Subject: "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them"
Author:
Posted on: 2016-03-11 15:34:00 UTC
"Nowhere, because MACUSA has systematically exterminated them! Let's all get drunk!"
--My prediction for the film's (lack of) plot.
hS
...
1920s Wizarding America
By J.K. Rowling
The wizards of America had played their part in the Great War of 1914-1918, even if the overwhelming majority of their No-Maj compatriots were ignorant of their contribution. As there were magical factions on both sides, their efforts were not decisive, but they won many victories in preventing additional loss of life, and in defeating their magical enemies.
This common endeavour led to no softening on MACUSA’s stance on No-Maj/wizard fraternisation, and Rappaport’s Law remained firmly in place. By the 1920s the US wizarding community had become used to existing under a greater degree of secrecy than their European counterparts and to selecting their mates strictly from within their own ranks.
The memory of Dorcus Twelvetrees' catastrophic breach of the Statute of Secrecy had entered magical language, so that being ‘a Dorcus’ was slang for an idiot or inept person. MACUSA continued to impose severe penalties on those who flouted the International Statute of Secrecy. MACUSA was also more intolerant of such magical phenomena as ghosts, poltergeists and fantastic creatures than its European equivalents, because of the risk such beasts and spirits posed of alerting No-Majs to the existence of magic.
After the Great Sasquatch Rebellion of 1892 (for full details, see Ortiz O’Flaherty’s highly-acclaimed book Big Foot’s Last Stand), MACUSA headquarters was relocated for the fifth time in its history, moving from Washington to New York, where it remained throughout the 1920s. President of MACUSA throughout the decade was Madam Seraphina Picquery, a famously gifted witch from Savannah.
By the 1920s Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry had been flourishing for more than two centuries and was widely considered to be one of the greatest magical education establishments in the world. In consequence of their common education, all witches and wizards are proficient in the use of a wand.
Legislation introduced at the end of the nineteenth century meant that every member of the magical community in America was required to carry a ‘wand permit’, a measure that was intended to keep tabs on all magical activity and identify the perpetrators by their wands. Unlike Britain, where Ollivanders was considered unbeatable, the continent of North America was served by four great wandmakers.
Shikoba Wolfe, who was of Chocktaw descent, was primarily famous for intricately carved wands containing Thunderbird tail feathers (the Thunderbird is a magical American bird closely related to the phoenix). Wolfe wands were generally held to be extremely powerful, though difficult to master. They were particular prized by Transfigurers.
Johannes Jonker, a Muggle-born wizard whose No-Maj father was an accomplished cabinet maker, turned himself into an accomplished wandmaker. His wands were highly sought after and instantly recognisable, as they were usually inlaid with mother-of-pearl. After experimenting with many cores, Jonker’s preferred magical material was hair of the Wampus cat.
Thiago Quintana caused ripples through the magical world when his sleek and usually lengthy wands began entering the market, each encasing a single translucent spine from the back of the White River Monsters of Arkansas and producing spells of force and elegance. Fears about over-fishing of the monsters were assuaged when it was proven that Quintana alone knew the secret of luring them, a secret he guarded jealously until his death, at which point wands containing White River Monster spines ceased production.
Violetta Beauvais, the famous wandmaker of New Orleans, refused for many years to divulge the secret core of her wands, which were always made of swamp mayhaw wood. Eventually it was discovered that they contained hair of the rougarou, the dangerous dog-headed monster that prowled Louisiana swamps. It was often said of Beauvais wands that they took to Dark magic like vampires to blood, yet many an American wizarding hero of the 1920s went into battle armed only with a Beauvais wand, and President Picquery herself was known to possess one.
Unlike the No-Maj community of the 1920s, MACUSA allowed witches and wizards to drink alcohol. Many critics of this policy pointed out that it made witches and wizards rather conspicuous in cities full of sober No-Majs. However, in one of her rare light-hearted moments, President Picquery was heard to say that being a wizard in America was already hard enough. ‘The Gigglewater’, as she famously told her Chief of Staff, ‘is non-negotiable.’
Looks like we have to wait until November to get information on Ilvermorny. Then again, leving it in the Roaring '20s is a good point to stop before Fantastic Beasts hit the screens.
This has now thoroughly jossed all those American exchange students who are mysteriously familiar with Muggle society and technology.
I can absolutely see American wizard parents preferring to send their child to Hogwarts instead of Ilvermorny, particularly if their ancestors were British. Given how long-lived wizards seem to be, they might even be relatively recent ancestors.
Not that just anyone can enroll at Hogwarts, of course. When Hagrid says of Harry that "his name's been down ever since he were born," that implies to me that you have to pre-register for a spot somehow. There's sense in this: it's a smallish castle, there's only so much space in the dorms, and there are only so many staff and so many hours for classes in the day. They can't take everyone.
Being familiar with Muggle things does seem right out, though.
~Neshomeh
Check the Pottermore entry "The Quill of Acceptance and the Book of Admittance" for a rundown of how Hogwarts admission works. And, more pertinently for this discussion, how it doesn't. =]
This does open questions about what students who don't get into Hogwarts do. Are they trained at all? Are they declared squibs even if they have a little bit of talent?
That does seem to make things nice and simple.
Except that I'm going to go ahead and attempt to complicate it. {= )
So, like, what if an American and a Brit get together and have kids, and they live in America for several years, but then move to Britain? Supposing the kids were magical enough to be noticed by whatever means right away, what would happen? Would they still have to go to school in America, where they were born, or could they go Hogwarts? Would their names be written down once they entered the Quill and Book's range? (I assume there is a proscribed range?)
This is totally not the backstory of my HP OCs. Nope. Purely a rhetorical question for the sake of discussion.
~Neshomeh
Okay, so, say the range covers all of Great Britain and Ireland (a not unreasonable assumption). The Quill picks up magic from those born in the country. Also a reasonable assumption. What about tourists? The Quill and the Book between them are obviously able to distinguish between British subjects and people who simply happen to be here, otherwise young wizards and witches from anywhere in the world would make the Quill sit up and take notice. Perhaps they do. We don't know.
