A Brief Study of the Magical Socio-political Structures of Harry Potter
Before we begin I’m going to talk for a few paragraphs about some housekeeping stuff, because it occurs to me that while you probably know at least the basics of the world of Harry Potter, you might not be aware of the ridiculous nuances of comparative politics and intergovernmental relations.
The main difficulty with this project is that fictional governments are usually peripheral to the story itself. This issue is less pronounced in something like A Song of Ice and Fire, which is essentially a global political drama with dragons. The Harry Potter series is a different animal altogether. The narrative is much more narrow; it almost solely follows the adventures of a teenager, and while these are obviously remarkable adventures, Harry himself has relatively limited contact with and knowledge of his government. (There isn’t a Wizard Government class at Hogwarts, for example. One might assume that this topic is folded into the History of Magic class, but one can’t be sure.) Most actual teenagers are the same way. Also, this information is usually boring to the average reader, and the author therefore invents only as much information is necessary for world-building purposes, leaving the rest of it up to our imaginations to fill in.
I could go into a long commentary based on the structure of Wizarding culture, especially in regard to education. Children in the U.K. magical community are accepted into Hogwarts (the only magical school in the country, though not in the world) by their eleventh birthday. We must assume that children are either home-schooled until then, which would place an economic burden on parents, or sent to Muggle primary schools, which might cause a breach of the International Magical Secrecy Act (which I will discuss in greater detail below) considering that small children aren’t amazing at keeping things secret.
We’re told that going to Hogwarts is not generally compulsory; children may be sent to a foreign school or home schooled, but when a student is expelled from Hogwarts, their wand is broken, which seems like an almost cruel and unusual punishment, given that a wizard’s power is almost completely dependent on their wand.
Wizards in the U.K. are governed by the Ministry of Magic, which in turn functions in a parallel capacity to the Muggle British Government. In fact, the only Muggle who is told of the existence of the magical community (other than family members of Muggle-borns, obviously) is the Prime Minister of Great Britain, a security measure by the Minister of Magic in case of a magical breach of security that may threaten the Muggle population. (As in Half Blood Prince, following the public return of Voldemort.)
Besides this, British Wizards seem to operate completely independently from the Muggle government, a sovereign state that is dispersed among another sovereign state, which is not a concept that has a direct parallel in modern government.
The concept of diplomatic immunity is really the closest analogy I can make to the way witches and wizards operate in Muggle communities. Despite being widely misrepresented in popular culture as a free-for-all pass to break any law in your host country, diplomatic immunity really just refers to a set of relatively banal things a representative of a foreign nation might be protected from, like having their dwelling searched or being called as a witness in a crime. These special rights and protections vary widely based on host nation, nation of origin, and level of importance of the diplomat in question, and have been the subject of a lot of inter-state stress given the sketchy nature of diplomatic relations, but suffice it to say that if you’re a diplomat you really shouldn’t just run people over and claim you were on official government business.
The worldwide magical community, under the International Confederation of Wizards, a U.N.- analogous body, is bound by the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy, (ISWS) a law that went into effect in 1692. This law was passed in order to protect both the magical and muggle populations, who were beginning to come to a friction (The ISWS was passed around the same time as the real-life Salem Witch Trials.) and it outlaws the magical population from using magic in front of Muggles, or otherwise drawing undue attention to themselves, unless there are lives in danger. Wizards and Witches are required to dress appropriate to the situation and time period when amongst Muggles, which seems to be a struggle for some since magical fashion - along with technological development - appears to have stagnated.
One must assume there are other caveats to this, given that there are Muggles who live with magical children or spouses, and there is canonical evidence that magic was done in front of Muggle family members with no legal repercussions. It is reasonable to infer, however, that the magical community is bound by the same laws as their Muggle counterparts for the simple reason that breaking them might cause a breach of the ISWS. When a Witch or Wizard has performed magic or otherwise made Muggles aware of their presence, a team of specialists is sent to wipe the Muggles’ memories of the event.
Additionally, though Britain has a democratically elected government on both a national and regional level, Wizards in that country do not seem to hold any kind of elections. They are governed by the aforementioned Ministry of Magic, lead by the Minister of Magic, who is selected by the Wizengamot, a body that appears to act in both a judicial and legislative capacity and itself does not seem to be elected.
