#I'd like to avoid extending the spacing between lines if possible

[creaturefeaster]

Hi... Great job on colorquest but... Im having trouble keeping up with the formatting... I haven't really been able to read it... But maybe that's just my dyslexic ass.

Hi-- thank you, first off!

But hmm, I wonder how this could be mitigated. Would alternating colors per line help alleviate dyslexia?

If you (or anyone else who is dyslexic) have any suggestions on how I could improve the dialogue layout, I'd like to hear them.

I'd like my story to be as accessible as possible.

[wherestoriescomefrom]

sorry to bother but i remember reading something about you writing a paper on how happiness is weaponized in hp and i was wondering if you had any links? i'd love to read that

Shit, anon! I lost this ask entirely because I thought my tumblr glitched or you deleted it!! Don’t worry though, I’ll do my best to answer it and I hope you find out that I answered it. I’m really unsure about the notification system on tumblr currently. 

So unfortunately, the paper you are talking about was never published because it was one of my earliest papers as an undergrad student, so it requires a lot of cleaning up before its anywhere close to publishable. If you would really like to read it, you can dm me privately, and I don’t mind emailing it at all. It wasn’t specifically about weaponised happiness, but rather the role of laughter in talking truth to power. The title of the paper is “MischiefManaged: The Interaction of Humour and Fantasy in Harry Potter.” 

I’m going to take out some of the arguments I had originally written, so you can have a sense of the paper and the overarching thesis. I’ll also attach my bibliography under a Read More link. Anytime you see a line break, assume that I’m quoting from a different part of the paper! 

“The regulation and order of theDursleys is a method of exercising control over Harry. Their sense of normalcycomes from having avoided this complex other world and from making sure Harrynever finds it. Hogwarts becomes a welcome world, one of mess and magic,disorder and laughter, where Harry finds himself through the contrasts.             

Hogwarts becomes Harry’s escape – “frombeing the oppressed and ignored, Harry becomes the often feted cynosure. Frombeing alone, he gains the huge new family of the school and the domestic familyof the Weasleys, with whose children he becomes friends. From being without apurpose, his life is given structure and meaning.” (Manlove 186)             

The world of Hogwarts is analternative – a carnival of belonging and acceptance. The normal rules do notoperate here, and Harry often notes this. The mirror image to life with theDursleys is in life with the Weasleys, a motif that repeats itself both in anemotional acceptance and a physical difference. For instance: 

Lifeat The Burrow was as different as possible from life in Privet Drive. TheDursleys liked everything neat and ordered; the Weasleys’ house burst with thestrange and unexpected. Harry got a shock the first time he looked in themirror over the kitchen mantelpiece and it shouted, ‘Tuck your shirt in,scruffy!’ The ghoul in the attic howled and dropped pipes whenever he feltthings were getting too quiet, and small explosions from Fred and George’sbedroom were considered perfectly normal. What Harry found most unusual aboutlife at Ron’s, however, wasn’t the talking mirror or the clanking ghoul: it wasthe fact that everybody there seemed to like him. (Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets 23)

Themad world of Hogwarts gives Harry the language to rebel against the Dursleys.Magic becomes a liberating force, and, interestingly, we find this languagetranslated into humour. One of the first instances of the Dursleys being unableto bully Harry is in Hagrid’s arrival. Hagrid’s response to Vernon Dursley’sattempts to control the situation are simple – giving Dudley Dursley a pig’stail. This comical image is meant to invoke laughter in us, and seems to teachHarry as well. Harry’s first active act of rebellion against the Dursleysoccurs in Harry Potter and the Prisonerof Azkaban, where Harry blows his Aunt Marge up. Images of comic releaseare used alongside magic for both the young audiences, and the larger politicalpoint being made about translating the language of resistance. Magic existsbetween gaps of reality and unreality; interacting with humour allows it tobecome a powerful statement against overpowering authority.” 

“By creating this identity, thearistocratic ‘Purebloods’ ensure a binary between the two identities. Bylocating this identity within a body, a target is created, and the way theauthority interacts with this body determines the nature of this body. It isthis very body that is later punished. This identity itself is constructed:there is no definite way of being able to trace a bloodline back to itssources, and as the ‘trimmed’ portions of the Black family tree demonstrate,almost all the so-called ‘Pureblood’[1] families have a certainamount of ‘Muggle Blood’ mixed in. However, they very naming of the blood status is what allows the society to assumethere are differentiations. 

Thenaming itself gives authority figures like Dolores Umbridge the legal authorityto ‘cleanse’ the Wizarding society. Nomenclature is crucial in the creation ofa shared enemy – similar to the innocuous ‘Mudblood,’ Voldemort’s regime in theMinistry of Magic brings out similar chilling identifications. Emily AsherPerrin analyses that Harry is termed an “Undesirable” (Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 190) – once again, aninnocuous term, once stripped of the political connotations. Therefore, thesocietal situation created by the very existence of the term ‘Mudblood’ is whatallows a Voldemort, and, more importantly, an Umbridge.

The segregation of identities occursbetween racially different creatures, as well. The most touted example for thiswould be the treatment of the Houselves. Once again, common place, everydaynames and objects are used to define their identity. Wizards have the privilegeof defining their relationship with Houselves, and lack of education ensuresthat they will never find a framework outside this definition to operate in.”

“Thelanguage Harry learns to assert his identity against the Dursleys is intimatelysimilar to the language that the youngsters of Harry’s communities have tolearn to assert their identities against legally sanctioned authority figures.Harry’s wit and sarcasm against figures who hold power over them is a commontrope within the Dursley household; the threshold is crossed when he uses thesame language to speak to figures like Severus Snape and Dolores Umbridge:

‘Whodo you imagine wants to attack children like yourselves?’ enquired ProfessorUmbridge in a horribly honeyed voice.

