[ SECRET POST #3357 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3357 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 078 secrets from Secret Submission Post #480.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I'm subjective when it comes to JK Rowling, but I think she fucked up big time with wizard Native Americans. Not intentionally, but the two entries I read were just really ...lazy.

she didn't even bother to write from the POV Native American magic users, no, it was all about the discovery of the "New World" through Europeans, even if she sugarcoated it with the claim that magic users already knew of each others existence. She treats Native American cultures like one culture and they didn't even have a wizard school before the Europeans arrived.

[...] the actions of their fellow No-Majs made the non-magical population of most wizards’ homelands look lovable. Not only had conflict developed between the immigrants and the Native American population, which struck a blow at the unity of the magical community
this is how she describes the genocide of Native Americans. I like her, but it's full of sheepish euphemisms.

she said on twitter that there's NO racism between wizards of different races.

I don't know about appropriation, but I do know that she wouldn't use biblical or puritan beliefs of witchcraft. so Native American beliefs get fictionalized, but Christian beliefs don't.

deal with the devil like witchcraft is maybe not possible and she might have risked more backlash if she had included more Native American magic, but there's more flavor to American magic than the Salem witch trails!

[(Anonymous)]

she didn't even bother to write from the POV Native American magic users, no, it was all about the discovery of the "New World" through Europeans, even if she sugarcoated it with the claim that magic users already knew of each others existence. She treats Native American cultures like one culture and they didn't even have a wizard school before the Europeans arrived.

Well writing from the POV of the Indian when she herself is European actually would be appropriation and it would be superimposing white colonialist ideas over Native American identity. She made the right call there. It is also very unlikely that there would be defined schools in the European sense for most tribes.

[(Anonymous)]

so to avoid appropriation you just write out the superimposing white colonialist ideas of discovering a "new world", as human settlement don't count until it's a white dude?

sorry, but it's more problematic to not try, even if we are used to this narrative.

[(Anonymous)]

"Though European explorers called it ‘the New World’ when they first reached the continent, wizards had known about America long before Muggles (Note: while every nationality has its own term for ‘Muggle,’ the American community uses the slang term No-Maj, short for ‘No Magic’). Various modes of magical travel – brooms and Apparition among them – not to mention visions and premonitions, meant that even far-flung wizarding communities were in contact with each other from the Middle Ages onwards.

The Native American magical community and those of Europe and Africa had known about each other long before the immigration of European No-Majs in the seventeenth century. They were already aware of the many similarities between their communities."

Literally the opening paragraphs of the article. WTF are you even on about.

[bigpaw]

The bit about wizards all knowing each others' existence for forever is what really threw me, because like...how could that not totally alter the course of history? I can't imagine a world where ancient peoples had access to long-distance communication and transportation turning out exactly the same as our world.

I mean obviously I'm not expecting JKR to write a whole alternate history. But it seems like an odd detail to just casually throw in and not expand on at all.

[(Anonymous)]

ikr. there was some level of progress when it came to charm and magic research in magic history she described so far, so I wish that quick and easy long-distance communication hadn't been invented back then.

there could be rumours about it, or a ship route that took months (s. vikings).