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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.
Though the flashes of Tom Riddle and Snape’s backstories given in HBP demonstrate that there are economically disadvantaged and/or lower class Slytherins, the majority of the Death Eaters we see are wealthy men and women from the Wizarding equivalent of noble bloodlines. The sort of “good old boys” network that is generally more interested in preserving the status quo than in overturning it. Lucius Malfoy and his ilk already have social, political, and economic power, which makes their devotion to Voldemort’s goals curious. Why do the Malfoys, for example, want to help a madman take over the world when they’re already one of the families running it?
Granted, some of the Death Eaters are probably just sadists or practitioners of the Dark Arts who want a free rein to indulge their appetites, but they can’t all be Just Plain Evil for Evil’s Sake. Some of them have to have reasons beyond “mwahaha, tormenting muggles is fun.”
Rowling’s Death Eaters seem for the most part to be motivated by racial prejudice (with Voldemort as Hitler-analogue, wishing to subjugate muggles and raise wizards to the status of “master race”), but though it makes a certain sense to have wizards feel that they are superior to muggles (they, after, have magic, while muggles don’t), there doesn’t seem to be any solid explanation for why this sense of superiority has become angry, vengeful hatred. We know why Voldemort hates muggles, but we are never really given any evidence to show why a group of wizards who have practically no contact with them share his feelings.
I’m assuming from certain context markers—the KKK-like hoods worn by the Death eaters in the GOF movie, the lynch-mob-like “muggle-baiting,” the frequent references to miscegenation (ex: Draco calling Hermione “mudblood”), the decidedly British-Imperialist-vs.-Racially-Inferior-Native way that even the “good” wizards seem to view muggles (as quaint, helpless creatures who must be kept ignorant of all things magic for their own good)—that Voldemort and his followers are supposed to call to mind Krystallnacht and the Nuremburg Rallies and South African Apartheid and the KKK burning crosses in people’s lawns and George Wallace barring the door of the University of Alabama to keep the first black students from entering ("segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!"), but the social and economic context just isn’t there (or, if it is, nobody ever mentions it to Harry).
I can’t speak for South Africa, never having studied it, but both Nazi Germany and the Post-Reconstruction South saw themselves as societies under threat, both from without and from within. Hitler’s propaganda machine convinced an impoverished and devastated German people that they had been deprived of their rightful place as masters of Europe, and that all of their problems (losing WWI, the shambles their economy was in, etc.) could be blamed on the Jews, who were alien and non-German and therefore could never be anything but a threat to the state, no matter how well they assimilated. The American South’s entire economy was based upon the exploitation of black laborers (and continued to be even after slavery was ended), and the continued existence of southern society and culture depended upon keeping blacks “in their place” (i.e. in the cotton fields). Racial equality meant the end of everything.
And, prior to the war, white planters had lived in terror of slave revolts (“My God, look what they did in Haiti!”), since, deep down, everybody knew that a handful of white overseers didn’t stand a chance if all of those hundreds of slaves with nothing to lose decided to rise up together and take over the plantation. The fact that it never happened didn’t keep the fear from being very real.
But the Death Eaters don’t seem to have any reason to fear muggles. Readers can choose to view the wizarding world as a society in hiding, keeping themselves separate from muggles out of fear of what those hoards of magic-less people will do if they ever discover them, but we’re never shown any real evidence of fear in the books. Wizards keep themselves hidden, but no one ever mentions any consequences of discovery beyond the risk of scaring or confusing muggles. At one point, Harry even writes an essay on how witch burnings were “completely ineffective.”
The fear of miscegenation and the thinning out of wizard bloodlines is brought up, the idea that halfbloods and especially muggleborns are somehow contaminated and lesser, but again, where is the broader evidence of that fear? Where are the tabloid news stories about muggles abusing their witch wives (oh, those brutal muggles—see why mixed marriages never work out? They’re simply Not Our Kind)? The depictions of muggle society as crime ridden and violent because, really, they just don’t know any better? The wizarding plays and novels where muggleborn characters are inevitably depicted as stereotyped villains (well, there is Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle, but...)? Where are the laments that muggle culture is diluting and replacing the old wizarding traditions? The pseudoscientific articles claiming that the children of muggle/wizard marriages are more likely to be squibs?
I know it’s unrealistic of me to expect that kind of detail in a children’s book, especially since it’s from the perspective of a teenage boy who doesn’t notice things that don’t directly affect him, but I guess I’m spoiled by series like X-men, where the small population of people with special powers are the targets of hatred and fear from everybody else, and actually have a convincing motivation to lash out in retaliation. Or, y’know, I’m a self-centered American who wants to se my own cultural history referenced (Come on, wouldn’t the Death Eaters be way more sympathetic and this creepier if they were fighting for a Glorious Cause and saw themselves as heroes? Men of honor nobly defending their wimminfolk from them savage mudbloods?).
