notbecauseofvictories:

[made rebloggable by request]

all the ways.

no, literally, all the ways.

Okay, this is the…super extra sparknotes version of my dissertation on Harry Potter and the ways its worldbuilding is just asking to be shaken to pieces. It’s called:

~*Ten Ways To Irreparably Fuck Up a Civilization: A Harry Potter Rant*~

1.) Put the major base of your economic power—such as a national bank—in the hands of a class you are busy oppressing. Because goblins definitely have forgotten centuries of warfare and specicide anti-goblin sentiment and will totally treat your ancestral gold with the fairness and even-handedness it deserves. Ditto with house elves and your children.

2.) Don’t try to understand or theorize about how your power works. Do not inquire as to how a particular measure—spell, hex, or charm—works. Do not try to test its effects. If a spell builds a house, do not attempt to test the durability of the roof—the roof will have come into existence with the necessary durability for roofs. Do not ask why a perfectly ordinary Latinate word and a stick of wood conjures the Platonic Form of a roof. Have no engineers or philosophers. Make sure no one thinks the phrase “hypothesis.“ Make sure no one tests theirs.

3.) Make sure the schooling that you do offer is, essentially, a technical school. Make no attempt to teach students how to write, read, do maths, or think critically, even though those skills may be required. Those who do not arrive with such skills must learn them independently, because helping students with learning disabilities or those who come from difficult home lives is for chumps. Also, make sure to sow the seeds of deep social divides that will persist through your population’s adult life.

…there is no alternative.

4.) Don’t have any institutionalized pre-schooling or post-secondary education. Because everyone worth educating has access to tutors, or parents who have the time, energy, and ability to teach. Do not have institutions for further learning, because there is nothing more to learn. Do no try to understand how your power works.

5.) Allow the government to be the single biggest employer. Small businesses may be tolerated, but private chains, corporations, or conglomerates should not be allowed to operate independently. Make sure that your population gets its news from the government. Dissenting voices that cannot be rendered unemployed can be narratively shamed.

6.) …and then have that government rife with corruption and barely representative. The people in power now should be descendant from the people in power then. They should love their own kind. Trial by jury is unnecessary. Elections are unheard of. Influence talks, and money covers a multitude of sins. Nothing says forgiveness like a bag of galleons and an invitation to the Malfoys’.

7.) Don’t innovate. Your mores should be Victorian and your aesthetic Medieval. “Technology” is a broom, a radio, and an hourglass.

8.) Don’t have any contact beyond the incidental with the civilization literally occupying the same space as yours. Particularly if there is significant crossover in population. In fact, make sure those individuals who emigrate from that civilization cannot return, cannot discuss their new country with friends and family, or use their new-found knowledge to help those friends and family. God forbid they try and help that civilization in turn.

Reduce interest in their world to a laughable hobby. You are the only civilization for them now.

9.) Ensure that all those who do not fall within specific parameters are labeled Other and de facto exiled from your civilization. Particularly squibs and werewolves and other species. An accident of birth implies someone isn’t at fault.

10.) Expect people to quietly stand by. Some of them will. Most of them will. But sooner or later you’ll piss one off, and all the ones who have been afraid to speak out will nod, will join in, and the whole affair will come tumbling down around your ears as that one troublemaker screams to the heavens for justice and knowledge and innovation and truth and light and then my dears

then

your civilization is well and truly fucked

wolfstarhq:

Hi there! Thanks for the ask 🙂

I think James and Lily asked Sirius to be godfather before Harry was born, tbh. It was wartime, and they knew Voldemort was after them fairly early I believe (though JKR has given conflicting timelines for when they went into hiding). I think they wanted Sirius to know their intentions right away… just in case the worst happened, to any of them.

I see dogfather Sirius as being a little shit, getting Harry the latest toys that are dangerous, or sing annoying songs, or are prone to catch fire, etc. He makes jokes about taking Harry on his motorcycle and feeding him the booger flavoured Bertie Botts beans.

But when he’s actually on official babysitting duty, he panics a bit when he realizes, oh shit, I am in charge of this tiny thing, this easily breakable little poof, and- no, Harry, don’t touch that! By the time James and Lily come home, Harry is seated on the couch wearing Sirius’ motorcycle helmet, surrounded by a barricade of pillows.

James and Lily always knew they made the right choice. They always had complete faith in Sirius. Hence partly why they were confident in his secret keeper switching plan.

chrlieweasly:

harry james potter describing boys as handsome is my aesthetic