I did some posts yesterday so I thought I’d blog some (is it blogging? Is that what the cool kids call it nowadays?) more today about the first wizarding war and the marauders.
So hello, I’m Pappychi. I’m 33, married, and a mother of one adorable little girl. We have three dogs and four cats 😆 I’m trying to convince my husband we need a horse as I used to ride but he’s falling for none of my bollockywaffle.
I used to teach English but now I work in IT. I hold both a Bachelors and a Masters Degree in Literature and Language.
Now, I was the target age range when Harry Potter very first come out but I’ll confess I never finished the series because Remus Lupin died and I was like? I beg your finest pardon? ✋🏻 absolutely not. Peace out bitches. And I still haven’t to this day finished that series.
I understand the Marauders fandom has changed ALOT since I was a teen with the rise of All Young Dudes - I tried it and it wasn’t for me but the author put their heart and soul into it so fairplay. The beauty of authorship and reading is not everyone’s going to agree and that’s perfectly valid. When I was teaching I had a colleague who loved Austen whereas I was always Team Brontë. Many a debate over a cappuccino over that! Personally I think Austen is drier than a Ryvita found at the back of a cupboard at 3am but I digress.
Anyway god get to the point woman.
Onto the actual point of this post. The first wizarding war - so Rowling borrowed Voldemort as a Hitler like figure from the Second World War but what we see alluded to within the story is less all out and out combat and more Irish Troubles.
Irish Troubles you say Pappychi? What do you mean by that?
Well, sit down and Pappychi will tell you…
The violence in the FWW is less industrial and far more intimate. We don’t see armies facing off against each other but we do see is the insidious creep. People go missing, families are whispered about, Hogwarts because a breeding ground for children being recruited to a fascist cause.
It’s claustrophobic, not epic.
And all the while life goes on as normal. Children shop at Diagon Alley for their school supplies but they’re shadowed by their father or the family house elf.
Werewolf attacks rise aka Greyback and his cronies (Greyback is the worst villain in HP and I stand by that) and the Ministry starts pivoting for harder for MORE legislation. Should werewolves wear medallions so people can see what they are and act accordingly? Should an unregistered werewolf be given the kiss if they bite?
All the while, both deatheaters and Dumbledore’s newly formed Order of the Phoenix are clashing outside of the Ministry of Magic’s jurisdiction. Let’s not forgot what’s one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist. So how many of the general population thought the Order was the bad guys? Makes you think.
You’ve got this melting pot of fear, claustrophobia, and paranoia because no one knows who to trust and who is on what side.
Bellatrix Lestrange would have been dancing at her father’s birthday party at 8pm and torturing a muggle family by 3am.
Which brings me to the next point I made yesterday but want to expand on The Marauders themselves. They wouldn’t have been an indie boy group (if that’s your reading then cool! Again books are open to interpretation) but more Bright Young Things. Think a group of young men who are brilliant, beautiful, and unfortunately doomed.
I’m just revisiting my point that the Marauders fit nicely into the wonderful world of Dark Academia. Right down to the archetypes and, especially this, because they’re even a narrative representation of the typical Dark Academia four act tragedy.
James is the sun they all orbit. The golden boy of the marauders - the jock, popular, warm hearted. When he dies it’s like someone killing our star. Without James there is no Marauders. In dark academia we’d call him Act I. The call to beauty. That’s what James does. His sunlight calls them all to him. He steals hearts and loyalty.
God is canon Sirius Black fascinating. He’s canonically the tallest Marauder. What we see with Sirius is a Fallen Aristocrat. Hubris given humour form. He rejects his family so much he almost becomes its inversion. He’s the descent into madness aka Act 2 of a traditional dark academia book.. Rebellion and glamour become ruin. Eventually he transforms into Stars themselves. He couldn’t save the sun so he’s doomed to burn himself up in a feverish obsession. Sirius steals himself as the most precious jewel of the House of Black.
I’m a big Remus fan. I think he’s so complex. Anyway, Remus is our scholar. He steals an education and belonging in a world where he is seen as a disease on legs . In dark academia Remus is the personification of the ruin aka Act III. He’s ruined himself via the bite. An infection he spends his life worrying that it’ll spread to other corners of himself whether that’s through friendships or romance. He’s our moon. Beautiful but only when he reflects others light. Never enough confidence in himself to see that he has own beauty.
Onto our finale - Act IV aka The Elegy. He fits the archetype The Observer. Peter is the rat amongst the relics (I mean that dude literally haunts Hogwarts through the Weasley kids. If I was Molly Weasley id have headbutted that little twirp.). He clung to the edges of the other threes brilliance and what starts as awe festers into resentment. Loyalty becomes betrayal to Peter. He’s the darkness. The silence at the end of a song but he exists because once the sun burned high and bright.
The Marauders as a Group.
Okay. I’ve often seen in Fanon the Marauders transformed into Fred and George 2.0. Pulling pranks and laughing with people.
My personal reading of them is via the chosen name for the map.
Marauders means to steal, thieves, take from others.
And that’s what they did. Stealing loyalty, themselves, belonging, and power.
The Map is a theft of Hogwarts and its secrets. All those hidden tunnels, even the hidden lives of its students and professors. All put down on a finely crafted piece of cartography which was 100% illegal.
Their animagus forms are a theft - forbidden knowledge because what young wizards actually do that and remain unregistered?
So, for me personally, I’m seeing less of a group of pranksters and more a group that are sneaking into the library to find forbidden books, skulking around on full moons with a werewolf, and breaking into professors offices after hours because they’re BORED. And. Hey old Professor Hawes might have something cool like a muggle record player in her office…
What you’ve got in the marauders era is this intoxicating blend of a war seeping into every day life like fog across moorland, you don’t even realise you’ve been caught in it until you can’t see through the pea soup. And these four brilliant, beautiful boys who ultimate will become doomed due to their own perceived cleverness and prejudices.
Sirius and Remus get so wrapped up in each other being the traitor, and the irony is because they both see the worst in each other.
Remus: Sirius must be the spy, he’s a Black after all. Look at the Prank.
Sirius: Remus must be the spy, he’s a werewolf after all.
Their own prejudices allow Peter to continue to scuttle around undetected which ultimately leads to our Golden Boy aka James Potter’s light being extinguished.
The Marauders era is a wonderful breeding ground for Dark Academia. Even Hogwarts with its secret tunnels, candlelight, and dusty library is almost a living character itself.
And, eventually, the Marauders haunt it via their map.
Students like Fred and George whispering the names Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs invoking that rebellious streak long after the laughter has faded.
(Also can we talk about how Sirius’s animagus is a dog? Something which has been hysterically used to hunt deer? Sirius spends his whole arc hunting the shadow of James’s warmth via atonement with protecting Harry.)
(Oh and how Peter dies through a silver hand? Silver being the symbol of purity? Damn)
If you got to the end FairPlay. If you like to talk literature give me a message!