But the problem is that some people are targeted by stereotypes. Stereotypes are used to hurt them. So they have the burden of being hurt and of people like me not being able to see it.  If no one knew any stereotypes there wouldn't be any stereotypes, but if enough people know them that they can be used to harm, then other people's ignorance exacerbates the situation.

What do we do about this?


***

As with the previous post, it's not really about me and my feelings, it's about how this fits into the system.

When I learned about the stereotypes present in Harry Potter, I found myself wondering why the editor didn't remove them. J.K. Rowling wasn't famous when she wrote the first book, I doubt she would have had the clout to reject a "Dude, this looks really racist!" edit.

But . . . what if the editor was in the same position as me? In my own job I'm sometimes called upon to edit, and I don't know many stereotypes. Have I inadvertently let some through???

My own anti-racism education was, as you can see, insufficient. It was a topic in school around Grade 9 I think, and it didn't do anything. There was some "stereotypes are bad", and we sat there and agreed "Yes, stereotypes are bad!" but never gained the ability to recognize stereotypes when being used by other people.

One of the examples of stereotypes used was the notion that Polish people are stupid.  My own mother was born in Poland . . . and I had never heard of this stereotype! My Polish relatives are intelligent, classy people, my non-Polish relatives are less so, and I'd never heard another human being express an opinion on Polishness. I managed to grow up without even being exposed to stereotypes about my own ethnicity!

And because I'd never been exposed to this stereotype (or any of the others used as examples), it sort of reinforced in myself (and, likely, my classmates) the idea that stereotypes are Other - not something that happens in real life, not something that we'll ever encounter.


So the problem reinforces and feeds on itself. People like me who grow up sheltered aren't exposed to stereotypes, which gets in the way of teaching us about stereotypes, which leaves us oblivious and useless to people who are harmed by stereotypes.

What do we even do about this?


And then there's the fact that I love buying books for children. Even though I don't celebrate xmas myself, it's the occasion when I most often get to see my baby cousins, so I delight in going to Mabel's Fables, picking out books for each child, wrapping them paper shiny enough to make a child believe the package must contain magic . . . and, all this time, how many stereotypes have I unknowingly placed in their innocent hands? Thereby normalizing the stereotypes without any of us even realizing it, and perpetuating the cycle for another generation?

Things They Should Invent Words For

I once saw some photos from a Harry Potter premiere that named every actor, the character they played, and the character's blood status. For example, "Rupert Grint, who plays pure-blood wizard Ron Weasley, arrives at the premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows."

Apart from the fact that they're politically incorrect within the Potterverse (I doubt even the Rita Skeeter would be so crude as to mention blood status of an actor at a premiere!), the problem with those captions is that blood status is only meaningful to fans, and fans would already know the character's blood status. If you don't know that Ron Weasley is a pure-blood wizard, the fact that Ron Weasley is a pure-blood wizard is inconsequential to you.

The name of the actor is relevant if you don't know who the person in the picture is, the name of the character might be relevant if you've read the books but aren't familiar with the movie actors, but there are no circumstances under which the blood status of the character is relevant to a reader who wouldn't already know the blood status of the character.

We need a word for this kind of situation, when if you could use the information you already have it, and if you don't have the information it's not useful.

"Dumbledore's Gay!" for Dummies

Are you a non-HP fan who might sometime feel the need to comment on the recent revelation that Dumbledore is gay? Are you an HP fan who doesn't feel like rereading but still wants to be able to comment intelligently? This post is for you! Questions are sorted from complete non-fan at the top to more fannish at the bottom, so start at the top and proceed downwards until you've got all the information you need. I haven't done a full reread yet, just picked and chosen sections based on the Lexicon, so if I have missed anything please post in the comments and let me know.

Wait, what just happened?

At her recent reading at Carnegie Hall, Harry Potter author JK Rowling replied to a fan's question by mentioning Dumbledore (the kindly elderly wizard who was Headmaster of Hogwarts and Harry's mentor) was gay.

How on earth does that subject come up?

A fan asked if Dumbledore had ever fallen in love. The answer was yes, with Grindelwald. As both Dumbledore and Grindelwald happen to be male, this prompted the outing of Albus Dumbledore. The important character information is really that Dumbledore was in love with Grindelwald, but "Dumbledore's Gay!" makes a much better headline.

The books are over, how is any of this relevant?

The question is relevant because a major theme of the book is that love is powerful enough to overcome evil. Dumbledore was a strong proponent of this philosophy, so it's only natural to wonder if he has ever been in love.

