There is no real doubt that most magical people consider themselves, their lifestyle, cultural institutions and so on superior to non-magical ones. This is not just restricted to the bigots like the Malfoy family. Mr. Weasley is fascinated by non-magical things and people, but still talks about them as if they are clever children.1
There are two common mistakes that fan fiction writers make dealing with this.
The First Fallacy: Magical Society is better
The first fallacy is that Magical Society is in fact better. In some ways it is, in other ways it is not. There might be reasons for some of the traditions they have clung to, but like any people, some traditions are traditional simply because they want to be different.2
As an example of this, phoenixgirl26 in Observation has Harry adopt this attitude of superiority without question.3 He then proceeds to instruct Hermione that robes have pockets that might be used. He had to be taught that you might carry paper in your pocket (except, because magic is always, better, his actual example was a roll of parchment). I am sorry, but I figured out that pockets are meant to carry things that might be useful all on my own, without a class in how the world works. While I do not carry around a notebook and pen, I have certainly met people who do, and our modern smart phones essentially replace that need anyway. But Harry apparently needs to be taught this, because he was raised muggle, and non wizarding folk would never guess that pockets are anything but ornamental.
The Second Fallacy: Non-Magical Society is always better
Other writers will go to the other extreme. The magical world is just lost in the past, or worse, simply stupid, and we really just need to join the non-magical world. You typically see this in stories where either the non-magical government steps in to take care of things,4 where Harry leaves the magical world to live as a muggle, or both. This has ceased to be legitimate criticism, it is simply bashing on (in this case) a people because it makes the author feel smart.
A more nuanced approach to this second view might be attempted. An author might attempt to represent magical society as simply so isolated that the wizarding populace is in fact largely unaware of things like pens. This approach will inevitably fall down as well. As I discuss, paper, and [dip pens] have been around for centuries. These two examples reiterate what I said discussing clothing - that magical society in fact wishes to be different regardless of what is available or better.
at least one citation needed.↩︎
I believe this is what Mrs. Rowling is, in part, attempting to express in the latter half of her article on Clothing which I go in to depth on separately.↩︎
phoenixgirl26. Observation Chapter 13 Published: 2018-05-31. Last Viewed: 2022-06-30.↩︎
Works include but are not limited to:
- Bobmin356. Mutant Storm Published: 2011-09-22. Last Updated: 2011-09-26. Last Viewed: 2022-07-19. Note, I actually really like this story because it’s strengths overcome its flaws.