Harry Potter and the world of difference

With the final film based on J K Rowling’s massively successful series of children’s books about to hit cinema screens, writer and children’s book expert, Penelope Friday looks at attitudes towards difference and those who don’t fit in this most different of worlds

The world is full of stories with disabled heroes and heroines, isn’t it? And children’s books in particular embrace telling those stories!

Oh wait, that’s not entirely true. Nor even nearly true. In fact, it’s hard to name even one book in which a main character is disabled. There is, I suppose, Katy in What Katy Did – a morality tale from the end of the 19th  century, in which Katy Carr is transformed after an accident from a wild tomboy into a gentle loving soul at the centre of her household, and who gains her “reward” at the end of the book by recovering from the long illness she’s had. There’s Colin, in The Secret Garden, an English story from about the same time, which also finishes with the “happy ending” that Colin is no longer disabled. Which is all very nice, but doesn’t do a lot for those of us who don’t happen to be saints, and aren’t magically going to become undisabled any minute now.

In the century since those books were written, there has been little movement in children’s literature to show disabled characters in a positive form. Hilary McKay needs praising for her splendidly human Sarah Warbeck, a wheelchair-user who features in the Casson family series; but there’s precious little out there by other authors.

For instance, let’s look in particular at the Harry Potter sequence. These are arguably – certainly in financial terms – the most successful series of children’s books written, so shouldn’t they have something to say about disability?

And immediately you are struck by one thing. Harry Potter wears glasses. It is one of his defining characteristics. In a world where bones can be re-grown in a night (as Harry’s are in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets), one of the abiding fascinations in J K Rowling’s world is the apparently inexplicable rules surrounding disability and healing. For Harry’s other well-known feature is the scar on his forehead, a result of his babyhood battle with The Dark Lord Voldemort himself.

The most obvious central attitude towards disability, therefore, is indubitably positive. Harry’s blurry vision without them causes him various problems during the series but doesn’t stop him from being the hero and protagonist of the books. Disability is no barrier to heroism.

Or so it seems.

Dig a little deeper, and the world gets a little murkier. The attitude towards obvious physical disabilities – scars, glasses, even Alastor Moody’s wooden leg and prosthetic eye – may be reasonably sympathetic; but when it comes to questions of real and challenging difference, we only need to look at the treatment of werewolves by the magical society – they are alienated, refused access to work, and treated as lower, lesser beings – to see a reflection of the treatment of people who are considered seriously and dangerously “different”.

Perhaps the closest comparison in our world is with schizophrenia. Both conditions are involuntary, widely misunderstood, and often eminently treatable with the right medication (the Wolfsbane potion, in the case of lycanthropy). In both cases, however, those who have the condition are likely to find themselves not only rejected by the majority of people, but also more prone to being attacked, abused, or ending up on the streets. Or perhaps its monthly nature makes lycanthropy more closely related to severe PMS (also known as premenstrual dysphoric disorder).  Despite the well-worn jokes about all women turning into monsters on a monthly basis, for women with this illness, who suffer with severe depression, a variety of physical symptoms, and a distinct worsening of their quality of life for several days, it is anything but funny. Again, J K Rowling makes clear the fundamental problems with this attitude through the sympathetic portrayal of Remus Lupin, a werewolf who is certainly on the side of the angels.

In many ways the wizarding world is almost Victorian in its ways – they write with quills, fire is used to light the torches. And in some ways the wizarding world is equally Victorian in its approach towards mental illness. Neville Longbottom’s parents, war heroes suffering from the wizard equivalent of shellshock, are placed in a locked ward in a hospital and, as far as the reader can gather, simply left there, with no attempts to improve their situation.

But a more uncomfortable example still is the issue of “Squibs” – non-magical members of the wizarding world. In a world where magic is standard, the lack of it unarguably counts as a disability – a lack of magical ability. It is here, perhaps that Rowling’s empathy runs out. She can portray sympathetically the problems a magical child may experience growing up in the non-magic, “Muggle” world; and does so in Harry and in flashback glimpses of Harry’s mother’s childhood (while also acknowledging the positives with occasional mentions of Hermione Granger’s Muggle upbringing). Squibs, however, are given a lot less understanding. It is not helped by the most visible Squib being the highly unpleasant school caretaker, Argus Filch, nor that the reaction of Harry’s sidekick Ron Weasley to discovering this information is to laugh at him.

Academic Lýsa Westberg (the Chair of the Danish Harry Potter society who is currently writing a book on heroes in Harry Potter,) points out that throughout the books he is “seen as a fair target for pranks and ridicule”, despite it being evident that it is his magical disability which is responsible for his bitter, angry nature. The “nice”, and certainly family-oriented, Weasleys have no contact with the one Squib in their family – Ron says vaguely that he thinks the man became an accountant, and adds a brutal “but we never talk about him”. More shockingly still, Neville Longbottom describes the ways his family attempted to “force” him to show magic, finally “accidentally” dropping him out of an upstairs window. Neville’s magic worked – but if it had not, he would have potentially been killed or seriously injured: it seems that his life would have been expendable had he been a Squib.

And the sheer invisibility of Squibs in the wizarding world, the evidence that there has been no attempt by wizards to make their world accessible to non-magic people, sits uncomfortably. The transport system works predominantly with magic (Apparating, or using broomsticks or floo-powder); indeed, almost everything in the wizarding world discriminates against those who do not have magic. And it is never mentioned.

Indeed, the fact that Rowling does not acknowledge this issue in the same way that she does with other hot-button topics like slavery (as shown in the treatment of house-elves) and racial supremacy (pure-blood wizard ideas of inherited superiority), not to mention lycanthropy, is – to put it mildly – bothersome. Slight Muggle-born wizards at your peril; but wizard-born Squibs get none of the same treatment.

Rowling has been criticised for the hints of sexism in her books, but the “out of sight out of mind” attitude towards non-magic users born to wizard parents is equally concerning – not least because this has not been generally picked up or discussed by social commentators or academics. Is the idea of removing from view a section of disabled society still widely seen as acceptable? Are we so used to this type of rejection that it doesn’t occur to us to challenge it? And what does that say about our society?

To accuse J K Rowling of being ableist would be unhelpful and on the whole untrue, as the earlier part of this article shows. Even to criticise her for her (lack of) portrayal of Squibs is harsh, though given the depth of her understanding for other marginalised groups, Westberg suggests that “one might, perhaps, expect a bit of pity for the magically challenged”. But Rowling is, arguably, reflecting the society in which she lives and has been brought up. Words have power – but sometimes, perhaps, it is the words left unwritten, unspoken that say more about the values and opinions of a society. In our world, as well as in Joanne Rowling’s wizarding world, there are perhaps things – people – that the majority would rather not think about. People not only marginalised but silenced... does that sound at all familiar?

• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 is on general release from 15 July.