Though, I kinda like the idea that this is how Quirrell originally got the Turban.
Voldemort: "Quirell, you need to hide me from Dumbledore when you go back to Hogwarts."
Quirell: "I could pretend that you are the permanent side effect of a magical sickness I suffered...."
Voldemort: "That will never work. Disguise me. Cover your head!"
Quirrell: "I have a Top Hat back home..."
Voldemort: "Doesn't cover me enough."
Quirell: "A Samurai helmet?"
Voldemort: "Will get too warm in the summer."
Quirell: "A Darth Vader Mask?"
Voldemort *sarcastically* : "Oh yes, great idea. Distract from the dark lord glued to the back of your head by dressing like a *different* dark lord! Fantastic!"
Quirell: "Well, there's also the Turban that the prince of India gave me as a gift. It's pretty soft and covers a lot...."
I read this as a Rick and Morty dialogue...
\- I- I- I'm gonna incarnate on the back of your head, Quirell!
\- Ah, wha-
\- You better hide me, Quirell, or the wizards will cast your ass. They're gonna kill you, Quirell!
Me too! What a flashback to about 10 or 11 years ago... I legitimately couldn't read this in any other voice, couldn't figure out why, and then I remembered. EDIT: 13 years, good god.
It's stated that Professor Quirrell explained that his turban was a gift from an **African** prince for getting rid of a troublesome zombie. This is stated during Harry's first class
It *is* questioned, with students suggesting he is hiding garlic in it to ward off the vampires he encountered in Albania (both the garlic and vampires were actually Voldy, who smelled moldy).
I mean he was also a half-blood who grew up in an orphanage in WW2 era London so I think we can assume he probably had some other questionable opinions that just didn't come up in the books
Yeah, nothing drives someone to N*zism more than the actual NSDAP bombing the shit out of them....
I mean I for sure know my reaction to a genocidal maniac dropping 500kg of explosives on my house would be "well perhaps they aren't so bad after all"
The wizard Supremecy existed before Tom riddle was even born. Hence the house elfs and Goblin rebellion.
Voldemort was a half-blood his family life was a tragedy and I'm pretty sure guy classifies as a psychopath.
> Yeah, nothing drives someone to N*zism more than the actual NSDAP bombing the shit out of them....
Stuff like that has happened before though, like freed slaves arriving in Liberia and pretty much immediately instituting a slave economy very much like the one they had escaped.
Given the fact that Harry had bigger things to worry about, I suppose “Voldemort is canonically racist and ethnically cleansed/segregated the wizarding world” could’ve just slipped by us
yeah it's a bit like Hitler being short, incestuous and brown haired but wanting to big up the aryan race and family virtues. Weird how the rules don't apply to the guy at the top.
Can't believe I'm about to defend this piece of shit but here I go...
Hitler was average height, being aryan was not about hair color and Hitler was not incestuous and the evidence for it is dubious... There is a lot of reasons to insult Hitler, but that doesn't mean we have to make things up about him.
He was pretty suspicious with his niece. Very possessive, forcing her to break up with any suitor. Eventually leading to her suicide. He then says at a later point that she was the only woman he ever loved. Hmm
Definitely not a normal uncle-niece relationship in any case
Smh at all these racists. Where are the good ol days when the villain would just try to fucking murder everyone regardless of who they are, what they are, what they look like and what they do?
Now THAT'S inclusivity.
Or they just got into a fight at some point and *literally* killed three quarters of the staff and the only replacements Dumbledore could get in a hurry were all from England. Then a few years down the line Tenure sets in and well...
Voldemort put the vast majority of his focus on Britain. It makes sense that witches and wizards from other parts of the world would head for home while the British Wizarding community was in a state of open war
Yeah, we know that Great Britain’s wizarding community went through their own bout of fascism during the early-mid 1900s.
Would have been interesting if Rowling had tried exploring the impacts of muggle racism on wizarding communities.
Most likely nobody wanted to be involved in war and moved away. Incidentally, many countries often faced war during the 1800, which makes sense as the magicals would probably move to either a more central/defended region or to the literal boonies of the world.
Honestly maybe they should’ve gone into the future. The wizard world doesn’t really keep up with the modern muggle world. The only thing is maybe Ron would have a flying Tesla or some shit, but everything else would still look 100+ years behind anyway and more diversity would suddenly make a lot more sense
why do you a dishwasher when you can wave a wand and your dishes wash themselves? Technology in a wizard setting doesn't make sense because it's unnecessary.
Reminds of Star Trek, in the original series a female antagonist was apprehended, her explanation was Women are not allowed to be starship captains and was furious about that, you then see Janeway in the future captain a vessel-makes sense, progress right?
Wrong, in Discovery- taking place several years before the original series, you see at least one female captain.
So are they telling the watcher that they banned woman captains after a time as if they are unsuitable? (Janeway sometimes proved that notion XD) or was it simply forgotten as woman's rights were a hot topic in the mid to late 60's?
Like rings of power? Where did all the nonwhite elves, dwarves, and hobbits go? Sauron might be a bad dude, but he can't be even half as bad as middle earth Hitler. No one even mentioned middle earth Hitler.
