I Wish BCJr Being A Ravenclaw Were Canon. Then It Would Provide Balance To Where DE Come From And The

I wish BCJr being a Ravenclaw were canon. Then it would provide balance to where DE come from and the students in canon who were considered smart in each house. For example we have Hermione in Gryffindor and then the Marauders+Lily who were described as “bright.” In Slytherin we have Snape and Voldemort, Hufflepuff (Hermione said Cedric is a good student), but none for Ravenclaw even though they are the ones who value knowledge.

I guess BCJr being a Ravenclaw is my headcanon now.

Grayness in HP: Author Pet Peeve

Recent pet peeve of mine: I hate when authors whitewash their favorite characters or 'revert" complex characters to being static, and keep emphasizing stereotypes especially in books where we are supposed to embrace the grayness in people and situations.

Addressing the whitewashing of characters: One of JKR's favorite characters Remus Lupin received a sanitized profile on Pottermore which in essence downplayed some of his glaring flaws as seen in canon and attributed characteristics to him which contradict events seen in POA. The characteristic I refer to is the notion of supposed "respectful politeness" displayed to Severus Snape. Sure, Remus may appear pleasant on the surface, but he frequently shows the audience and his students how he views Snape as an authority figure by dressing his boggart in an old woman's clothes (a trans-misogynistic action depicted as humorous), gaslighting him about the Marauder's Map even while withholding crucial information about supposed mass murderer Sirius Black, and reducing the extent of the Snape-Marauder relationship to one of a "schoolboy grudge" and claiming that "Snape was jealous of James's quidditch talent." Granted for the last one Lupin didn't know Snape was there, but how one talks about people especially behind their back reveals their true nature. Whitewashing one's favorite character not only reveals one's blind spots but also sets double standards in objectively assessing the grayness of all characters, regardless of an author's personal feelings.

Snape: He was a victim of some gruesome acts and had a primary redemption arc working behind the scenes of his vindicitive behavior. However, when analyzing him after the books were written, her takeaway is that he "smells of bitterness and old shoes" (Twitter 2015), thus re-emphasizing his unsavory aspects.

The Prince's Tale Memory: The "I think we sort too soon" line from Dumbledore to Snape. This is extremely problematic, especially coming from a character known for his sage advice, in that it is implied that good or brave people cannot be Slytherins which in turn sends a damaging message to people in real life that the stereotype of the group/school you associate with defines you even if you possess and act on other good qualities.

This notion is backed up by JKR when conducting a Q&A with fans on Twitter:

"@RainDragon182 Not all Slytherins think they're racially superior. But all those who do are Slytherins" (JKR Twitter, 2015).

Going back to my example of schools, there are some high schools in my city with a fantastic reputation, but that doesn't mean that every person in a "good school" is an exemplar human being. It would be naive to think that in a superb school there aren't kids who constantly get into fights, truant, or are underachieving students in standardized tests--all hallmarks for a "poor school."

In a book series which emphasizes that people's flaws are to be acknowledged and ascertains that people aren't wholly wonderful nor irredeemable, the author contradicts this notion with her subsequent words on public platforms which will undoubtedly reach a much wider population than those who are solely fans of Harry Potter.

Unpopular opinion: There should've been more Voldy POV chapters in HP. The arrogance, fears about death, and sheer rage makes for a captivating read.

On a side note: It is boring when all the chapters are from one POV or even a whole book if it were a different character-- mix up the POVs.

Cacio e Pepe but make it Accio Pepe (dropping the e in between). I wonder what that would summon me in the HPVerse.

I found your blog through a few of these hashtags and I think it's crazy that you're losing followers over a Snape post. Now as far as Lily goes, she seems to be someone who not only overlooks the nastiness/ prejudice in people she likes and are mutually beneficial for her, but also someone who is loose with breaking rules, black and white thinking, and someone who clings to societal status subconsciously.

To start off with Snape, she clings onto him because he is her first childhood friend who is magical and that she is very whimsical with. However, we see this friendship fall apart even before SWM where she says they're "best friends" but also fails to ask him about the werewolf incident and says "my friends don't understand why I hang out with you." It's curious to me that she doesn't say "other friends," so I feel like she confirmed Snape's "best friends" question as a way to placate him. Nonetheless, she doesn't formally sever ties until SWM.

Next, with James she she regards him as an "arrogant toerag" to Snape, but in SWM when her attention is fixed on James she notes that he "messes up his hair" and "shows off with the snitch." Those are two observations from someone who has been closely watching him. As some others have said before, I'm pretty sure she was also attracted to the security James offered in terms of social hierarchy as well as related to his black and white thinking and blind loyalty to those he considered friends. As far as Lily goes with rule-breaking, she isn't hung up on it--case in point with two instances: her jumping off swings even when told not to and her letter to Sirius in which she laments that "there is no chance for excursions because Dumbledore took James's invisibility cloak." James would've been fine without the cloak since he could transform, but she couldn't.

