Slytherin and assimilation

Given what I write, it might surprise a lot of people to discover that my chosen Harry Potter house is Slytherin. In fact, I identify very heavily with Slytherin and it’s concepts and I have a tattoo of a Slytherin crest.

I will admit fully that the concept of ambition, determination, and using any means necessary to achieve your ends are more of what I identify with than blood purity theories. Those qualities were far more important to Salazaar Slytherin than pure blood.

However, when it comes to Salazaar’s inclination towards teaching wizards that came from “pure blood” families, in some ways I am supportive of that effort, not because of a belief in the inherent supremacy of people of pure blood, but because I’m overwhelmingly anti-assimilation.

How magic would have been taught

The first thing I should clarify is that I am coming at this from a completely American standpoint. JKR has made it abundantly clear on multiple occasions that there are stark and obvious comparisons between pure blood supremacy and Nazi ideology, which is something I do not support under any circumstances.

My own individual experience within America of several different things creates a bit of a different context in how I view Salazaar’s choice of who to teach at Hogwarts. Some of this is postulation on my part and JKR could come by and tell me I’m silly for saying so, but I’d like to frame the thought process within a bit of context.

If we think about the history of the wizarding world and consider how institutions like the Minstry of Magic and other huge strengths and protections of wizarding culture formed, we can logically conclude that magical culture and learning began and was mostly propagated through families which had a larger amount of magical relatives than muggle, or what they would call “pureblood families”.

While Rowling says that witch burnings and trials didn’t affect a lot of wizards, I would argue that it not only created at atmosphere where wizards felt unsafe but also that witches and wizards born in muggle families that demonstrated powers without the education and understanding of how to command them (such as the many times when Harry causes funny things to happen around Dudley) were particularly at risk and probably quite often killed before they were able to understand some of the ways their magic could have protected them.

Whether “real” witches or wizards actually died in abundance during those times is irrelevant. Just as it doesn’t matter if Voldemort’s out actually killing muggles or causing any real havoc, the presence of the Dark Mark and his return creates an environment of instability. As a result, I believe magical families were the only safe places for witches and wizards for a very long time, and an isolation from the muggle world resulted in the creation of a separate culture that witches and wizards experienced most often within families and networks of other families.

The formation of the ‘wizarding world’

Eventually, they formed enough and learned enough to create alternative spaces like Diagon Alley, institutions like the Ministry of Magic, their own money, their own way of existing outside of the muggle world to not only encourage their own safety, but create a world they could live in functionally without fear.

This context is incredibly important because essentially this means that witches and wizards have been and are in a vulnerable place, that their culture and way of life was created and sustained due to their need to survive in a muggle world that threatened to murder them for who they are. Part of the reason for the emphasis on magical families and keeping magic within those families is not ALWAYS some ignorant fascination with “pure blood”, but during the time of Salazaar Slytherin and others, was one of the only ways of survival and forming a bond with a community.

Because wizards have magical powers, it might be difficult for people to see them as an underprivileged group in comparison to muggles and that may be because some of the more sinister examples of muggle cruelty aren’t really explored within the Harry Potter novels (mostly because it would detract from the story of Harry and Voldemort). Vernon and Petunia Dursley are just the tip of an iceberg of the potential destruction of the wizarding world and culture, should muggles become fully aware of their existence.

‘Witch-hunting’ in modern America

The reason I mention my status as American is because Christianity within American culture plays a very different role than it does within UK culture. My personal experience, as someone who did once identify as a “witch” and told other people, is that a great many people are far worse than the Dursleys when it comes to “funny stuff”. I’ve experienced teasing, bullying, and isolation for being public about my status as a witch.

I was told by my own teacher in middle school that I needed to stop “prancing around” school with my “fake religion” or she would “report me to the authorities” for “spreading witchcraft”. When I lived with Christian conservatives, I had all of my religious effects taken from me (my wand, my cauldron, my books, my herbs), and I was forced to go to church and I was frequently told that witchcraft was the devil’s work.

