Doctor Belasco

A Wizard's Pilgrimage

Sloth said Awh, I thought the small and squishy Half-Leprechaun was the perfect foil to the bruting meat-tank.

Part of the reason I want to give them that space and give James a slightly different role.

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Sloth said Oh, don't be so sure, give Johann a few weeks/months with the group and Eoghan'll have him singing Irish Pub Songs and river-dancing, and I'm sure if Johann stays put in his conservative worldview, the look on his face when Eoghan does some extraordinary feat will be all the more amusing to the shortest member of our party.

I fully intend for Johann to develop, one way or the other. Coming into contact with freaks and half-breeds will change him, for better or for worse.

Well, you've certainly piqued my curiosity with how you intend to write that up. I'm sure James' coming into the acquaintance with Johann will bring some light to that subject.

In theory, they're deliberately designed to contrast and complement, and possibly bring out the best or worst in each of them. I just didn't really feel like James was going to cut the mustard, so I'm going to give him a bit more, ya know, character. Shall we go for the best buds prankster (Eoghan) and serious one (James) double-team, btw? As the two male Hufflepuff representatives in the group going on a gap year together, their friendship seems extremely logical. :)

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Sloth said
I'm personally not against the German/East European Wizard mindset being a little more conservative than the English/American mindset in that half-bloods/Muggle-Borns aren't really ostracized but treated as if they're still a bit of an anomaly. Unless I'm reading that wrong. For rather biased reasons, I'm more curious as to just how they'd treat Half-Breeds.

If in doubt, assume the Russian stance on gay people. Technically we don't have a problem and you're still an equal member of society, we just don't want you near our kids. Essentially an unfriendly barely-tolerance but without active persecution. The only real effect I guess it will have on Eoghan is Johann's reaction, and I wouldn't assume they're going to be the closest of friends; I expect Johann will basically think he's a bit of a waste of (admittedly not much) space and generally ignore him/try to make sure he doesn't end up with anything important to do.

Sloth said On a less related note, I can't help but notice James' sheet has gone missing! I do hope he remains with the Puffs of Huffle. We must establish a new world order. (Also it seems like James is going to essentially be one of Eoghan's seldom amount of friends he met neither through Quidditch or the Dueling Club.)

I'm just going to give him a little bit of oomph. He's coming back. :)
It's kind of my intention to push him steadily toward the slippery slope of the dark arts, but trying to make him as un-cliché as possible if he should ever approach 'villain' territory.

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VenatrixXII said (Still a bit confused on the -100, if you could clarify)

Sorry, I missed this completely. It's just a bit of a lame joke about how little Johann understands muggles. I've just counted it as zero. :)

Imperfectionist said To throw my two cents in on the Germany thing, I have a counter-thought. Having a German Ministry with undercurrents of expansionism and social engineering just doesn't make much sense to me... What if we make it more conflicted, with a loud fringe group of aristocrats and others with some Death Eater-style philosophy/rhetoric (the aforementioned people that are feeling oppressed), and a more mild (read: scared) establishment that doesn't want to support such things overtly, but doesn't want to lose the power/influence/money that these groups have. You know, more internal conflict within the country than "oh, the Germans are hankering for another war"... But that's just me. Something about an overtly right-wing, master-race Death Eater Germany rubs me the wrong way.

I think my idea was kind of that that's just what the school of thought in wizarding Germany actually is. It's not some splinter group that's sneakily seized power; it's genuinely how a large proportion of the country feels. Sure, right wing countries exist even in our muggle world, and we generally get on with them, until they [s]march into Ukraine[/u] go off the rails, in which case we start to worry. I kind of wanted to capture the Russian feel of a powerful ally that we're not always best friends with, but I happen to speak German and understand Germany's history far better, so I took Germany instead.

Generally think of how the West perceived Russia a few years ago: ultimately an ally, but one that we knew was right wing (by our standards) and speculated might do something extreme. Then we in the West started to be a bit twitched by Russia's not-overt-but-socially-aggressive stance against the LGBT community and everybody said they had seen it coming for years. Germany is essentially the same, but with its attitude to muggle-borns and muggles. There aren't death camps, but the general feeling is that they're not as welcome or protected as members of the community as they were before. It's still unclear as to whether this is the precursor to a deepening tide of anti-muggle rhetoric and international expansion (a la Russia) or just a flash in the pan.

I don't want it to be too comparable to the death eaters, because, while I enjoyed the books, I did find the whole political movement element to be rather hammy.

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Who else are we waiting on?

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Ahh. I guess we'll never know xD

For the purposes of my fictional version of Germany, Grindelwald was the main guy all that time ago. Did some dodgy things, sure, but his heart was in the right place. Right?

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Sloth said
Aryan Master Race = Wizards?

The allusions are pretty clear in Book 7. Almost ham-fistedly, I thought. I'm also sure there's no coincidence (was there ever with JK?) that the Grindelwald movement, with similar thoughts on eugenics, coincided with WW2.

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From experience, I think the sooner* we get started the more momentum it'll have. :)
I guess nothing stops people having flashback-esque introductions to any preparations they may have made in Hogsmeade if they want to as a 'prequel' to their proper posts.

* By sooner, I mean 'the further in'. But also the sooner we get started. Let's get going! :P

Incidentally, is anybody going to take any great objection to me designing Germany's wizarding world as I like it? I'm interested in making it quite a right-wing state anyway, but with a bubbling political undercurrent with social engineering aims comparable to those of the death eaters? Nothing's actually happening but there's implications of quite a nasty political discourse and perhaps slightly expansionist policies. Following the first wizarding war, implied to take place around or in Germany and coinciding with the dates of WW2, there was a period of extreme humility amongst the involved nations (let's say Germany) but now, the wizarding community there is feeling oppressed and that it needs to rise back up against the muggles and assert some dominance - perhaps with a view to national expansion as well as back over the muggles. Johann is a product of that generation.

Obviously there's a lot of making-shit-up here and if we don't want to go down that path, that's fine, but all the English characters have a cultural heritage that everybody's aware of (Death Eater occupation), while international characters are kind of playing blind with regard to their own cultural identity. I did look up Germany on HP Wiki but there's nothing really to go on. I'd certainly like to establish some kind of political scene (if not this one) in Germany just to give Johann a bit more grounding.

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Twenty points are allowed over here, buster. ;)

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Imperfectionist said
The latter, definitely. :) I'll still be trying to get Emma to win, of course, but I'll do it by arguing a better case when we plan the duel. Would that work for you as well?

Sorted. That's -definitely- the better way of doing it for me.
My instinct is that it would be more interesting in the short-term and in terms of group dynamics for Johann to win their first encounter - if he's going to ruffle feathers by being a bit of a macho brute, he should be able to back that up by having the upper hand at least to begin with. It is my intention that with some well-placed humble pie he should reform a little bit, but why do it too soon? If he's going to throw his weight around and not actually be able to put his money where his mouth is, it would somewhat strip him of his role within the group and rob the group the drama of having to put up with his behaviour in order to keep the big guns on-side. As I say, that's just my instinct, and I'm sure we'll cross that bridge when we come to it and when we have more context to work with. There's also quite a likely scenario in a friendlier duel that he will throw in the towel and gallantly allow Emma to win - to no doubt his own self-indulgence and her frustration.