The answer is relevant because Grindelwald was the bad guy who came before Voldemort (Voldemort being the head villain in the Harry Potter books). If Voldemort is Hitler, then Grindelwald is the Kaiser (although somewhat more evil). In Book 1 we learn that it was Dumbledore who defeated Grindelwald, and in Book 7 we learn that decades earlier Dumbledore and Grindelwald were close friends decades earlier, but Dumbledore ended the friendship because Grindelwald was getting too evil. The fact that they were lovers sheds significant light on Dumbledore's character and decisions.

So why wasn't this mentioned in any of the books? It seems kind of tacked on.

The books are written from Harry's point of view. Harry is a student at Hogwarts, and Dumbledore is the Headmaster. As such, Harry is not privy to Dumbledore's personal life, any more than you were privy to the personal life of your high school principal. There was simply no room to mention Dumbledore's love affair from over 100 years ago.

But why didn't JK Rowling mention it earlier? Funny that she waited until all the books were published and sold...

This is the first time she was asked. JK Rowling doesn't make unilateral announcements about her characters, but she does answer fan questions. This is the first time since the publication of Book 7 that anyone has asked about Dumbledore's private live. Mentioning it before Book 7 would have been a spoiler, because Harry learning about Dumbledore's youth is part of a key plot point in Book 7. JKR did tell the screenwriter when an early draft of one of the movies had Dumbledore mentioning a girl he once loved.

But shouldn't it have come up in Rita Skeeter's book?

I can see two options here:

1. It was mentioned in the book, but Harry didn't read the whole thing. As a point of characterization, Hermione would be likely the read the whole thing, but I can't find any specific mention of whether Harry (or Hermione) actually did. If I'm wrong about this, please correct me.

2. Rita Skeeter didn't find out about it in her research. The excerpt from Rita Skeeter's book concerning Dumbledore's relationship with Grindelwald is in Chapter 18, The Greater Good, of Deathly Hallows. Her only source there is some letters and an interview with Grindelwald's great-aunt, Bathilda Bagshot. It is quite possible she didn't know about their romance - after all, if you're 18 years old and having a romance, do you tell your great-aunt all the sexy details? Dumbledore was about 150 years old when he died, and his relationship with Grindelwald took place when he was about 18 and lasted only a few months. Neither man was famous yet. So to learn about their romance, Rita Skeeter would have to find someone who remembers what two unremarkable (if brilliant) 18-year-olds were doing in private over 130 years ago.

So does this mean Dumbledore was in the closet? What does this have to say about the wizarding world's attitude towards homosexuality?

I think Dumbledore was in the closet about his romance with Grindelwald, but not necessarily because it was a gay relationship. I think it's because Grindelwald was evil! If you met an old man who was once Hitler's lover, your first thought wouldn't be "No need to keep it secret, society's much more open about homosexuality these days."

So in terms of the wizarding world as a whole, I think there are three possible interpretations here:

1. The wizarding world is so open-minded that no one felt the need to point out that Dumbledore's gay or mention it as something scandalous.
2. The wizarding world is so closed-minded that Dumbledore was highly closeted and no one ever found out.
3. Dumbledore successfully closeted his relationship because it was with an evil dictator (before even arriving at the question of sexual orientation) so we can't read anything about the wizarding world's attitude towards homosexuality into this particular.

Have I missed anything? Is there anything in the books I forgot to take into account? Post in the comments and let me know!

Best. Ship. EVER!

I would love to know if anyone in fandom predicted this! No, seriously, go read it!

Things I Don't Understand: why it's fun to spoil people

Why do people enjoy exposing other people to spoilers? Like, what's fun about it?

What's far, far more fun than spoiling people is teasing people. Drop a tantalizing little tidbit that will only make them want to read it more. For example:

You have already seen the final Horcrux. And it's right in the place where you last saw it.

Or, for those of you who don't follow HP:

Luke Skywalker isn't actually an orphan.

Then you can watch them speculate wildly. Isn't that more fun than just ruining it?

I can't get to Leaky, can you?

Ping Potter people:

I haven't been able to get to The Leaky Cauldron the last couple of days. Can you? I don't know whether the site's down or if there's something wrong with my own internet settings.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, I'd appreciate it if you could please click here (it's a Harry Potter site, which may have spoilers, I don't know) and tell me if you can get to the site or not.

Gracias!

Update: And now it seems to work again. Thanks everyone!

