TO VERILYB1TCH1E ABOUT GIRL WIZARDS AND HARADRIM, ETC

My two Knuts about this video essay (I put these comments about co-ed/multiracial wizarding schools and about the Haradrim in the comments section on YouTube):

1) the wizarding school in Earthsea, unlike Hogwarts, is NOT co-ed or multiracial. You go on harping about BOY wizards but give very short shrift to the fact that there are NO female students at the school in Earthsea, or that ALL the students are NOT only boys, but ALL of them dark-skinned. In making Hogwarts co-ed and multiracial, at least, Rowling was something revolutionary - or were there co-ed and/or multiracial wizarding schools before Hogwarts and Rowling? (Eskarina is the ONLY female student at UU, like Threnody at Winstermill: I didn't know that the UU had female founders like Hogwarts - and patriarchy erased that!).

2) on race in Middle-Earth: there are races in Middle-Earth like humans, dwarves, elves, halflings/hobbits, "races" in fantasy sense. You mention orcs, but NOT Haradrim: BLACK (literally pitch black-skinned) Orcs from the SOUTH (like Africa is south of Europe), who ride f-ing AFRICAN ELEPHANTS. You may have seen them in Return of the King. A lot has been said about Rings of Power having black elves and dwarves... but the Haradrim are more or less neglected, because their existence was a hot potato in Tolkieniana!

UPDATE on Haradrim: it seems (the wikis say) that these are HUMANS (not orcs), but at least they are very orclike, monstrous humans, who descend from black Numenoreans, MIND, BLOWN.

Writing in the 2000s, Alison Lurie says Hogwarts is co-ed and multiracial "in keeping with the times (the 90s/2000s)":

Hogwarts resembles a classic English boarding school—one that, in keeping with the times, is co-ed and multiracial. There are four houses, which compete intensely in the school sport of Quidditch, a sort of combination cricket, basketball, European football, and hockey played on flying broomsticks, in which Harry turns out to excel. The teachers wear black gowns and dine at a head table, and there are prefects and a Head Boy and a Head Girl.

Just as in many schools, however, the student population is roughly divided into jocks, brains, nice guys, and dangerous Goths. Harry, Ron, and Hermione are in the jock house, Gryffindor, where, according to tradition, “dwell the brave at heart.” Ravenclaw House emphasizes “wit and learning,” while the kids in Hufflepuff are described as “just and loyal . . . And unafraid of toil.” The bad characters live in Slytherin House, where they “use any means / to achieve their ends.”

(In Words and Worlds, Lurie contrasts Hogwarts with previous literary boarding schools --it is unlike most classic boarding-school locations [but she omits that it was "in keeping with the times"], and expands on the ethnic and social-class origins of the students):

Unlike most classic boarding-school locations, Hogwarts is co-ed, multicultural, and multi-class: its students come from both rich and poor (and middle-class) families and include Chinese, South Asian, black, and Jewish kids. Some have wizarding parents, others do not (and others have one parent from each background, like Harry)

Here Lurie uses the same descriptors for the houses as "cliques" (Ravenclaws are "brains," Slytherins are "dangerous Goths," etc.) but also echoes the fan theory that:

In fact, Hermione seems a natural Ravenclaw and Ron a natural Hufflepuff (and Harry a natural Slytherin): authorial convenience, rather than the Sorting Hat, appears to have placed them all together (as Gryffindors).

It is no surprise than there are thousands of fics where the Golden Trio have been sorted into these houses: no longer sharing a common room, eating at different tables, but meeting at class and at recess...

I (Sandra Dermark, writing these comments on Hogwarts and quoting Alison Lurie) am fiercely proud of being not only a Ravenclaw, one of Lurie's "brains," but also F-ing Prefect for Ravenclaw (at least in the games I play). I felt I had to give my two Knuts on the subjects of gender and race in fantasy worlds that Verilyb1tch1e skirts in her video essay. Justice for the Haradrim! And there must have been a co-ed and multiracial wizarding school before Hogwarts, or was Rowling the first one?