#wizarding class system

[fannedandflawless]

Arthur Weasley’s Salary: Magical Living on a Non-Magical Budget

Let’s talk about the quiet financial absurdity hiding in plain sight in the Harry Potter universe: Arthur Weasley’s salary. Because when you actually run the numbers? It makes Severus Snape’s meagre income look like luxury. In a previous post, I explored Severus Snape’s likely annual income using real-world UK academic pay scales from the 1990s—if you’ve read Part III – The Rise of Severus Snape: Finances & Survival, you’ll know his life was far from luxurious, but it was stable, controlled, and financially self-sufficient.

Because when you actually map out how Arthur managed to raise seven children, maintain a multi-storey home, own a car, and send everyone to Hogwarts—all on a single income?

It stops being whimsical. It starts sounding impossible.

—

Arthur Weasley’s Canon Income – The 700 Galleon Problem

According to J.K. Rowling via early Pottermore content, Arthur Weasley earned ~700 Galleons per year working at the Ministry in the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office.

Rowling also suggested 1 Galleon ≈ £5. That means:

700 Galleons/year = £3,500/year

Even in wizarding terms, this is shockingly low. It explains why the Weasleys are constantly portrayed as financially struggling—but it raises even more questions when you actually compare this to what’s considered "meagre" elsewhere in the same world. (See The Great Galleon Plot Hole for the full breakdown of how absurd wand pricing is next to broomsticks and household budgets.) It’s this level of visible frugality that explains why, even at age eleven, Draco Malfoy sneered at the Weasleys' lifestyle—not merely out of cruelty, but because their second-hand robes, patched belongings, and obvious lack of status clashed so sharply with everything he’d been taught to admire.

—

🧪 Severus Snape’s Salary – The "Meagre" Benchmark

In The Half-Blood Prince, Slughorn refers to the Potions Master salary as "meagre."

However, based on real-world equivalents (1990s UK academic salaries at private boarding schools or junior lecturers), a realistic conversion puts Severus' Hogwarts salary at roughly:

£25,000–£35,000/year = 5,000–7,000 Galleons/year

Which means…

Arthur Weasley earned one-tenth of what Snape did.

So if Severus’ salary was “meagre,” then Arthur’s was barely magical subsistence.

—

How Did Arthur Weasley Survive on 700 Galleons?

Let’s break it down based on previously established lore:

🏡 The Burrow – But They Own Property

The Burrow is most likely inherited or acquired magically (via family or local wizarding means).

They pay no rent or mortgage, which massively reduces cost of living.

Magic allows them to extend or repair it without outside labour.

🚗 The Flying Car

Arthur likely salvaged or bought the car second-hand (Muggle world).

He enchanted it himself, which means no magical modification costs.

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Raising 7 Children

Clothing, books, and wands are reused or second-hand.

Molly grows/cooks meals at home using magic.

Children attend Hogwarts, where tuition, housing, and food are included.

Brooms and pets (like Scabbers) are often hand-me-downs.

Their survival hinges on:

Inherited property

Magical self-sufficiency

Extreme frugality

Hand-me-down culture

And probably a bit of unspoken help from Dumbledore, McGonagall, or the community.

—

What Would Arthur Need to Earn to Survive Like He Does in the Books?

Let’s say:

Groceries for 9: ~700 Galleons

School supplies (4 children at once): ~240 Galleons

Clothes & basics: ~100 Galleons

Utilities, owl care, car upkeep: ~100 Galleons

Emergency/miscellaneous: ~60 Galleons

Total: ~1,200 Galleons/year (ultra-frugal estimate)

Arthur earns 700 Galleons… so they’re likely (as explored more fully in Spinner’s End Wasn’t Poverty—It Was Privacy, which breaks down how Severus could afford his life with strict control):

Living in deficit

Receiving help

Magicking needs into being

Or all three.

—

The Bigger Picture – A Broken Economic Logic

A wand costs 7 Galleons. A broom costs 1,000 Galleons. Arthur Weasley earns 700 Galleons a year.