‘Hmm,let’s think ...’ said Harry in a mock thoughtful voice. ‘Maybe ... LordVoldemort?’

Rongasped; Lavender Brown uttered a little scream; Neville slipped sideways offhis stool. Professor Umbridge, however, did not flinch. She was staring atHarry with a grimly satisfied expression on her face. (Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix 213 - 214)

 ‘Doyou remember me telling you we are practising non-verbal spells, Potter?’

‘Yes,’said Harry stiffly.

‘Yessir.’

‘There’sno need to call me “sir”, Professor.’ (Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince 138 - 139)

 Wedo not necessarily see Harry directing sarcasm and wit towards teachers beforethis – Professor Umbridge breaks this barrier, and we see Harry rebellingagainst the corrupted undercurrent of the world he loves so well. His responseto this corruption is similar to his response towards the Dursleys, accessing alanguage of ridicule and mockery to make his point.

The effect this has is manifold: themethod to critique authority becomes humour. By belittling Umbridge’s ideas,Harry is able to expose how hollow they are. This method also helps to establisha sense of community: since humour is a function of a shared set of values, wesee its use as a tool of rebellion a way to unite a voiceless minority. NevilleLongbottom articulates this himself, when he points out “It helps when peoplestand up to them, it gives everyone hope. I used to notice that when you didit, Harry.” (Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 432) Oppression and restrictions are battledby communities, communities willing to laugh at the ones who create theseoppressive structures.”

“The schoolwide campaign of pranksagainst Umbridge is instigated by them [Harry and Friends], used by them to undermine herauthority, to make her rules seem worthless and arbitrary. Their act oftransgression has interesting consequences, for the community that they aretrying to bring together. “Now you mention it,’ said Hermione happily, ‘d’youknow ... I think I’m feeling a bit ... rebellious,” (Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix 533) becomes a sentimentthat gives the language of rebellion to the students of Hogwarts, many of whomhave not faced ideology in operation before Umbridge. In fact, expressinghumour in the face of oppression seems to erase “signs of fear” from Fred’scountenance. The creation of the Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes is what allowsstudents to access this sense of power over Umbridge, and it is usedeffectively against her over and over again.

The similarities between Umbridge’sregime and Voldemort’s regime are uncanny. As a foreshadowing, Harry’sexperience with Umbridge teaches him how to articulate himself againstVoldemort’s claims to power. When Harry attempts to infiltrate the Ministryduring the rule of Voldemort, hidden under the political façade of PiusThickness, once again, the products developed by Fred and George Weasley. DecoyDetonators, Extendable Ears, Skiving Snackboxes, and other pranks are used toinfiltrate a serious political institution, and used effectively. The Weasley’sWizard Wheezes becomes a rallying cry for humour even during the time whenVoldemort is at large, without the legal sanction of the Ministry. “U No Poo” (Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince 91)is a masterminded subversion of the Voldemort’s attempt to construct hisidentity as something larger-than-life. Voldemort uses names to terrify peopleinto submission. By making his very name inaccessible, he makes his identityuntouchable, inconceivable and fearsome. The prank created by Fred and Georgeis extremely clever in the way it recaptures this space, reducing Voldemort’sunspeakable terror into something that everyone can access withoutapprehension.” 

Foof!! That Went long. Hope it answered your questions, Anon, and I’m including the bibliography. Mind, if I was writing this paper again, that bibliography is going to be much longer, so if you want more reading material, let me know!!! 

Works Cited

Bakhtin, Mikhail. “Introduction.” Rabelais and His World. Indiana UP, 1984. 1 - 59. E-book.

Barrat, Bethany. “Azkaban: Discipline, Punishment, and Human Rights.” The Politics of Harry Potter. Palgrave Macmillian, 2012. 85 - 95. E-book.

Barrat, Bethany. “‘By Order of the Hogwarts High Inquisitor’: Basis of Authority.” The Politics of Harry Potter. Palgrave Macmillian, 2012. 85 - 95. E-book.

Barrat, Bethany. “Purebloods and Mudbloods: Race, Species, Power.” The Politics of Harry Potter. Palgrave Macmillian, 2012. 59 - 85. E-book.

Barrat, Bethany. “The DA (Dumbledore's Army): Resistance From Below.” The Politics of Harry Potter. Palgrave Macmillian, 2012. 85 - 95. E-book.

Foucault, Michel. “The Body of the Condemned.” Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Vintage Books, 1995. 3 - 32. E-book.

Manlove, Colin. “Frightened of the Dark: The 1990s.” From Alice to Harry Potter: Children's Fantasy in England. 2003. 169 – 193. E-book.

Mendlesohn, Farah. “Crowning the King: Constructing Authority in Harry Potter.” The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter: Perspectives on a Literary Phenomenon, ed Lana A Whited. University of Missouri Press, 2002. E-book.

Perrin, Emily Asher. “The Harry Potter Reread: The Deathly Hallows, Chapters 13 and 14.” 26 February 2016. Tor.com. Website.

Westman, Karin. “Spectres of Thatcherism: Contemporary British Culture in JK Rowling's Harry Potter Series.” The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter: Perspectives on a Literary Phenomenon, ed Lana A Whited. University of Missouri Press, 2002. E-book.

Whited, Lana A, M Katherine Grimes. “What Would Harry Do: JK Rowling and Lawrence Kohlberg's Theories of Moral Development.” The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter: Perspectives on a Literary Phenomenon, ed Lana A Whited. University of Missouri Press, 2002. 182 - 211. E-book.