#wizard racism

[blorger]

Look, listen, this is a very important question for the culture: why does the hp fandom at large like to act like Lucius Malfoy meant to open the chamber of secrets?

Book 2 Lucius Malfoy was clearly in his live laugh love era; the Great Diary Reshuffle of 92 was very much an improv moment, a petty action to mess with a Weasley and get rid of a cursed artifact at the same time. I'm sure he went home feeling real proud of his innovative problem-solving.

Even when Draco recounts the letter from his father, all we get from Lucius is basically "sit tight and watch", not exactly the words of someone invested in the outcome.

I'm very much in the "the diary was left to Abraxas Malfoy and Lucius had no idea what it really was" camp, tho that is just a personal spice I like to add to the books, am unsure of jkr's actual intentions (if she even thought it through to that extent)

[maxdibert]

‘Mudblood is the wizarding equivalent of the n word’ doesn’t make any sense either. I absolutely believe we’re supposed to understand it that way, but JKR has also written that muggle witch hunts drove wizards into hiding. It’s not the same oppressor/oppressed dichotomy as African Americans and their slavers. The Statute of Secrecy only exists because of anti-wizard discrimination. Which confuses the hell out of every political analogy JKR tries to make in the books.

And I’ll go further: it doesn’t even hold up with the magical world’s lore. According to canon, pure-bloods are on the verge of extinction, and blood purity ideology originated precisely because the scarce remaining families didn’t want to mix. This implies that the vast majority of witches and wizards are either half-bloods or Muggle-borns. Therefore, we’re not talking about Muggle-borns being a minority or marginalized in the magical world—they are the bulk of the system, along with half-bloods.

It’s also not Muggle-borns who have had to hide for centuries but wizards in general, who chose to separate themselves into their own parallel reality to avoid trouble with Muggles. Wizards created their own dimensional ghetto because, in the Muggle world, they were persecuted.

It’s absurd to compare this to the structure of racism, which specifically originates from colonialism and imperialism—systems where entire nations invade others, subjugating them economically, socially, and culturally, and turning their people into slaves. In this case, it’s LITERALLY the opposite—it’s like a small nation hiding from a larger one to avoid being killed.

It doesn’t hold up. It’s socio-politically incoherent.

[ghostlypawn]

currently viewing elphaba through the disability lens …. thoughts…..

[fun-twisted-tales]

I think if you remove the colonization (for obvious, obvious, OBVIOUS reasons), than Tin Man could have an interesting villain arc in “Ozoplaning with the wizard of Oz”

I think him going from rather level headed and humble to more vain and proud to arrogant and prideful would be so interesting

@woggle-bugger-me

[woggle-bugger-me]

The Royal Book of Oz is so much worse than I thought.

Ok, so before today I'd never actually read The Royal Book of Oz (AKA the 15th Oz book and the first one written by Ruth Plumly Thompson) all the way through, having only read extracts. I knew it had racist content, but I figured I'd give it a chance so I could form my own opinion.

My opinion is... My god. It's so bad.

Anyway, here are my rambling thoughts. Warning: Racism and xenophobia are discussed. Here we go...

Rant no. 1: The Silver Island

Pretty much everyone in the Oz fandom knows that the Silver Islanders (or "Silvermen" as they are called, which is gross) are an outdated, racist depiction of a fantasy East Asian culture. This isn't news. But what I find interesting is that they... don't really do much wrong. Yes, they kind of kidnap the Scarecrow, but they think he's their long-lost emperor. They do treat their servants badly, which is portrayed by the narrative as a bad thing, but the narrative also treats literally all of their cultural practices as wrong in some way, and the way they treat their servants is not portrayed as being worse than anything else.

The Silver Islanders are characterised is a similar way to the various small communities that appear in the Baum books. They're eccentric, but mostly harmless. However the Scarecrow (and by extension the narrative, since we are supposed to agree with the Scarecrow's viewpoint) views them as this group of immoral wierdos who's way of life is inherently inferior to the Ozian way of life. To be clear, the fact that they're not all evil villains is a good thing - it'd be way more offensive to depict them as all being antagonistic - but that doesn't change the fact that we, the reader, are clearly supposed to see them as lesser.