Given the lack of democratic representation and oversight in their government, it is easy to imagine that corruption and incompetence would be rampant within the magical community, and it probably goes a long way to explain the ease with which Voldemort was able to take control over the Ministry in such a short amount of time.
While my knowledge of the British criminal justice system is based almost solely on watching Hot Fuzz and a few episodes of Law and Order U.K. I cannot help but feel that the magical version leaves something to be desired. Even discounting the vicious Death Eater regime that was described in Deathly Hallows, there are several examples from the books that detail a system that could and was easily manipulated.
There is one instance within the context of a “normal” judicial hearing that we as an audience are privy to: Harry Potter’s trial for usage of underage magic. It is clear that while the entire Wizengamot was present for Harry’s hearing in Order of the Phoenix , this is not a usual occurrence for a relatively minor crime like underage magic. I’m going to haphazardly compare this to underage unlicensed driving, which in my state in the U.S. carries a sentence of six months in jail and/or a $1,000 fine. Having the entire Wizengamot present would be like the U.S. Supreme Court presiding over a standard traffic violation, even with a high-profile individual as a defendant. Other judicial hearings we see are under the Death Eater regime or during what might be called a war-crimes trial.
The prison system definitely crosses the line of inhumane treatment, given that the magical community in Britain only has one corrections facility; Azkaban prison, which was staffed with magical creatures called Dementors that literally suck all the happiness out of you and also have the ability to eat your soul. In fact, while the Ministry of Magic does not appear to condone capital punishment, there is precedent for this “Dementor’s Kiss” occurring as a legal punishment, a process that leaves the victim alive and functional, but unresponsive, like the origins of the zombie myth. One would probably argue that simply being executed would be preferable, but this one doesn’t want to open that door. Suffice it to say that if you are sentenced to Azkaban, you are serving time with offenders ranging from petty theft to genocide.
The issue of the actual size of the Magical population also leaves some questions, but may account for what we see as a lack of governmental oversight. Based on this forum thread (though I’ve seen other theories along the same vein) as well as estimates from J.K. Rowling, there are only roughly 3,000 witches and wizards in the U.K. To put this in perspective, I went to an average-sized high school that housed more people. When looked at from this perspective, such small infrastructure and splintered communities make sense to a disparate population attempting to stay incognito.
Fictional Governments: A Song of Ice and Fire Part 2 Daenerys Targaryen and Colonialism
It certainly took a while for me to finish this, and I went in a vastly different direction than I thought I would. I began to catalogue and describe the various governments on Essos, the second continent in the world of A Song of Ice and Fire (there are two more, but as yet they are wholly unimportant to the narrative) but I ran into problems; namely there are too many, they are not described in enough detail, or they are too similar to one another. So I’m going to focus on Daenerys Targaryen and the development of her role as a non-state actor (and indeed, not much of an actor at all until the death of her brother) to a major military power with the fictional equivalent of nuclear hegemony, with particular concentration on her narrative as a colonial power.
(Please be aware that spoilers follow for events up to and including A Dance With Dragons.)
Essos is seperate from Westeros by a sea so narrow it’s called the Narrow Sea, (probably no wider than the space between South America and Antarctica.) It is to Essos that Daenerys and her brother were taken as children by Targaryen loyalists, following the defeat of their father’s regime, and it is here that Daenerys’ chapters are localized. In fact, she is the only POV character on the continent until relatively late in the series.
Despite the small distance between the two, there is a much more diverse population in Essos in terms of ethnicity. While the entirety of Westeros except Dorne is populated by European-analogous ethnic groups, there are at least a dozen disparate ethnicities in Essos, and many more individual cultures.
This of course leaves a clear parallel to the real-world act of colonialism, which, to give you the World Politics 101 (i.e. Wikipedia) version is “the establishment, exploitation, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. Colonialism is a set of unequal relationships between the metropole and the colony and between the colonists and the indigenous population.”