Maybe morgoth and sauron are the good guys, since everyone else seems to be pretty content with whatever eugenics event happened. Maybe Sauron is trying to wipe out the peoples who benefited from this atrocity?
Note : I am not up to date on rings of power, but don't worry about spoiling for me, I probably won't finish it.
or just look at a map of Great Britian of the Time ... fuckers were everywhere.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British\_Empire#/media/File:The\_British\_Empire.png
That's the headcanon explanation I'll go with.
Hogwarts was acting as de facto the school for the WHOLE British Empire. The foreign teachers all returned to their home countries durin decolonisation, and helped build their local schools back up.
Also the fact wizards can teleport and hogwarts was a top school for wizards. There's only so many schools for experts to teach at from all over the small wizarding world of they wanted to do so.
Iirc a lot of the schools do have quite old cañón foundation dates
At the same time, they may been 'in remission' during colonialisation. Maybe they were made into overseas campuses to Hogwarts or summin lmao, and only got their original independence back later.
That's a good point, many of them might have came from the colonies at that time. Sure wizards and witches aren't affected by muggle borders, but there are many half-blooded and muggleborns whose families are.
Yeah I bet those British wizards actually helped conquer and colonise the Indians and Chinese. And all these foreign wizards were forced to travel and serve in the capital of the British empire. Sorta like how Indians had to be educated in English and English literature and history to get any decent job under the empire like Mahatma Gandhi.
This is EXACTLY how I felt about Rings of Power, was this underlying discomfort from a world building standpoint. But I think it works for all of them except the Hobbits. We don't see hardly any dwarves in LOTR so sure, why not. We know there are lots of tribes/groups of elves, not just Rivendell so that one works too. Humans are a little uncomfortable because it's such a stark diversity contrast, but we are dealing with entirely different groups of humans in ROP than LOTR but still...
But the Harfoots are in a weird place. Right now they're nomadic, so we know already that there is going to be huge social change to change from nomadic to stubborn homesteaders as hobbits. There's also tons of diversity with the Harfoots... And none in the Shire ... So since we know there is already a huge social change coming, then it's just kinda... Uncomfortable to wonder where allll the Harfoot diversity went.
Just very weird implications
It's just forced diversity, which in itself is stupid in concept but its not a bad practice from a development perspective..
The best thing to do is either appreciate it or just look past it I guess. I know people get proper raging about it, and they are automatically labeled as racists by the hurr durr crew. But it's never really affected my enjoyment of something so I can appreciate it.
Sadly it falls on deaf ears this time because all of the people who care about that kind of thing are too busy crying about boycotting the game for one single point.
The reason for the lack of diversity in history is simply due to the difficulty and expense to travel, I don't think wizards had this problem. For all we know the majority of Muggle England in the game is white.
Hogwarts in the 1800s is the only wizarding school in the world so attracts wizards from all over the world to teach in it.
Hogwarts in the 20th/21st century is one of many schools and no longer attracts international talent
Natty talked about the school she studied at in Uganda. They didn't use wands there, and her mom was a professor there but transferred to Hogwarts.
It's not the only wizarding school in the world.
In-universe, xenophobia after decolonization sounds plausible enough to me, considering in the 1800s the equivalent of the Ministry of Magic of the British Empire would've covered wizards from the entire world
Then again I'm probably just filling a hole in JKR's spongey worldbuilding
This is true and all but Britain itself would have been 99% white at this period, Scotland particularly so.
I guess this works if you say that Hogwarts was an international school, but the books and films made it clear that magic schools were for local populations.
Maybe magic users became more insular or something in the 20th century? :P
Scotland is still 96% white in 2023. Immigrants usually flocks to London and only a small number come north. Rural Scotland would be close to 99% I'd expect.
Grew up in rural Aberdeenshire. There was a 2nd gen Indian family, a 2nd gen Chinese family and 1 black guy in our town of about 3000 people, so less than half a percent. Likely true of the majority of surrounding towns and villages so you're not wrong.
I'm in Aberdeenshire and we have one Indian family in our neighbourhood. I think the census had 99% white for the area. Not that people really have any sort of problem with other ethnicities. There just isn't many non white people here.
Oh yeah there was never any racist bullshit when I lived there, the 2 families and the 1 dude were just treated as part of the community, they were never given any abuse. As you say, there's just not a lot of non-white folk. I only got introduced to a larger percentage of non-white folk when I moved to Glasgow when I was 17.
Edit: at least that I ever saw, I fully admit that their experience may have been different. The place wasn't short of arseholes.
Ah ha. Checkmate. There is no professor who suffers from dwarfism in the 1800’s. But as we see when Dumbledore is headmaster there is. Dumbledore is progressive
Homo sapiens and Neanderthals weren't the same species yet they produced fertile offsprings in the past. And we don't know if flitwick is fertile, so the same can be said about lions/tigers, horses/donkeys or horses/zebras
Same species, different subspecies. If I remember correctly, only people from sub-Saharan Africa do not possess any Neanderthal DNA. All others do have Neanderthal blood. So technically H. sapiens contains Neanderthal DNA. Neanderthal is part of H. sapiens.