However, from what Pottermore has given us, I think the Quill is the means of detecting magic and the Book gives context to that magic. If the book is capable of measuring magical strength, then it is capable of measuring other things as well - or at least, ascertaining them. The Quill and the Book seem to be, at heart, a vox dei and vox diaboli; the former looks for reasons why someone can go to Hogwarts, while the latter (befitting its description as a curmudgeon) looks for reasons why they can't. Citizenship of the catchment area is probably one of the things one or both of them should be on the lookout for, as it benefits them not a jot if the child in question is to spend the rest of their days as a wizarding yak herder in Outer Mongolia.
In the completely hypothetical case you describe, it might be possible once the children move and acquire dual citizenship of either the UK or the Republic of Ireland, whichever you prefer is most fitting. =]
Would you care to confirm whether you're okay being in shipfics? I can't actually find you saying anywhere.
(Obviously I have ulterior motives.)
hS
When will it start? It's been more than a week since the other thread was started an it already fell of the first page.
(I totes don't have ulterior motives. =P)
But the story I want to post to start it uses would work much better using Scapegrace. I'm nearly certain she wants to be written about, but can't find explicit confirmation anywhere.
hS
We talked a lot about Wizards/Muggles here, but what about Squibs? Given how wonderful and healthy the environment is in America, I don't think they are treated well...
My own headcanon is that they're obliviated and left to live normal muggle lives.
Which is just another example of how benevolent MACUSA is! Not only do they let these potential betrayers of all that is good live, they also relieve their poor parents of the shame (and expense!) of having a No-Maj child living with them. Can you imagine any way MACUSA could be better than this? I sure can't!
(Please be aware that your answers may be monitored; any statements indicating potential to violate Rapapport's law will be brought to the attention of your local MACUSA branch.)
hS, Giver of True Information, MACUSA
MACUSA is Our Friend. Happiness is Mandatory. Unhappiness is ground for betrayal.
Never doubt MACUSA, or be terminated. Have a nice daycycle.
hS
Dirty Scourers are traitors to Friend MACUSA. Terminate youself as soon as possible. Friend MACUSA wishes you a good daycycle.
Since we’re talking about Harry Potter, I would like to ask about something that popped up on the German Wiki recently.
In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Askaban, chapter 6, "Talons and Tea Leaves", Professor McGonagall transformed herself into a tabby cat in front of her students. Then we get this:
‘Really, what has got into you all today?’ said Professor McGonagall, turning back into herself with a faint pop, and staring around at them all. ‘Not that it matters, but that’s the first time my transformation’s not got applause from a class.’
Does this look to native speakers like Professor McGonagall started to speak while she was still in her cat form?
HG
But to me I think it sounds like she started taking when she transformed back. But I can see it being interpreted the other way.
So the common consensus (between you, me and Nesh) is that McGonagall didn’t speak in her cat form (clearly contradicting Dumledore’s comments in The Tales of Beedle the Bard), but appeared to speak before her transformation back to human had finished (which may be a gray area, but is probably not what JKR intended to say).
HG
Yeah, it reads as though McGonagall speaks while she is in the act of transforming back, which doesn't make much sense. I think J.K.R. probably should have written the passage something like this:
Professor McGonagall turned back into herself with a faint pop. "Really, what has got into you all today?" she said, staring around at them all. "Not that it matters, but that's the first time my transformation's not got applause from a class."
That puts events in the order they happen (which is very important for precisely the reasons shown in this example) and doesn't have her doing things at the same time that she shouldn't.
See also: Ing Disease.
~Neshomeh
Why do writers do this? Because it rolls so sweetly off the tongue?
Since the German equivalent sounds awkward, the translation uses simple past tense, but otherwise keeps the word order. So, JKR messed it up, but the translator drove it even further into the wrong direction. German!McGonagall apparently started to speak even before she began to transform, and that should be impossible.
HG
"Magic in North America" was basically "Hey look white people do more of the same kinds of magic only in a different place". The few times JKR did write about anyone who wasn't white, she alienated and offended basically everyone paying attention who have ties to the communities in question, as the rather sizable twitter- and tumblr-storm following the first two releases show. At the point, I don't know that I'm gonna even bother with her writing anymore, as she clearly has issues writing outside of her comfort zone and, as others have pointed out, has a tendency to just make things up when basic research would show that the opposite is true.
I think a lot of the complaints (and I've just read an actual article about them, so I know what at least some of them are) come from a different perspective than mine on why this exists in the first place. I'd like to address that in two points.
1/ Out-of-universe, what is this? It's a promotional piece for a new film. How much of a hand did JKR have in creating the Fantastic Beasts movie? Wikipedia says she wrote the script; did she also get to choose where it would be set? How the main characters would be cast? Whether it would be action, thriller, drama?
I'm guessing not. I'm guessing that the production team had far more to do with that, dictating what would make it 'a good (ie, profitable) movie'. Which means that the "History" had to end up with a 1920s America in which white people in a white city run an oppressive government (okay, that's still technically speculation) and do the same kind of magic that people want to see in the film. Because that's what's in the film.
Now, this says nothing about all the backstory. She could've written ten thousand words about how the Native Americans use a magic based on the natural environment (sorry, that's offensive) their actual beliefs (no, that is too), well, on whatever it is that she's allowed to comment on (any suggestions?). But:
2/ In-universe, "The History..." is a blatant propaganda piece. MACUSA is so wonderful! They run everything! They've been called that since a hundred years before the name made sense because they're so historical! Segregation is totally a good idea and Dorcus was such a dorcus, it's all her fault! The Demon Headmaster is a wonderful man! All Hail President Pickles - she even has a sense of humour!
This is not an unbiased story. It's predicated on the idea that Europeans are the best people and the government is the best of all possible governments. It gives lip service to the idea that there might be a few people who disagree, but then relentlessly drives home the point that President Pickles is the only True Way for American wizardry.
