lilyprongspotter:

Okay I recently wrote a paper analyzing Harry Potter from a cultural studies perspective and it illuminated quite a few things for me (also if anyone has already had these thoughts and/or articulated them, I haven’t seen them). 

SO FIRST OF ALL: the series makes it super confusing as to who is actually the oppressed group: muggles or wizards. The wizarding community is very much the minority group at least within Britain and is essentially in hiding in order to avoid persecution from muggles. From this position of oppression and persecution, you have Voldemort & co. rising up in an attempt to overthrow the oppressors and reverse the relationship as they see muggles as inferior and therefore with no right to dominate the wizards. In this way the wizards are portrayed as the bad guys, the leaders who want to eradicate their oppressors. This is framed as the primary cultural conflict throughout the story, muggles vs wizards. 

The distinction between magical and non-magical is not a simple binary, though, which complicates the narrative. There are two sides, with muggles being just that. But on the ‘magical’ side, there is a spectrum and further divides within the magical community based on how much muggle ancestry a witch or wizard has. On one end of the spectrum is muggle-born, somebody with ONLY muggle ancestry, and on the other is pureblood, somebody with ONLY wizarding ancestry. (I also think that the pureblood culture is portrayed as being similar to european aristocratic culture but that’s for another time). Based on this, Harry as a protagonist is brilliant because he straddles the magical/non-magical divide owing to the fact his only living family are muggles, he was brought up as a muggle and still returns to the muggle world annually, while also falling smack dab in the middle of the blood-status spectrum as a half-blood. He was born and raised in no man’s land. 

This portrayal of blood-status and the ensuing conflict is rather overtly analogous to racial relations, as it bears a strong resemblance to persecution of racial minorities throughout history, from the Jewish community in Europe to African Americans in the U.S. It’s also important to note though, that this reading is complicated slightly by the fact that there are some characters in the novels and films who are explicitly racial minorities. I’m not saying that this constitutes adequate representation or excuses the lack of racial diversity, just pointing out that this creates an intersection in some students’ identities. I think one of the best examples is Dean Thomas, a black British citizen who is also thought to be muggle-born. 

The series is framed in such a way that the reader is encouraged to see the cultural conflict between muggles and wizards as the principal conflict, and to see these cultural differences as being roughly analogous to racial relations that have been documented throughout history. However, I think that the portrayal of different magical creatures in the novels actually presents a better example of cultural conflicts and vastly changes how we interpret the outcome of the novels. 

I don’t think it’s a secret that the non human communities in the Harry Potter series bear a strong resemblance to non white communities in our world, but I don’t think that this receives quite enough attention or discussion. The theory that the goblins can be read as representative of the Jewish community is widely known, but I think that the centaurs, known mostly for their mysticism and astrology, bear a strong resemblance to the portrayal of Native Americans in American culture, and that the enslavement of house elves and the reservation-like living situation of giants are other strong examples of non-human communities in HP having undeniable similarities to non-white communities in the western hemisphere. 

Here, the question of cultural dialogue really opens up in the series, and not in a particularly good way. These different cultures remain at the periphery for the entirety of the series, serving only to prop up or reinforce the human characters’ desire to ~do good~ and ~save the world~ 

The ending of the series is portrayed as the saving of the wizarding world, but actually, Harry does very little. He manages to avoid all-out war between the magical and non-magical communities, but he doesn’t resolve the underlying conflict. The Statute of Secrecy is still in place, the wizarding community is still in hiding, wizards don’t want to murder muggle borns anymore but they don’t seem to understand or appreciate muggle culture anymore than they did before. What is more, Harry doesn’t do much to improve the lot of the non-human characters, whose ‘exotic’ cultures were given only a cursory glance and then their plights forgotten. Goblins cannot carry wands; Hogwarts still employs house-elves without pay; giants still live in small reservations far away from humans; the centaurs still are treated with fear and awe. We are given the hope that the new Ministry with Hermione and Harry at the head can improve these conflicts, but even that relies on both characters’ humanity and magic. It reinforces British colonialist and imperialist ideology that it is up to the colonialists to save their subjects. 

I got the impression that Harry is mostly fighting against Voldemort, but not for anything (like more respect and rights for Muggles/Squibs/Muggle-borns, house-elves, goblins, werewolves and others, or better law enforcement to ensure no one ends up in Azkaban without a trial again, etc.). He does not have an agenda of his own; I’m sure he would agree those things are important if asked but he does not really fight for them. His victory in itself only upholds the status quo.

And I understand that Harry had enough on his plate, but couldn’t he have had at least some thoughts about what should be changed about wizarding society after the war? We are shown all those things that are wrong with it and then there is no follow-up. (S.P.E.W would be an example of this, too.)

I think this is why the epilogue is so unsatisfying – as you said, there are a lot of open questions beyond the names of the Trio’s children, and all of them remain unanswered. That’s what fanfiction is for, of course, but it would have been nice to get some canon proof that the magical world is a better place than it was before the war.