With some room for error, this is almost exactly what Daenerys does once she comes into her own power via her dragons. And it is her dragons that give her power; that and whatever it is that allows her to remain unburnt by their fire. They are the first dragons to walk the earth in a hundred years and they’re in the hands of someone who intends to build an army and conquer a continent.
She starts her campaign in Astapor at the urging of Jorah Mormont, an exiled Westerosi knight in her service, in order to purchase Unsullied, eunuch warrior slaves. Having little else of value, Daenerys uses her dragons as a bargaining chip, promising one to the slaver in exchange for the army, but then allowing the three dragons to kill the former owner once the Unsullied are under her command. Following this, she kills the remaining governing body of Astapor, a group called the Good Masters, and leaves a hand-picked healer, a scholar, and a priest to rule. She also frees the slaves in the city as well as her Unsullied army, though they choose to stay with her.
From there, she turns to the second of the three cities in the Bay, Yunkai, and treats it much the same; conquering it and freeing its slaves.
By the time Daenerys reaches and conquers the third city, Meereen, news has reached her that both Astapor and Yunkai have reverted back to the slave trade, the government she placed in Astapor has been overthrown, and the populations of all three cities are starving and in danger of plague.
Now, clearly slavery is an unequivocally morally wrong thing to participate in, but the economy of the Bay relied primarily on the practice of buying, training, and selling slaves, and when Daenerys put that to an abrupt end, it clearly caused an economic meltdown not only in the Bay, but in the rest of Essos as well. One can assume that it will also affect Westeros at some point in the near future, as large economic catastrophes tend to have global effects, given the 2008 financial crisis that began in the U.S. and affected the rest if the world marketplace.
But back in Essos, who cares about the suddenly empty wallets of slave traders and owners? Nobody with a shred of human empathy, obviously, and would be difficult to feel anything but happiness when reading about the former slaves of Yunkai walking out of the city, or the former slave known as the Widow of the Waterfront in Volantis giving Tyrion a message for Daenerys that “we are waiting, tell her to come soon.”
But when an economy collapses the first people to feel it aren’t the wealthy landowning elite, it is the lowest on the ladder; the former slaves and the menial laborers.
Because of this, Daenerys postpones her plan to travel to Westeros, choosing to stay in Meereen and rule there until the unrest has stabilized and the slaves she freed are no longer in immediate danger of reprisal and re-enslavement. Additionally, though she now has the army she needs to take power in Westeros, she lacks the boats to take them there. She refuses the offer of thirteen ships from Qarth in exchange for giving up Meereen, and is intent on stabilizing her regime.
Though her motive is good, things go from bad to worse in Meereen when the remaining loyalists to the old regime begin to undermine her rule, anonymously killing former slaves as well as Daenerys’ men. An apparent murder of a child by her dragon Drogon increases tensions, and in an effort to maintain peace in the city she marries a prominent Meereenese political figure, Hizdahr zo Loraq. (Shortly after this she is taken by Drogon out of the city and there the narrative ends.)
You might asking, incredulously, “what are you trying to say here? That we need to pit the moral bankruptcy of slavery against the negative effects of colonialism in order to find out which is worse? Should Daenerys have taken what she needed from Astapor and headed West?” And if you are, that’s good. That’s the question the narrative is supposed to raise. Everything sucked for the slaves prior to Daenerys and everything sucked for almost everyone afterwards. She only goes to Slaver’s Bay for the Unsullied because they are well-trained eunuch slaves; she knows that rape, plunder, and indiscriminate murder are things that conquering armies generally engage in, and Jorah convinces her that the Unsullied are the best way to protect innocent Westerosi.
Obviously we’re supposed to root for Daenerys for her actions, but once we come to understand the ramifications of her actions as well as the fact that her presence in Meereen is causing civil unrest and murder, her victories become tinged with gray.
