Pottermore and wizards before bathrooms (Harry Potter)

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The Bustle

Pottermore's Weird Tweet About Hogwarts' Bathrooms Is Troubling For SO Many Reasons
ByCRISTINA ARREOLA
3 weeks ago

Warner Bros. Pictures
If there was a ever a "save it for the group chat" moment, this is it: On Friday, Pottermore decided to bestow upon its Twitter followers a fun fact about the historical bathroom practices of wizards. It got weird, fast.

"Hogwarts didn't always have bathrooms," the tweet read. "Before adopting Muggle plumbing methods in the eighteenth century, witches and wizards simply relieved themselves wherever they stood, and vanished the evidence."

I am troubled, and I have questions. First and most importantly: Why did Pottermore tweet this? Second: As Jenny Han pointed out, did wizards not wipe after relieving themselves? Third: The law of conversation of mass — or at least, my feeble understanding of it — maintains that mass is neither created nor destroyed during chemical reactions, so what happened to the poop?

If you're a Harry Potter fan, chances are you have at least poked around on Pottermore, a site fully dedicated to the Harry Potter fandom with interactive games, a "Sorting Hat," and a quiz that pairs you with your Patronus. In the years since the books and movies ended, Rowling and Pottermore have kept the spirit of Harry Potter alive through the Fantastic Beasts movie series, the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and a number of novelty books. Not to mention a whole lot of Harry Potter merchandise.


Pottermore
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@pottermore
Hogwarts didn't always have bathrooms. Before adopting Muggle plumbing methods in the eighteenth century, witches and wizards simply relieved themselves wherever they stood, and vanished the evidence. #NationalTriviaDay

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More than a few of the initiatives launched by Rowling and Pottermore in the years since 2011, when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2, was released in theaters, have come under fire, namely the Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the North American version of Hogwarts which was widely criticized for its inaccurate portrayal of indigenous American cultures, and the Fantastic Beasts film franchise, which has been mired in controversy since the casting of Johnny Depp, who was accused of domestic violence by his ex-wife, Amber Heard. Sadly, that was just the first of many controversies for the movie series.

In Feburary 2018, Bustle writer Kerri Jarema spoke with Potterheads who are disappointed with the legacy of the franchise and unsure of how to move forward as fans. She wrote:

"But the question still remains: Is a string of poorly handled controversies enough to negatively shift the legacy of Harry Potter, and its author, forever? Of course, the impact that the series has had cannot be overstated, but Rowling herself has long been held up as an icon and an inspiration for her inventive writing, her many charitable contributions, and her own cinema-worthy rags-to-riches life story. But what is a legacy, how long does it take to build one up or tear it down, and who gets to decide any of the above? These are the questions that Potterheads are just now beginning to grapple with."
Is tweeting a weird plumbing fact on par with making creative decisions that undermine the humanity of many of J.K. Rowling's fans? Absolutely not. I get it. It's playful and genuinely funny. But so many of the things that have been meant as entertainment have actually been harmful, and I am using this weird tweet as my moment to talk about it. It may be time for Pottermore — and Rowling — to think more seriously about what Harry Potter looks like in the world moving forward. Hopefully that involves a lot more consideration, understanding, and empathy.

And definitely a lot more toilet paper

So, it's now canon, I guess, that wizards didn't believe in privies or chamber pots prior to introducing muggle plumbing to places like Hogwarts. They would just poop anywhere on the floor and then magically get rid of the mess.

What does this mean for wizards, culturally, that they were unable to adopt an equivalent of the chamber pot or the privy? What does this mean for wizards in regards to privacy, if such activities were done publicly, in front of classmates, coworkers, family members, etc?

Discuss.

[Crazedwraith]

Is this an out of season April Fool's joke?

I will not discuss. Every extra bit of stuff that gets added to HP is abominable.

[Jub]

Is this an out of season April Fool's joke?

I will not discuss. Every extra bit of stuff that gets added to HP is abominable.

No, this is Rowling not moving on from a completed work and adding details to fill in plot holes as she thinks of them.

[Crazedwraith]

Also how the fuck does this even work vis a vis the chamber of secrets set up when Hogwarts was founded?

[Formless]

Ignore everything Rowling adds to the canon via Pottermore these days. People already caught her in a contradiction over Hermionie's race when she said she "always" thought of the character as black. Except, no matter how she sees the character now, considering that not only is the character white on literally every dust cover, Rowling also approved the movie casting and said at the time that those actors were so very close to how she saw the characters then. And in the movies, Hermione was cast as a white girl. In other words, she actually saw Hermione as white in the beginning, and Rowling is a liar. So from now on, unless she puts it in print or onscreen just ignore her. She can't be trusted to keep her story straight anymore.

