Wizarding World(s) Discussion

[wandandawolf]

Hi!

Basically here's the spot for rambling and discussion about aspects of magical canons and how they all interact. I've brought in Remus with some of the bare bones of HP canon as can be seen from his wiki page.

But essentially:
-There's a school for his type of wizard in Scotland, as well as schools internationally. You use wands and spells are in Latin, suggesting a classical/imperial colonial aspect. Remus would be vaguely aware other types of magic exist.
-There's Diagon Alley, Knockturn Alley and the Ministry in London. But overall the wizard population (of his sort of wizard) is quite small and its footprint is quite minor.
-There was a civil conflict involving Voldemort and the DEs in the 1970s. Generally his type of wizard is a bit Dickensian and backward in terms of social thinking, with innate conservatism and a lot of bias against werewolves, vampires, gays, etc.
-Lycanthropy is still regarded as a disease. He can't control his shifts and could infect anyone when transformed. Even while not transformed, a bite or a scratch would make someone more likely to prefer red meat, for instance.

Thoughts?

Comments

[harrowgate]

Very quick thoughts, I can offer more tomorrow my time. :)

I've established the Cabaline wizards from Felix's canon as the (for lack of a better term) "ruling" wizard class in England, primarily based in London. They have their own governing body, the Curia, and are intricately intertwined with non-magical politics. Cabalines are very, VERY xenophobic and hidebound, and they get a whole lot of things about the rest of the supernatural world totally wrong because very few of them ever venture outside of their hyper-elite magical society.

So it's not completely unthinkable that they would neither acknowledge nor understand any other type of wizard out there. Um, they probably call them "heretics", though they don't actually do anything about that. :p

Felix is very a-typical for a Cabaline, but he has a shit-ton of power and they can't kick him out., so they have to deal with him. :D

[wandandawolf]

Initial thoughts:

-Areas like Knockturn or Diagon Alley could be limited because the rest of London is a Cabaline-only type domain? In the sense that they allow those 'middle class' wizards a few streets here and there, some outlying houses, some villages. And Scotland and possibly Wales.

-The few wizards of Remus' type who openly engage with Muggle politics (which apparently the Malfoys did back in Elizabethan times) could have had their fingers burned by the Cabalines, which is why they retreated into Victorian-era blood purity delusions.

[akatawitch]

Since I'm familiar with this canon and I've done some geeking over how the history of Cabalines goes...

I'm wondering if part of the divide between these two groups might have some historical roots as well? Like, Norman Conquest or something. Bun and I talked about Cabalines proper being a product of the Protestant Reformation, at which point they completely split from the Bastion in Rome. What if similarly we have a 'higher' class of wizard because that school swept in with the French nobility in 1066 and a 'lower' class because Hogwarts style wizardry is what people practiced before?

Of course, if Bun decided all this was dumb then my further speculation probably means nothing, BUT... >.>

[harrowgate]

Mostly what I have to say to this is that Umi is smarter than me. @_@

James - both of your thoughts above make total sense to me. Cabalines may have a really terrible reputation among Potterverse-style wizards for basically claiming all dominion over English magic and then stuffing themselves in a fortress-style manor and refusing to let anyone else play.

In DoL canon, the Cabalines rarely go outside and are generally feared by the populace, but there is obviously other types of magic going on in the city-state they have control of / nominally protect. Cabalines just don't acknowledge that it's proper magic. Heck, Felix even encounters kinds of magic in other countries that he flat out says "I don't know how that could possibly work" due to deep indoctrination in Cabaline understanding. (Yet it totally works.)

So, it's possible that other UK wizards see them as a little bit ridiculous -- while being scary powerful both magically and politically -- because Cabalines have absolutely no understanding of magic outside of their own doctrine.

[wandandawolf]

Tying together what you've both said into a rough synthesis, complete with my own ramblings:

-Latinate/wand magic emerges in the Roman Republic, and is part of the state religious apparatus, along with the vestal virgins, the entrails, etc. It develops as the Republic and then Empire does, colonising local customs and generally being annoying but not offensive.
-It tries to associate itself, like other implements of the Roman State, with the early established Church post-Constantine (like, 300AD). There are briefly orders of brothers and sisters magical in the 400s-500s all praying to Saint Thomas Magus.
-As the Church becomes more onerous in its control and more sanctimonious, what was once an element of state religion becomes more of a specific society, with its own rituals, understandings, words (Muggles). There's no formal break, but wand-wizards essentially start creating their own spaces/pocket dimensions a la Diagon Alley by 1000AD.
-Despite this, wizardry is still feared/disliked by Christian groups, and is often confused with heresy. This leads to trials, inquisitions, crusades, etc.
-During the Protestant reformation, a group of very powerful wizards attempt their own magical reformation, becoming the Cabalines and adhering to elements of the early English state. Those Latinate-wizards who try (like the Malfoys) get their fingers burned and retreat. Latinate-wizardry now becomes associated with non-conformism, whether that's Catholic areas (parts of Europe, the north of England) or non-conformist Protestantism (Wales, Scotland).
-I'd imagine the Cabalines are not simply magically and culturally powerful but also engaged in deep theorising and stuff. In HP, no-one seems to care why their magic works, just that it does. The Latinate-wizards could therefore be looked down on: most of the magical inventions in HP-canon are practical if not accidental. (James' father apparently came up with a potion to make your hair amazing and basically got a huge bucket of money raking it in.)