Somewhere, the economic logic is being levitated off a cliff.

—

This entire post builds on the ideas explored in:

📎 The Great Galleon Plot Hole – How the wand-to-broom pricing gap makes no sense 📎 Part III – The Rise of Severus Snape: Finances & Survival – How Severus navigated post-Hogwarts life with control, not comfort 📎 Spinner’s End Wasn’t Poverty—It Was Privacy – A full economic breakdown of Snape’s home, Hogwarts salary, and lifestyle control

Let the Ministry explain that.

[perplexingly]

what's up with Wizards having orange cats

[typheus]

Clown time for grimm :)

[swtechspecs]

Core Galaxy Systems Dynamic-Class Light Freighter

Source: Starships of the Galaxy, Saga Edition (Wizards of the Coast, 2007)

[dragonologist-phd]

For curiosity’s sake- do y’all have any headcanons about what your Envoy’s class would be in terms of the original games?

In Helfella’s case, I think she’s a pretty standard Evoker Wizard, but I do like the idea of her multi-classing as an Arcane Archer as she levels up

[flightyquinn]

Fun idea - New version of a Wizard where you choose between being an academic or pact wizard at first level.

Academics get a spellbook that they can add to freely, the ability to consult said book to swap out prepared spells, and some other benefits related to being a scholar of magic.

Pact wizards get a familiar who stores spells for them, as a gift from the being they made a pact with to learn magic. The familiar learns more free spells per level, but you can't add more spells to it because it's simply passing on information on behalf of another being. For the same reason, you can't change out spells once prepared. You're under contract, and the terms state when and how often you can request new spells. However, you have access to all of the assistance that a familiar spirit can provide, which includes help with concentration, and giving your spells a bit more "oomph", since you're not relying solely on your own power to cast.

At around level ten, maybe as late as thirteen, you get whichever option you didn't pick initially. No matter how you started, being a Wizard eventually leads to the same place. Either you start out with a purely academic approach to magic, and eventually forge a pact with a more powerful being in the pursuit of further knowledge, or you start out getting help from a higher power, and eventually learn enough to start understanding magic on your own terms.

[unintentional-sad-wizard]

I don’t usually comsume caffeine (my body just doesn’t handle it well) but given that I am starting work again and extremely fatigued as a result I fear I must begin experimenting with it again. Anyway. Time to see what 100mg of caffeine does to my (extremely exhausted, zero caffeine tolerance) body today.

[birdmenmanga]

hour 20 of being awake means I can't actually articulate what is going on in my head. I know I'm right though.

[moodr1ng]

did a dnd oneshot today kinda on a whim (signed up yesterday) and it was fun dgmw but also kinda made it clearer to me the kinda dnd im just not that into. we did very very little roleplay and most places we visited were quite summarily described and only there to get what we needed done and leave, and then after wrapping up our characters meeting, getting a quest, getting ready and going to the quest area in like 2 hours the rest was only combat. i got into it and all but ultimately not rly what i wanna do in dnd yknow... i love roleplaying and talking to npcs and exploring some worldbuilding and especially getting to do creative stuff and strategies, and i reckon this doesnt rly mesh well w the type of dnd that appeals more to people who most enjoy long and challenging fights against evil. i still had fun and enjoyed myself and the people were cool but also this is not something id wanna do a whole campaign of and its nice to get more experience to figure that out basically

[jg-macleod]

I know it's been discussed to death but it's wild that the person who wrote about a system that places children into rigidly defined roles being a massive TERF is almost comically on the nose.

[fannedandflawless]

If you thought this was bad, wait till you see how Arthur Weasley survived on a salary that couldn’t even buy a broomstick. Tomorrow’s post is chaos.

The Great Galleon Plot Hole

You ever sit there re-reading Harry Potter and suddenly get punched in the face by a plot hole so loud it drowns out the Hogwarts Express?

Because I just remembered something:

Wands are the most essential magical tool in the entire wizarding world—your literal magical lifeline—and they cost less than a decent meal in Diagon Alley.