So yes, it forces Native magic (and it was a serious question for everyone: how could she have written that part that would not have offended everyone?) into the mould of European magic and ignores everything that doesn't fit. It makes zero mention of the massive African magical community brought over by force. It says that the magical segregation was forced on the good guys by the actions of the people they segregated themselves away from. It claims that hunting down family lines, genociding magical species, and Oblivating on a massive scale is a good idea.
And it's blatantly biased, not on JKR's end, but on the end of the unnamed in-universe writer of the piece. This is... it's like reading a Soviet history textbook. Half of the information you get is actually into the mindset of the system that created it, obtained by reading between the lines, not by just reading the words on the pace.
But people are taking it at face-value, and I think that's a real shame.
hS
(And to repeat my question a third time so it doesn't get lost: giving Natives a connection to nature is offensive. Saying they didn't have as high a technology level as Europeans is offensive. Working their genuine beliefs into a story is offensive. Claiming they helped European wizards on the run is offensive. (All from the article I linked to.) So: what should JKR have written that would not be offensive? Because not saying much about them is also offensive...)
(Disclaimer: The following ficlet is entirely speculative, based on what we've seen this week. It's also rendered in British idiom rather than trying to aim for something appropriate, because I do have my limits.)
If you listen to their high-and-mightinesses up in New York, you'd think that they're the centre of American magic - that they encapsulate everything worth knowing about it, and lead an entire continent of witches and wizards.
Merlin's scratty beard they do.
The centre of American magic is right where it's been for three hundred years - down on the mighty Mississippi, in the melting pot where French, English, African and Native magic came together and made something better than all of them. Up in the icy north, the Rap is a way of life that keeps witches cowering in their homes, terrified to do anything that might bring MACUSA down on them. Down here, it's more like a guideline, if you get my drift.
And they know it, too. You should see them when they Apparate down here to buy their wands, all noses in the air and disdainful looks, haughty accents and fancy robes. No, President Pickles, we don't all have magical tailors who make our clothes for us. We're a bit busy doing real magic, not your fancy fakery.
Okay, we're not stupid. We play along when there's northerners in town, hiding away from our neighbours in magical streets that sit empty half the time. But when they're back in their cathedral of magical purity, of course we're gonna help out a neighbour if she needs it. It's a dangerous world, and we should all stick together.
Up in NYC, they call the people around them No-Majs. Like they can talk. Pure-Majs, the lot of them, who haven't cooked their own meals in decades.
And don't get me started on oh-so-wonderful Ilvermorny. I've seen neighbourhood kids go off to their highfalutin' school, but you know what? I don't think I've ever seen one come back.
Says it all, don't it?
Oh, that's brilliant! Here, let me follow up with an addendum of my own:
Darn it, the reason we moved out here in the first place was to get away from the government. We moved across the Rocky Mountains just so that we would have a chance to relax, mingle with our no-maj neighbors, and generally not have the government poking into every bit of our personal lives.
We didn't expect them to move out here too!
Ah well, joke's on them. We still practice our magic, openly and in full view of all our friends and coworkers. We've been flaunting the International Statute of secrecy for years. Our magic has been broadcast over the whole world, and still they are ignorant. We're hiding in plain sight, because everyone knows we practice magic- movie magic.
Everyone knows that you can't ordinarily get what you see on screen in reality. What they don't know is that sometimes you can and do. Sometimes the magic shown on screen is the real deal, and sometimes the effects have been produced by supernatural means. Our magic has allowed directors to go all-out, and make movies truly spectacular. Our magic and their science have woven together to make something amazing.
Really, it's incredible what we can get away with. Sure, we have a bit of a scourer problem, but quite frankly 'wizard' isn't the weirdest thing we've been called. They can call us out on it all they want. It'll just get lost in a sea of rumors about us and everyone else in this business, and when we notice, we and/or our no-maj allies will deal with them (by ruining their creditability, how did you think we'd go about it?).
We even recently helped release a whole movie series depicting the wizarding world, and we're still living mostly unmolested. Well, it helps that it's an adaption of J.K. Rowling's books. That woman is brilliant, telling the whole world about wizards in such a way that if they ever try to stop her, it would simply be evidence for what she says being true.
So if you want to be able to live as you choose, make friends and fall in love with whoever you want, and really make a difference in the world at large, come to Hollywood. Just make sure what you do for the movies can be covered up as special effects and be careful in front of the tourists.
No magical celebrities. Unlike most urban fantasy/urban sci-fi settings (Men in Black, Percy Jackson), there is no chance that any famous figures can be magical in America. If they were, they'd be violating the Rap and would be arrested.
I guess that saves on JKR's research into the period, at least!
hS
I think that the scenario of a magical American celebrity would be possible (not really likely, of course, but still possible), if the MACUSA managed to not get to them until they were already extremely famous. After all, people would notice if a famous person suddenly vanished, and it would likely get way too big to fully cover up.
That's pretty much what happened with J.K. Rowling in this headcanon- the Ministry of Magic didn't notice her until the Harry Potter series was big enough that removing it would lead to people noticing the great big hole where Harry Potter used to be.
Where'd you get the idea for Pure-Majs as a phrase? It's just occurred to me that it's a bit weird we never hear about any pureblood-aimed insults (though not all that weird, considering setting and such) but yeah. Also I like 'the Rap' as slang for Rappaport's Law.
Though I am now a bit worried about the rest of New England... Maybe New York State is basically no one but people who want to stick to the capital for job reasons, and the rest of New England is... wizard-populated, but in little enclaves and no big cities? Like, there's no real wizarding population in Hartford or Boston, maybe? Hm.
And, well, Ilvermorny is definitely an ominous presence. Kinda makes me want to write about some muggleborn kid who gets dragged up there, for better or (more likely) worse...
As a piece to camera by Kevin Spacey in that adaptation of House Of Cards Netflix did. Sterling stuff. =]
I was wanting to wait until the last part before commenting on anything, but it looks like everything I wanted to say has already been said.
...Hmm. And now my brain's coming up with possible plots for Fantastic Beasts.
[POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD]
The official synopsis states thus:
"Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" opens in 1926 as Newt Scamander has just completed a global excursion to find and document an extraordinary array of magical creatures. Arriving in New York for a brief stopover, he might have come and gone without incident… were it not for a No-Maj (American for Muggle) named Jacob, a misplaced magical case, and the escape of some of Newt's fantastic beasts, which could spell trouble for both the wizarding and No-Maj worlds.
Now that we have this new information on the strict 'no-interaction' policy imposed by the government (to which I say I really hope things aren't like that in the present), I'm guessing that Newt & co are going to end up on the run from the law while also trying to round up the beasts before 1) Muggles find them and 2) MACUSA hunts down Newt's rare creatures and kills them to prevent Muggles from finding them.
President Picquery is indeed slated to make an appearance in the movie, so I'm willing to bet Fantastic Beasts is going to have at least some elements of a political drama as well if she has to deal with the escaped creatures crisis.
Since Fantastic Beasts is supposed to be a trilogy, I'm hoping we'll see the eventual desegregation of the magical and nonmagical worlds, especially since this Jacob fellow looks like he's going to be one of the main characters (far right).
And if you can believe it, I think we're being too kind to MACUSA. Take a look at them:
I'm pretty sure that's President Picquery there. And she does not look like a President.
That's not a president's office - that's a throne room doing dual service as a courtroom, and a courtroom in which there is only one person acting as judge and jury. That decor in the background isn't the Classical style America has always preferred for its governmental buildings - it's faux-Gothic, evoking the cathedrals of the Old World. And that's no uniform of office - that's a crown.
She may call herself President, but Picquery is quite clearly Queen and High Priestess of American Magic.
And I am quite convinced that the film(s?) will not show the reformation of MACUSA - they will show its overthrow and fall.
And I am right behind that.
hS
Even if it's set in the 1920's, something about how hilariously malevolent and evil the magical world keeps ending up as is so amusing. I read something about a Last Stand of Bigfoot. Considering how things went for the Goblins in Europe, and the whole 'last stand', I can imagine it went swimmingly.
Thank you for the screen shots, hS. They get across the gist of the tone very well. The 40K jokes aren't too much off with this. I'd like to imagine magical Canada making a bunch of jokes about MACUSA and their dumb name, but I doubt we'd be in a position to do so, given the time.
I first got hype on this since it mentioned Skin Walkers, which is something of a favorite ghost story of mine. I like reading them on /x/ occasionally, too. Seeing that it's just some slander is... eeh. I agree on the part where the film or films would be about the overthrow and fall of Hydra. I mean MACUSA. It'd certainly be a good overarching plot, besides meeting all the cool creatures. I'm still excited for it, of course. Just for a different reason.
Except the Nundu. Needs 100 wizards to beat it my butt >:(
Now I'm getting Inquisition and Ecclesiarchy feels here.
WizStates need to burn the place to the ground and seriously reconsider their way of life. Or Newt should unleash all of his critters here. No innocent dead here at least.
... well, you know the rest. ^_^
hS
Although if you look [HERE] it looks like they keep up the positive facade.
But yes, if you have the displeasure of being invited to President Picquery's office... you're gonna have a bad time.
We know that in 2014 the President of MACUSA was Samuel G. Quahog, who was present at the 2014 Quidditch World Cup. This makes me think that MACUSA did not fall, but was reformed.
[MINI SPOILER WALL. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED]
There's the issue of The New Salem Philanthropic Society... or basically the 1920s Neo Witch Hunters; "a fanatical No-Maj group looking to expose and destroy wizards and witches."
I guess now we know who started it all *Looks at Dorcus Twelvetrees*
"Unlike the No-Maj community of the 1920s, MACUSA allowed witches and wizards to drink alcohol. Many critics of this policy pointed out that it made witches and wizards rather conspicuous in cities full of sober No-Majs. However, in one of her rare light-hearted moments, President Picquery was heard to say that being a wizard in America was already hard enough. ‘The Gigglewater’, as she famously told her Chief of Staff, ‘is non-negotiable.’"
"sober No-Majs"
Um. JKR is aware that the main thing people remember about Prohibition is that it did not work? I don't know how you'd miss that little historical tidbit. If anything, wizards FOLLOWING Prohibition would've been more conspicuous.
It says a lot on its own.
Prohibition was enforced by the government, and the law- while of course there were many who went to speakeasies and such and there were plenty of deaths from alcohol poisoning (the government actually spiked at least once large source of alcohol that wasn't normally for drinking but they suspected was being imbibed and plenty of people died or went blind or such as a result), generally speaking it was something that was unpopular amongst the men and largely supported by the women who had campaigned for it in the first place. Prohibition was more complex than you're implying, and being found drunk during Prohibition was indeed something that made someone conspicuous depending on the region.
What we can take out of this is the fact that MACUSA took such a completely different approach (against the national Muggle government) based on the president's decision.
That's interesting, especially the spiking part. Was that legal at the time? I mean, drinking was illegal but I don't think it was an execution sentence or anything...
Not to mention, it's plenty more complicated than you thought it was- remember, the United States was started with a foundation based in puritanism, and these were people who highly looked down upon that sort of thing. The Protestant majority, later on, also weren't fans; the Prohibition is more complicated than 'well the government decided to make alcohol illegal'. The Prohibition was actually pushed into being by the temperance movement, which was largely pushed by women, and by churches as well.
There are still many 'dry' states, counties, and even cities where buying and selling certain kinds of alochol without the appropriate licenses is illegal, or after certain times or days.
And as for the denaturing of alcohol, here's an article on the matter.
-The language vaguely suggests that Rappaport's Law has been rescinded by the present day - it 'remained firmly in place' in the '20s, which suggests to me that it would eventually be removed.
-MACUSA continues to be dictatorial. The term-length of the president appears to have lengthened - Picquery was in office for a decade or more - and her power seems absolute: the president is the one who decided alcohol would be allowed, not MACUSA as a whole. They also have aggressive gun wand control, which is interesting in America.
-MACUSA are not friends of the natural environment. They apparently executed a genocide against the Sasquatch, and are generally 'intolerant... of fantastic creatures', which smacks of hunting-to-extinction to me. Their apparent concern for White River Monsters seems actually to be concern that the excellent wands made from their spines would run out of raw materials.