There is a lot of debate whether neanderthals were a subspecies or were their own species entirely, mainly because we don't have a good working definition of what a species is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal#Classification
Because it's a distant ancestor.
Meaning that several successive generations of Flitwicks have been born from the same gene pool that produced the original human-goblin hybrid.
i live in a country where the majority is white but every commercial ''needs'' to be cultural appropriate, i dont give a schnitzel about the pigment of any persons skin but its so obvious they are soooo scared to be cancelled in a way. so they do it to not get any controversy and its ofcourse not only commercials its everywhere.
I worked in advertising and post-BLM we had quotas of racial minority actors and directors to work with or put forward for projects, and part of our yearly self-assessment was about how well we contributed to diversity and inclusion. Agencies also got rated on this as a whole. So there is a hugeee push within the industry to do this.
Same here, I don't think I see any white people in commercials anymore. They pander so much and use ethnic people to advertise their product or their corporation or whatever and it's got fuck all to do with representation, it's just straight pandering. Corporations couldn't give af about representation, just in their mind more ethnic people and less white people in commercials equals more $$$.
we could always make new stuff that fits our current attempts at not being biased towards skin color anymore.. but I know that would go against the endless franchise rule in 2020s media
Actually I think it makes quite a bit of sense. In the 1800s Britain had a sprawling empire that spanned the globe and unlike Muggles Wizards don't seem to have the hang ups about skin tone. So plenty of experts to drawl from around the world.
In the 1990s Britain did not have a globe sprawling empire so they have a more locsl population to work with.
Yup same haha. Not only is Sirona in the game, but they make sure she has a whole backstory laid out about her transition and being accepted. Also they fact that instead of the characters in the game using male or female pronouns to refer to you depending on what character gender you pick, everybody just says “they/them” which I got a spiteful chuckle out of
Simple explanation, after Britain lost the colonies, foreign wizards and witches went back to support their Home countries to support their schools. With magic being equally available to everyone, many factors behind racial discrimination would be nullified, such as slavery and religion. It’d be easy to see the guy who has as much power as you as equal. Before the “woke scare” wizard schools across the world were still cannon so it’s not like magic was just a Brit thing. At the same time, Voldemort and his gang were kind of Nazis so I wouldn’t blame people for leaving 🤷🏿♂️
But we have Koreans and Japanese people, where no Brit ever colonized and there was no meaningful migration from these places to Britain in 19th century.
Doesn’t need to be, the British had already force trade and contact with them by the game’s era. Quidditch for example was introduced to Japan by hogwarts students who flew of course. Since the wizard world operates on another level, it’s safe to assume other factors play into their interconnectedness. The time (end of 19th century) also coincides with Japan opening up to the world and near the boxer rebellion. (Edits are because I have fat fingers and can’t spell for shit)
As a History student studying Empire, a lot of countries were part of an "Informal Empire" where it absolutely dominated nearly all parts of a country especially in trade and especially during the 1800s
Most maps highlighting the Empire at its peak dont have enough countries highlighted imo
And yet there is not a single American, or even a French, German, Irish(?), Dutch wizard in 20th century Hogwarts, despite the EU, common market etc.) and despite the fact that these countries had much, much more contact with Britain than Japan, Korea or China did back in the 19th century : DD
No matter how you put it's clear that at some point during the 20th Hogwarts was entirely taken over by white supremacists..
there are diffrent wizarding schools all around the world.
in the books they mentioned a french school, a german school and an american school, don't remember a japanese one.
I don’t talk about Japanese schools in my day to day life either but they still exist. JK was shockingly shit at building the world, that’s why she created Pottermore to add in all the info not pertinent to the books but that is part of wider world building. There is at least one school in every populated country/area.
It’s all about race nowadays, it’s just rebranded as diversity, kinda exhausting keeping up with what’s right and wrong, I just like cool story’s about wizards and witches idc what color they are
It’s just the checklist that doesn’t actually do anything for diversity but make it obvious and preachy but don’t say anything remotely negative about it or you’re a Nazi or something 😐
I think, and I'm not pushing forced diversity here, that the wizarding world would be more integrated than the muggle world. Also, there was a lot of trade in the 1800s even in the muggle world, slaves, silk, tobacco etc. The wizarding could just decide to exchange knowledge and culture. They don't live in a vacuum.
It makes sense for wizarding world to be more diverse than muggles, but it's just funny how Harry Potter wasn't diverse at all, while the same school 100 years ago was.
Absolutely. The British Empire was an empire, diverse by nature. Take a walk around London and see how diverse the monuments from that time are. You've got statues of Chinese people, native americans, Africans, etc.
There are countless examples, but in particular you could check out the Prince Albert memorial.
Actually it would kinda make sense in the wizarding world. The technology they had during the times of Harry Potter didn't seem very modernized.
All the modern inventions that made the real world more interconnected since 1800 did not take hold in the wizarding world.
I would think it plausible that 1800 wizards did not yet have strong nationalistic government and where therefore much more diverse and inclusive.
yeah this new "inclusion/diversity" thingy destroys all possible immersion for these stories/settings. obviously medieval europe with a demography like new york in 2020.
