The fountain we destroyed tonight told a lie. We wizards have mistreated and abused our fellows for too long, and we are now reaping our reward.
-Albus Dumbledore, Order of the Phoenix, Ch 37.
The US concern with the removal of Confederate monuments has jumped across the pond, with statues of Edward Colston. Robert Baden-Powell, Robert Milligan and even Churchill destroyed, vandalized or targeted for removal in the United Kingdom. As a resident of Charlottesville, VA, a city still reeling over the violence of the Unite the Right rally three years ago, I have a particular interest in the campaigns to remove these statues, most of which were erected as acts of aggression against the Black community during the height of Jim Crow, not as efforts to preserve heritage or teach history. Whether the motivation behind the original erection of the British statues was similarly tainted, I can’t say, but J.K. Rowling is undoubtedly aware of the controversy.
I managed two correct predictions in The Ickabog, first that Bert and Daisy, described as like-siblings early on, would become true step-siblings when their widowed parents marry, and the second, that the statue of the fictional hero Nobby Buttons would be replaced with one of the genuinely heroic Ickabog, who dared to make peace with his enemies. Rowling made masterful use of both good (the Potter Family Monument, which touched and encouraged Harry in one of his darkest moments) and bad (The Fountain of Magical Brethren, see above) monuments in Harry Potter.
Interestingly, Rowling chose to destroy the Fountain of Magical Brethren, but Nobby’s statue, arguably a worse example– an outright lie that helped deceive the nation of Cornucopia into complying with the unfair tax, and inspired more lies–including a fake girlfriend for the non-existent young hero, was instead relegated to a museum, along with other artifacts of the Dark Age of Spittleworth, so that citizens can remember and learn from their history. Granted, she had particular reasons for the Brethren’s demise: the decapitated wizard saved Harry, (and its head portkeyed him back to Hogwarts) the witch restrained Bellatrix, the centaur took a Killing Curse and the elf and goblin summoned help. But, in the midst of her other recent Twitter controversies, Rowling found time to tweet out some special praise for young Ali, the artist who created this lovely illustration of the Nobby statue. Could the statue’s relegation to a museum–where the truth can be told, not to honor person depicted (who, in this case, doesn’t actually exist) , but to explain why the deceptive statue was erected in the first place–be Rowling’s way of commenting about what she thinks should be done with controversial monuments today? If so, I’d like to hear more of that from her on social media, and less of other topics.
Of course, sometimes a little graffiti, whether on the Berlin Wall or a Confederate memorial, can add to the meaning. I would be remiss, as an MBU prof, not to plug this children’s book written by one of our alums and her daughter, whose dancing at the Lee Monument in Richmond has been on of the iconic images of the current movement.
Louise,
I think you are right. Rowling may well be commenting on our current concerns about public statues. Although that issue has recently received a lot more attention, it’s not new. (In that connection, see this article – http://www.ministrymatters.com/all/entry/9236/harry-potter-and-the-confederacy – in which the writer argues that “Confederate monuments are the horcruxes of the Confederacy.”)
The Fountain of the Magical Brethren clearly expressed a myth – wish – about how the world is or should be. So did the “Magic is Might” statue that we saw inside the Ministry of Magic’s atrium during Voldemort’s rule in chapter 12 of “Hallows.” (Indeed, lest we miss the point, “Magic is Might” is the name of that chapter.) I would love to know what became of that statue and what has replaced it. Perhaps a statue of real heroes? The Trio?
I notice that Rowling doesn’t give much respect to the statutes inside Hogwarts if we may judge by their names: Gregory the Smarmy, Boris the Bewildered, Lachlan the Lanky, and Wilfred the Wistful.