-They've also supressed Native American magic. They insist all wizards (witches? Given the structure JKR uses, I'd better switch over) all witches use wands, and their genocidal behaviour towards magical beasts has probably stamped out the nature-focussed magic mentioned earlier for the Natives.
-They idolised people with Dark magic-attuned wands. Yeah, no way that could possibly go wrong.
-Different wand-cores! The only wood I see mentioned is swamp mayhaw, which is difficult to pin down the nature of, since it's only ever paired with rougarou hair.
-The wandmakers seem to have been based in Arkansas (Quintana), Louisiana (Beauvais), Tennessee (Jonker, home of the Wampus cat legend), and... unknown but possibly Oklahoma/Mississippi (Wolfe, in the current Chocktaw areas). Those are five states which form a continuous block, and suggest that the country's magical community is actually nowhere near its ostensible centre in New York, but it concentrated around the lower Mississippi river. I see Picquery was from Savannah, Georgia, which continues the theme of 'the South'.
-Despite which, still no mention of black wizards. Um, okay, so oppressive genocidal occasionally-racist government, southern heartland, anti-miscegenation laws... does anyone else get the feeling that MACUSA was an emphatic supporter of the Confederacy during the US Civil War? I see they fought in the Great War from 1914, which means they certainly weren't fighting on the American side...
... I hope American wizards has gotten better in the last century. This is really rather depressing.
hS
Maybe the fantastic beasts movie will have some kind of plot point involving the law being loosened?
Also, you want to hear my INCREDIBLY depressing (to me) headcanon about wizarding society in America? Please do tell me if you see any logical holes in it because I really want this to not work but I can't get it out of my head.
..................................
So, at this point that the stories are being written. We know from previous writing that pureblood wizards were relatively rare in early America, and muggleborns were the majority. And given how purebloods act in Harry Potter, and the massive amounts of antimuggle prejudice, it seems likely that halfblood wizards were an extreme minority. So the only way I can square 'massive amounts of distrust towards muggles, including segregation laws and heavy punishments for contacting them' and 'muggleborns are probably the majority population' is... Ugh. If the wizarding government, upon finding out a kid has magic, finds the kid, mindwipes family, takes the kid, and hands them over to some wizarding couple to be raised 'properly.' This'd even line up with the apparent police state and the crushing of indigenous magic.
I really don't want this to work, but I really can't think of any other way to make this make sense. Well, that or the idea that the MACUSA literally only governs the parts of America that had buildings on them in the 1690s and never expanded, and the rest of America has different laws and considers MACUSA to be a bunch of hysterical creeps (however, they are hysterical creeps who had close ties with the British wizarding world and were there first, so the British pretend that they're the actual government and don't recognize whatever the rest of America has and that is why they would teach that Ilvermorny is the primary American school.) This doesn't really work with the stuff about Louisiana and New Orleans, though.
Also, Ilvermorny is supposedly the school for North America but it's governed by American laws. Do Wizarding Canada and Wizarding Mexico not have their own schools? WHY? Does JKR think that the US has a similar relationship to Canada and Mexico as Ireland and Scotland do to Britain?
Also also, I thought it was just AMERICANS who thought we contributed a lot in WW1. If memory serves, we mostly came in at the end. That doesn't really mesh with 'oh yeah wizard Americans had a lot of victories' unless Wizarding America got involved a lot sooner, which, you kind of need to explain that as well.
Also x3 combo, I don't think the thunderbird myths make it very similar to a phoenix. It's a bird big enough that its wingbeats make thunder and its eyes make lightning. It doesn't regenerate or heal or have much in common with the phoenix besides 'magic bird,' it's got more to do with the Roc, if you're going to compare things, right?
"Do Wizarding Canada and Wizarding Mexico not have their own schools?"
We know there's eleven Magic Schools in J.K.'s Wizarding World. So far, we've been told of eight:
- Beauxbatons Academy of Magic (Pirenees, France): Takes students from France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Portugal and Spain.
- Castelobruxo (Amazon rainforest, Brazil): Students from all over South America (I think we can count Mexico here).
- Durmstrang Institute ("Northernmost reaches of Sweden or Norway"): Accepts students from all over the world, but generally from Northern Europe: Sweden, Norway, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, possibly Denmark.
- Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Scotland, Great Britain): Students from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and Ireland.
- Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Unknown, North America): Students from North America (therefore I think we may include Canada).
- Koldovstoretz (Unknown, Russia): Russia.
- Mahōtokoro School of Magic (South Iwo Jima, Japan): Japan, and perhaps extends over Asia.
- Uagadou School of Magic (Mountains of the Moon, Uganda): The entire continent of Africa.
That gives us three schools missing... and I think I've found them!
If we look at the [MAP] I've made, which shows us each School's places where they get their students from, we see three locations being omitted:
- Central Europe
- the Middle East
- Australia and Oceania
What are they scared of?
All of these schools seem to be holed up in the mountains (Beauxbatons, Durmstrang, Hogwarts, Uagadou) or somewhere equally inaccessible (the Amazon, an island, and Ilvermorny is apparently in a forest). Hogwarts is a castle, and Uagadou is a literal mountain.
So, given that these are the people who hid multiple connected streets in the heart of London, have made all of their schools invisible, and are magically capable of wiping the memories of anyone who encounters them... why are they also hiding so much? Why are their schools fortified?
What happened to the magical world that made it so utterly terrified of contact with Muggles? They were already that way before Salem and the Rappaport Law brought it to the fore in America.
Is this known?
hS
Well, in America they're probably scared of the Scourers, although that reason doesn't really hold anywhere else.
Originally, hiding until Muggles forget that magic exists was an act of humanity. It was apparently the only way to end Muggles killing each other based on wrong accusations of sorcery. Of course people find enough other reasons for killing each other, but witches don’t feel that they cause this behaviour just by existing.