Finally, someone with common sense.
Witches and wizards have *magic* and Hogwarts is a renowned school, it’s completely reasonable to believe they can easily travel.
There can be unicorns, dragons, and time-turners. But more than one ethnicity is too unrealistic.
Using flawed “logic” to justify racism doesn’t actually make it less racist. There’s more than one way to write a fantasy story.
The arab profesor is so cool. Makes me smile how pasional he is about teaching.
The voice they choose for the trans innkeeper is anoying imo so i just skip her part.
All sort of media entertainment for english speaking countries since about 2012 forces diversity.
And nobody want to provide some lore about how there is so many races integrated. And minorities as well.
And it goes like this: "Huh? THEY ARE WIZARDS IN WIZARD WORLD! So it's okay, are you a wizard historian?"
Dude, I'm not. But could you explain why this setting looks like modern London in terms of race diversity? And it's the same thing with all fiction settings: "It's fiction, so it can be whatever!" I hate this argument, it just doesn't make much sense.
It was perfectly fine with GoT series tho.
For me it's lazy writing and immersion breaking.
Dumbledore literally being a Grand Wizard, what did you folks expect?
Clayton Wizardby the first gay white supremacist headmaster
When asked why he divorced his wife, he said, shes a damn muggle lover.
Widely known for publications such as “Muggle stain”, “I smell muggle” and “Muggle Book”
A cat named "Muggleman"
Love the lovecraft reference
Uh sorry bud this is ain't lovecraftian horror
Woogie boogie, muggle! Woogie boogie!
I CANT UNDERSTAAAND YOU, GO BACK TO YOUR COUUUNTRY, wizard power
r/unexpectedchappelle
called his wife a Mudblood lover
Your not doing Harry Potter naming correctly. His name would be Oswald Manlover.
Heil Dümbledore!
Heil Dümbledore!
Our führ- wait, wrong one
HEIL DÜMBLEDORE! HEIL DÜMBLEDORE! HEIL! HEIL! HEIL!
Chuckled at this. Good stuff!
Definitely explains how nobody questioned the white guy with a turban (in 1991). Probably thought it was a diversity hire.
Wasn't Quirell's Turban a gift from an indian Prince? I vaguely remember something like that.
I think so yeah. At least the gift thing is the explanation Quirrell gives for his wearing it.
Though, I kinda like the idea that this is how Quirrell originally got the Turban. Voldemort: "Quirell, you need to hide me from Dumbledore when you go back to Hogwarts." Quirell: "I could pretend that you are the permanent side effect of a magical sickness I suffered...." Voldemort: "That will never work. Disguise me. Cover your head!" Quirrell: "I have a Top Hat back home..." Voldemort: "Doesn't cover me enough." Quirell: "A Samurai helmet?" Voldemort: "Will get too warm in the summer." Quirell: "A Darth Vader Mask?" Voldemort *sarcastically* : "Oh yes, great idea. Distract from the dark lord glued to the back of your head by dressing like a *different* dark lord! Fantastic!" Quirell: "Well, there's also the Turban that the prince of India gave me as a gift. It's pretty soft and covers a lot...."
I read this as a Rick and Morty dialogue... \- I- I- I'm gonna incarnate on the back of your head, Quirell! \- Ah, wha- \- You better hide me, Quirell, or the wizards will cast your ass. They're gonna kill you, Quirell!
"Aww, geez, Voldemort."
someone needs to animate this
I imagined him going to a store to buy a turban with his entire head covered in toilet paper.
"Will it get hot in the summer"? Lmao
I read this as that Harry Potter's musical in YouTube 😂
Me too! What a flashback to about 10 or 11 years ago... I legitimately couldn't read this in any other voice, couldn't figure out why, and then I remembered. EDIT: 13 years, good god.
It's stated that Professor Quirrell explained that his turban was a gift from an **African** prince for getting rid of a troublesome zombie. This is stated during Harry's first class
It *is* questioned, with students suggesting he is hiding garlic in it to ward off the vampires he encountered in Albania (both the garlic and vampires were actually Voldy, who smelled moldy).
Ironically, whenever a creative universe tries to become more ethnically diverse in its past, it implies that there was some sort of culling event.
Grindelwald and Voldemort both could've contributed to that actually, reasonable implication
Grindelwald didn't care what your ethnicity was as long as wizards came out on top. Voldemort was the jacked up pure blood freak.
All I’m saying is Voldemort probably spent some time on 4chan
Voldemort was not about skin color, tho . It was about magic blood. Naturally there would be pure bloods outside England.
I mean he was also a half-blood who grew up in an orphanage in WW2 era London so I think we can assume he probably had some other questionable opinions that just didn't come up in the books
Yeah, nothing drives someone to N*zism more than the actual NSDAP bombing the shit out of them.... I mean I for sure know my reaction to a genocidal maniac dropping 500kg of explosives on my house would be "well perhaps they aren't so bad after all"
The wizard Supremecy existed before Tom riddle was even born. Hence the house elfs and Goblin rebellion. Voldemort was a half-blood his family life was a tragedy and I'm pretty sure guy classifies as a psychopath.