[akatawitch]

I think collectively we have just geeked harder than anyone has dared to geek before.

[wandandawolf]

Oh, I didn't even go into detail.

[harrowgate]

Lulz you have hit the nail on the head regarding Cabaline theorizing. :D They study magic for its own sake and not much of what shows up in canon is practical at all. It's the polar opposite of Potter magic in a lot of ways. Most of the magic Felix is actually shown doing is big massive rituals, or tiny meaningless things like his witchlights. No one uses magic for practical purposes. They have servants for that. :p

I think this all makes sense to me! But like I said, Umi is smarter.

[akatawitch]

I still like the idea of proto-Cabalines (canon never establishes what they were before the Cabal; were they Eusebians then?) coming to England with the Norman Conquest because like French and English existing on the same soil these magic styles are seriously so different. And it really fits with the whole "high" and "low" idea that comes out in the mingling of the cultures of that time.

I also like how English magic, like the English language, is made out of invasions.

[wandandawolf]

By the proto-Cabalines, do you mean Remus' mob (for game purposes), Umi?

I was thinking of them being classical/Roman because then it explains the Latin, the useless practical nature of their stuff (magic as aqueducts), the archaic aspects of their society and culture and how they spread across Europe etc. But I am happy to change!

[akatawitch]

Iiiiii do not. Cabalines are named for the Cabal, a group of like a dozen wizards who reformed the magic of the Mirador so that things like blood magic wouldn't happen anymore. They had previously been studying and performing the same kind of magic as another organization, the Bastion, which is also really unlike Harry Potter magic.

I like the Roman connection, that's not what I'm saying. Just to me it makes sense if there's two waves of magical thinking in British history, the first one coming with the Roman conquest (we'll keep your roads and your magic, now get out) and the second with the Normans (we do not welcome our snooty overlords, but we can't shake them off either). And really, the reason I like it is just because of the different role Cabalines (and their predecessors) play, which is governance and hobnobbing with the ruling class.

So like how French families took all the power and French words came out being associated with being classier, French-originating magic (even though all of this shows its Latin roots eventually) ends up being the "high" magic of the land.

[wandandawolf]

So, in conclusion:

-Latinate wizardry associated with the Roman Republic and Empire. Largely practical, sort of just expected to work, not a lot of thinking involved. Spreads throughout roughly the same territory as the Empire at its peak, including Britain. Isn't disrupted by the Germanic invasions or the Anglo-Saxons, who also embrace elements of it because they want to be all Romanised too.
-But it ends up as a more rustic branch of wizardry as things change and new nations and power bases (especially the Papacy). It also died out in parts of the Eastern Empire because the Byzantines were all about Greek, not Latin.
-In France and Germany, new ways of thinking about magic emerged - this would be the Bastion. They invaded as part of the Norman Conquest, forming an 'upper class' both in magical and non-magical society.
-The Cabalines emerge with the Protestant Reformation, the magic of the establishment, including the established Churches, especially in England. (Are the Cabalines in other European countries, or just England?) They see themselves as the centre of the magical world, although Latinate schools of wizardry continue across Europe and the Americas, perhaps aligned with Catholicism and/or older, rural, poorer regions- southern France and Italy; the north of England; Wales; Scotland - but they keep going on their own business and generally don't get in the way of the Cabalines, establishing their own power structures (the Ministry of Magic) and their own ways of doing things.

We all good?

[akatawitch]

I'd imagine that Sunny wouldn't be very familiar with his sort of wizard, since it looks like game!universe has Cabalines as the dominant group in the UK. But she would be aware of minority groups existing in multicultural societies (for example in the back of my mind even though it's never been touched on, in Sunny's canon and therefore in my understanding of gameverse, New York is the center for American magic, but the Gullah Islands are the center for African-American magic, and they call it "Tar Nation".)

[wandandawolf]

Remus would probably be vaguely familiar with her form of magic, or at least have some post-colonial understanding of 'wands and Latin is what the white folks used when they went everywhere, but people did magical shit long before we came along.' If that works?

[akatawitch]

Sunny says wands and especially Latin is very much the white folks way. *Nods* They use knives and whatever your first language was, there being like 500 different native languages to choose from. Sunny, however, uses English because that was her first.

Then of course there's the whole matter of spirit faces and spirit names which tie back to certain aspects of native religious beliefs and cultural practices (Odinani in particular seems to be the origin source since the author is Igbo). Anyanwu is Sunny's chi.