Today we tackle two related subjects: People not understanding math, and how humans and giants have sex. Danielle totally stole my thunder on the giant sex thing, but I’m going to go ahead and post my thoughts on it anyway, since I actually did a surprising amount of research on it. Suck it, Danielle.
Hogwarts School Subjects: Wezurds Dun't Nead Know Book-Lernin'
In the last post I pointed out that Hogwarts teaches a lot of basic wizarding stuff, which makes sense because the kids are there to learn magic and it makes sense to start by teaching them beginner stuff and then move on to more difficult and dangerous techniques. The problem is this is apparently all Hogwarts students learn.
Now, I'm not faulting the books for not spending chapters detailing Ron's algebra homework, it's escapist fantasy, I get that. But we do regularly hear about the kids homework, assignments and classes, so the absence of more mundane studies is kind of weird. They learn how to read tea leaves, but not how to read Shakespeare. They learn about unicorn physiology but not about human biology. The learn how to defend themselves from dark curses, but not how to defend themselves from the darkest curse of all, syphilis.
Hogwarts School Subjects: Wezurds Dun't Nead Know Book-Lernin'
In the last post I pointed out that Hogwarts teaches a lot of basic wizarding stuff, which makes sense because the kids are there to learn magic and it makes sense to start by teaching them beginner stuff and then move on to more difficult and dangerous techniques. The problem is this is apparently all Hogwarts students learn.
Now, I'm not faulting the books for not spending chapters detailing Ron's algebra homework, it's escapist fantasy, I get that. But we do regularly hear about the kids homework, assignments and classes, so the absence of more mundane studies is kind of weird. They learn how to read tea leaves, but not how to read Shakespeare. They learn about unicorn physiology but not about human biology. The learn how to defend themselves from dark curses, but not how to defend themselves from the darkest curse of all, syphilis.
The morning after pill is kind of like magic.
Which reminds me...
Human/Giant Cross-Breeding: Close Your Eyes And Think of England
Believe it or not, throughout college I was a sex-ed. instructor. This, hopefully, is why the minute I found out that Hagrid was half-giant I immediately thought "That means, at some point, a normal-sized person had to fuck a giant." Thankfully the giant parent was his mother, because the reverse is terrifying to comprehend.
It's stated that Hagrid's half-brother Gwarp, a full-blooded giant, is 16 feet tall and is small enough that by giant standards he's considered underdeveloped and his mother was ashamed of him. This still means that the physical mechanics of Hagrid’s human father actually impregnating his giant mother are mind-boggling and J.K. Rowling is a terrible person for making me think about it.
Which reminds me...
Human/Giant Cross-Breeding: Close Your Eyes And Think of England
Believe it or not, throughout college I was a sex-ed. instructor. This, hopefully, is why the minute I found out that Hagrid was half-giant I immediately thought "That means, at some point, a normal-sized person had to fuck a giant." Thankfully the giant parent was his mother, because the reverse is terrifying to comprehend.
It's stated that Hagrid's half-brother Gwarp, a full-blooded giant, is 16 feet tall and is small enough that by giant standards he's considered underdeveloped and his mother was ashamed of him. This still means that the physical mechanics of Hagrid’s human father actually impregnating his giant mother are mind-boggling and J.K. Rowling is a terrible person for making me think about it.
"In Philosopher's Stone, Hagrid is mentioned as being twice as tall as the average man and nearly five times as wide but in the movie his height is mentioned as 8 foot 6 (roughly 2.6 metres), and in later books he is said to be three times as wide." I hate these contradictions.
ReplyDeleteSo that said, his father would have to be about 5' or shorter for Hagrid to throw him around as described in the books.
It's still hard to comprehend an at best, 6' man and an at least 20' woman falling in love. Especially since giants seem...stupid/savage. At least Grawp does. Maybe his dad was in it for the giant tits? Eating out must have been an adventure! Anyway, back to the relationship. In the books, Hagrid implies that his mother and father had a real relationship (in the conventional marriage sense) for a time, which implies love, living together and what not. Where the heck did they live though? The mechanics of day to day living are mind boggling. They couldn't have lived in either a wizarding city or the giant city because of the hatred among the two races.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubeus_Hagrid
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_creatures_(Harry_Potter)#Giants
It seems implied that Gwarp is a bit of a simpleton, even by giant standards. Based upon that wiki link and Rowling’s tendency to stick close to mythological conventions I’d assume that giants are of average human intelligence, but with an anthropologically primitive culture. Something analogous to the modern Afghani tribal system seems about right.
ReplyDeleteThis theory allows for the possibility of romantic love across species, but any relationship would be quite strained, regardless of physical/political issues.
Regarding where the Hagrid’s may have lived, I’d venture that Hagrid’s parents lived together sometime before the Ministry’s forced exodus/genocide of the giants, so it’s possible that they lived in a wizard city, albeit while face tremendous social stigma.
All of this Giant politics stuff really makes you realize that even though Voldemort is the obvious Hitler allegory, mainstream wizard society is only just barely more accepting.This is something I’ll discuss more when I talk about Azkaban prison, but for now I’ll just say that it’s strange that Rowling intentionally made the power structure of this magical world a barely-restrained, extremely closed-minded theocracy.