Why people are so readily disappointed in J.K. Rowling

I've followed fandom through three Harry Potter releases, and every time people have been vastly disappointed in some aspect or another of the book, even if they enjoyed it as a whole.

I think this is because of Prisoner of Azkaban.

"But that one's my favourite!" you're protesting. Exactly.

Prisoner of Azkaban kicks ass. Characters who were mentioned in passing in previous books suddenly become key. There's a plot twist we never could have guessed with all kinds of clues laid out in front of us. The darkness hasn't fallen yet (in fact, there's no Voldy whatsoever in this book) so despite the lurking Dementors we get to enjoy the full whimsy of the wizarding world; adding to this whimsy is the time Harry gets to spend independently in Diagon Alley and the visits to Hogsmeade. There are multiple kick-ass Quidditch games. There's more cool and advanced magic, from the Patronus to the Marauder's Map. And then, in a thrilling, action-packed final sequence, everything from the Sirius Black plot to Hermione's odd behaviour to Prof. Lupin's illness several months ago to Ron's pet rat wraps up in a tight yet expositionary plot resolution that also provides us with extensive background on Harry's parents.

The problem is that this has raised our expectations to impossibly high levels. We now want every character mentioned in passing, from Mark Evans to the Giant Squid, to play some crucial role. We now want to know about the full history of everyone we meet, and expect equal amounts of insight on Harry's history. We now want every quirk of odd behaviour to have some key role in the ultimate plot. And we want it to all be fun and whimisical and kick-ass at the same time.

But this is impossible. The plot requires darkness, over 200 characters have had speaking roles (according to the guy who does the audiobooks), and we do need to resolve the plot rather than give the complete history of everything. There simply isn't room to give a full role to every single name and fully explain every odd twitch.

But we've had 10 years with these books, rereading, analyzing, theorizing, ficcing. We've had plenty of time to grow attached to Florean Fortescue or become deeply invested in identifying the Heir of Hufflepuff or created an entire universe around what Dudley saw when attacked by Dementors. Everyone has their own little corner of the Potterverse to which they are attached, about which they wanted full background, which they wanted to play a key role in the resolution of the overall plot arc. We've been developing our little hopes and dreams for the series for 10 years, and JKR cannot possibly meet them all.

Open letter to everyone involved in disseminating Harry Potter spoilers

Dear everyone who had any hand in putting Harry Potter spoilers where people who don't want them might accidentally stumble upon them, and all media outlets who reported or gave the impression that they were reporting Harry Potter spoilers:

FUCK YOU!!!!

Because there were so many spoilers floating around where I might accidentally stumble upon them, I had to put myself on a media blackout in the last couple of weeks leading up to Deathly Hallows, just so that I could enjoy the actual denouement of the plot rather than having bombshells dropped on me without any setup.

Because I had to be on media blackout, I completely missed the fact that Eddie Izzard was playing at Just For Laughs this weekend. Eddie Izzard!!!! Just For Laughs!!!! And I completely missed it because I had to completely ignore all news media just to make sure I'd be able to enjoy this one last book properly!

Oh I am pissed!

How to read this blog if you care about Harry Potter

Until July 28, I will be keeping any spoiler posts about HP under the spoiler warning below, and any non-spoiler HP posts and non-HP posts above the spoiler warning. This means that the dates and times for HP spoiler posts will be manipulated, and if you want to see my spoilered thoughts on HP you'll have to scroll down yourself to see if I've put up anything new.

If you're reading this through a feed and don't want to be spoiled, I'd recommend not reading me at all (and perhaps removing me from your feed reader) until you're finished reading DH.

After July 28, I will post whatever occurs to me whenever it occurs to me without manipulating the date and time. That should give everyone one week to finish the book, which I think is plenty of time.

If you don't care about Harry Potter, none of this should affect your user experience, apart from the fact that you may miss a few posts that are deconstructing Harry Potter.

I'm torn between wanting to deconstruct everything I've just read and wanting to get back into the real world (I've been neglecting chores and news and all kinds of stuff to finish HP), so I don't know how much I'll be posting in the next couple of days or what about.

WARNING: HARRY POTTER SPOILERS BELOW!

There are Harry Potter spoilers below this post!

If you would like to skip the spoilers, use your browser's search function to skip to the post entitled "End of Harry Potter spoilers." If you cannot find this post, it has probably been pushed off the bottom of the page by my liveblogging. Go to my July 2007 archives to see posts written before DH.