In this book, the Silver Island (AKA Fantasy Asia) = bad and cringe, meanwhile Oz (AKA Fantasy America) = good and cool. That basically sums up the way the Silver Islanders are depicted.

Rant no. 2: The Scarecrow

The Scarecrow is really unpleasant in this book and it's honestly uncomfortable to read. He insults the Silver Islanders pretty much as soon as he meets them, and when he meets Happy Toko, who's the token "good" Silver Islander, he "befriends" him (I'm putting "befriends" in quotes because he treats Happy like trash throughout the entire story) and then straight-up refuses to pronounce his name correctly. Keep in mind, Happy Toko is nothing but nice to the Scarecrow the entire time, and the Scarecrow doesn't call him by his actual name once.

The Scarecrow is also a really reactive character here. He spends most of the book complaining about his situation, but barely does anything to actually improve it. Compare him with Dorothy, the other main protagonist of the book. She takes charge and is an active player in her adventure. The fact that a 12-year-old is more proactive than this adult man says a lot about the way the Scarecrow is characterised here.

He's also relentlessly rude to the Silver Islanders, insulting both their culture and them as people at every opportunity. There's this one cringeworthy scene where he attends an important meal and freaks out over the local cusine. Not only is this an unfunny, xenophobic jab at Asian cusine (haha get it? Asians eat weird food!), but it also makes no sense for the Scarecrow's character. He doesn't eat, so why does he even care?? There's also a horrible scene where he meets his grandchildren and starts full-on bullying them. He literally yells at them, calling them "little villains" because they can't find Oz on a map. They seem to be pretty young kids, by the way.

Now, it does make sense for the Scarecrow to have difficulty adapting to the Silver Island culture. He's been suddenly thrust into a very important position in a culture that he isn't familiar with. It makes sense for him to be a fish out of water. The problem is that he never changes his views or has them challenged. This isn't a story where the Scarecrow has difficulty adapting to a different culture but eventually comes to respect and appreciate them, it's a story where the Scarecrow spends all his time being racist and complaining, then fucks off back to Oz, leaving Happy Toko, a random servant, as the new emperor.

Also the Ruth Plumly Thompson books are technically considered canon, meaning that the Scarecrow is canonically a racist now. Let that sink in.

Rant no. 3: The other Ozians also suck.

To be fair, none of the other Baum characters are as awful as the Scarecrow, but they're still portrayed pretty poorly here. Here are some examples:

The Wogglebug: In fairness, the Wogglebug's always been a bit of a dickhead, so he's not that out-of-character, but I'd argure that he's even more of a dickhead here. He argues that a person's geneaology is what makes them important, which is ironic since, as Mari Ness points out in her Royal Book review, he's literally a giant insect.

The Tin Woodman: Nick's a minor character here, but there's this one bit where the Wogglebug is asking everyone about their family trees and the Tin Woodman says that he no longer associates with his meat family. It's probably a coincidence that Nick was poor, and came from a poor family, before he became Emperor of the Winkies, but still...

Also, the Wogglebug insults the Scarecrow, who later disappears, and Nick doesn't give a damn. This is his closest friend, who he clearly loves, by the way. Though tbf with the way the Scarecrow is characterised I'm not sure I can blame him.

The other Americans who moved to Oz: Don't appear here because Thompson hates any character who isn't a part of the aristocracy.

Rant no. 4: This matters.

This matters because the previous Oz books had themes of acceptence, and that you should treat other people well, even if they're different than you. Baum definitely fumbled with this in his books (shoutout to Victor the phonograph, you deserved better), but its still mostly a consistent message.

