Harry Potter and the philosophy of nonhuman rights
Was the liberation of Buckbeak the hippogriff a seminal moment in Harry Potter lore and nonhuman justice? Photo: Creative Commons.
Harry Potter and animal justice has for a long time been one of those niche but fascinating discussions, with author JK Rowling teasing nonhuman rights issues at various moments throughout the series. From the freeing of Buckbeak to subservient owls, Nina Copleston asks how Potter’s treatment of nonhumans reflects on all of us.
Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone recently celebrated its 25th birthday. For a quarter of a century, Harry Potter has bewitched the muggle world and dominated the book charts – not to mention the cult following of the eight-movie-film-franchise. This wizarding kingdom introduced us to an array of weird and wonderful creatures – hippogriffs, blast-ended skrewts, thestrals, to name a few - but how are these animals treated in this world? Would any of the characters have been vegan? Or, despite much of the magic, are the animals in Harry Potter subjected to lives of subservience to wizards – much like their muggle friends?
The best place to start might be the classroom – or forest - of Care of Magical Creatures. In the third book, we see Hagrid don his teachers’ hat and introduce a group of hormone-heavy wizards to Buckbeak, the hippogriff. When Malfoy characteristically ignores Hagrid’s advice to show respect to this animal, Buckbeak defends himself and injures Malfoy – resulting in a death sentence for Buckbeak. This feels eerily similar to wild animals being killed for injuring humans – when the humans were in the animal’s space. Additionally, the concept of wild animals being villainised, when perhaps their homes and lives should just be respected; think, for instance, of the term ‘shark-infested-waters’… a.k.a, the sharks’ home? Indeed, Hagrid is the epitome of cognitive dissonance itself; he champions the underdog, wants to mother a baby dragon, names a three-headed dog ‘Fluffy’; he believes the creatures that others find scary are worthy of love. But – he wears dead animal skin, kills slugs, eats huge red hunks of cow, breeds blast-ended skrewts and then uses them in the Triwizard Tournament (to be killed!). Hagrid is great – but he does appear to be a bit of a speciesist, no?
On the topic of the Triwizard Tournament – how about those dragons, eh? The teenage-wannabe-heroes are told to steal a golden egg from a nesting Mother dragon – which has been placed among her other eggs so that she believes the fake egg is her real child. (This, after the poor Mum has been shipped to a different country, tethered with leather straps, chucked into a cage.) Pretty unethical – and, barbaric, given that Viktor Krum uses a conjunctivitis charm to blind Mama Dragon so that she ends up stomping on her own eggs and killing her babies. This arguably parallels dairy – an animal’s maternal instincts being exploited and abused for human benefit. Horrible. And what about that dragon kept in chains in Gringotts Bank – where, in the 8th film, Hermione is horrified to learn that the dragon has learnt to expect pain whenever they hear a certain sound? Poor dragons, but of course, animals being treated this way in the muggle world is not at all rare.
And what about all the animals expected to spend their lives in service to wizards? Owls are constant post-workers – poor Errol is treated pretty badly by the Weasleys and forced to work even when he clearly wants to retire. Thestrals – subject to widespread cruelty and wrongful reputations – have to pull the Hogwarts carriages (much like horses pulling carriages in New York for tourists – cruel and unnecessary). What about all those animals forced to turn into water goblets in transfiguration – for what purpose? Could McGonagall not have nipped down to Hogwarts-IKEA and grabbed a few glasses there? Or if they insist on turning one thing into another – how about transfiguring a grain of sand into a coffee mug instead? Not to mention the huge numbers of animals used in potions lessons – batwings, dragon liver, scarab beetle, rat spleen, lacewing fly. Can students sit out of potions – much like students who want to sit out of vivisection in biology to avoid cutting up animals? Even the wands seem to mainly contain animal ingredients – dragon heartstring, unicorn hair, basilisk horn. Can budding wizards shop for their wands somewhere else – a vegan-friendly Ollivanders – Ollivegans - perhaps?
Of course, there are not only magically-enchanted animals – there are the animals slaughtered, cut up, fried, and served on glittering platters for Hogwarts feasts. This is where, perhaps, the value of animals in the Harry Potter world lies. Some animals deserve to be eaten, some deserve to be companion animals (Lovely Hedwig), and some deserve to live lives of service to wizards. As Malfoy says about the blast-ended skrewts: “And why would we want to raise them? […] I mean, what do they do? […] What is the point of them?” In here lies our answer – in the wizarding world, animals (on the whole) are viewed and valued for what they can provide for the magical humans. And this, if we are honest, is no different to how most people view animals in the Muggle World.
As we celebrate Harry Potter’s 25th birthday, let’s cast our attention to the real-world magical creatures who exist around us and ask ourselves whether we are showing them the respect and care they deserve.
Nina Copleston is a writer and non-human animal rights champion. Having been concerned with social justice issues such as disability rights and homelessness for years, Nina turned her attention to the rights of non-human animals and the moral inconsistencies rife within society's attitudes towards animals. Determined to make a difference, Nina hopes to highlight these inconsistencies with her writing.
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