The problem with the deaths

I think there were just a few too many meaningless deaths in DH. Overall, actually, most of the deaths in the series have been meaningless. James and Lily's deaths had a purpose, of course. Dumbledore's did, sort of, as did Mad-Eye's and Dobby's. But the big three (for me) in DH - Fred, Lupin and Tonks - had no meaning whatsoever. I think I needed at least one of these to have a purpose.

I think perhaps JKR thinks of Lupin and Tonks as smaller characters than I do. I was just thinking of I wrote this that it would be appropriate if some of the named extras were seen among the body count - Hannah Abbott, for example - but then I realized that this was how Lupin and Tonks were being presented. I can see Tonks being a named extra - I don't think of her that way because I think she's cool, but I can see that interepretation - but I think Lupin is more important and his death, at least, deserves an explanation.

Things I still want to know

1. So who raised Teddy Lupin?
2. What did the trio (and everyone else who left Hogwarts early) end up doing for education/careers? I know Harry is independently wealthy, but Ron and Hermione aren't, and I can't imagine Hermione settling for a job that doesn't require NEWTS. Did they go back and do their 7th year?
3. What happened to the Dursleys when they went into hiding?

Edit: And what was that place where Harry was when he talked to Dumbledore? No, I can't accept that it's a great mystery. I must know!

Epilogue

But WHO are Ron and Hermione's kids named after? And what are H&G&H&R doing for careers etc?

And, I'm sorry, but I don't feel that the point of Harry's eyes looking like Lily's has been addressed!

More tomorrow.

Overall, I'm satisfied with the resolution of the arc, I'm not crying despite mourning for three people, but frankly I don't feel like I've groked everything - all the science of magic that made the plot resolution possible - the first time through. I'm going to have to reread bits later on. But now, schlafenzeit!

PS: The word bitch is used! In a Harry Potter book!

Chapter 36: The Flaw in the Plan

Wow, this is really going to fuck up all those wagers various people were making on the outcome, isn't it?

I'm going to have to reread the whole denouement to figure out what happened exactly. Tomorrow.

Chapters 34 and 35

At the end of Chapter 34, Voldy killed Harry. Then in Chapter 35, he...didn't, actually. And now I have no clue WTF is going on any more so I'm just going to read on.

I'll probably have to reread this part tomorrow when I'm not nodding off.

Chapter 33: The Prince's Tale

I think it take a little longer than an hour to go through all those memories!

Fandom called the Snape = "that awful boy" and Snape/Lily things. I do find myself wondering at the Remus/Lily hinted at in the POA movie though. Didn't JKR say there was something to that?

Also, didn't JKR once unequivocally say that Harry is NOT a Horcrux?

I'm sad about Remus and Tonks. I like them. They're the cool people! (Also, this josses Fernwithy. I think JKR might be just toying with her now.)

If Harry is Teddy Lupin's godfather and Harry has to die, what happens to Teddy? He's becoming rather parallel to Harry. Do Remus or Tonks have any horrid relatives for him to be brought up by? (Well, Tonks does, but we can't use those.) Does Teddy get to be the messiah next?

Chapter 32: The Elder Wand

So....what is this mist? The only thing I can think of is a penseive memory, but that seems wrong.

Why is McGonagall's Patronus THREE cats?

"Ron, are you a wizard or what?" That made me LOL even through my mourning.

The problem with the Acromantulas is now I won't be able to watch the denouement of the last Harry Potter movie. They should eat Nagini at least.

Would a Basilisk fang kill a snake?

Chapter 31: The Battle of Hogwarts

Shit.

Chapter 30: The Sacking of Severus Snape

I find this whole everyone comes to Hogwarts for the final battle thing implausible (unlike, you know, magic and shit) but it seems to be emotionally satisfying (I'm all anticipatey) so I'll agree with it. I think Percy moaning that he was a fool was a bit much, I'd rather just have him show up and quietly save a tiny part of the day.

I'll bet the reason Ron and Hermione have gone to the bathroom is to go get the other Basilisk fang and use it to kill the other Horcrux. Oh, except they can't get down to the Chamber of Secrets, can they? Maybe they can. Anyway, the Battle of Hogwarts has arrived.

Chapter 29: The Lost Diadem

So what if the diadem really is Aunt Muriel's tiara?

I like the whole Room of Requirement/secret hideout thing. A bit ficcy, but it's fun anyway.

Do we have all the horcruxes now? Diary, locket, cup, diadem, Nagini, ring, plus the piece of soul still in Voldy. Yeah, I guess so. So does the wand with pride of place in Ollivander's window have anything to do with anything?