Over time, keeping the secret became a habit, because dealing with Muggles who don’t understand that magic can’t do everything and who would expect that wizards solve all the world’s problems by simply waving their wands would be too inconvenient. Having to fight a war against paranoid Muggles who want to extinguish magic for refusing to solve the world’s problems – or just for the sake of it – would be even worse, even if they could win. Most witches and wizards can think of a better use for their lifes.
That’s always been my theory, and I didn’t yet think much about how it might be changed by the news from America.
Actually, the only explanation we ever got in the books was Hagrid’s answer to Harry’s question: "Why? Blimey, Harry, everyone’d be wantin’ magic solutions to their problems. Nah, we’re best left alone."
HG
They have invisible schools which are also in the mountains/whatever and are also fortified. That... just seems like an overreaction.
I mean, the whole 'Muggles wouldn't deal with magic' thing is a bit silly anyway, given that they've been in hiding for at least a thousand years. Er, pretty sure most Muggles believed in magic at that time.
I want to see the AU where the witches publically revealed themselves during the Enlightenment/Renaissance, and magic was treated simply as a branch of science. It follows rules, after all, it can absolutely be quantified that way.
hS
Aren’t the fortifications mostly against magical enemies, like Voldemort and Grindelwald? Also, did Britains more than a thousand years ago build anything big that didn’t look like a castle (or a cathedral)? I admit that a magical school could exist – and even have a courtyard reflecting the outside weather – in a shack that’s bigger on the inside, but why would they do that?
Of course most Muggles believed in magic at that time. That was the point. They only stopped believing in magic after they hadn’t seen any obvious magic for several centuries.
I would like to see this AU too. But AFAIK, witch hunts became worse during the Enlightenment/Renaissance than they had been in the dark ages. (Probably because Europeans during the dark ages believed that god wouldn’t allow witches to do match harm anyway, but when doubt began to spread, they took matters into their own hands.) That’s the reason why the secrecy that had already been prevalent for centuries and may have been local law in diverse places was made an International Statute around 1690 AD.
Of course all this is eurocentric, I don’t know about other continents.
HG
I can see this being an Elves vs Dragons situation — the dragons are more powerful than the elves, but they're also so much smaller in number; a dragon can kill ten elves before it is brought down, but each elf will be replaced by two more, while the dragon might be replaced by another one.
(Talking about Faerûnian elves and dragons, BTW — Ed Greenwood and Jeff Grubb use a similar analogy in Cormyr.)
... that's probably almost entirely untrue. But minorities aren't usually persecuted to the point where they resort to triple-layered defences to keep the majority from coming into the slightest bit of contact with them.
I don't think?
hS
OK but my point there was that, if Ilvermorny is counted as an American school (which is up for debate, see downthread) then if it takes in students from Canada and Mexico, and is the ONLY option that they have, then that's... not good. I know that international schools exist, but usually people choose to go to them; if your only option for magical education is to go to a different country then that doesn't make sense.
Also... her placements of the schools really don't make sense. Just the idea of one school for the entire continent of Africa is absurd - between languistic and political and cultural issues, and the fact that there would be a TON of students, then it's just illogical. Same issue also exists for the idea that there's one school for all of Asia or all of South America, while Europe gets three different schools.
And it's kind of weird to me that NONE of these schools are in the places where writing developed. There's no school in Sumeria or Egypt, no school in Mesoamerica, no school in China, nothing in India or Pakistan...
Regardless of what Sid Meier would have us think. =]
Still, I accept your point. It is a bit odd that those places are deserts of magical education... except it's not. Consider that these are the major schools from the perspective of someone who went to them. The setup, complete with snobbery, reminds me very much of famous universities rather than schools. The man on the Clapham omnibus knows of Harvard and Yale, for instance, but could not for the life of him tell you the name of the most prestigious university of Canada or Mexico.
The same is likely true of other magical schools, because you don't need much aside from wizards willing to teach you things to set one up - Hogwarts is basically a law unto itself, since Dumbledore is far more nervous of the Board of Governors than anything Fudge comes up with. Besides, there have to be some schools of magic in these places. The modern geopolitical worldview demands it. If you live in Ethiopia, you're hardly going to be able to Apparate through at least seven active warzones to take your child to a school in Nigeria (or possibly Burkina Faso, which is a bit further along). It's a hell of a commute. =]
Only I mean like the first part, not the rest. ^_^ How much is writing involved in HP magic, anyway? It doesn't seem to be used in creating them, and the state of wand-making in America shows that wizards seem to have a phobia of writing down how they do things. Given that spells are (according to the wiki) incantation+gesture+intent, all you need to remember is 'Avada Kedavra - point - kill', so it's not like you need a massive primer. Verbal transmission should work just fine.
Also: with the exception of China, none of the origins of writing have been consistently 'high civilisation'. Hogwarts was founded a thousand years ago, when Britain had just about stabilised from the so-called Dark Ages. Ilvermorny was founded in the early 1700s, when colonial America was stable enough to take it.
When the Spaniards came to Mesoamerica, or the British to India, or indeed the English, French, and Spanish to North America, the locals wouldn't be able to sustain a magical school while fighting for their lives.
Somewhere in Guatemala, I bet there's an invisible pyramid complex which was once the home of Mesoamerican magic. But it's gone now, and no-one remembers it was ever there.
hS
And this narrator is coming from a Western cultural context to which modern audiences still subscribe - the one which measures literacy rates as a means of guestimating a country's general level of intelligence.
Compare animism. In animist traditions, particularly in West Africa (with which I am most familiar), it's the people who make things that have a special connection to knowledge, not the people who write things. Artisans and craftsmen are the possessors of magical knowledge. I could go on about this for hours, but the university library's in Canterbury and up a hill and also probably shut, so I can't get Mauss's General Theory Of Magic out for reference and thus you are all spared my fevered, polemical typedrool. =]
And I disagree with you on the idea of the Indian subcontinent's magical schools not surviving, because the idea of India as a monolithic entity is really one of Britain's own making. The various kingdoms that the Western powers used in their proxy wars would likely not only have kept their magic, but watched it thrive and grow with support (or at the very least bribery) from adventuresome British, French, and Portuguese wizards. Plus everyone else - there was an abortive attempt by the Russians to get into India at one point. Mysore in particular is a promising candidate - if not in the modern city itself, I'd wager you could find a magic school (or what's left of it) in the old city of Seringapatam. Hyder Ali and the Tipu Sultan were famous for their rocketry, after all, and a little potioneering from the amazingly named Galaxy Market might well have spiced up the Potterverse's Anglo-Mysorean Wars - but there are other candidates for magical survival, among the Maratha Confederacy and further north, towards the Himalayas.