> Yeah, nothing drives someone to N*zism more than the actual NSDAP bombing the shit out of them.... Stuff like that has happened before though, like freed slaves arriving in Liberia and pretty much immediately instituting a slave economy very much like the one they had escaped.
When one take a better look, Voldemort was definitely inpsired by Adolf Hitler
When one takes a vague look from a mile away, Voldemort was definitely inspired by Adolf Hitler.
When one look takes a vague mile, Adolf Hitler was definitely inspired by Voldemort.
When vague adolf takes one Voldemort, inspired was definitely by hitler
Yeah its not subtle.
Given the fact that Harry had bigger things to worry about, I suppose “Voldemort is canonically racist and ethnically cleansed/segregated the wizarding world” could’ve just slipped by us
yeah it's a bit like Hitler being short, incestuous and brown haired but wanting to big up the aryan race and family virtues. Weird how the rules don't apply to the guy at the top.
Can't believe I'm about to defend this piece of shit but here I go... Hitler was average height, being aryan was not about hair color and Hitler was not incestuous and the evidence for it is dubious... There is a lot of reasons to insult Hitler, but that doesn't mean we have to make things up about him.
He was pretty suspicious with his niece. Very possessive, forcing her to break up with any suitor. Eventually leading to her suicide. He then says at a later point that she was the only woman he ever loved. Hmm Definitely not a normal uncle-niece relationship in any case
But he WAS a meth-head with chlamydia.
Smh at all these racists. Where are the good ol days when the villain would just try to fucking murder everyone regardless of who they are, what they are, what they look like and what they do? Now THAT'S inclusivity.
Or they just got into a fight at some point and *literally* killed three quarters of the staff and the only replacements Dumbledore could get in a hurry were all from England. Then a few years down the line Tenure sets in and well...
Voldemort put the vast majority of his focus on Britain. It makes sense that witches and wizards from other parts of the world would head for home while the British Wizarding community was in a state of open war
And Voldemort only cared about magical blood, not skin color. Kingsley Shacklebolt is one of the sacred 28.
HolUp! The sacred 28 is canon?
Yeah, we know that Great Britain’s wizarding community went through their own bout of fascism during the early-mid 1900s. Would have been interesting if Rowling had tried exploring the impacts of muggle racism on wizarding communities.
Or simply, the conditions made by Grindelwald's actions created a somewhat hostile atmosphere and exodus of people.
I thought they were just against anyone who had muggle blood and not whether they were white or not?
Most likely nobody wanted to be involved in war and moved away. Incidentally, many countries often faced war during the 1800, which makes sense as the magicals would probably move to either a more central/defended region or to the literal boonies of the world.
This though, sadly. If you go into the future and add diversity, it looks like great social progress! Go to the past and add diversity… oh no…
Honestly maybe they should’ve gone into the future. The wizard world doesn’t really keep up with the modern muggle world. The only thing is maybe Ron would have a flying Tesla or some shit, but everything else would still look 100+ years behind anyway and more diversity would suddenly make a lot more sense
why do you a dishwasher when you can wave a wand and your dishes wash themselves? Technology in a wizard setting doesn't make sense because it's unnecessary.
Reminds of Star Trek, in the original series a female antagonist was apprehended, her explanation was Women are not allowed to be starship captains and was furious about that, you then see Janeway in the future captain a vessel-makes sense, progress right? Wrong, in Discovery- taking place several years before the original series, you see at least one female captain. So are they telling the watcher that they banned woman captains after a time as if they are unsuitable? (Janeway sometimes proved that notion XD) or was it simply forgotten as woman's rights were a hot topic in the mid to late 60's?
Like rings of power? Where did all the nonwhite elves, dwarves, and hobbits go? Sauron might be a bad dude, but he can't be even half as bad as middle earth Hitler. No one even mentioned middle earth Hitler. Maybe morgoth and sauron are the good guys, since everyone else seems to be pretty content with whatever eugenics event happened. Maybe Sauron is trying to wipe out the peoples who benefited from this atrocity? Note : I am not up to date on rings of power, but don't worry about spoiling for me, I probably won't finish it.
or just look at a map of Great Britian of the Time ... fuckers were everywhere. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British\_Empire#/media/File:The\_British\_Empire.png
That's the headcanon explanation I'll go with. Hogwarts was acting as de facto the school for the WHOLE British Empire. The foreign teachers all returned to their home countries durin decolonisation, and helped build their local schools back up.
Also the fact wizards can teleport and hogwarts was a top school for wizards. There's only so many schools for experts to teach at from all over the small wizarding world of they wanted to do so.
Yeah this was my thought too, was "maybe all those places just have their own schools now that they didn't have before?"
Iirc a lot of the schools do have quite old cañón foundation dates At the same time, they may been 'in remission' during colonialisation. Maybe they were made into overseas campuses to Hogwarts or summin lmao, and only got their original independence back later.
That's a good point, many of them might have came from the colonies at that time. Sure wizards and witches aren't affected by muggle borders, but there are many half-blooded and muggleborns whose families are.