However, the message is altered here. Now, instead of "queerness doesn't matter, so long as they're friends", it's "queerness doesn't matter, unless you're poor and/or not white, then fuck you I guess." And I know people are going to read this and point out that Baum was himself racist, and that his racism bled into his books, and those people are right! We absolutely should criticise Baum's racism! But - and I'm not an expert in 1900's American racism so feel free to disagree - Baum's Oz was never as racist as Thompson's Oz.

Keep in mind that Royal Book isn't the only example of Thompson's racism. There's a later Thompson book which literally frames slaves revolting as the bad guys. Say what you will about Baum, but at least he depicted slavery as the evil that it is.

It also just sucks to see the Scarecrow being so racist, since he's one of my favourite Oz characters. I like him in Baum's books, but I hate him in this one :(

Anyway, this turned out a lot longer than I thought it would. This post was meant to be just a few bullet points but it turned into a mini essay. Turns out I had a lot more to say than I thought.

[creature-wizard]

Imagine clinging to the Wizarding World franchise despite knowing what an antisemitic, racist, transphobic person its creator is, when y'all could be crowdsourcing your own magical world that isn't complete dogshit right here and right now. People conjured Goncharov out of thin air; you people could bring your own magical world to life if you were willing to put in an ounce of effort.

[the-patchwork-girl-of-oz]

Wicked the musical from Dorothy’s pov:

My tiny teenage robot babysitter is yelling at my teenage scarecrow babysitter’s colorful girlfriend for turning him into a robot and she wants to kill me because I accidentally killed her sister with my house and I have no idea how they got together because she’s obviously in love with the sparkly fairy and he wants to date the tiny robot boy and everyone is missing organs and this drama is too much for my little 12 year old mind aunty Em please come pick me up.😭

[rjalker]

make sure you block creature-wizard. now trying to gloss over the fact that Kamala Harris supports genocide by ~focusing on the positive things she's done~.

Sarcasm: Diversity win!!!! The genocidaire the white supremacists are going to harass you to vote for is a Black Woman!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This will totally justify all the people being killed in genocide and all the minorities whose identities and oppression are being weaponized to guilt other people into supporting genocide!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[mrstellmeafuckingsecret]

mary envying dorcas because she's so comfortable about her ethnicity, she's so well versed in her culture, so fluent in her language. she has so many friends who are people of colour, she isn't scared of falling into stereotypes, she embraces her skin colour - she's simply who she is, without fear of judgement.

dorcas envying mary because she's so comfortable in her skin, she doesn't feel the need to be the Black girl doesn't have the need to prove herself as Black enough, she's a person before she's a person of colour, she isn't scared of judgement - she's simply who she is without fear of not belonging.

[just-in-cays]

.

[blorger]

Two households, both alike in dignity, from ancient grudge break into new mutiny

If we didn't know for a fact that Lucius loves his mean smokeshow of a wife and that Arthur is forever doomed to a sad life of heteropessimism with Molly and their ginger horde I'd say we were looking at the love story of the century.

Seriously, their relationship has everything: a fraught history (have the Malfoys and the Weasleys been feuding since time immemorial or did Lucius and Arthur start this delightful rivalry ex novo?), banter, "he was rapidly becoming obsessed with Draco Malfoy"-levels of mutual curiosity... this is Drarry on steroids, people, well and truly.

Let us mourn this great ship that never was by taking a leisurely stroll through canon and observing the many delightful interactions of Messrs. Malfoy and Weasley:

(PS, Draco is introduced as Lucius's son)

Our introduction to sweet Lucius comes by way of Arthur, because of course he rants about the Malfoys and their slippery ways to his unsuspecting children frequently enough for them to absorb his Anti-Malfoy views.

(CoS, Lucius is getting rid of some slightly cursed objects)

Lucius takes time out of his busy day to make sure notoriously shady Knockturn alley shopkeeper mr Borgin is forewarned about the awfulness of one mr Arthur Weasley, completely unprompted.

(CoS, Arthur is glad to hear tidings of his Nemesis)

Keep it in your pants Arthur, you just lost a child via floo, maybe focus on him for a while (spoiler alert: he doesn't).

(CoS, the Flourish and Blotts kerfuffle, also the preamble to the Great Diary Switcharoo of '92)

Draco obviously subscribes to the Lucius Malfoy School of Pigtail-Pulling. Here we can see the master at play; carefully observe how just a couple of sentences are enough to drive a good man to insanity (read: public fistfight in front of one's children).

(CoS, Lucius makes the news )

Lucius would like everyone to focus their attention on how bad bad Arthur Weasley really is, who cares about a stupid flying car.

(GoF, a fateful meeting on the stands of the quidditch world cup)

the "said softly" really gets to me. Lucius honestly thinks the Weasleys live a shameful life of poverty in a ramshackle hovel. I bet you he wasn't even meaning to roast him (too much), that's how surprised he was to see him there.

(GoF, Lucius is letting loose with some light hate crimes, he's not exactly being discreet )

I'd rather die than Iet my children know my kinks this well. Everyone knows what Arthur's n1 dream is, god, do you think he asks Molly to roleplay as Lucius when they play catch the criminal?

(OotP, meet-cute at the ministry)

Come on Lucius, as if you don't know exactly where his office is, who he works with and what color socks he's currently wearing.

Too bad this is their last interaction, though it's as the saying goes: 'tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

RIP in peace Arthucius, you were too good for this world.

[maxdibert]

Another reason why blood purity is different from racism, is because it can go both ways, with a similar "power structure".

Muggles can be prejudiced against wizards (as we see with how the Dursleys treat Harry) and in this context, they are the oppressors of magical children.

But in the magic world, wizards are the ones who can be prejudiced against muggles, and they would be the oppressors.

That isn't true with racism. If, for example, we live in a country where white people hold most of the power, other races aren't able to "oppress them back".

And honestly, there are reasons why wizards should be afraid of muggles (witch hunts), just as the other way around (magic is unknown and can be dangerous). Both groups can be a threat to one another, so it's not a case of "one is the oppressor and the other is the oppressed".

Yeah i mean i totally agree and that's one of the reasons i see blood supremacy more like a typical european nacionalist groups like those who claim independence from their countries than racism. I mean when it comes to racism in the real world, the key difference lies in the fact that power structures are historical and systemic. White supremacy, for example, isn't just individual prejudice but a system that has been built and maintained over centuries. This system affects racialized people in a structural way, through laws, policies, and social practices that perpetuate inequality.

Racism, then, isn't just about mutual prejudice but about who has the power to set the rules of the game. Oppressed communities may have prejudices, yes, but they lack the institutional power to impose those beliefs widely, as white communities have historically done in many countries.

Regarding the fear between Muggles and wizards, yes, there is a mutual threat component, but in racism, fear has been used as a tool to justify oppression. The "fears" toward other races have been constructed and fed to maintain an unequal social order, whereas in the Harry Potter world, both sides have had more tangible reasons to fear each other, although that doesn't justify discrimination.

[thatfeyboy]

I'm so tired of seeing people trying to name check the Perfect Privileged Person to beat on. Just grabbing terms in a vacuum to make a guy that's the most punchable possible. Do any of you even care about the harm that does? Conflating rape, misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. with a caricature exclusively made from unchanging external traits? I'm not seeing anyone support saying anything like "women are scum" for TERFs and RFs existing, but add white to it or cis and I'm sure you are only punching up now. You can't just decide a skin tone, gender, or orientation is good or bad and then yell at that group and expect anything good to come of it. I'm sure saying "white racist" or "male misogynist" or "female sexists/classist" is just too hard and saying straight men or white people or whatever TOTALLY gets the point across better and doesn't collaterally damage the fuck out of trust between people and communities. I'm sure none of those people you lump together have systemic problems or face bigotry; very based.

