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( Spoilers, of course )
To mention a non-spoiler HP topic, I'll wander into my thesis. In Afghanistan, there used to be (I understand its abated somewhat these days) two sort of societies, who accepted members from all the clans, tribes, etc. Their names worked out to "The Blacks" and "The Whites", and it seems pretty arbitrary who ended up a member of which. Their only purpose was to give brothers, uncles and other people too closely related otherwise an opportunity to be enemies over something. This from the culture which has the same word for "rival" and "father's brother's son" (cousin). Now, it seems to me that while the House differences aren't quite so extreme, there's still a lot of hostility between students in the different houses while at school, and the school actively promotes this. Why don't these rivalries carry over into Wizarding life in general? Why isn't there a store that won't hire or serve Gryffindors, or vice versa? After all, as far as we can tell everybody of importance in wizarding Britain, if not everybody, goes to Hogwarts. (Hmm. Has anybody tried to estimate the total size of the population if that's the case?)
To mention a non-spoiler HP topic, I'll wander into my thesis. In Afghanistan, there used to be (I understand its abated somewhat these days) two sort of societies, who accepted members from all the clans, tribes, etc. Their names worked out to "The Blacks" and "The Whites", and it seems pretty arbitrary who ended up a member of which. Their only purpose was to give brothers, uncles and other people too closely related otherwise an opportunity to be enemies over something. This from the culture which has the same word for "rival" and "father's brother's son" (cousin). Now, it seems to me that while the House differences aren't quite so extreme, there's still a lot of hostility between students in the different houses while at school, and the school actively promotes this. Why don't these rivalries carry over into Wizarding life in general? Why isn't there a store that won't hire or serve Gryffindors, or vice versa? After all, as far as we can tell everybody of importance in wizarding Britain, if not everybody, goes to Hogwarts. (Hmm. Has anybody tried to estimate the total size of the population if that's the case?)
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