Lots of Potter-loving children out there eagerly await the arrival of their 11th birthday, upon which they hope a large bearded man will burst into their house, mutilate their cousin, and whisk them away to a school that would only pass an Ofsted inspection because the inspector would get murdered by a troll before they reported back. However, once that wondrous dream crumbles, the two circles of the Harry Potter/real life Venn diagram should really distance themselves from each other quite dramatically.
Image: Albus Dumbledoor/Wikipedia commons.
Apparently though, this is not the case for everyone, as some people reach voting age still deeply ingrained in the Harry Potter world, to the point where they scream ‘ten points to Gryffindor’ whenever they cum. On its own, there’s nothing wrong with this; people can like what they like. If it was up to me, modern politics would be a lot more like Guardians of the Galaxy, but I’m not expecting Star-Lord to start canvassing in the swing seats. In the same vein, people shouldn’t retreat from real-world politics in favour of fantasy ones, as a minority of Harry Potter fans (and fans of other franchises I imagine) appear to have done. Obviously, they don’t think Harry Potter is real. The issue seems to be that there is a reluctance to engage in actual politics and instead there is a projection of elements of a fictional wizarding world onto our real, disappointingly non-magic world.
‘dumbledoor’s army cannot stop the tories from defunding the nhs.’
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for things that have little bearing on the real world (trust me, I’m an English student) but please do not extend these things to matters that affect people’s lives. Dumbledore’s Army cannot stop the Tories from defunding the NHS. Theresa May is not going to be defeated by the power of friendship and/or Neville Longbottom. Granted, I highly doubt she’ll be defeated by Corbyn either, but it’s currently a two-horse race and he’s the opposition’s best hope.
This flawed, reality-neglecting mindset is often perpetuated by J.K. Rowling herself on Twitter. She routinely attacks Jeremy Corbyn whilst maintaining that her followers can metaphorically escape to Hogwarts. ‘The wand that would choose Corbyn is made from dark oak and poison root or some shit I don’t even know anymore,’ tweets J.K. Rowling, causing a million Harry Potter fans to pledge their votes to the Tories. ‘Dear dear dear, Remus Lupin would have done a far better job,’ she tuts as she tracks Labour’s falling poll numbers. ‘Ha, no I’m afraid not, unfortunately no spell could fix this,’ she says aloud to no one in particular. Of course, she’s entitled to her opinion, but she does want the Tories to lose, so isn’t voting Labour the best option to prevent serving an increasingly right-wing government a landslide victory?
Image: Theresa May/Wikipedia Commons
It is a tough one though, isn’t it? Corbyn is a principled man who genuinely cares about people, but he’s got a crooked tie and looks like the personification of a sad wank, so he’s basically unelectable. Theresa May, on the other hand, has a morally questionable voting record and spurns refugee children, but her patronus is a weasel, and they’re pretty cute, so on balance, she probably wins out.
Corbyn isn’t a perfect leader, and hopefully he’ll step down when Labour lose, but perfect leaders don’t exist. If you spend your whole life waiting for some sort of Dumbledore-esque transcendental super-politician who knows the name of every single person in their constituency off by heart and trains blind-dogs in their spare time, then your whole life is exactly how long you will be waiting, because it will never happen. Just because you’re not madly in love with a candidate, don’t retreat to Hogwarts. Especially when it’s a two-horse race in which one of the horses wants to kick you in the gut and, whilst the other horse is a friendly chap, he only has three legs, and needs all the help he can get. And no, when the Corbyn-horse loses, he won’t get sent to Hagrid’s hut to live out his days with hippogriffs and dragons, he’s getting shotgunned in the face and turned into glue.
