Skip to main content

harry potter - Could a squib go to Hogwarts?



There are many subjects in Hogwarts that require magical knowledge, but not magical ability. Of course, subjects such as Charms and Defense Against the Dark Arts require the student to have magic, but what stops a squib from attending Hogwarts study subjects like Care of Magical Creatures or Ancient Runes?


A squib raised in a wizarding environment should be able to comprehend these subjects. It's not as if the Ministry is stopping them, as Hogwarts isn't on a tight leash.


It's just something I have wondered about, because squibs could be a functioning subculture in the wizarding society, and all they do is get exiled to the muggle world. They could hold just as much value as every other wizard with the capability to cast a spell.



Answer



They would certainly not be admitted, and probably wouldn’t enjoy their experience if they did attend.


Admittance to Hogwarts is controlled by the Quill of Acceptance and the Book of Admittance. You name gets written in the book if you demonstrate signs of magical ability while you’re young, but this has to be your own magic: it’s not enough to ride off the coattails of your parents.


This is part of the sample content on Pottermore, and here are the relative parts:



These are the Quill of Acceptance and the Book of Admittance and they constitute the only process by which students are selected for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. […] The Book and Quill's decision is final and no child has ever been admitted whose name has not first been inscribed on the book's yellowing pages. […]


[The Book’s] track record in keeping Squibs out of Hogwarts is perfect. Non-magic children born to witches and wizards occasionally have some small, residual aura of magic about them due to their parents, but once their parents magic has worn off them it becomes clear that they will never have the ability to perform spells.




If you can’t go to Hogwarts if your name doesn’t appear in this Book, and your name will never be written in this Book if you’re a Squib, then you can’t go to Hogwarts. End of discussion.


But would a Squib want to go to Hogwarts? Would it be beneficial or healthy for them to do so? I suspect not; they’d always be an outsider. This snippet of conversation is fairly telling:



“Squibs were usually shipped off to Muggle schools and encouraged to integrate into the Muggle community… much kinder than trying to find them a place in the Wizarding world, where they must always be second class, but naturally [redacted] wouldn’t have dreamed of letting her daughter go to a Muggle school—“


— Deathly Hallows, chapter 8 (The Wedding)



For examples, look at how Filch is treated by students, or Mrs. Figg at the Ministry hearing. The magical society doesn’t rate Squibs, and they’d be social outcasts at Hogwarts. Consider how certain students treat Muggle-borns, and now imagine how they’d treat Squibs.


You’d be a tiny minority, in a school of people with special talents that you don’t share, and the entire experience would remind you of what you were missing out on. Large aspects of their school experience are cut off to you, and there are plenty of ways to be bullied that you have no way to retaliate against.


And you go through all this, and what comes out at the end? There are very few jobs in the magical community that you can take, so you’ll probably end up in the Muggle world. A brief glimpse of what you could have had, but never will. It seems cruel.



I suspect a Squib at Hogwarts would be miserable and bullied, and would leave school with a strong inferiority complex. Even if they want to attend, I think it’s better to turn them away.




The link in DVK’s answer to J.K. Rowling’s old website says something similar: Squibs at Hogwarts would never be able to really fit in.



Squibs would not be able to attend Hogwarts as students. They are often doomed to a rather sad kind of half-life (yes, you should be feeling sorry for Filch), as their parentage often means that they will be exposed to, if not immersed in, the wizarding community, but can never truly join it.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

languages - Do we ever see written English in the Star Wars films?

In Empire Strikes Back , we see a transcription of what R2's beeps and bloops mean, but it's not English (sorry for the low quality, it's from the 2004 DVDs): I'd assume it's what Basic looks like when written, but is there some point in the the Star Wars films we see written English instead? (This sort of spun off from a discussion in How do people understand astromech droids? .) Answer At one point there was English but it has been phased out in subsequent versions of the films. Chris Gould at DVD Active did a comparison of all versions of each of the Star Wars films, and in his comparison of Episode 4 , there are a couple of screenshots showing how the power gauge for the Death Star tractor beam was changed. I imagine there are probably more to be found in his other comparisons but I haven't got around to reading those yet.

Was the "pure soul" of Harry's what had really hurt Voldemort?

In the Order of the Phoenix, Voldemort possesses Harry, and it hurts. Greatly. I think that Dumbledore explained that it was because Voldemort's rotten soul was incapable of assimilating Harry's pure soul, that Voldemort didn't understand the love and friendship etc that Harry has in his heart. But, I think it was a lie. Remember that in Deathly Hallows, while looking for information regarding Horcruxes, it is discovered that it is in fact possible to merge a soul fragment back, but that the process was extremely painful. Now then, if Voldemort tried to possess Harry, and Harry had a fragment of Voldemort's soul, I think that it could have been the true cause of Voldemort's pain: the fact of having his soul so close of another fragment. I think that Dumbledore knew that fact, but had to lie to Harry because it was inappropriate to let him know that he had one of Voldemort's soul fragments at the moment. Is that right? Or was it truly the pure soul of Harry's...

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...

star trek - Warning regarding forward saucer section in Nemesis?

In Star Trek: Nemesis , just before the Enterprise rams into the Scimitar, Picard sends a text message from his captain's chair arm pad to Troi — who is manning the helm in lieu of the crewman who was just blown out through what was once the view screen — indicating that she should put full impulse on standby. (Literally, if you watch the scene closely, Troi's console prefaces the order with "TXT MSG" !) My question is: Did Picard also somehow warn crew members in the forward saucer section about what was about to happen? The ramming of the Scimitar was a heat of the moment decision. Considering that he also resorted to calling the auto-destruct sequence shortly after (which ended up being offline), he probably was of the mindset that any losses would be acceptable in order to hault Shinzon's march to Earth. Still, I'm curious. Answer The original script indicates that he called for the crew to " brace for impact ". Whether that call (or the comma...