Racism in Harry Potter? Pft. There's not enough of it.

Recent comments on racism in the Harry Potter world (wizards vs. muggles racism, that is), have gotten me thinking about one of my pet issues with Rowling’s work.

While I freely admit to being a lazy writer myself, I want the things I read to be complex and well-thought-out, and the history geek in me finds the Death Eaters a little unconvincing. Not because they’re sadistic and bigoted and trying to overthrow the ministry in favor of a crazed despot (sadly, that sort of thing has been known to actually happen), but because I’m never quite sure why they hate muggles or what’s in it for them.

( Basically, I’m whining because Death Eaters aren’t a direct parallel to the Nazis or the Reconstruction South, and the history geek in me wants them to be )

Spring in St. Mary's County

Driving to work in the morning, I go past the flattops, a section of largely-condemned slum housing that was built just after WWII as housing for enlisted personel. They're decrepit, crumbling, and three-quarters of them have orange "keep out" mesh over the missing windows and doors. They also have a small forest of sakura trees that were part of the same assortment of trees planted in DC (they sent the left-over ones to our naval base), and they're all blooming a brilliant pink now, with petals sailing on the wind just like every shojo anime you've ever seen.

The first time I saw Yami no Matseui my Freshman year, I recognized the trees around the Diet building instantly, and was startled to discover that they had them in Japan, too ^_^.

In other news, my sister's home on Spring Break this week, and this Monday we went up to College Park to the History Graduate Program's open house. Never have I seen so many pompous people gathered in one room (of course, I could just be bitter because they're all PHD candidiates with grants and assistantships, and I'm a Masters student who's going to have to take out massive student loans). Sarah decided that the entire thing was some terrible academic circle of Hell, and that if that's what she has to go through to qualify for major some day, she's going to retire as a captain and go fly for SouthWest.