Especially given the time period the later books were written, it becomes analogous to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, prior to which then-Vice President Dick Cheney famously said “we will be greeted as liberators.” Certainly, there was civil unrest in Iraq after decades under Saddam Hussein and the Ba’ath party, especially following the al-Anfal campaign of the late 1980’s, the systematic genocide of Iraq’s Kurdish population. However, as any cursory knowledge of the events of the last twenty years will tell you, the U.S. did not intervene in 1988, (nor does it officially recognize the campaign as “genocide”) but following the destabilization of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2003. The invasion of Iraq destabilized the Iraqi economy, caused tensions within the country, led to a severe upwelling of domestic terrorism, as well as a rise of anti-U.S. sentiment around the world. George R.R. Martin is on record as holding anti-war views, both in the real world as well as in-book (the lengthy monologue by Septon Meribald in A Feast for Crows is fairly explanatory on this point.)
Back in Essos, this is not the first time Daenerys has taken a hard line on the use and treatment of slaves. During her time as consort to Khal Drogo of the Dothraki, she balked at the notion that they would be capturing and selling conquered foes as slaves in order to raise the capital to invade Westeros. In an early plotline, she saves a woman from rape by the Dothraki, only to have this woman later reveal that she’d already been raped several times before Daenerys intervened, and that the Dothraki (and by extension Daenerys) had completely destroyed her home and way of life. This is clearly a White Savior, or White Man’s Burden narrative, which tvtropes.org describes as “a plot where an ordinary, ethnically-European (white) person meets an underprivileged non-ethnic-Euro character. Taking pity on the other character's plight, they selflessly volunteer themselves as the other's tutor, mentor, or caretaker to make things better.” Beyond the storyline, the concept of the “White Man’s Burden” has evolved from a serious term describing outright imperialism by Europe and the U.S. to a sardonic euphemism for the tendency these same nations have to “taking care” of the developing world.
Additionally, Daenerys’ family has a history of colonial behavior. Several years before Aegon’s Landing in Westeros, the Targaryens fled Valyria, a massive imperial city-state on the southern coast of Essos, which was later destroyed by a massive volcanic eruption. (This might have something to do with the extended seasons on the ASOIAF world, particularly the severe winters in Westeros, but it definitely changed the topography of the continent; the area where Valyria used to be is still uninhabitable. It is colloquially said to mean death to sail too near or look at Valyria, which might indicate a poisoned atmosphere. Both the area and the volcanic eruption itself are referred to as the Doom of Valyria.)
The Targaryens then proceeded to systematically conquer most of Westeros, as I described in my last post, establishing the dynasty from which Daenerys is descended. Though slavery was outlawed in Westeros by the Faith of the Seven, which the Targaryens converted to upon their ascendancy to power, it is made clear in the narrative that the Westerosi feudal system with a heavy wage disparity leaves the lower, non-noble classes little better than slaves.
However, thousands of years prior to Aegon’s Landing, the Valyrians themselves established their empire over the entirety of Essos, colonizing the nations already present, enslaving their populations, and leaving their own cities. During this time, they also conquered the Ghiscari empire, of which the three cities of Slaver’s Bay are the only small remnant. Daenerys is following in her people’s footsteps, though she has taken on her family’s Westerosi ideals regarding slavery.
In conclusion, I should not have started this in the middle of beginning a new job, but if someone could pay me to write about fictional governments, that would be great.
Do you think they are going to make a Marvel "Civil War" movie following the Avengers?
Honestly, I don't think so. There's been a pretty concerted effort on the MCU's part to avoid directly following any sort of event predicated by the comics.
As much as I liked the Civil War arc, I think there were more people who didn't and for very distinct and logical reasons; it was too long and unwieldy, the real-life political parallels were ham-fisted, characterization fluctuated wildly, it was pushed along plot-wise by the unfettered stubbornness of Tony Stark and Steve Rogers and like, nobody else, and it ends with Steve "dying" which would require another movie to fix.
I really like the idea behind Civil War: that being a normal human in this universe is a potentially terrifying thing and we'd logically try to legislate that a bit. Maybe that idea will make it into the MCU in some form, but I don't see it as it's own film.
‘Parks & Rec’ Star Chris Pratt is Your Star-Lord in ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ Movie
By Andy Khouri
Marvel Studios has cast actor Chris Pratt in the lead role of Star-Lord in Guardians of the Galaxy, the film that’s to launch the next phase of Marvel’s Cinematic Universe following the success of The Avengers. Best known as the kind hearted but dangerously inept Andy Dwyer on the NBC sitcom Parks & Recreation and for roles in Zero Dark Thirty and Moneyball, Pratt is an unexpected but very intriguing choice for a space-faring superhero.