So, anyway, what is the Death Eater’s motivation, beyond sadism? It’s not economic, as wizards and muggles seem to have virtually no day-to-day contact. There doesn’t seem to be any great crisis in wizarding history that muggles are being blamed for. The Death Eaters aren’t a poorly educated working class seeking a scapegoat to take out their dissatisfaction on. If they’re a group of old-guard aristocrats gradually being displaced by a rising middle-class of newer wizarding families that have more ties to the muggle world, I’d like a bit more evidence of it. Thoughts?
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.
Though the flashes of Tom Riddle and Snape’s backstories given in HBP demonstrate that there are economically disadvantaged and/or lower class Slytherins, the majority of the Death Eaters we see are wealthy men and women from the Wizarding equivalent of noble bloodlines. The sort of “good old boys” network that is generally more interested in preserving the status quo than in overturning it. Lucius Malfoy and his ilk already have social, political, and economic power, which makes their devotion to Voldemort’s goals curious. Why do the Malfoys, for example, want to help a madman take over the world when they’re already one of the families running it?
Granted, some of the Death Eaters are probably just sadists or practitioners of the Dark Arts who want a free rein to indulge their appetites, but they can’t all be Just Plain Evil for Evil’s Sake. Some of them have to have reasons beyond “mwahaha, tormenting muggles is fun.”
Rowling’s Death Eaters seem for the most part to be motivated by racial prejudice (with Voldemort as Hitler-analogue, wishing to subjugate muggles and raise wizards to the status of “master race”), but though it makes a certain sense to have wizards feel that they are superior to muggles (they, after, have magic, while muggles don’t), there doesn’t seem to be any solid explanation for why this sense of superiority has become angry, vengeful hatred. We know why Voldemort hates muggles, but we are never really given any evidence to show why a group of wizards who have practically no contact with them share his feelings.
I’m assuming from certain context markers—the KKK-like hoods worn by the Death eaters in the GOF movie, the lynch-mob-like “muggle-baiting,” the frequent references to miscegenation (ex: Draco calling Hermione “mudblood”), the decidedly British-Imperialist-vs.-Racially-Inferior-Native way that even the “good” wizards seem to view muggles (as quaint, helpless creatures who must be kept ignorant of all things magic for their own good)—that Voldemort and his followers are supposed to call to mind Krystallnacht and the Nuremburg Rallies and South African Apartheid and the KKK burning crosses in people’s lawns and George Wallace barring the door of the University of Alabama to keep the first black students from entering ("segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!"), but the social and economic context just isn’t there (or, if it is, nobody ever mentions it to Harry).
I can’t speak for South Africa, never having studied it, but both Nazi Germany and the Post-Reconstruction South saw themselves as societies under threat, both from without and from within. Hitler’s propaganda machine convinced an impoverished and devastated German people that they had been deprived of their rightful place as masters of Europe, and that all of their problems (losing WWI, the shambles their economy was in, etc.) could be blamed on the Jews, who were alien and non-German and therefore could never be anything but a threat to the state, no matter how well they assimilated. The American South’s entire economy was based upon the exploitation of black laborers (and continued to be even after slavery was ended), and the continued existence of southern society and culture depended upon keeping blacks “in their place” (i.e. in the cotton fields). Racial equality meant the end of everything.
And, prior to the war, white planters had lived in terror of slave revolts (“My God, look what they did in Haiti!”), since, deep down, everybody knew that a handful of white overseers didn’t stand a chance if all of those hundreds of slaves with nothing to lose decided to rise up together and take over the plantation. The fact that it never happened didn’t keep the fear from being very real.
But the Death Eaters don’t seem to have any reason to fear muggles. Readers can choose to view the wizarding world as a society in hiding, keeping themselves separate from muggles out of fear of what those hoards of magic-less people will do if they ever discover them, but we’re never shown any real evidence of fear in the books. Wizards keep themselves hidden, but no one ever mentions any consequences of discovery beyond the risk of scaring or confusing muggles. At one point, Harry even writes an essay on how witch burnings were “completely ineffective.”
The fear of miscegenation and the thinning out of wizard bloodlines is brought up, the idea that halfbloods and especially muggleborns are somehow contaminated and lesser, but again, where is the broader evidence of that fear? Where are the tabloid news stories about muggles abusing their witch wives (oh, those brutal muggles—see why mixed marriages never work out? They’re simply Not Our Kind)? The depictions of muggle society as crime ridden and violent because, really, they just don’t know any better? The wizarding plays and novels where muggleborn characters are inevitably depicted as stereotyped villains (well, there is Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle, but...)? Where are the laments that muggle culture is diluting and replacing the old wizarding traditions? The pseudoscientific articles claiming that the children of muggle/wizard marriages are more likely to be squibs?
I know it’s unrealistic of me to expect that kind of detail in a children’s book, especially since it’s from the perspective of a teenage boy who doesn’t notice things that don’t directly affect him, but I guess I’m spoiled by series like X-men, where the small population of people with special powers are the targets of hatred and fear from everybody else, and actually have a convincing motivation to lash out in retaliation. Or, y’know, I’m a self-centered American who wants to se my own cultural history referenced (Come on, wouldn’t the Death Eaters be way more sympathetic and this creepier if they were fighting for a Glorious Cause and saw themselves as heroes? Men of honor nobly defending their wimminfolk from them savage mudbloods?).