[aquadestinyswriting]

A Stand on Holy Ground

Genre - High Fantasy, drama

Themes: friendship, fantasy politics, fantasy racism/xenophobia/bigotry

Warnings: fantasy racism/xenophobia/bigotry, likely a bunch of swearing, fantasy violence, blood mentions

Stage - In Progress

Pov - Third Person

Synopsis

Selene has been watching the rising tide of violence against the dwarven community within Toreguarde from her tower, and is not best pleased about it. When it becomes clear that the gang responsible for most of this violence, the notorious Brotherhood of Cleaving, is being bankrolled by someone on the Council, she tries to step in to help as many people as she can; starting with her close friend and ex-adventuring partner, Egrim Shiverstaff.

Author's Note

Please note that this whole WIP is based on events that took place in a Dungeons and Dragons 3rd edition campaign, Destiny's New Servants, which was played between 2015 and 2018. That is all.

Chapters

Chapter 1

[alpaca-clouds]

DnD's World Problem - It's a bit of a waste

Okay, let me talk about the main world of DnD: Toril. And about the thing that it mostly gets reduced to Faerûn - which is in fact a continent - and specifically the Sword Coast, so the western coast of Faerûn.

And that is exactly what I want to talk about: There is an entire world there - but DnD has barely done anything with it in 4th edition and nothing with it in 5th edition. And I absolutely understand why, but I also think that ignoring these parts of the world is not the best way to go about it.

A World filled with Clichés

Now, anyone who knows a bit about the worldbuilding of DnD, will be able to tell you that this worldbuilding is not exactly creatives in the regard of the different continents. We basically have the following:

Faerûn = Fantasy-Europe

Anchorome = Fantasy-North America

Maztika = Fantasy-Meso America

Katashaka = Fantasy-Africa

Zakhara = Fantasy-Arabia

Kara-Tur = Fantasy-Asia (let's face it: Mostly Fantasy-China and Fantasy-Japan)

Osse = Fantasy-Australia

Faerûn has a lot more worldbuilding to it than any of the other continents. More than that: Faerûn is the one continent that is not based mostly on (racist) clichés of some non-white culture. Duh. Because Faerûn is obviously the European part of the world, and the mostly white people constructing this world were able to imagine a "European world" with a lot more details than they were able to imagine any non-white fantasy world.

And let's make this pretty darn clear: These other continents are not only fairly loose in terms of worldbuilding - a lot of it really is just "this is Fantasy-China, so just... uhm, imagine China but as fantasy!!!" Anchorome and Osse are probably the parts of the world that are most underdeveloped, with nearly no information available that goes past "Oh, this is pre-columbian North America with tribes living on the land" and "Yeah, Australia, uhm, yeah, that's it!"

And yes, this is very much "these parts of the world as imagined by white people in the 90s", as the 80s and 90s were the time when most of this was being created. And yes, that means all the problematic stuff that you imagine now about it... Yeah, that's true.

Let me tell you...

Racist Stereotypes

Okay, fellow white person. When I say "Africa", what do you imagine? I will take a guess: Savana, animals like lions and elephants, people living in mud huts and dressing in like, animal pelts or something. The typical racist "Africa is a country" thing that we saw in a lot of media and still see today, even though recently it has gotten a bit better with some own voices getting to create this media.

Meanwhile Kara-Tur is basically the boiled down version of the China and Japan popularized in Western Kung Fu movies - with maybe a bit of the Jackie Chan stuff thrown into it. It is really just the kind of western stuff, that if you grew up with Marvel comics for example you can find there, too.

Like, Katashaka is basically that Africa that some of the older Black Panther stuff displayed. And Kara-Tur is the kind of Asia that once upon a time Dr. Strange travelled to - and that the Mandarin came from. Like, it really is that bad.

Which probably is why they have not used any of these settings outside of Faerûn since 2000 with very few exceptions. Because by now people actually interacting with this, would rightfully call them out for the racism in it.

So, basically what they are doing right now is, to just act as if those settings do not exist. But... I actually do think that is in a way a bad thing for several reasons.