Read more.
I've been looking for something to talk about at boring, verbose length, especially since I'll be using this blog as an assignment for a Social Media class and I guess it's nice to post about stuff every so often.
I've settled on combining my two strengths: comparative politics and fictional universes. So for the foreseeable future, or at least however long it holds my interest, I plan on identifying and critiquing this aspect of world-building, comparing them to the political systems that exist or have existed in the real world.
If you have any suggestions on fictional governments you'd like me to look into and type about, please let me know. Otherwise, here's a few of the top of my head I plan on definitely posting:
The Lord of the Rings
A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones
Harry Potter
The first two will provide a few posts in and of themselves due to the varied nature of their universes; they realistically have several different systems within their purview.
As usual, thanks for following as I continue to use my Political Science degree in new and increasingly useless ways.
Do you have the persistence of Superman? The patience of a Watcher? The ingenuity of Tony Stark? The determination of Batman?
If so, then you are ready for Comic-Con International 2013 Open Online Registration! Badge sales will begin at 9:00 AM Pacific Time (PT) on Saturday February 16, 2013.
The Greatest Disappointment Of This Generation: The Doctor Who/Star Trek Crossover Comic
The Doctor Who/ Star Trek crossover comic book Assimilation Squared wrapped up this last Wednesday with a bang. Unfortunately, this was the only bang in the entire run.
What should have been the geek-out event of this or any year ended up thinner than a crepe and not nearly as delicious.
The story, involving a combined universe (since we've established in DW canon that Star Trek as a fiction exists in the Whoniverse) where the the Doctor, Rory, and Amy must work with the Enterprise crew from Next Generation to fight the Cybermen team-up with the Borg should have been excellent.
And it might have been, in a different medium. The art looked like a paint-by-numbers watercolor. The dialogue, which in both series is full of quasi-sensical techno-babble that lends itself well to the ear, was overwhelming to read, covering entire halves of panels.
At first, I defended it (A DOCTOR WHO/STAR TREK CROSSOVER! THIS IS THE PINNACLE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION!) as it was slow to start. Then, four issues in when it was still slowly starting, I said "well, both shows have wooden dialogue too, so, you know..."
And then by the last few issues I was reading it out of a sense of obligation.
There was a moment between the Doctor and Worf that made me laugh, because those characters have such diametrically opposed personalities it was ripe for comedy, but this was only taken advantage of once, and then the Doctor gets to chiding the Enterprise crew for using phasers. In character, but boring in a medium where every panel counts. Midway through the story, we're shown a new memory the Doctor has of himself (in his Fourth, scarfy incarnation) interacting with the crew of the original series, which was a semi-interesting diversion, if badly paced within the plot. There's another good bit in the last issue where the Doctor contemplates asking Geordie to be a companion (and really, how awesome would that be?) and Picard tells him not even to think about it.
The ending was decent, and I'm not just saying that because I was relieved it was finally over. What could have been a fantastic sequence involving Data absorbing the TARDIS fizzled itself out in two pages. "Oh Data absorbed the TARDIS. Cool. This means nothing apparently."
Doctor Who beat out Star Trek to television by a few scant years, and watching Star Trek, the original series especially, it's pretty clear that the creators of the show were heavily influenced by Doctor Who. There are many thematically similar elements, and the bridge crew went to planets that were suspiciously identical to past or future Earth (that one with the anti-Cold War message ages particularly well) with little to no explanation. A crossover between the two seems as natural as breathing, but in practice turned into a boring kind of nightmare; one that costs like $4 every issue and never seems to end.
It felt like this entire endeavor was the product of a late night and an impending deadline. The characters, who already exist as fully fleshed out individuals given the immense body of work they appear in between the two series, feel like watery mock-ups, like a bad fan fiction. Which is disparaging to fan fiction as a whole, because I've read Star Trek/Doctor Who crossover fics that blow this out of the water.
Final judgement: WHAT? HOW COULD YOU SCREW THIS UP? DO BETTER!
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