So, anyway, what is the Death Eater’s motivation, beyond sadism? It’s not economic, as wizards and muggles seem to have virtually no day-to-day contact. There doesn’t seem to be any great crisis in wizarding history that muggles are being blamed for. The Death Eaters aren’t a poorly educated working class seeking a scapegoat to take out their dissatisfaction on. If they’re a group of old-guard aristocrats gradually being displaced by a rising middle-class of newer wizarding families that have more ties to the muggle world, I’d like a bit more evidence of it. Thoughts?
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I almost wonder if a shift to first person would fix some of that--by tying the POV even more closely to Harry, she might have made the fact that the world revolves around him less intrusive, if that makes any sense.
But, yeah, I (obviously) have issues with that, too. Where is the wizarding world's literature? (Hell, where are its trashy novels?) Where is any popular entertainment beyond Quidditch and a couple of bands? Why isn't anything other than magic--like French, or Geography, or good old Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic--taught at Hogwarts? Why don't there seem to be any magical government a la the Ministry in any other countries? Why are the other magical school that make up about 1/3rd of the plot in GoF never heard from again? Why don't spells use up any of the caster's energy? Why did JKR concoct a complicated Plot Device-y black veil thing that was never followed up on to get rid of Sirius when she could have killed him off just as easily with an avada kedavra and avoided confusing the living daylights out of her readers?
Basically, why isn't she Tolkien, or George R.R. Martin, or Lois McMaster Bujold? I could go on for hours ^_^.
I think the main issue here might be that she's more interested in Harry than in the way the world she's created to showcase him actually works, and since I find the supporting characters and the world more interesting than Harry, I'm possibly unfairly critical.
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Though I'd actually disagree that GRRM is so much better at the actual realistic world-building than Rowling is. He's simply tons better at hiding the seams - on close reflection there are a thing or two that don't entirely seem to make sense, but you only notice it on the third or fourth read because before that, you're too bedazzled by the plot and characters.
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This is actually the biggest problem I have with the HP universe. For one thing, as a history geek, I find it kind of offensive, because it essentially dismisses all of the real people that suffered and died for nothing. And honestly, the witch burnings ought to be the reason that the Death Eathers are waving around, using it to point out how violent/irrational/dangerous muggles can be. Even if the adult witches and wizards could escape burning, what about the children? And what about all of the various ways the inquisition like to torture people? Magic doesn't make you immune to pain.
And even assuming all witches and wizards managed to escape harm during the witch burnings because of how ineffectual muggles are, the Death Eaters still ought to be making the point that sure, they may not have gotten us, but they wanted to. And look at how many of their own kind they slaughtered in their irrational fear.
But I suspect that would give more credit to muggles than Rowling wants too, and it would certainly make the Death Eaters greyer than she wants.
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Word. When, oh when will someone stand up in the HP-verse and hypocritically demand that someone else "Think of the children!" (For one thing, think of the children at Hogwarts, who seem to have about the most dangerous learning environment short of Xavier's Institute).
I think you and I have ranted this rant at each other a good dozen times (For one thing, the reference to Harry's witch burning essay is in there because you pointed it out to me). But damn it, I shall keep whining about it until JKR goes back and rewrites canon to suite me!
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Wizards are, after all, in terms of how their culture exists, a lot more like the Jews than the Nazis: small, outnumbered population that maintains its identity in the dominant culture mostly through sheer bloody-mindedness and pride. Not that I'm comparing the Death Eaters to the Elders of Zion or anything. But. In that kind of insular group where everybody knows everything about everyone else on the inside, fears can build into hatreds can build into internal wars for no logical reason at all except pride and human irrationality.
Actually, forget Nazis, the best comparison is the fandom. The Death Eaters are basically the Harmonians. Yes. They think they're being persecuted by both their own people and by the Muggles, when actually, nobody would give a damn about them if they weren't all such bloody wankers. Yep, that's it exactly. Figure out why Harmonians, you'll understand the Death Eaters too.
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Which is why having some traumatic historical event like witch burnings that actually killed wizards would make so much sense. A little bit of actual persecution can go a long way towards making people defensive.
In that kind of insular group where everybody knows everything about everyone else on the inside, fears can build into hatreds can build into internal wars for no logical reason at all except pride and human irrationality.
Actually, this is a really good point. I hadn't thought about the Wizarding World in terms of small group dynamic before, probably because of the automatic assumption that society=lots and lots o' people.
Figure out why Harmonians, you'll understand the Death Eaters too.
You had to invoke Those Who Must Not Be Insulted, didn't you? Now crazed Harmonians will descend upon my post and wank us all to death!
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The wizarding world only makes sense to me, in many ways, in terms of small-group dynamics.
And see? Totally Death Eaters. q-: