Harry Potter’s wizarding world is an authoritarian dystopia
Secret police, slavery and mass indoctrination of children – Harry Potter’s wizarding world is a greatest hits of repressive regimes, says Sam Fowles
Here’s a fun Christmas party game: name your favourite fictional authoritarian state. Is it George Orwell’s “Airstrip 1”? Margaret Atwood’s New England? Or perhaps (whisper it) JK Rowling’s “wizarding world”?
It’s better known for adorable child actors and theatre greats but, beneath the butterbeer and Quidditch, Harry Potter’s home is a greatest hits of repressive regimes. It’s a world reliant on the labour of enslaved house elves: a fantasy version of transatlantic slavery. Magical creatures are, like the native Americans and the first Australians, confined to reservations (Centaurs, for instance, to the Forbidden Forest), denied human privileges (such as owning a wand) and restricted to certain jobs (the long-nosed, covetous “goblins” are stuck with running the bank – nothing to see here…).
In the later books Hogwarts goes full Joseph Kony, fielding an army of child soldiers for the final showdown with Voldemort
Wizarding government bears an uncanny resemblance to Soviet Russia. The “Minister for Magic” and other posts are selected through labyrinthine scheming: a wizarding Death of Stalin. There’s no independent legislature or judiciary. When Harry is tried (as a minor) before the Wizengamot (the wizard court), his judges (including Cornelius Fudge and Dolores Umbridge) also hold senior roles in government. In the seven years covered by the books, there is not a single election.
The wizarding state bans economic innovation that would introduce competition for established industries (like magic carpets – no international trade in wizard world). Its secret police, the “Aurors”, seem to have a licence to kill arbitrarily. When “Mad Eye” Moody is introduced, we’re told he rarely killed unless he had to (implying his colleagues just iced people for jollies). Civil rights are basically non-existent. One scene depicts a suspect coerced into confessing with the threat of Azkaban and the Dementors. Why bother with detectives when you can just threaten perps with soul-sucking depression ghosts?
School for Stalin
Every good totalitarian state must indoctrinate the next generation. Hogwarts takes up the legacy of the Communist Young Pioneers. Students are educated almost solely to be worker drones. Every lesson is practical, developing skills to work but not to think. History of Magic, the only subject which might give kids the analytical tools to challenge the system, seems to consist exclusively of Victorian-style rote learning. In the later books Hogwarts goes full Joseph Kony, fielding an army of child soldiers for the final showdown with Voldemort.
Teenagers bringing down authoritarian regimes is a staple of the young adult genre (Think The Hunger Games or Divergent). Harry Potter is the opposite. The scion of one of a small group of super rich quasi-aristocratic families (who seem to hold all the positions of power), he fights to maintain the system that guarantees his privilege. The Order of the Phoenix (a secret, government-adjacent, paramilitary group – essentially the magic UVF) may be ok with “mudbloods” but it also seems on board with magic apartheid. The only character who thinks about changing the system is Hermione (who campaigns for the rights of house elves). By the time of The Cursed Child (the two-part play which Rowling wrote as a sequel to the book series) she is Minister for Magic. Like many “radical” politicians who talk a big game in opposition, she seems to have done nothing in office.
The only hope for the wizarding world is out and out revolt. We need a magic Alexander Hamilton or Nelson Mandela. Harry “the nepo-baby” Potter isn’t the man for the job. We need a magical creature who can stick it to the wizard-supremacists and make wizarding aristos, who have grown rich on the back of the oppressive system, pay reparations: Harry Potter and the Revolution – now that’s a film I’d watch this Christmas.
Sam Fowles is a barrister