As for Mesoamerican magic, well. I wouldn't necessarily say Guatemala, but, well... if it's good enough for veterans of the Battle of Yavin, it's good enough for me. =]
Doesn't it look a bit bigger than Hogwarts to you?
"if it takes in students from Canada and Mexico, and is the ONLY option that they have, then that's... not good. I know that international schools exist, but usually people choose to go to them; if your only option for magical education is to go to a different country then that doesn't make sense."
"There were eleven "long-established and prestigious" wizarding schools throughout the world. There were smaller wizarding schools, but these tended to be short-lived, and often not regulated.
However, most countries in the world did not have their own wizarding school. Magical children in these countries were typically homeschooled or educated via correspodence courses."
Pottermore, again. The point is, those eleven are the most renowned schools in the world. There may be others (I can totally see a Healers School in Canada), but they don't get as much fame as the Big 11. You can think of Hogwarts and Ilvermorny as a parallel to Oxford and Harvard.
Also, I need to make a correction: Mahōtokoro only accepts students from Japan. It's the smallest Magic School, with Uagadou being the biggest.
Which brings our next issue: placement. Hogwarts is, most likely, the second smallest Magic School in the world, and I believe that the area of "influence" is the key point in the size of the school. We didn't get a proper description of those schools, as far as we know they can be enormous. Big enough to accommodate all students. Wasn't it Fleur in The Goblet of Fire who said that Hogwarts felt really small to her? Well, if she was hanging around a gigantic Palais de Beauxbatons on the daily basis, I'm not that surprised. That's like living in a mansion, but then suddenly moving to a log cabin.
Seriously, except for the mindwiping, this is exactly what the Jedi did under the Old Republic: abduct magical children to raise in their proper environment.
I think one thing you've missed is that the pureblood exodus happened a hundred years before Rappaport Segregation was introduced. That's a lot of time for Muggleborn kids to start a couple of generations of their own families - and for whatever the term is for non-pure-non-immediately-muggleborn families to expand.
In fact, let's run some numbers. Hogwarts has around 1000 students, indicating that every year (of seven) there are roughly 150 magical children born in Britain. That's out of a total of around 500,000 live births. If we ignore for the moment the post-breeding-age witches and wizards, that suggests that around 1/3000 people in Britain are wizards, or around 20,000.
So. North America in the 1690s had a non-Native population of 200,000 or so. Assuming we're looking at the same proportions, that comes out as...
... uh...
... nearly 70 witches and wizards in colonial America at the time of the Pureblood exodus and the Salem witch trials.
... I think JKR may not be very good with numbers.
hS
(Is Ilvermorny under MACUSA laws? Not sure what you're thinking of, here.)
While it might not mean much because of the Republic's strong cultural bias in favor of the Jedi, parents of Jedi Hopefuls were always offered the choice to refuse. The Jedi Watchmen responsible for recruitment on their world would probably try their hardest to convince them, but parents had the final say.
At least, I'm reasonably sure that how it works. It's a bit hard to definitively know some things in Star Wars because of how sprawling the EU is. Plus the Disney canon thing.
Jedi have the ability to mess with peoples' minds. Who's to say they don't nudge the parents mind in favor of letting their kid go? All it would take would be:
Parent: I don't think that's a good idea.
Jedi: *waves hand* This is what's best for your child.
Parent: This is what's best for my child. Give them a good life.
Would it work all the time? Probably not. Would it work enough of the time? Probably.
-Phobos, definitely not a Sith Lord
*Suspicious glare*
a) be a Dark-sider (cf. the Dathomiri Nightsisters, the Son of Mortis, and angsty teenager Ben Kylo Ren);
b) realise that the Jedi are ...ed up (cf. Barriss Offee, though she did fall to the Dark Side, Ahsoka Tano).
Star Wars is my all time most researched franchise. I don't spend as much time on Wookieeoedia as I used to, but the obsession is still there. Waiting.
And yes, the Jedi get a bit... Scary. Again, looking at you, Jedi Shadows.
That's so depressing; I liked her. :(
(Apparently she was in the TV series... I only know her from the books, particularly The Approaching Storm.)
hS, sad now
She attained 'oneness' with the Force, twice... thanks to drugs.
Another reason to forget that the second Clone Wars series ever existed in my opinion.
Don't exactly change my mind about the series though. Yellow!Darth Maul was a thing, but resurrecting him lke this...
I took care only to use canon examples — Legends has so many more.
Scary thing is, I would not be surprised if some Jedi actually did that. Looking at you, Jedi Shadows.
...I was honestly thinking of the Native American/Aboriginal Australian programs but the Jedi also work for the metaphor. And yeah, the hundred years does make a difference, but I'm not sure how that'd affect population dynamics, hm.
I've heard theories that Harry's year was very unusually small - he was born in the middle of a war, and the Death Eaters certainly don't seem to have compunctions about killing kids or young adults, so it'd make some sense. Do we know what the amount of incoming students in Harry's third year was?
(third year because those kids would've been born 2 years after Harry, and therefore roughly 1 year after Voldemort's death. Hey, it'd make sense if there was a baby boom then...)
Also JKR has said that she is bad with numbers before.
I THINK Ilvermorny is under MACUSA laws? At least that was the implication I got. I don't know if it's explicitly stated, but if it isn't then that raises the question of whose authority it IS under.