Aside from the aforementioned points, I doubt she challenged Slughorn's views on the Slug Club and his covert prejudice in general--pointing out her subconscious desire for a higher social status. This is something that is contrasted when Harry meets Slughorn and immediately catches onto and turns him off.

it’s funny that i’m losing followers over a snape post in 2022 of all things bc i’ve never cared about snape, i’m neutral on snape, have never even really talked about snape but he’s important for perspective on the marauders & lily, and is in my opinion under-consulted in what we can understand about lily’s character. 

i do have an appreciation for how snape fans can be objective and neutral and don’t whitewash the marauders and see them in a more human and recognisable way than marauders fans. james and sirius, and lily, were flawed and biased people and i don’t care to whitewash that, it’s actually very boring to whitewash that and i also think snape fans have remus pinned down brilliantly

snape was also obviously morally grey and i don’t whitewash that but i also never talk about snape so that’s sort of that 

different perspectives are interesting and the “how did they go from swm to married” is one of the only aspects of jily that is remotely interesting. did james and lily get married bc james got nice or was lily not actually necessarily super nice?

Good context especially for people who aren’t from the UK.

Hey flo! So this is pretty random but I was having an argument with my family the other day over whether Hogwarts is a public or government school and since you’re easily one of the most knowledgeable people I’ve come across regarding Harry Potter I was wondering what your thoughts on the matter were? Thanks for the input and sorry about the randomness 💗💗

It's funded by the Ministry, Rowling has said this and there are no fees mentioned in the series. It's worth considering as well that Rowling's own politics land her pretty firmly as a labour supporter of the Blair/Brown years, where there was significant investment in education.

Also, as a random bit of knowledge for you, in the UK a public school actually means a private/fee paying school. We still use the word private school to mean fee-paying, but public school is also used to refer to a specific type of private school, and usually means somewhere very old, traditional, perhaps with charitable status (even though pupils must still pay). A public school is one such as Eton or Rugby or Winchester, where traditionally they were "open to everyone" (as long as they could pay) and it didn't matter if you weren't from the local area or what your background was. Nowadays they... well they do offer bursaries and scholarships and things but they are pretty much exclusively for the 1%. Fees can cost £40,000 per year which is roughly double the national average salary, and you often have to pay to just apply, even if your son (there are schools for girls, just a lot more for boys) doesn't then get in. The majority of our recent Prime Ministers went to one public school in particular.

A lot of aspects of Rowling's writing feel very much like Hogwarts is a public school so I can see the confusion - that it's a castle, for one thing, but also signifiers such as the fact that it's a boarding school, the House system, the points system, the Head Girl/Boy and Prefects, the emphasis on sports, the fact that teachers are professors. She was certainly influenced by older English literature that centred around public schools. But most of these things can also be found in state schools too - my grotty state school did not have a Head Boy/Girl but many do, it's perfectly common, and we did have a house and points system and a strong emphasis on sports. Public schools also traditionally had more control over their own curriculum and specialisms which is probably why Vernon assumed he would have to pay to send Harry there. They were also legally allowed to physically discipline pupils for much longer than state schools, which might be why Harry was nervous that McGonagall was going to cane him in PS - corporal punishment would have been banned when he was just a small child, but it was not banned in private schools until he was in his teens.

Dudley's school, Smeltings, is clearly a parody/criticism of the traditional English public school. The rather silly uniform described like the boater hats and knickerbockers feel extremely traditional public school, and though I am not aware of any schools where students are allowed to carry big sticks around to hit one another with, it seems to poke fun at the "character building" culture of bullying that many public schools, like Eton and Gordonstoun, are known for. This is something I can see not translating that well for an international audience but for a British reader immediately emphasises what the Dursleys are like.

But there are many signs that Hogwarts is not a public school - that it is the only school available to British witches and wizards available, that there was no entry exam (although the child must be magical), that although students must still fund their own supplies and uniform (again, this is standard for British schools) there is no mention of school fees and a family like the Weasleys are able to send 7 children there on one salary. I know some people like to suggest they are poor because they have to pay school fees, but I think those people misunderstand the realities of class and wealth in the UK - a family at average income or below may be able to struggle, scrimp and save enough to send one child to a public school, but the only way entire groups of siblings are going is if the family is extremely wealthy. Certainly these schools are not taking in charity cases like Tom Riddle, Remus Lupin or Severus Snape - occasionally a council house school kid will win a scholarship and they will make a big deal of it in The Sun to try and suggest they are not the ultimate symbols of class divide in our pathetic little scrap of land, but the reality is these kids have had to work insanely hard and have essentially won a lottery. These schools are not approaching poor kids.

From my perspective, I went to a very good but very typical state school, which was directly next door to a private school. Only a fence, a narrow path and another fence separated our sports grounds. I can remember the private school kids in their cricket whites standing at the fence and jeering at us through the fence. I can also remember that large groups of us used to break into their grounds on snow days and vandalise the place, so...

When I got to uni, I was very lucky to be accepted into a highly competitive university and college, where I suddenly found that those kids in their cricket whites and fees of £6,000 per year would have been considered positively impoverished by some of the Etonians and Harrovians I now rubbed shoulders with. Some were perfectly charming young men that I liked. But that's all I will say about that.