One of my favorite contemporary stories of witches and
werewolves is from the Harry Potter series. These witches and wizards were a
hidden society that maintained protection and ignorance between magical and
human worlds; therefore, the witches and wizards were not scorned or hunted as
detailed in Palmer’s Culture of Darkness
Witches chapter. The Harry Potter series shows a class distinction Palmer wrote
about in his Blood, Bread, and Blasphemy chapter, but the roles have been
reversed. The pure blood witches and wizards are in power, the muggle (or
human) born witches and wizards are thought to be of less value, and the humans
are equated to Palmer’s peasants with little or no value to the magical world, There
was an instance in the sixth book, where the human Prime Minister met the
magical minister and the human Prime Minister reflected that he was uneasy and frightened
by the magical minister. The magical minister explains the war happening in the
magical world and then starts ordering the Prime Minister to do certain tasks
to maintain calmness in the human world. This interaction displayed a clear
distinction between witches and humans, similar to the class difference between
rich/clergy and peasants. Throughout the series multiple characters are berated
for being muggle-born, or human-born. The term “mudblood” was introduced in the
second book as a horrible slang term to call a muggle-born witch or wizard. On
the other hand, the pure-blood witches and wizards are held with high regard
and have seats in the magical government. There was no widely known muggle-born
in the government depicted throughout the series. The Harry Potter series has
more examples of the role reversal in class differences when thinking of
witches and wizards compared to humans.
I think it's distinctive that the Harry Potter universe chose to create those "classes" within the magical community. Historically, the moral panic around witches mostly was to scapegoat them all together into one group, and there wasn't really any discussion or creation of a hierarchy within that community. I think the magical classes in Harry Potter reflect the modern/contemporary motivation of the witch stereotype which is to serve as a larger metaphor for various marginalized groups, as well as social commentary. The muggleborn witches and wizards can be seen as either a race or wealth metaphor instead of focusing on the danger of the powers of magic. This to me is the major shift of the use of the witch archetype in the contemporary period.
ReplyDeleteThe books, especially the final book, make the scapegoating extremely specific. Instead of the Church, there is pure-blood rule, and the "non-pure" witches are put on trial, where they are assumed guilty unless proven innocent, and they are accused of stealing their magic from a source outside of themselves - in this case a pure-blood wizard. I find it interesting that the witches are put on trial for the same reason as in church-led inquisitions, but mirrored; The criminal act is stealing in one instance and in the other receiving willingly.
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