Magical Segregation, or Why I'm Not a Potterhead

I think the biggest magic-related news story right now is that of JK Rowling's announcement that she is going to be screenwriting a movie based on Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, a book that exists within the world of Harry Potter. It seems like I can't escape this story; people have been flipping out about it on Tumblr and Facebook since its announcement. It's gotten bad enough that I have to make an important announcement: I am not, nor have I ever been, a fan of Harry Potter.

While a huge chunk of the reason behind my distaste for the series stems from its popularity (I'll be honest, there is a bit of a hipster side to me), mostly because the fans can be...obnoxious, to say the least (I remember the days when the fandom pretty much ruled LiveJournal), there are other reasons, too. I never found many of the characters to be very interesting, with the exceptions of Luna and Neville, both of whom ended up being as awesome as I hoped they would be. The characters everyone seemed to adore--Snape being a major example--always seemed gross and needy to me, and I will never understand their appeal. I think a large part of my avoidance of Harry Potter for my teen years, and the reason I only decided to give it another chance when I was twenty-one, was the separation of the "muggle" and magical worlds.

Yes, there was some overlap between them. There had to be, with characters like Hermione, who had muggle parents (don't even get me started on my hatred of the term "muggle"), but it seemed like, at Hogwarts at least, students didn't need to learn practical things like normal kids did. Where were the science classes, the regular math classes (okay, they had a wizard equivalent, but I don't count that), even literature classes? If they existed, we didn't really see them through Harry's eyes. Of course there would be more of an emphasis on magic for the students at a magical school, but what if one day magic disappeared? Those kids would be woefully underprepared for a world without magic. Hermione would probably be okay, but kids like Ron would be completely lost. The segregation of the magical and non-magical worlds has always seemed pretty ridiculous to me.

I think that, despite the word "occult" literally meaning "hidden" or "secret," I prefer my fantasy series to be a little more open about the existence of magic. That might be why my favorite young adult author is Tamora Pierce. At least in her books, people know magic exists, even if they can't all use it. And kids who receive magical educations also learn the "boring" stuff, which makes for a well-rounded mage, in my opinion. I don't think I would trust a magic user whose basic educational background stopped at age ten, but maybe that's just me. Besides that, the idea of a whole separate society existing in this world, made of people who can use magical while the rest of us can't, just makes me feel sad. Why can't I be magical too? I'd rather have no magic in the world at all than a world where people are separated based on an ability, or lack of an ability, to fly through the air on a broomstick.