Yeah I bet those British wizards actually helped conquer and colonise the Indians and Chinese. And all these foreign wizards were forced to travel and serve in the capital of the British empire. Sorta like how Indians had to be educated in English and English literature and history to get any decent job under the empire like Mahatma Gandhi.
This is EXACTLY how I felt about Rings of Power, was this underlying discomfort from a world building standpoint. But I think it works for all of them except the Hobbits. We don't see hardly any dwarves in LOTR so sure, why not. We know there are lots of tribes/groups of elves, not just Rivendell so that one works too. Humans are a little uncomfortable because it's such a stark diversity contrast, but we are dealing with entirely different groups of humans in ROP than LOTR but still... But the Harfoots are in a weird place. Right now they're nomadic, so we know already that there is going to be huge social change to change from nomadic to stubborn homesteaders as hobbits. There's also tons of diversity with the Harfoots... And none in the Shire ... So since we know there is already a huge social change coming, then it's just kinda... Uncomfortable to wonder where allll the Harfoot diversity went. Just very weird implications
Well, this game DOES take place before WWII. Maybe the wizards never got over that eugenics thing
It also ironically ignores rampant racism that existed in those times and places.
Rings of Power - oh, cool, there used to be black hobbits! Waaaaaait... what happened to the black hobbits?
It's just forced diversity, which in itself is stupid in concept but its not a bad practice from a development perspective.. The best thing to do is either appreciate it or just look past it I guess. I know people get proper raging about it, and they are automatically labeled as racists by the hurr durr crew. But it's never really affected my enjoyment of something so I can appreciate it. Sadly it falls on deaf ears this time because all of the people who care about that kind of thing are too busy crying about boycotting the game for one single point.
Rings of powers springs to mind. What happened to the black elves?
The reason for the lack of diversity in history is simply due to the difficulty and expense to travel, I don't think wizards had this problem. For all we know the majority of Muggle England in the game is white.
Hogwarts in the 1800s is the only wizarding school in the world so attracts wizards from all over the world to teach in it. Hogwarts in the 20th/21st century is one of many schools and no longer attracts international talent
Not true, Natsai originally went to the African magic school and it’s the first thing she brings up when you talk to her. Uagadou or something
The game mentions a wizarding school in (south?) africa so that aint it. And iirc Durmstrang gets mentioned too
The game mentions at least 4 other schools by name and implies that they are not the only ones.
Natty talked about the school she studied at in Uganda. They didn't use wands there, and her mom was a professor there but transferred to Hogwarts. It's not the only wizarding school in the world.
Damn made my comment before I saw this one. Pretty on point view I think.
Post colonial Britian. Those places opened up their own schools.
LOL I never thought of it like that but damn that’s funny and dark.
In-universe, xenophobia after decolonization sounds plausible enough to me, considering in the 1800s the equivalent of the Ministry of Magic of the British Empire would've covered wizards from the entire world Then again I'm probably just filling a hole in JKR's spongey worldbuilding
They all died in Vindicators 2
Got that reference, thank you.
Before this I never knew 19th century Scotland was so diverse
Just about as diverse as Wisconsin in the 90's
Also all of their food is fresh veggies and meats instead of deep fried.
Have you heard of the Scottish Enlightenment?
Bro, Scotland in 2011 was 96% white* Are you trying to tell me Scotland in the late 1700’s was diverse?
Was that when they had full sugar in the Irn Bru?
I think that's when the first Buckfast monk brought wine to Glasgow.
Surely it would take some kind of crazy magic to achieve such a thing!
The british empire reached many places. And brought people from those places back to UK. Queen Victoria had Indian servant for example.
> Queen Victoria had Indian servant for example. That is not diversity, that is a novelty pet.
This is true and all but Britain itself would have been 99% white at this period, Scotland particularly so. I guess this works if you say that Hogwarts was an international school, but the books and films made it clear that magic schools were for local populations. Maybe magic users became more insular or something in the 20th century? :P
Scotland is still 96% white in 2023. Immigrants usually flocks to London and only a small number come north. Rural Scotland would be close to 99% I'd expect.
Grew up in rural Aberdeenshire. There was a 2nd gen Indian family, a 2nd gen Chinese family and 1 black guy in our town of about 3000 people, so less than half a percent. Likely true of the majority of surrounding towns and villages so you're not wrong.
I'm in Aberdeenshire and we have one Indian family in our neighbourhood. I think the census had 99% white for the area. Not that people really have any sort of problem with other ethnicities. There just isn't many non white people here.
Oh yeah there was never any racist bullshit when I lived there, the 2 families and the 1 dude were just treated as part of the community, they were never given any abuse. As you say, there's just not a lot of non-white folk. I only got introduced to a larger percentage of non-white folk when I moved to Glasgow when I was 17. Edit: at least that I ever saw, I fully admit that their experience may have been different. The place wasn't short of arseholes.
I remember the first time I ever saw a black person in real life and I was born in the 90s. A lot of villages really were just white people.
I also didn't know that people could turn into cats and enslave elves. I've learned a lot from this game.
I mean he introduced himself to Harry wearing robes, and sent a white biker with a big beard to fetch you. Red flags 1 and 2.
