Ilvermorny

Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, more commonly Ilvermorny, is a North American wizarding school in the Harry Potter universe. Ilvermorny was first introduced on Pottermore by JK Rowling in advance of the 2016 release of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. A video trailer on Ilvermorny was released by Warner Bros. Pictures on July 5, 2016, as part of the promotional campaign for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - "Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry" Posted on July 5, 2016. Accessed on April 3, 2018.
==Ilvermorny Houses==
Similar to Hogwarts Houses in the original Harry Potter series, there are four houses at Ilvermorny: Horned Serpent, Wampus, Pukwudgie, and Thunderbird. Canonically, the Ilvermorny houses are said to be named for magical creatures, although all four creatures appear in various folkloric traditions of the indigenous peoples of North America."The Native American folklore behind Ilvermorny, J.K. Rowling's new wizarding school, explained," Aja Romano. Posted on June 29, 2016. Accessed on April 2, 2018.
===Fanon Houses===
==Criticism==
Several months after the publication of the first installment in the History of Magic in North America series, Rowling published an account of the founding of Ilvermorny"Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry," JK Rowling, Pottermore.com. Accessed on March 18, 2018. and a Sorting quiz for the four Ilvermorny houses. Critical responses to Rowling's Ilvermorny writings also incorporated and referenced issues raised in response to the first History of Magic in North America essay, including cultural appropriation, Eurocentrism, and colonialism. Writing in response to the Ilvermorny story for Salon, Paula Young Lee noted:
"So…no magical human Natives in this story, like maybe a couple from the tribe known as the Massachusetts, as in the state of? How about the Wampanoag, who populated the land nearest the Plymouth colony? Rowling never mentions Natives living in the area, let alone the fact that things didn’t go so well for them once the colonists stopped being grateful. Instead, she gives us a Pukwudgie, a anthropomorphic creature from Wampanoag lore, but which in her hands becomes a resentful, English-speaking, voluntary bondservant who refuses to tell Isolt his given name and so she names him “William” after her father. Together, they forge a “unique” friendship that sounds suspiciously like the Lone Ranger & Tonto with a dash of her man Friday, precisely because it echoes stereotypes regarding good/guide Indians-as-interlocutors and specifically the history of Tisquantum, or Squanto, an English-speaking Native American of the Pawtuxet tribe, who escaped slavery and helped the first Pilgrims survive—much in the same way that William the Pukwudgie helps Isolt — by showing them how to hunt, fish, gather wild plants, and cultivate domesticated seeds.""Pottermore problems: Scholars and writers call foul on J.K. Rowling’s North American magic," Paula Young Lee, Salon.com. Posted on July 1, 2016. Accessed on March 18, 2018.
On Reddit, an extensive discussion ("Pottermore, Ilvermorny, and Colonialism") of Rowling's depiction of Native life in the wizarding world took place in the /r/yawriters subreddit."Pottermore, Ilvermorny, and Colonialism," Originally posted by user bethrevis in /r/yawriters on June 29, 2016. Accessed on March 18, 2018. Comments included the following:
===Ilvermorny and History of Magic in North America===
Responses to Rowling's writings on Ilvermorny often referenced criticisms of her History of Magic in North America essay series, which had been launched on Pottermore in March 2016. These critiques were further contextualized against the Harry Potter franchise's perceived strides toward representation, as seen in Emma Louise Backe's analysis of Ilvermorny at The Geek Anthropologist:
"The world of Harry Potter has made steps towards diversification with the announcement of Albus Dumbledore’s homosexuality and Rowling’s public support of a black Hermione Granger, but the latest installment, Ilvermorny—the North American magical institution modeled after Hogwarts—has gained notoriety not for expanding witchcraft and wizardry across the pond, but for its problematic appropriation of Native American culture.""Magical Maladies and Injuries: Cultural Appropriation in J. K. Rowling’s Ilvermorny," Emma Louise Backe, The Geek Anthropologist. Posted on July 8, 2016. Retrieved on March 18, 2018.
Backe's essay also references Rowling's longstanding tendency to adapt and remix elements of European folklore, another aspect of her writing frequently cited in critiques of the History of Magic in North America series. Backe goes on to point out that it is not only an issue of what Rowling has included, but what she has excluded in her imagining of wizarding life in North America:
"Rowling’s “History of Magic in North America” not only cherry picks aspects of indigeneity but also ignores the mixing pot out of which a truly syncretic breed of American magic could emerge. There is no mention of the slave trade or the admixture of cultural traditions brought to the colonies from Africa and the Caribbean with their own models of the supernatural. Nor does Rowling attend to the fact that its neighbor, Latin America, also informs North American identity. Her history skips from the seventeenth century Salem Witch trials to the 1900’s, with no consideration of the wholesale dispossession of Native peoples—the Seven Years War, the Trail of Tears, the substitution of reservations for indigenous sovereignty.""Magical Maladies and Injuries: Cultural Appropriation in J. K. Rowling’s Ilvermorny," Emma Louise Backe, The Geek Anthropologist. Posted on July 8, 2016. Retrieved on March 18, 2018.
==References==
 Category:Fantastic BeastsCategory:Harry Potter Tropes & GenresCategory:Harry Potter Fandom Glossary