In fact, I was forbidden from reading, watching, listening to, or seeing anything that had anything to do with magic (including Harry Potter), fantasy, or anything that could be remotely construed that way.

I was only allowed to read Lord of the Rings and Chronicles of Narnia because of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis’ Christian leanings. While I think it is great that the UK has, in my experience, seem to be less of a horribly discriminating place for pagans, my experience has taught me that people fear that which is different than them. If this was how I treated when people thought I just believed I could perform magic, imagine what would have happened to me if I actually could?

Modern muggles and danger

An AK-47 shoots faster than you can say “Avada Kadavra”. And the world is no less safer in modern times for the wizarding world than it was in Salazaar’s day. In fact, it is less safe. I do not believe for a second that, if given the opportunity and the means, muggles would employ any number of their powerful non-magical abilities to, at the very best, destroy the wizarding world, or at the worst, capture and keep wizards and witches for experimentation to see how their magic could be utilised to win wars and gain valuable resources.

Even if I’m just being pessimistic, muggles represent a significant threat to wizarding world and culture — a culture which only survived due the existence of families made up of magical people and their ability to form networks within a world that threatened their survival. If you think Draco and a few Death Eaters caused a world of hurt with a Vanishing Cabinet, imagine what a wizard with allegiances to the muggle world could do with that same Vanishing Cabinet and a legion of armed soldiers**. Maybe it’s because I’m Slytherin that I see such a clear opportunity for exploitation and power to occur. And all it would take is one individual who wants the right things.

The importance of blood

The American experience I have also frames the issue of “pure blood”. While I think that the concept of purity is ridiculous, I am not going to say that blood doesn’t matter at all. America often encourages it’s own citizens to focus on where they come from as an integral part of who they are, which is incredibly cruel when you consider that a decent number of Americans come from slaves and indigenous people who were robbed of their names, their languages, and their heritage via white supremacy.

It’s easy to think that heritage and blood don’t matter when you don’t see the apparent threat of it’s extinction. But your blood is your heritage. It’s part of who you are just as much as your traits are.

But quantifying blood isn’t useful or helpful. One of the reasons why I’m against the concept of “blood purity” is not only because it’s ridiculous but because blood quantums may be the reason indigenous cultures may one day be defined out of existence:

Cherokee demographer Russell Thorton estimates that, given continued imposition of purely racial definitions, Native America as a whole will have disappeared by the year 2080. — A. Dirlik, Contemporary Native American Issues

Blood quantums and restrictions create problems. When tribes can’t be recognised by governments as an identity, it makes it difficult for their lands and their spaces to be respected. Defining things in terms of “blood purity” has no significance within the greater aims of maintaining wizarding culture, which is what I see as a valuable goal.

While in the past, blood status made it more likely that someone would probably not betray secrets to muggle communities or betray small wizarding communities, I don’t believe that actually holds true within larger contexts. While blood is important and maintaining a culture is important, we shouldn’t assume that the two are synonymous. Having the blood doesn’t make you part of that culture. Indigenous blood does not automatically give anyone an understanding of indigenous ways.

The preservation of wizarding culture

When Hogwarts was forming and Salazaar had his theories in the 10th Century, there likely existed a far greater opposition to witchcraft than there is in modern day Britain. Yet still, while there is a large amount of acceptance now for other religions, muggles now have tactical, trained armies, nuclear and automatic weapons, and a world that is running out of resources where magic would create not only a large amount of solutions for problems, but significant military advantages for whomever could access and utilise it’s power.

Within that context, I do not think that establishing a school only for people who have grown up and value wizarding culture is at all a bad thing. Surely, that’s the point and purpose of the International Statue of Secrecy. While I may not be as archaic as Salazaar in believing that an allegiance to wizarding culture always exists in the form of “pure blood”, I don’t think there is anything wrong with wanting to maintain wizarding culture separate from muggles and to be against assimilation.