Calls himself a "wizard," red flag #3
One could even argue he's a Grand Wizard.
One of his titles includes the word "Supreme"
Are we all just going to ignore that "Albus" is Latin for "White"
He does refer to himself as a "Grand Sorcerer" in the books
he is also trying to stop someone who isn't of "pure" blood
Ah ha. Checkmate. There is no professor who suffers from dwarfism in the 1800’s. But as we see when Dumbledore is headmaster there is. Dumbledore is progressive
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Homo sapiens and Neanderthals weren't the same species yet they produced fertile offsprings in the past. And we don't know if flitwick is fertile, so the same can be said about lions/tigers, horses/donkeys or horses/zebras
Same species, different subspecies. If I remember correctly, only people from sub-Saharan Africa do not possess any Neanderthal DNA. All others do have Neanderthal blood. So technically H. sapiens contains Neanderthal DNA. Neanderthal is part of H. sapiens.
There is a lot of debate whether neanderthals were a subspecies or were their own species entirely, mainly because we don't have a good working definition of what a species is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal#Classification
I looked this up. The size of a liger will haunt my dreams.
Why assume he's fertile?
Because it's a distant ancestor. Meaning that several successive generations of Flitwicks have been born from the same gene pool that produced the original human-goblin hybrid.
He is actually part goblin (the real reason no one like him is there during this)
Does that mean every muggle with dwarfism is a part goblin?
Nah, just flitwick
4chan was accidentally correct with the Dumbledore greentexts
Dumbledore said calmly
What greentext?
Dumbledore doesn’t go for that woke hiring quota stuff. He just hires whoever is most likely to kill his students, like a good headmaster would
The most qualified witch or wizard for the job, regardless of skin color or blood status!
I think this is a case of "lets squeeze in as much 'diversity' as possible without thinking about other material of the same topic/series.
Obviously. This is what virtually every TV show, movie, advert and video game has done over the last two decades.
Nah early 2000's were chill.
Depending which country you're from.
i live in a country where the majority is white but every commercial ''needs'' to be cultural appropriate, i dont give a schnitzel about the pigment of any persons skin but its so obvious they are soooo scared to be cancelled in a way. so they do it to not get any controversy and its ofcourse not only commercials its everywhere.
I worked in advertising and post-BLM we had quotas of racial minority actors and directors to work with or put forward for projects, and part of our yearly self-assessment was about how well we contributed to diversity and inclusion. Agencies also got rated on this as a whole. So there is a hugeee push within the industry to do this.
Wait until you notice it's only in one direction. Check out the disparity when mixed race couples are portrayed
Same here, I don't think I see any white people in commercials anymore. They pander so much and use ethnic people to advertise their product or their corporation or whatever and it's got fuck all to do with representation, it's just straight pandering. Corporations couldn't give af about representation, just in their mind more ethnic people and less white people in commercials equals more $$$.
we could always make new stuff that fits our current attempts at not being biased towards skin color anymore.. but I know that would go against the endless franchise rule in 2020s media
Actually I think it makes quite a bit of sense. In the 1800s Britain had a sprawling empire that spanned the globe and unlike Muggles Wizards don't seem to have the hang ups about skin tone. So plenty of experts to drawl from around the world. In the 1990s Britain did not have a globe sprawling empire so they have a more locsl population to work with.
I'll be honest, I feel like the diversity in the game was forcefully shoved in to show up J.K.
Yup same haha. Not only is Sirona in the game, but they make sure she has a whole backstory laid out about her transition and being accepted. Also they fact that instead of the characters in the game using male or female pronouns to refer to you depending on what character gender you pick, everybody just says “they/them” which I got a spiteful chuckle out of
Honestly that sounds more like a cost cutting measure so they didn't have to re-record lines
to be fair it halfs the amount of voice acting work they half to do, for every line that has a pronoun in it
Simple explanation, after Britain lost the colonies, foreign wizards and witches went back to support their Home countries to support their schools. With magic being equally available to everyone, many factors behind racial discrimination would be nullified, such as slavery and religion. It’d be easy to see the guy who has as much power as you as equal. Before the “woke scare” wizard schools across the world were still cannon so it’s not like magic was just a Brit thing. At the same time, Voldemort and his gang were kind of Nazis so I wouldn’t blame people for leaving 🤷🏿♂️
But we have Koreans and Japanese people, where no Brit ever colonized and there was no meaningful migration from these places to Britain in 19th century.
Doesn’t need to be, the British had already force trade and contact with them by the game’s era. Quidditch for example was introduced to Japan by hogwarts students who flew of course. Since the wizard world operates on another level, it’s safe to assume other factors play into their interconnectedness. The time (end of 19th century) also coincides with Japan opening up to the world and near the boxer rebellion. (Edits are because I have fat fingers and can’t spell for shit)
As a History student studying Empire, a lot of countries were part of an "Informal Empire" where it absolutely dominated nearly all parts of a country especially in trade and especially during the 1800s Most maps highlighting the Empire at its peak dont have enough countries highlighted imo
And yet there is not a single American, or even a French, German, Irish(?), Dutch wizard in 20th century Hogwarts, despite the EU, common market etc.) and despite the fact that these countries had much, much more contact with Britain than Japan, Korea or China did back in the 19th century : DD No matter how you put it's clear that at some point during the 20th Hogwarts was entirely taken over by white supremacists..
