A supremacist tale

Ah, Michigan weather. As I prepare to drive south tomorrow the weather forecast says an inch of snow overnight and another 3-8 inches during the day.

Which is why I chose a motel for tomorrow that will allow me to cancel that day. Alas, that means I’ll have to do the drive to Nashville all in one day and probably miss the opening reception of the conference. I suppose I could adjust that hotel reservation too, though I’d have to do that today.



I’ve been reading the Harry Potter series of books by J. K. Rowling. I saw the movies when they came out and bought the whole set of books once the 7th was published, but I’m only now reading them. I’ve enjoyed the series. Rowling has constructed a complete story setting. For example, the students are told it is time to consider a career and Rowling lists several career choices.

I finished the fifth book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. This is the longest at 870 pages. It took me three weeks to read, but I didn’t feel the story got bogged down. Rather, I appreciate the detail of the constructed world.

The whole series is a struggle against supremacy. Voldemort is a supremacist, wanting absolute power. He has gathered followers who want a supremacist leader and the supremacy he represents. Many of those are wizards who come from a long line of wizards and look down on colleagues who are of mixed muggle (non-wizard) and wizard parentage and even more on those who have wizarding powers yet have muggle parents.

Yeah, very much like the one-drop laws that used to deny full citizenship to Americans with mixed race ancestry.

At the end of the fourth book Harry battled Voldemort and lived to tell about it. Dumbledore, headmaster of the Hogwarts school of wizardry, warned the wizarding community that Voldemort is regaining his powers after a big defeat when Harry was an infant.

At the start of the fifth book the Ministry of Magic is refusing to acknowledge Voldemort is back. It is that act of supremacy, and not so much Harry’s battle with Voldemort, that this book is about.

Over the summer break both Dumbledore and Harry are mentioned in disparaging terms in the wizarding newspaper. The Ministry installs their own person, Professor Umbrage, at Hogwarts and soon gives her quite a few powers, even calling her the Inquisitor. She is the Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor, but refuses to actually teach the subject – no one should need to defend themselves against Voldemort. She punishes Harry because he won’t uphold the Ministry’s lies. She fires other professors who don’t sufficiently toe the party line.

Yeah, she is describing the nasty guy and his administration about 15 years before he came to power. Gosh, one wouldn’t think the actions of supremacists would be so predictable.

Harry and fellow students do manage some resistance. They hold clandestine sessions in which Harry teaches what he knows about Defense Against the Dark Arts. And Harry, who has battled Voldemort, knows quite a bit on the subject.

There is one aspect of these stories that has become annoying. Rowling routinely describes the bad guys with unfavorable physical attributes. Umbrage is described as having the mouth of a toad. Professor Snape, whose allegiance is questioned and always gives Harry a hard time, is described as having greasy hair. The school House full of the children of supremacists is named Slytherin, taken from the way a snake slithers – a snake is the House symbol. I’ve been around long enough to know a lack of physical beauty is not a sign of evil. Depictions like this harm people who came in low in the DNA jackpot. It also allows society to dismiss the misdeeds and crimes of the physically beautiful.

As I read the prior books I could recall some scenes from the corresponding movies, even though I had seen them more than ten years ago. But this one did not bring the movie to mind except for the climactic battle. Hmm.

Interesting … my document editor’s dictionary includes “Voldemort” though it doesn’t include “Slytherin.”