The assumption that being from a pureblood family meant something about how well you performed magic made a lot more sense before schools like Hogwarts were formed and before there was a structure from which all wizards and witches could learn and grow their magical talents from.

Overwhelmingly, I identify with Slytherin because of it’s focus on ambition and determination, which have always won out against any “pure blood” preferences Salazaar had. That said, I am not necessarily against creating and maintaining a school only for individuals who have been raised within magical cultures in order to maintain it’s survival. And that would include people like Filch (squibs) who were raised within the wizarding world, but can’t practice magic.

‘Pure blood’ ideologies in the real world

Now, all of this is said with a huge caveat. I’ve framed this within the context of my own experience and I’m in no way saying there is a direct comparison to be made between people like the Malfoys and indigenous cultures facing threats to their sacred spaces and lands. All of this is really contingent upon a world I haven’t built and JKR could just pop by and go, “No, actually. Salazaar was just an old, crabby, privileged, ignorant arse” and that would be it.

And I realise that within the story of Harry Potter, more often than not, people from the Slytherin house are either inundated with ridiculous concepts of “purity” and superiority, such as the case with the Malfoys, or politely but nevertheless ignorantly mistaken about the connections between blood and magic ability, such as the case with Horace Slughorn. And this might just be a way of me legitimising my own like for Slytherin and trying to turn a “pure blood” concept into something far more palatable for my own moral compass.

In the end, if I could choose what students to teach at Hogwarts, the trait I would admire the most in individuals is, when they have opportunity and privilege to do so, they confront what they feel is wrong, despite protests from others. And while that seems admirable, it could apply to Hermoine Granger protesting for S.P.E.W. just as easily as it could Fred Phelps from the Westboro Baptist Church.

Is ambition more accessible?

Each of the House’s traits can be applied in a positive or negative way. Aren’t Percy and Wormtail are just as brave for going against their friends, their family, against Dumbledore, and against their entire support systems to support Fudge/Voldemort as Neville is for objecting to his fellow housemates’ rule breaking?

Intelligence as a value seems benevolent and admirable when placed behind the stoic figure of Luna Lovegood, but let’s remember that intelligence is often based on cultural understandings and shared information values and that a great many people who have learning disabilities may not be considered “intelligent”, but are nevertheless worthwhile.

Having the ambition to achieve your ends to whatever means completely depends on what your ends are. I don’t believe that power corrupts, but that corrupt people more frequently seek power. While I have a lot of ambition to achieve my own ends, if my end includes my own dignity, there are means and methods that are not inclusive of achieving my end.

And who gets to decide the value of hard work and how often has that framework been used to others’ disadvantage (although Helga Hufflepuff was the only one who wanted to teach anyone who wanted to come to Hogwarts)? My hope is to encourage people to think about these values in differing ways and to consider what one of my least favourite characters of all time*** has said:

“If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.” — Sirius Black

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** Coincidentally, if you think about it, should a muggle army find itself within the doors of Hogwarts in an attempt to capture the children to either cut off the next generation of wizards or to use them as highly valuable hostages, all of the teachers and students would find it very difficult to take on an entire army if caught completely unawares. Luckily, among it’s various defenses, should all of those fail, there was one weapon that would prove particularly successful against an invading muggle army. It’s a weapon that would catch muggles off guard, a weapon they would never expect, a weapon that would easily overpower them, and a weapon that people within the magical world would know about that, unlike some of the other defenses (trolls, dogs, statues that move) wouldn’t hurt magical people and would be something magical people could know how to defend against. That weapon is the Basilisk. I don’t know if JKR actually intended any of this but it’s quite an interesting state of affairs.

*** That’s awfully rich coming from Sirius Black, who couldn’t manage to treat his equals (Snape) or his inferiors (Kreacher) with any manner of dignity. But I guess even a broken clock is right two times a day.