First and foremost it is obviously a bit iffy that the world got now reduced onto only the "European" part of the world. And sure, Faerûn is supposed to be quite diverse ethnically diverse, but that does not change the fact that it is "medieval Europe, with some Rennaissance stuff thrown in" for the most part.

Because it basically also implies that any non-white cultures are... unimportant for the world.

WotC, take a page out of Marvel's book

Okay, so, what should WotC/Hasbro do, if they actually cared about the franchise (which they clearly do not do, but that's beside the point)?

Well, simple: Do, what Marvel at some point did.

There is a reason I took the Marvel stuff as a reference above, because Marvel at some point realized that what they had done in the way they depicted basically anything that was not mainstream western culture was not okay. So... They hired people from the respective cultures to write about these non-western cultures, do the art and so on.

With all the criticism I have on the MCU, this did show there as well. With Black Panther being the most obvious example of course. A movie that went ahead to actually honor and even celebrate different African cultures.

And... well, DnD could do the same thing. It could not only help to actually worldbuild the entire world of Toril some more, but it also would create super interesting campaign settings for it as well.

Because I could absolutely imagine some interesting campaigns that could take place within an Africa-inspired setting, or some Indigenous-American-inspired setting. That could be very, very fun to play in, if the cultures were created by people from the real-world equivalent of those cultures.

And yes, this brings us back to the issue of: "For fuck's sake, let's just do a bit more with the lore?! Please!"

*sighs* Of course I know that this will probably not happen under Hasbro, because Hasbro mostly thinks about how to implement micro transactions into DnD... Yeah...

[zenosanalytic]

Nations Symbols Theft

For reasons too nerdy to contemplate or explain(the Leagues of Votann, super-heavy warmachines, and the Imperium of Man), I found myself thinking about narratives where non-human fantasy-persons create some wondrously enchanted artifact only for some human/god(and sometimes Wizard) to steal it, and of course that led me to the awful way Rowling resolved the Griphook & the Sword of Gryffindor situation, and THAT led me to realizing something about the "magical races" in the Harry Potter books which makes said series even worse(tho: I havent read the books in ages so maybe Im misremembering).

What are Griphook's three main complaints to Harry?

Goblins, and ALL ~magical races~ for that matter, don't get a vote in the Wizengamot even tho they're subject to wizard-law

Wizards have no respect for Goblin ownership claims, and as a result are constantly stealing their shit

Goblins, and ALL ~magical races~ for that matter, are LEGALLY BARRED from owning, operating, being taught HOW to operate, or KNOWING how to operate, Wands, which drastically improve one's access to and use of magic(and thus are also symbols of membership in ~The Wizarding World~ which Goblins etc etc MUST live in or be summarily executed or imprisoned by Wizards)

As always, from the moment I first read the Griphook storyline and how Rowling "resolved" it to every time I've ever thought of it since, I was struck by how much this all Sucked Horrendously, but then it ALSO struck me that this is a BRITISH Book. That Rowling was and is Proudly British.

And then I thought, well, the Wizards in Harry Potter aren't even analogies for Brits they're just literally(according to English/British-chauvinists: the Irish, obvsl, disagree Quite Strongly on this issue) British, so who, in the real world, might the ~magical races~ -- always "complaining" about how the Wizards(British) stole their land, and stole their cultural artifacts, and won't give either back; enslaved them, forced them into certain jobs and certain places and certain ways of life no matter what THEY Themselves wanted or are qualified to do; are always being grossly, insultingly, self-satisfiedly, ignorantly condescending to them; hold them subject to Wizard(British) law but give them no say in how those laws are made, force them INTO Wizard(British) society but never ACCEPT them as fellow Wizards(British) -- analogize?

The Goblins in Harry Potter, and ALL the ~magical races~ for that matter, are the Colonized. Rowling wrote them as the Colonized, and Rowling Wrote Them siding with the Fucking Nazis.