The one that says the school that doesn't let its students have any contact with the non-magical world (like Hogwarts) isn't allowed to let its students contact the non-magical world (under Rappaport)? Or the one that says your wand has to be registered? We haven't really heard about many other laws - just 'MACUSA don't like fantastic animals' and 'MACUSA likes booze'. I don't think they do things legally very often.
I'm going to try and take another look at the numbers later, under different assumptions. (The HP Wiki gives both '1/10th of the population are magical' and '3000 magic people in Britain', which... yeah, she's bad with numbers.) My general feel, though, is that purebloods were a relatively small part of society, so the half-blood/Muggle-descended population wouldn't be much smaller after they left; that would mean your 'most wizards were Muggle-born' image was skewed too far that way. But I honestly don't know.
(Seriously, is there a term for a witch whose parents were both Muggle-born? Is that just 'half-blood' again, or what?)
hS
Just... the laws in general? I mean, schools usually need to be under the legal jurisdiction of some government, don't they? I suppose that if Ilvermorny was the school equivalent of international waters that'd be interesting.
Dumbledore seemed to be mostly under his own authority; I don't think he cared what the government said.
Also, and in opposition: MACUSA was founded a century before the USA. It probably spread its rule right across the English-speaking colonies - so Canada is almost certainly a part of it. Mexico, speaking Spanish, may send its kids down to whatever they've got going on in Brazil, or may just keep them home.
hS
But since none* of the countries around it do, I suspect they probably have a lot of Spanish-speaking students.
hS
*Noneish. Not entirely sure.
I suppose it's the same thing. Maybe Portuguese - or Spanish, idk - is the lingua franca of the colonial magical community in that part of the world. Though I wouldn't put it past J.K. for her to specify that the classes at Castelobruxo are entirely in Quechua, despite it being on the wrong side of the planet. =]
And yes, Brazil's the only place that speaks Portuguese, though there's a creole of it spoken in northern Uruguay. I was merely being a pedant. =]
I am reminded that the upcoming Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them film is set during this period, and as such Rappaport's Law may yet be involved in the plot in some fashion.
As for the prevalence of Dark magic-attuned wands in a society governed by the collection of squabbling psychos and fascists-in-waiting that MACUSA appears to be (and it can't be a coincidence that the preferred pronunciation rhymes with a common pronunciation of yakuza), well, what can I say? The wand chooses the wizard, after all. This would also tie in with MACUSA being based in the slave states and being a supporter of the Confederate rebellion; one wonders, for instance, just how literal the title of Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan may turn out to be.
Yikes, this is dark. Can, can we send them some sort of relief package or something? Oh, sod it. I'm adopting the headcanon that Canada has an enormous population of Native American witches and wizards who are at least third or fourth generation. There's no basis for it other than the looseness of borders back then, but I'm sick of the history of American magic being one of the Potterverse's most miserable interludes.
"Nowhere, because MACUSA has systematically exterminated them! Let's all get drunk!"
--My prediction for the film's (lack of) plot.
hS
Don't know where he found his partisans, but I'm sure Americans were a major part of his army with such backstory. The more I learn about it, the more I dislike Wizarding America.
And Grindelwald was WWII, not WWI. Perhaps things liberalised in the wake of, well, whatever happens in Fantastic Beasts. We can but hope. =]
Unless something really traumatic happen, mentalities bred (or worse, if me and firemagic are right with our speculations) for so long don't change like this. Genuinely hope the change will begin to take place with the movie, but by the time it begins, older american generations will still be wonderful recruits for Grindelwald.
We can but hope, but that just doesn't look bright.
For 130 years, Aemrican is de facto cut off from the arrival of any muggleborn wizard, so they turned in purebloods, pretty sue the intense racism it implies should have destroyed such small communitiy as the Wizarding world really fast. No wonder they thought they needed the alcohol.
On the 'plus' side, wand permit makes them the less gung-ho Americans.
Because America started out with a much smaller proportion of purebloods, and many more muggleborn wizards. Presumably these proportions stayed the same, since the increased secrecy laws would, I think, keep wizards of any bloodline from immigrating in, right? People went to America stereotypically to escape harsh conditions in their homes, so it seems like immigrating to America would be less popular among wizards than it was among muggles.
So, with these laws, the amount of halfbloods in wizarding America would drop like a stone, while the amount of purebloods couldn't really grow and would probably stagnate, right? So muggleborns would be the majority, yet at no point did enough of them go 'hey I'd rather not never see or contact my family again' in large enough numbers to get the law changed.
Actually, considering all the mistrust, it seems pretty likely that muggleborn wizards would have a harder time finding jobs, getting fair treatment in courts of law (probably no right to an attorney or anything, either) and whatnot, because, well, they're born from nonmagical people, you can't trust them, can you? Or something along those lines...
If we follow this wonderful law to the letter, the only way I see for muggleborns to become wizards in America is through kidnapping, severing them from their families, then intense propaganda for 'justifying' it and continued hate of Muggles. (N-M is pure slur, no way I use this.)
If the movies don't address this situation, Rowling will quickly lose her american public.
Holding kidnapped kids prisoner at school or just risking that they break security and tell about their lessons at home is not necessarily better than not teaching Muggle-borns at all, but the latter gives you a bad reputation.
Of course there would still be Muggle-born witches and wizards, because the education is not what makes them magical. They just wouldn’t know how to control their magic (if they didn’t figure it out on their own) and wouldn’t be drilled to use it only in MACUSA-approved ways.
HG
And that would be disastrous, so they cannot ignore them... Great, more fodder for 'kidnap, brainwash with magic and propaganda'. Duck.
If I recall correctly she wasn't particularly in control when untrained, but she was only really a danger after she was traumatized.
It's implied she was so badly injured in the head that it affected her not only mentally, but magically as well. And who's to say the two weren't connected?
So yeah.
I just couldn't recall clearly enough to say with certainty. It's been too long since I've reread the books and the wiki didn't go into enough detail to satisfy me. Thanks for the clarification.
![[HERE]](http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/harrypotter/images/d/dd/MACUSA-FB.png/revision/latest?cb=20151215152316){kind=link}
![[MAP]](http://oi67.tinypic.com/2r46hxt.jpg){kind=link}