[Jub]

Also, even before the movies and book covers her own art showed Hermione as white.

[Crazedwraith]

I really don't give a shit about Hermione's race. Do you have a source on her saying she was always black? Because I remember her pointing to the description in the novel only saying bushy hair and brown eyes and saying she could be anything.

[Elheru Aran]

While Pottermore is useful in expanding the general background of the HPverse, I do concur that Rowling shows an appalling lack of care on occasion when it comes to modifying things that are in the books themselves. At the very least she should be able to acknowledge that her views on her own stories may have changed over time.

[Solauren]

I honestly get the opinion that half the stuff she posts anymore is 'trolling' people. She's got to get hammered by questions all the time.

[madd0ct0r]

I honestly get the opinion that half the stuff she posts anymore is 'trolling' people. She's got to get hammered by questions all the time.

Agreed. Every source of "truth" in harry potter is shown to be biased or incompetent. Its almost like she wants kids to see past blind acceptance.

[Formless]

I really don't give a shit about Hermione's race. Do you have a source on her saying she was always black? Because I remember her pointing to the description in the novel only saying bushy hair and brown eyes and saying she could be anything.

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Those tweets are coy, but ultimately dishonest because they were written in such a way as to deny the flipping obvious: that her canon description of Hermione is fucking irrelevant when she previously had a white girl play the role onscreen and rubber stamped multiple dust covers which showed her to be white as well.

Now, its not that making Hermione black is bad (though it does complicate things, see below), or even having the play cast a black woman when all previous depictions of the character were white is bad. Its the retcon and pretense that it has always been this way that is a problem. In fact, the issue of her being cast as black for a stage play was actually an uninformed complaint, because in stage theater there is a tradition of ignoring the canon race of a character during casting. You will find plenty of black people or people of color who have played the title characters of Henry the V, Macbeth, Hamlet, and so on and no one in the know bats an eye at this. This is just how stage differs from film. In stage, you can't always get someone who looks the part, so acting skill is prioritized instead. This leads to stage being a more racially equitable environment than the film industry as a side effect. If Rowling had simply explained that the casting is not reflective of canon due to this tradition in stage theater, no one would have objected, but trying to wipe away the implications of the movie casting and the dust covers is where people rightfully drew a line.

As The Mary Sue pointed out, if Hermione was black, the repeated use of the slur "mudblood" would be far more sinister and harder for Hermione to just shrug off, because from her perspective as a black girl raised in Britain, it would sound to her like an attack on her race as well as her status as a muggle born witch. Even if the other characters explained that its not, it still sounds like a racial slur, and half the time the insult comes from a blond haired little shit who bullies her friends as well. It hits far closer to home no matter how you slice it if Hermoine is black, and reveals numerous ways the metaphors for real world bigotry in Harry Potter are fragile or just plain poorly written. The Mary Sue also points out that of the characters whose race is explicitly mentioned, there are only eight, and all of them are side characters. All seven of the main characters are either explicitly white, or are Hermoine, the only one who Rowling claims is racially ambiguous based on her canon description. This highlights the importance of the unmarked state, which is the idea that if you don't state the character's race (or code it in their appearance and behavior if they aren't technically human), then people are going to make assumptions; and they usually assume a protagonist is from a privileged group unless stated otherwise thanks to media conditioning. This undermines the attempt to make Hermoine a stand-in for oppressed groups, because her status as a muggle-born witch has no real world referent in the metaphor. That is, who is she supposed to represent? She's an outsider, but that's not what people take offense to. They take offense to the facts of her birth, but the story also makes it clear that wizard racism is directed at non-human creatures like elves. But if she were black, then Rowling would have to confront the issue more directly. She didn't, and because not everyone reads her twitter feed or Pottermore, she can't honestly expect the retcon to reach the intended audience. That's the problem with making retcons outside of the actual films or novels. Death of the Author is actually the default state for most of the audience.

Now yes, the movies took other liberties with the character's appearance, but this is one aspect that Rowling could have easily corrected during casting. But she didn't, because as early artwork showed (see Jub's post), at no point did Rowling actually intend the character to be anything but white. Pretending otherwise undermines her integrity and makes it clear that her intentions are as unreliable as, for instance, Gene Roddenberry's were with Star Trek towards the end. I would argue that in no way can an unreliable author state the canon of a story on social media (or any other media for that matter) and expect people to take them seriously. Especially if they start spewing silly nonsense about literal crap. At some point, people are just going to ignore you just to avoid feeling disgusted.

[Napoleon the Clown]

Books tend toward having editors. We are currently seeing what happens when there's no editors to say "This idea is absurd, cut it."

