Cindy, I agree with you. I don’t understand why Harry Potter fans believe that they can insult other people for being “Muggles”. Does the fact that they like Harry Potter make them not-Muggles somehow?

The entire series implies that Muggles are inferior and need to be protected from the truth of the magical world’s existence. Honestly, in the context of the story, I find the attitude incredibly condescending. Everyone in this fictional world seems to treat humans with no magic and magical creatures who aren’t purely human like some animals or pets. You know how you want to take care of your cat but would never really treat him/her as an equal? Yup. Pretty much how Harry and Co. think about Muggles, even though quite a few of them popped out of Muggle parents.

We should also consider the fact that the entire banking world is almost exclusively run by Goblins for some reasons, reminiscent of any racial stereotype in the real world? Or all of them? In fact, by including one magical creature after another in her books, J.K.Rowling kept reinforcing some sorts of stereotypes which might seem innocuous to people who don’t read into this beyond its fictional surface but utterly horrid to someone who see this series as an allegory. Seeing as the author and her self-inserted Hermione spent so much time prattling on about equality for magical creatures and Muggles, I don’t think it’s stupid for anyone to interpret the series as an allegory about racism, which manages to be incredibly racist at the same time.

If you just think about it, all of the characters who get some sort of development are wizards and witches, with no exception. Those who don’t tick both the “human” and “magical” boxes, get the roles of plot-devices and then get tossed aside (Dobby anybody? He pretty much exists to demonstrate what a wonderful person HP is for having made a friend in an elf. If only we could all be like him, the world would be a much better place etc) (I’ve already mentioned the utter condescension toward all Muggles in these books. Yes, the wizards fight to protect Muggles from genocide, but all of the Muggle characters in the books are horrible human beings) . That’s the equivalent of a book about racism in America with only white people as the main characters.

Furthermore in the 5th book, Umbridge, who has no redeeming quality as a character, pretty much gets raped by a group of centaurs. Since J.K Rowling has extensive knowledge on myths, she must’ve known that having Umbridge left in the forest with centaurs can only mean one thing. In the aftermath, Umbridge is seen by Harry and Co. to be lying on the hospital’s bed and appearing insentient in every way except for when one of them makes “clip-clopping noises” and sends her into panic. That’s clearly a sign of trauma. Yet, Hermione Granger, who must have known about the centaurs’s reputation as rapists, left Umbridge alone in the forest and then laughed at her in the hospital. The horrible implication here is that if you’re a bitch you deserve to get raped.

The more I see HP as a literary text, the more horrified I become. It only gets away with all of the offensiveness by disguising it in the fantasy genre conventions. The fact that HP fans take so much delight in insulting people by the term “Muggle” should tell you the extent of negative effects the series’ popularity have on people, which might not appear very visibly at the moment but runs deep nonetheless. Even if you ignore the stupidity because of the mere fact that everybody’s a Muggle, the act itself still has a racist undertone. They do have “Mudblood” for the equivalent of a racial slur, but do people really need a racial slur to make a comment racist? If someone used the word “Asian” as an insult as though being Asian is the worst thing in the world, any Asian would probably feel very offended.

I’d not take HP so seriously but for its popularity, which irks me for reasons beyond its utterly demoralizing mediocrity. I have seen people defending J.K.Rowling’s decision to have Umbridge raped and even taking satisfaction in it because of how much they dislike Umbridge. JC, that sort of thing is dangerous and yet condoned by HP fanatics. They have pretty much outright stated that raping is okay if you’re that much of a terrible person just for the sake of winning arguments.

I have yet to mention my suspicion that J.K.Rowling knows of all the subtext here but has a very unapologetic attitude about it. In the 5th book, while Hermione spent the a large portion in the beginning and the middle preaching about not treating magical creatures like objects or servants but rather like fellow beings, the idea of interacting with Grawp (Hagrid’s half brother) horrified her. She then gave up on Care for Magical Creature as a legitimate subject in the 6th book. As I’ve said, J.K.Rowling gets away with it, so why should she feel sorry? Which kinda makes her evil in my book.