A socially-conscious Harry Potter fan theorized that there’s pureblood supremacy entrenched in the Ministry of Magic’s underage magic law.
LapisLazuliisthebest, posting in r/FanTheories, began their argument by stating what virtually all Potterheads know: underage wizards can’t use magic outside of school.
“For enforcing the law, there is a two-strike system. First strike, you get a warning from the Ministry of Magic. Second strike? You can have your wand taken away, and you are expelled from your school.”
The latter punishment rubbed the Redditor the wrong way.
“You’re telling me the punishment for using magic twice whilst underaged is, you permanently lose any reasonable chance of becoming a wizard, completely screwing you over until adulthood, and being doomed to live the life of a muggle? Pretty harsh, isn’t it?”
Why this disproportionally affects wizards who are non-purebloods (born of one or both muggle parents), according to the Redditor, is because the Ministry of Magic only knows that magic has occurred, not who performed it, meaning that an underage wizard who lives among non-wizards will be caught for using magic rather than an underage wizard who lives among other wizards.
“If a child uses magic around adult wizards, the Ministry won’t notice because it would be impossible to tell who used that spell. This actually happens when Hermione uses magic to fix Harry’s glasses but doesn’t get into trouble since she was around other wizards.”
Conversely, when Dobby uses magic at Harry’s Muggle relatives’ house, Harry gets busted because he’s the only registered wizard in the area.
The Redditor’s conclusion, therefore, is that “the underaged magic law was created to be deliberately bias [sic] against Muggle-born and (in some cases) half-blood wizards and given harsh penalties, so they could revoke magic from those groups at any chance they get.” The end goal is to “eliminate impure wizards from wizarding sociality.”
The theory has been met with widespread support.
Some Redditors have certain nitpicks, though. User mokush7414 thinks that the bias was made explicit in the books, while NAPayne3198 believes that the source examples aren’t valid.
ApocryphalShadow, despite being “100% on board” with the theory, argued that (like so many “equal” policies in the real world that create group disparities) the underaged magic law was not intended to be biased but ended up being so because the Ministry “is too pure-blood centric.”
Even those who disagree with parts of the theory seem to appreciate the full argument.