Meanwhile, broomsticks? Luxury items. And somehow, everyone’s just… fine with that?

✨Absolutely not.✨

Let’s talk about it—because the wizarding world economy is giving narrative convenience over logic, and I have questions. Big, wand-swinging, Gringotts-auditing questions.

But Why Is the Soul-Bound Wand Cheaper Than a Broomstick?

THE WAND IS YOUR LIFE

It’s your weapon.

Your shield.

Your link to identity, emotion, power, precision, and survival.

You can’t even perform most standard spells without it—unless you're a trained wandless magic user, which is incredibly rare and usually requires advanced discipline or heritage-based skill.

It chooses you. It bonds with your magic. It’s irreplaceable. So how much does it cost?

Roughly 7–20 Galleons. Literally less than a decent cauldron—or, depending on the wand, not much more than dinner and dessert in Diagon Alley.

According to J.K. Rowling, wands sold at Ollivanders are generally priced around 7 Galleons, though some fans speculate they could range up to 20 Galleons depending on wand complexity or materials. If we use the exchange rate Rowling once suggested (1 Galleon = ~£5), that means the average wand costs £35–£100—cheaper than a modern mobile phone, and it lasts your entire magical life.

Considering the effort it takes to craft them—rare magical woods, powerful cores like phoenix feather or dragon heartstring, and the expertise of a wandmaker—this price range is still shockingly low for something that serves as a witch or wizard’s most essential magical instrument.

—

MEAL PRICES IN THE WIZARDING WORLD

Let’s quickly look at the cost of food in the wizarding world, since we’re comparing life-altering artefacts to lunch.

From the Hogwarts Express trolley:

Pumpkin Pasties, Cauldron Cakes, Chocolate Frogs: ~1–2 Sickles each

Harry buys a dozen items with a handful of Sickles (17 Sickles = 1 Galleon)

A full trolley binge? Roughly 1 Galleon.

In Half-Blood Prince, we also get a glimpse of Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley prices:

Butterbeer: ~2 Sickles

Light lunch at the Leaky Cauldron: ~1–2 Galleons

Full sit-down meal with drinks and dessert (e.g. Madam Puddifoot’s): ~3–4 Galleons

So yes, a wand could cost less than a proper meal out—especially if you’re treating someone.

—

THE BROOM COSTS 50x MORE?

A Nimbus 2000 is gifted to Harry—major moment. Retail: ~100 Galleons.

A Firebolt? Easily over 1,000 Galleons. That’s more than Arthur Weasley’s entire annual salary, and he works for the Ministry of Magic. Literal luxury transport.

Some Hogwarts students can’t even afford a broom—they borrow school spares.

So what are we saying?

“Yes, your enchanted flying stick of wood is more expensive than your magical soul-bonded wand.”

🚨 IT’S A PLOT HOLE. A BIG ONE.

We’re expected to believe that the literal core of magical life is cheaper than school transport, postal birds, and half the Hogwarts supply list?

—

ROWLING’S LIKELY INTENTION:

A cheap wand makes magic feel accessible to everyone.

Expensive brooms show status and privilege (Malfoys flexing 101).

It creates visual contrast: Ron’s taped wand vs Draco’s top-tier broom.

But from an internal logic standpoint?

You can’t ride a broom into a duel. But you can hex someone across the room with a wand. So why is the life-sustaining object priced like a trinket?

—

HEADCANON FIX (Because We Always Clean Up for Her):

Wands are partially subsidised by Hogwarts or the Ministry. → A “no child wandless” policy. A right, not a luxury. → Ollivander charges less than market value to protect magical equality.

Brooms are like cars. → Basic ones are cheap. → High-end ones are status symbols (think: Quidditch Rolex on a stick).

Ollivander keeps prices low on purpose. → His family name is legacy. → He’s not selling wood and string—he’s handing over destiny.

—

🫠 BONUS RAGE: OLLIVANDER HAS TO EAT, TOO.

Wandmaking isn’t hobby work. This man carves magical wood, cores it with dragon heartstring or unicorn hair, and attunes it to individual children’s energy signatures.

