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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026

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you would make a better Voldemort and he would win

No. Right wingers have been cast as evil for so long they accept it, but a really blood-and-soil right wing Harry Potter would make the right-winger the good guy. Getting further from canon: a pureblood Harry, for instance, with Voldemort being the champion of the odds and sods. Of course not everyone on the good side would be a pureblood, but the lessers would know their place and would admire Harry for his purity.

I won't say "British right-wing thought never gave a shit about blood purity" because I'm sure there are exceptions, but it's a good approximation to the truth. The British aristocracy, and the trad-right that wished to preserve it with its power and privilege intact, were unusually lackadaisical about blood purity compared to other similar aristocracies.

Under the British rules, Harry Potter is a legitimate Potter and inherits the status of the Potter family regardless of Lily Evans' Muggle-born status. Rowling's Malfoy understands this immediately - he sees Harry as a member of his class who is betraying its values by socialising with oiks (i.e. the Weasleys). So does the Sorting Hat.

I've always wondered if FarCry 5 could've been improved by remaking the story along these lines. The church being a haven for the rejects and the downtrodden, just like Jesus intended, but still ultimately evil and wrong, an antithesis to the racist and small-minded rural Montana, with the Deputy achieving victory and peace by synthesizing them together, chapter by chapter.