I think everybody merely pointed out, that, given that there is nearly no indication of a wizarding equivalent to the large scale colonisation of the new world, the chances of wizarding America being a superpower are slim. Even more so if you consider, that the historic events leading to Americas role as the world's most powerful nation are not necessarily mirrored in the magical world, i.e. mass immigration due to political quarrels or famine (Ireland), laissez faire industrialisation, two large and devastating world wars etc... . It may even be a tribal federation at best, with no Europeans at all, distinctly differing from what most people would imagine when hearing the word America.


Furthermore I don't see why America would be a superpower even if there were large European immigration waves, those immigrating would most likely be poorer people, as religious reasons seem not to be a factor in wizarding societies in Harry Potter and riches seem to be concentrated in old noble families, which are unlikely people to emigrate. Those migrating would be unlikely to posses large amounts of magical tomes, artefacts etc... leading to a need to rediscover some knowledge or to import completed goods (for example high quality wands from countries with established wandmakers). Large amounts of Muggleborns coming from the large muggle population would not help either, being generally clueless about magic, unless many of them would show a similar drive for knowledge then Hermione, which judging by the English ones does not seem to be the case.


The point being, that this is not preaching down on you, but explaining why magical America may very well be completely unlike muggle America and therefore largely irrelevant to the world's affairs, which, assuming most authors though along similar lines, would explain the meager amount of mentions of America in Harry Potter fanfiction. So don't be offended just because powerful muggle nation is, in this case, unlikely to translate into powerful magical nation with identical culture and similar values (especially as this isn't the case with magical britain either (i.e. the governments lack of interest in such concepts as "rule of law" and "free press" as seen in OotP)).

 

/me struggles not to laugh hysterically at the idea that in a thread that is even slightly bashing America, he is being thanked for not doing so...

 

This is going to sound retarded but isn't Russia a superpower? Or am I thinking of the former U.S.S.R?

 

It all depends on how you define superpower...

 

The general consensus is no; they don't have the ability to project power on a global scale the way the US does and the Soviet Union used to. They can exert plenty of influence over their immediate neighbors, but not much beyond there.

As for the original topic, I agree that most of the time having the US around in Harry Potter fanfics just doesn't work, especially since most authors who do bring in the US make it into a ridiculous utopia and/or Americanize Harry Potter.

 

It wasn't Harry's Madness by SilverLocke980 by any chance, was it? I just posted the link here a few weeks ago.

 

fanfiction.net search "america"
Category: Harry Potter
Language: english
979 records found - knock yourself out.

This link shall hereby also serve as exhibit A, reinforcing the theory that in 99% of all cases America in HP = fail.

 

Exhibit B.
fanfiction.net search "america"
Category: Harry Potter
Without words: slash yaoi HPDM draco Ginny HPGW snape DMHP
Language: english
+5k words

315 records

Anyway, is that story any good Warlocke? I mean, you didn't post it earlier in the WTF fics or barely recommended, right?

 

Less archaic, and not clinging to old, outdated beliefs? A tradition of over throwing tyranny? If magical Britain is like Victorian Britain, shouldn't Magical America be like Revolutionary America?

/shrug/

 

No, no it should not. As said before, the very things that made America the superpower, free market society that it is today are the very things that seem to be nonexistant in the wizarding world. Industry, capitalism, mass immigration - there is no reason to believe that any of these things occured in magical America, and thus no reason to 'automatically' have become a super power.

If someone out there writes a story with a powerful America, fine, but it ought to be explained why such is the case. Having awesome!freedom4eva!American hitwizards saving Britain from its plunge into backwardness is bad writing, doubly so when all things considered, the Potterverse is about a British wizard.

Having said that though, I really wouldn't mind reading a Mexican Harry...

"Bloody hell, are you really the boy who lived!" The strange redheaded boy bellowed.

"¿que?"

Links plz.

 

Yeah, that would be interesting to read.

America as a wizarding country usually comes across as a mary-sue type country. Doesn't have the negatives of Britain, but has all the positives.

It'd be funny to read a story where American Wizarding society are less corrupt, but that's because they stayed completely isolated from everyone else. And the muggleborns are taken at birth, or something similar.

As in, they still dress like it's 1770, and act that way too. Another reason to be less corrupt, is that the punishments also fit the era.

Positives:
Less corrupt.
Greater population.
No blood purity discrimination.

Negatives:
Completely isolated from technology, other than the 1700's tech.
As they don't socialize much, they also don't find out many new spells developed in any other countries, other than the ones they've invented themselves.

Eh, I'm not going to go into it more thoroughly. S'just an interesting plot idea that struck me when I read Logrus's post.

 

Yeah, that's it. I knew it had Madness in it, but I couldn't find it for some reason.

 

Or the 'Old West'. I mean, we're already talking about a society where everyone carries a weapon in public.

I don't see why magical America has to be one entity/government. We're talking about a rather large piece of land with, presumably, a rather large population spread out across it. Maybe the US is split into different territories, with different regional governments presiding over each one.

To tell you the truth, I can scarcely even remember. It's on my hard drive, but I haven't read it in ages (since it hasn't updated in ages).

I didn't start a thread about it or anything, I just pasted the link.

It was pretty far out there, I remember that much. Harry goes off the deep end in a major way. It ends up being Hermione and Ron leading the forces of 'good' vs Harry and his freaks leading the forces of, um, 'Harry-ness'.

It would appear that the author has mostly been writing Zelda and Warcraft stuff for the past few years (and I think more than a few of the ideas in Harry's Madness came from Warcraft as well).

 

The story is really bad but it's fascinating. You can't help but like it even if you know it sucks. However eventually every chapter becomes a big block of text and I couldn't get any further.

 

http://www.fictionalley.org/authors/inverarity/ America done right in a totally OC based series. We have different regions. For example Wizardling Virgina is not the Wizardling Midwest or Wizardling Sedona, etc. There are tensions that are not quite the same ones as the U.K. yet it's still the Potterverse.

 

Huh? That doesn't make any sense.

 

Eh, I really didn't like Inverarity's look at the States. It doesn't help that her characters annoyed the hell out of me, and that her stories felt one big self-insertion, filled with Mary-Sues.

Frankly, I run with the best method of dealing with the United States of American and the Potterverse - completely ignore it unless absolutely fucking necessary.

 

America brings back bad memories. Every single story I've ever read that even mentioned it had America being superior, be it American wizard drill sergeants training Harry into a machine of death in a single summer, or having Americans being bigger, stronger, freer(somehow), more responsible and still just watching while Europe apparently just ended up killing itself. Really, any story that makes America a better place then Europe is bound to fail.

Not to bash America; just that many idiotic writers feel it to be all that and a bag of chips.

 

This thread just makes me think of "Harry Potter and the Eagle of Truthiness."

I'm not going to bother linking it. Not really worth it.

 

It did everything else wrong.