[bilateralrope]

So, it's now canon, I guess, that wizards didn't believe in privies or chamber pots prior to introducing muggle plumbing to places like Hogwarts. They would just poop anywhere on the floor and then magically get rid of the mess.

What does this mean for wizards, culturally, that they were unable to adopt an equivalent of the chamber pot or the privy? What does this mean for wizards in regards to privacy, if such activities were done publicly, in front of classmates, coworkers, family members, etc?

Discuss.

The more interesting question is: If they could just take a shit anywhere and magic it away, why did they change to the less convenient option of having to shit in specific rooms ?

[Crazedwraith]

I really don't give a shit about Hermione's race. Do you have a source on her saying she was always black? Because I remember her pointing to the description in the novel only saying bushy hair and brown eyes and saying she could be anything.

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Those tweets are coy, but ultimately dishonest because they were written in such a way as to deny the flipping obvious: that her canon description of Hermione is fucking irrelevant when she previously had a white girl play the role onscreen and rubber stamped multiple dust covers which showed her to be white as well.

You're not appreciating the difference between 'i never stated her race' and 'she was always black'. One means she was always black and one says she can be played by someone of any colour without contradiction. The later is what she said, it doesn't matter if previous depictions of her are white if she thinks both are valid interpretation of what was on the page.

Now personally, I do think JKR originally thought of her as white and now is playing semantics with her descriptions. (And it makes you think about assumptions about race from vague descriptions of people)

But that's not nearly as serious as you are making it sound by claiming JKR said she was always black.

[The Romulan Republic]

I really don't give a shit about Hermione's race. Do you have a source on her saying she was always black? Because I remember her pointing to the description in the novel only saying bushy hair and brown eyes and saying she could be anything.

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Those tweets are coy, but ultimately dishonest because they were written in such a way as to deny the flipping obvious: that her canon description of Hermione is fucking irrelevant when she previously had a white girl play the role onscreen and rubber stamped multiple dust covers which showed her to be white as well.

You're not appreciating the difference between 'i never stated her race' and 'she was always black'. One means she was always black and one says she can be played by someone of any colour without contradiction. The later is what she said, it doesn't matter if previous depictions of her are white if she thinks both are valid interpretation of what was on the page.

Now personally, I do think JKR originally thought of her as white and now is playing semantics with her descriptions. (And it makes you think about assumptions about race from vague descriptions of people)

But that's not nearly as serious as you are making it sound by claiming JKR said she was always black.

IIRC Hermione's race was never stated prior to Cursed Child. There's one line that's been cited in the books where she is described as pale (in a context where it likely refers to her being frightened or something), and one where she's described as dark (in a context where it probably refers to being Sunburned since she just got back from Summer vacation). She's just generally assumed to be white because she's a European girl, and white is usually treated as the default unless stated otherwise.

To me, as someone who has actually worked in theatre, Hermione's race is much ado about nothing. Casting for ability over appearance, or changing the race or gender of a character, is common either for political reasons or simply because that's who's available for the role is common.

I'd tend to regard Cursed Child as its own continuity, in any case.

[madd0ct0r]

So, it's now canon, I guess, that wizards didn't believe in privies or chamber pots prior to introducing muggle plumbing to places like Hogwarts. They would just poop anywhere on the floor and then magically get rid of the mess.

What does this mean for wizards, culturally, that they were unable to adopt an equivalent of the chamber pot or the privy? What does this mean for wizards in regards to privacy, if such activities were done publicly, in front of classmates, coworkers, family members, etc?

Discuss.

The more interesting question is: If they could just take a shit anywhere and magic it away, why did they change to the less convenient option of having to shit in specific rooms ?

Its nice to get privacy. Uk used to have chamberpots behind curtains in corner of main room. I could guess the wizards had the same, but as the workd got less smellier, richer and sanitation viewed as more important i suppose seperation of toilet air and everyday air made the extra room seem worth it. Plumbing follows from hand washing.

[Crazedwraith]

IIRC Hermione's race was never stated prior to Cursed Child. There's one line that's been cited in the books where she is described as pale (in a context where it likely refers to her being frightened or something), and one where she's described as dark (in a context where it probably refers to being Sunburned since she just got back from Summer vacation). She's just generally assumed to be white because she's a European girl, and white is usually treated as the default unless stated otherwise.

To me, as someone who has actually worked in theatre, Hermione's race is much ado about nothing. Casting for ability over appearance, or changing the race or gender of a character, is common either for political reasons or simply because that's who's available for the role is common.

I'd tend to regard Cursed Child as its own continuity, in any case.

I'm assuming you're expanding on my points rather than arguing against me?

But you are correct in essentials.

Now my assumption is that JKR thought of her as white originally (as Formless says her drawings of her are white) and is now playing exact words to say her race is unknown in the strictest sense of canon and look good to modern sensibilities. Which is a little revisionist but No Big Deal. But I could be doing her a disservice there.