And you’re telling me he charges 7 Galleons and calls it a day?

Meanwhile, in the Muggle world, wand replicas at Universal Studios theme parks sell for £40–£70, depending on whether they’re interactive or display-only. That’s almost the same as—or more than—the actual wand price in-universe. And those don’t even come with phoenix feathers.

Either he’s surviving on principle alone, or there’s a secret Wand Subsidy Act nobody talks about.

—

“If my wand is cheaper than an enchanted kettle, someone’s cooking the books—and it’s not in Potions class.”

Capitalism really said ‘Expelliarmus your wallet.’

—

💸 If wand prices made you blink, wait until you see how Severus Snape maintained a house, a potions lab, and an aura of controlled menace on what Slughorn called a “meagre” salary. → Read Spinner’s End Wasn’t Poverty—It Was Privacy.

[garden-eel-draws]

Ah, yes, calling a System function.

Also known as calling upon a wizard to use a tiny sliver of their vast, unknowable magicks to System.out.print()

[prokopetz]

I apologise if you've already answered this, but I tried searching your blog and I'm unsure if you haven't or if it's another example of Tumblr's amazing search system.

I was talking with a friend recently about how much of a culture clash the Monk Class is compared to the rest of Dungeons & Dragons and was wondering if there is a coherent reason for their original inclusion. I'm aware that they're largely influenced by Shaolin monks as depicted in Hong Kong cinema in the 70's/80's as compared to the Sword and Sorcery stuff most of the rest of D&D takes influence from.

Basically, my question ultimately boils down to, "Is the Monk Class there purely because of an original player wanting to rule of cool their way into playing something wildly out of genre, or is there a stronger link between Sword and Sorcery and Hong Kong cinema that could have organically resulted in the Monk Class joining the rest of the classes?"

A lot of the link between the two was simply a matter of time and place. The kung fu craze hit North America at just about exactly the same time as the sword and sorcery revival that gave us films like Clash of the Titans and Beastmaster and The Sword and the Sorcerer and Dragonslayer and Krull – not to mention the Arnold Schwarzenegger Conan adaptation, which revived popular interest in first-wave sword and sorcery literature – so there was a lot of it going around. Analysis of early Dungeons & Dragons as a product of its media influences often overlooks that it was largely drawing on what was trendy in American popular media in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Even the tonally incongruous Lord of the Rings references weren't a deep cut; while the books were originally published in the 1950s, they'd experienced a strong resurgence in the 1970s, putting them firmly in the popular consciousness at the time that D&D was being developed. All this being the case, it's not surprising that early D&D was also substantially influenced by Hong Kong action cinema.

That said, the reason the monk character class in particular (i.e., as opposed to kung fu media influences more generally) is there is allegedly because one specific guy in one of the game's early playtest groups really, really wanted to play as Remo Williams from Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir's The Destroyer; several of the class's signature abilities are direct references to powers Williams exhibits in the course of the novels. Remarks from folks who worked at TSR at the time have pointed the finger at Brian Blume as the Remo Williams fan in question, though accounts are conflicted whether Blume was actually an uncredited contributor to Dave Arneson's Blackmoor (1975), in which the class makes its first proper appearance, or whether Blume's interest merely prompted its inclusion.

This is the case for the character archetypes in a lot tabletop RPGs of that era; instead of trying to work out what classes "ought" be be present, authors would simply start with the types of characters their playtesters actually wanted to play, often based on specific popular media characters, then work backwards to derive an IC rationale for why those were the setting's standard adventuring professions. Other examples from D&D in particular most obviously include the Ranger (based on Tolkien's Aragon, naturally), but also the Paladin (principally inspired by Holger Carlsen from Poul Anderson's 1961 isekai novel Three Hearts and Three Lions, also the source of D&D's goofy regenerating trolls), the Assassin, back when it was still a separate character class (probably mainly based on the Assassin Caste from John Norman's Gor), and even the Wizard to a large extent (less Gandalf than you'd think: a large portion of D&D's iconic wizard spell list is lifted directly from the 1963 Vincent Price film The Raven).

