[ SECRET POST #4243 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4243 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 07 secrets from Secret Submission Post #607.
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)]

"Some people are assholes about it" doesn't actually conflict with "it's an interesting and valid textual interpretation" though

This nonsense about ~~~~JUST WOKE UP AND DECIDED ONE DAY~~~~ bugs me

[(Anonymous)]

da
I've a hard time calling an interpretation "valid" when there is absolutely nothing to support it.

[(Anonymous)]

It is nonsense, though. "Rowling never said James wasn't Indian and there are lots of Indians living in England, therefore James is Indian" is the only argument I have ever seen made for this theory, and I've been in HP fandom since WELL before it arose. There is literally no actual argument, evidence, or proof of any kind whatsoever to indicate that James Potter was Indian. It's just a collective assumption that some fans invented wholesale for literally no reason except that they wanted him to be Indian. It isn't even Indian fans that I see promoting it. It's mostly white fans who imo are just trying to be progressive, if one defines progressive as throwing fits at anyone who doesn't accept your personal headcanon as actual canon.

[(Anonymous)]

it's too hot to argue about this in depth.

but just for clarity, when I say "valid interpretation" I don't mean "canon".

[(Anonymous)]

Well a lot of people seem to see that the Dursleys are the type of family that are extremely racist so Harry being a minority on top of being magical explains their shitty attitude towards him and why they'd lock him up and dehumanize him.

Harry was a very small kid who never did anything to deserve that amount of ridiculously awful treatment he got and it's easy for a lot of people see the similarities of racism against minorities.

[(Anonymous)]

Racial minorities aren't the only type of minorities and minorities aren't the only type of people "proper" society dumps on.

[(Anonymous)]

The Dursleys supposed to be like a Roald Dahlesque bad guardians that you see in children's fiction. They lock him because they hate magic. You can read it like a parallel to racism if you want, but trying to say its canon and that's the only way it makes sense? Nah. It's missing the point that HP was still like a children's book with these type of fairytale tropes, if they wanted serious things like real life racism that affects people in the real world (unlike wizard racism which is still fiction despite being a metaphor) it would need to be handled much more differently than that.

[cakemage]

The problem I have with that argument is that if Harry were mixed-race and the Dursleys' hatred of him was partially based on racism, they would have most definitely brought it up multiple times, though probably not in front of company. Must keep up appearances, after all. And even if Vernon, Petunia and Dudley managed to refrain from making racist comments out loud (doubtful, as most racists seem to have trouble keeping their mouths shut and those three weren't exactly known for their subtlety), Marge absolutely would have said something horrible about Harry's mixed-race status, and she would have done so frequently and proudly. And loudly.

Honestly, if people want to headcanon Harry as Indian and Hermione as black, more power to 'em, but I have to admit that there are times when adherence to that view comes across as performative wokeness. Not always, mind, but that's the impression I get with some of the posts on the topic.

[(Anonymous)]

It pretty much always comes across that way to me, performative wokeness. JK Rowling did that herself when she pretend she didn't have a white girl in her head when she created Hermione, while writing the books, and up until a few years ago.

Changing the race of an established character is almost always done, in part, because of laziness. Can't come up with something new, change their race! Don't non white people deserve their own characters?

[(Anonymous)]

I honestly don't think JKR was trying to pretend Hermione was black all along or whatever. I think the comment about her never being described as white was meant more like, her race wasn't important enough to mention, so she can be any race if you want. It was defending the decision to have a black actress play her in the play.

Of course, you can assume she was white because pretty much any time a character wasn't white, JKR outright stated it (Dean Thomas and Kinglsey Shacklebolt) or you could tell from their name (Cho Chang, Parvati and Padma Patil).