Text Review: Abby Doerr

Text Review: Harry Potter 

 Harry Potter is known to be one of the most famous and beloved fiction series of all time. With the original storyline that comes with the magic and awe of Hogwarts, it is no wonder that it is so popular. There are however many examples of injustices or inequalities that can be related back to our main class materials. Othering is often used in the series in order to create power dynamics between the characters.  

There are two different types of Wizards at Hogwarts, the pure bloods which come from 2 wizard parents, and mud bloods that come from 1 muggle, normal, and 1 wizard parent. The purebloods often think of themselves as better than the mud bloods because they believe since their blood is ‘pure’ that they are more powerful and therefore possess more skills for leadership. This is however not true since it is just a tactic used in order to create a system of power or a class system in some way. The main pure bloods are Voldemort and the rest of his Death eaters. This group often makes plots to kill all the mud bloods as a point to ‘weed out the weak’ among the wizard population. This is where the othering is used because the more dominant pure bloods are taking over and discriminating against the others since they are different and inherently ‘weaker’. In the end the death eaters face their downfall as most power-hungry groups do but it does create a big divide in magical society for the time being. The mud bloods are made to feel less than for a reason that is both untrue and out of their control. This can relate back to all the inequalities that we have studied throughout this course since it is all about discrimination between groups that cannot control the way that they are.