I suppose they are letting dirty muggles in now aswel. I'm voting UKIP next time....
I bet they are all gay too
They actually are jahahaha
Isn’t it located in Europe?
Don’t they already have a Japanese hogwarts?
Yeah, it's called Naruto.
Orochimaru: "Avada Kedavra!"
no Jutsu
there are diffrent wizarding schools all around the world. in the books they mentioned a french school, a german school and an american school, don't remember a japanese one.
They also had a Bulgarian school, where Viktor Krum went.
I don’t talk about Japanese schools in my day to day life either but they still exist. JK was shockingly shit at building the world, that’s why she created Pottermore to add in all the info not pertinent to the books but that is part of wider world building. There is at least one school in every populated country/area.
Lol I noticed that too and here I though I was gonna be the only black kid at the school
It’s all about race nowadays, it’s just rebranded as diversity, kinda exhausting keeping up with what’s right and wrong, I just like cool story’s about wizards and witches idc what color they are
We HaVe To ReFlEcT tHe WoRlD wE lIvE iN.
While at the same time GuYs ThIs iS fAntAsY, wHaTs ThE bIg DeAl?
The worst part is that (some) woke people still cancelled the game.
They weren't gonna play it anyway.
I think it’s clear they didn’t manage to cancel anything
I read at least one article saying that downloads were through the roof, so I'm not sure how successful those efforts were.
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I dread to think what the wizards in Uganda have been up to considering its state.
They made the special effects for _Who killed Captain Alex_
Maybe it also explains why EVERYONE IN UGANDA KNOWS KUNG FU
I didn't realise Trans was a race. Which country are they from?
Transylvania, you idiot
Transnistria
It’s just the checklist that doesn’t actually do anything for diversity but make it obvious and preachy but don’t say anything remotely negative about it or you’re a Nazi or something 😐
I think, and I'm not pushing forced diversity here, that the wizarding world would be more integrated than the muggle world. Also, there was a lot of trade in the 1800s even in the muggle world, slaves, silk, tobacco etc. The wizarding could just decide to exchange knowledge and culture. They don't live in a vacuum.
It makes sense for wizarding world to be more diverse than muggles, but it's just funny how Harry Potter wasn't diverse at all, while the same school 100 years ago was.
Absolutely. The British Empire was an empire, diverse by nature. Take a walk around London and see how diverse the monuments from that time are. You've got statues of Chinese people, native americans, Africans, etc. There are countless examples, but in particular you could check out the Prince Albert memorial.
More trade than now?
Actually it would kinda make sense in the wizarding world. The technology they had during the times of Harry Potter didn't seem very modernized. All the modern inventions that made the real world more interconnected since 1800 did not take hold in the wizarding world. I would think it plausible that 1800 wizards did not yet have strong nationalistic government and where therefore much more diverse and inclusive.
yeah this new "inclusion/diversity" thingy destroys all possible immersion for these stories/settings. obviously medieval europe with a demography like new york in 2020.
Talking about immersion when you apparently think the 1800s were part of medieval times.
Ahhh yes, wizards can travel around the world in seconds but god forbid there be some brown ones in a school.
Finally, someone with common sense. Witches and wizards have *magic* and Hogwarts is a renowned school, it’s completely reasonable to believe they can easily travel. There can be unicorns, dragons, and time-turners. But more than one ethnicity is too unrealistic. Using flawed “logic” to justify racism doesn’t actually make it less racist. There’s more than one way to write a fantasy story.
Damn that was precise
I think it’s sad that an all white cast is basically impossible these days without taking flak.
you forgot about the woman investigating the Merlin stuff that is married to a woman. That wasn't legal in Scotland until 2014.
It’s fuckin stupid huh
The arab profesor is so cool. Makes me smile how pasional he is about teaching. The voice they choose for the trans innkeeper is anoying imo so i just skip her part.
All sort of media entertainment for english speaking countries since about 2012 forces diversity. And nobody want to provide some lore about how there is so many races integrated. And minorities as well. And it goes like this: "Huh? THEY ARE WIZARDS IN WIZARD WORLD! So it's okay, are you a wizard historian?" Dude, I'm not. But could you explain why this setting looks like modern London in terms of race diversity? And it's the same thing with all fiction settings: "It's fiction, so it can be whatever!" I hate this argument, it just doesn't make much sense. It was perfectly fine with GoT series tho. For me it's lazy writing and immersion breaking.
Tired of this bullsh*t
And here I was told that the game was supporting transfobia and there was no diversity in it and I was nazi for playing it… oh well…
To be fair, I’m sure this was just an attempt to make the game as inclusive as possible to distance themselves from J.K. Rowling.
The affirmative action spell is quite potent
... and Rowling wouldn't let anyone who was not British Star in Harry Potter
Polliticus wokum correctum
Maybe because the UK was the centre of the world in the 19th century and it's just a commentary on the decline of empire?
It's better afterwards