(I often think that modern indie RPGs could benefit from reviving this approach. Like, fuck textual consistency – just pick half a dozen of your favourite popular media characters without regard for the compatibility of the source material and work backwards to explain why these six random assholes are your game's playable archetypes!)

[starr-eaterr]

by biggest flaw is i will go to gush over a class I'm taking and i really enjoy and then sm1 ill try and ask me to elaborate on what I'm learning and i will just stair at them blankly became i haven't been able to retain any learned information sence 6th grade

[yuri-alexseygaybitch]

I'm 27 so I've basically spent my entire adult life watching the US political system and ruling class implode on itself at an exponential rate. Like, even if I didn't believe in the immortal and correct science of Marxism-Leninism, there's no way in fucking hell this country would have an ounce of credibility left in my mind. It's gone. It's done. I'm watching a convicted felon and twice impeached blowhard go up against an actual zombie and in all likelihood win. I've seen countless mass popular movements come and go without making a dent in the "democratic" political system. The highest decision making authority is a council of 9 unelected law wizards split along the most obvious partisan lines while claiming to be impartial and apolitical.

This is what we mean when we say liberalism has become utterly irrelevant. There is no room left for "everything is basically fine and will continue to get better." The only people of any serious political will left are those who have been stripped of this final delusion and recognize politics as the arena of naked power struggle between class interests it has always been. Respect, legitimacy, balance of powers, "fundamental rights", liberal "democracy" - it's all so fucking extinct that at this point we might as well be studying their fossils.

[o-wild-west-wind]

So I’m still breaking down my thoughts, and something I keep returning to re: the politics of the Gliyeraba Thropple™ is the multifaceted question of class and power.

While Glinda is the epitome of privilege and the “rich girl” archetype, Fiyero AND Elphaba arguably start the show with more power and influence than Glinda does. Fiyero, of course, is the prince of the Vinkus—but Elphaba is notably the daughter of the governor of Munchkinland, which puts them nearer in terms of political/royal/class standing (and yes…the arranged marriage AUs DO go hard).

Now, the reason this is all so interesting is because it situates Glinda as someone with a huge outset motivation to social climb. Because while Elphaba clearly doesn’t have actual power, she and Fiyero share one thing that Glinda doesn’t have—a position that has them primed for disillusionment. Although Elphaba clearly still believes that it gets better at the top (a.k.a. the Wizard), she already has a lifetime of experiencing how hypocritical and loveless life in the "aristocracy" can be. Meanwhile, Fiyero’s very introduction is one of a depressed nihilist (all wrapped up in a flashy dance number); he’s transgressive from the start, which is perhaps the privilege one has when you’re already born at the top of the food chain—all the while also indicative of a genuine dislike of the system he’s in (and this is where I have MORE thoughts on gender and queerness, but I think that’ll deserve its own post). So although their actions are unequivocally brave, there's a lot less disillusionment E&F need to unpack before they break out—and, one could argue, an inherent privilege in their already being closer to the "truth."

Where I’m going with this is that I think Glinda represents something fascinating about the psyche of the bourgeoisie/upper-middle class—something that has real-world implications today. Because there’s something about her specific rung of power—the one that is just powerful enough to remain perpetually aspirational, like the peak of a bell-curve of ignorance—that taps into an important facet of “how wickedness happens.” It’s the story of the people who vote against their own interests because they think of themselves as "future billionaires;" the people who arguably lack the privilege of knowing that their race to the top is meaningless. It's the mindset that leaves you abandoning your morals and deepest loves for a system that forever dupes you into thinking your heart's desire is still just behind the curtain.

It’s all another part of why Glinda’s character is so lushly complex. She's complicit, but it stems from a genuine ignorance and vulnerability—and we get to watch her rise and fall so we don't fall victim to the same falsehoods. And I think it's also part of why our tellings and re-tellings of The Wizard of Oz, the true "American fairytale," still continue to resonate with us over a century later.