On fascism and Harry Potter and JK Rowling

Harry Potter is a profoundly anti-fascist tome. The main plot line is about a man who, out of his own fear of death, seeks to consolidate power and subjugate wizards who either oppose him or who he views as less than, impure. But an important part of this plot is that the wizarding world has tolerated less obvious forms form of bigotry for thousands of years – the belief that nonhuman creatures are inferior, at best useful tools to humans and at worse worthy of enslavement and subjugation. Human wizards ignore the magic and talents of other creatures because it does not fit their narrative.

The analogy here to white supremacy and other forms of hatred and discrimination seems obvious to me. Ron Weasley’s arc is a case study in white identity development – from early color blindness taking for granted the that the world is meant to work this way to becoming an anti-fascist (anti-racist) fighter. Dobby is a case study in a house elf who dared to believe house elves were not meant to be slaves, as thousands of years of subjugation had been ingrained into other house elves.

Which is what makes Rowling’s doubling down on anti-trans bigotry so heartbreaking and infuriating.

~ by realsupergirl on September 24, 2020.