Especially odd since, as you say theatre has a long proud tradition of raceblind casting anyway. So it doesn't matter what the 'canon' is any case.

[Formless]

You're not appreciating the difference between 'i never stated her race' and 'she was always black'. One means she was always black and one says she can be played by someone of any colour without contradiction. The later is what she said, it doesn't matter if previous depictions of her are white if she thinks both are valid interpretation of what was on the page.

Now personally, I do think JKR originally thought of her as white and now is playing semantics with her descriptions. (And it makes you think about assumptions about race from vague descriptions of people)

But that's not nearly as serious as you are making it sound by claiming JKR said she was always black.

The semantic game she is playing is using a bullshit claim of ambiguity to rubber stamp racebending in an arena where that is already the norm. Its not hard to read between the lines there; if she had said nothing, no one would have began arguing about the race of Hermione's character. Rowling certainly knows as much, or else she is an idiot. Setting aside that the idea an Unmarked character can ever be racially ambiguous goes against understood principles of gestalt psychology, note that Harry's own race was never explicitly stated either, but never has Rowling claimed that his race was ambiguous. He's white, and has always been depicted as white. Luna Lovegood's race was never stated, but never questioned as white either. Same yet again for Neville. Ron and Draco's descriptions make them explicitly white, which puts real world context to the Malfoy family's bigotry whether this was Rowling's intention or not. It probably was, if I were a betting man. In fact the only character who Rowling has claimed to be racially neutral on account that their race was never explicitly stated... is Hermione. Why is she the exception? And why should we accept that she is the exception when all of the other characters have consistent portrayals across multiple media, but she doesn't? The most obvious answer is that Rowling is avoiding taking responsibility for her main cast lacking diversity. Its that simple.

Splitting hairs over this doesn't change the facts. Either way, the actual depiction of the main characters in the story was most certainly not race neutral, as The Mary Sue goes at length to show. Regardless of how you think Rowling wants us to see Hermione's race in 2018 (and again, by implication her statements seem to suggest black), its historical revisionism. Its consistent with Rowling's attempt to be inclusive after the fact by making Dumbledor gay without ever having the guts to say so in the text itself, among other examples of this behavior on POttermore and her Twitter feed. There is nothing wrong with him being gay, but a good and truly courageous writer would have made that explicit so that no one in the audience could miss the fact by virtue of not following her on social media. Everything she has said when The Cursed Child came out contradicted 18 years worth of paratextual and primary textual evidence against Hermione being racially neutral, let alone black (as The Mary Sue goes at length to prove). In this sense it is worse than Dumbledor's sexuality because nothing in the text was contradictory on that point; it truly was ambiguous. That alone is enough to take away her credibility as the source of canon information for the Harry Potter universe. She does not keep her story straight. Period.

[The Romulan Republic]

IIRC Hermione's race was never stated prior to Cursed Child. There's one line that's been cited in the books where she is described as pale (in a context where it likely refers to her being frightened or something), and one where she's described as dark (in a context where it probably refers to being Sunburned since she just got back from Summer vacation). She's just generally assumed to be white because she's a European girl, and white is usually treated as the default unless stated otherwise.

To me, as someone who has actually worked in theatre, Hermione's race is much ado about nothing. Casting for ability over appearance, or changing the race or gender of a character, is common either for political reasons or simply because that's who's available for the role is common.

I'd tend to regard Cursed Child as its own continuity, in any case.

I'm assuming you're expanding on my points rather than arguing against me?

But you are correct in essentials.

Now my assumption is that JKR thought of her as white originally (as Formless says her drawings of her are white) and is now playing exact words to say her race is unknown in the strictest sense of canon and look good to modern sensibilities. Which is a little revisionist but No Big Deal. But I could be doing her a disservice there.

Especially odd since, as you say theatre has a long proud tradition of raceblind casting anyway. So it doesn't matter what the 'canon' is any case.

That's about right as I understand it, yes.

[The Romulan Republic]

While Pottermore is useful in expanding the general background of the HPverse, I do concur that Rowling shows an appalling lack of care on occasion when it comes to modifying things that are in the books themselves. At the very least she should be able to acknowledge that her views on her own stories may have changed over time.

It gets worse. She flat-out retconned major chunks of Dumbledore's backstory for Fantastic Beasts II.

Frankly, I think she's fallen into the trap of writing what she thinks fans want (ie taking cues from bad fanfic, which Potter has a lot of). Which is a pity, because she's one of the few writers big enough that she arguably doesn't have to pander.

Edit: Or maybe she was always like this, and she's just beyond the reach of editorial oversight now.