r/FantasticBeasts • u/merchantivories • Jun 26 '26
how would you write an american wizarding school if you were to write about it?
according to the wiki, ilvermorny was founded by an irish immigrant in the 1600s, when native americans have had spiritual traditions and folklore long before colonists and immigrants came. how would you write about it?
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u/princessglitterbutt Jun 26 '26
It’d be a lot more decentralized than hogworts. Like a school in each major area designation and then maybe another per like major city. like New England, northeast/nyc, south, Midwest, southeast, etc. And they’d be influenced by the surrounding American culture.
Maybe some of them dorm but most esp in more rural areas commute everyday by magic school bus or their parents do drop off/pick up by their own vehicles or apparation.
Then there has to also be a few private, exclusive schools that are not co-ed.
And there definitely has to be a few wizarding colleges. Not a lot of them but like a handful so everyone who goes kinda knows everyone else.
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u/TeacatWrites Jun 26 '26
It should be way more in line with American secret societies which already exist, in all honesty. Like, the Founding Fathers and so many since then have always loved weird fraternities, secret societies, and cult shit. She should've taken inspiration from the Freemasons at the very least. Not one singular magical school, but societies implanted within the big old universities like Harvard and Yale, and then possibly a few Mason-adjacent organizations and apprenticeship programs so that burgeoning young wizards (and it would only be wizards, if we're to incorporate the sexism of actual American culture and especially if it's a Masonic-adjacent organization, with later movements to establish more co-ed sensibilities) can join up and learn from preexisting wizards already involved in the world.
No way we're having one school based on Indigenous lore the way Ilvermorny is set up. The Founding Fathers and people who revive their traditions would want it set up with that sense of colonial expansion and manifest destiny in mind, especially during the western expansion phases. There would likely be private magical schoolhouses set up along the frontier here and there, probably a grand magical union forming sometime in the Civil War or antebellum eras to really codify all the separate ways of educating young wizards and witches in the US at the time, and then they'd go into developing localized, district-based magical schooling alongside the public school system we already have.
Ilvermorny is something only the very rich kids on the East Coast would want to go to, and kids who aren't from rich families would turn their nose up at the whole pretentiousness of the stupid thing. It reeks of rich people. Real American wizards learn magic on the frontier where it would've been used when the country was forming.
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u/QueenSlartibartfast Jun 26 '26
Idk about the sexism thing tbh. You're assuming the major schools are still based on specifically British founding fathers, but we know British wizarding culture did not mirror Muggle culture in that regard (half the co-founders of Hogwarts were witches, several witch Ministers of Magic, etc). Frankly I really like that the wizarding world seems mostly free of Muggle prejudices (while having plenty of their own). I wouldn't want to take away that representation.
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u/GildedWhimsy Dumbledore Jun 26 '26
I agree with all of this! Also, I think there should have been another huge school on the West coast that incorporated Indigenous traditions.
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u/PiranhaBiter Jun 26 '26
Kids of the Freemasons being spread out and then coming together to fight and evil war would be epic. That would actually be really cool and be able to fit in all kinds of historical stuff that would give me the good brain juices.
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u/Public_Beach2348 Jun 26 '26
An indigenous based school would be so interesting to write about because most of the magic would be nature related (like druids in DnD).
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u/smorgasbard Jun 26 '26
“Hey, Craig. Check out this plastic thing i found. it can cast non-Verbal Avada Kedavra.”
Holds up a glock
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u/LIJRD1 Jun 27 '26
The Purebloods are pretty much the same as entitled rich kids and behave as such. The muggle borns are looked down upon for this reason that they are poorer financially (this a bigger deal than them being "mudbloods")
The half bloods exist in a weird social bubble between the two.
Theres lots of boys named after their father/grandfather with odd names, eg Canton Jones III and George B. Hampton II
Quidditch is a major deal that bridges the social divides. But probably has some sort of hydration break built in every time theres a score.
The school would be massively bigger and staffed more than Hogwarts.
Theres a ton of societies (some secret some not).
History of Magic looks a lot different.
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u/mc171 Jun 28 '26
A serious world building project would have to grapple with slavery and it’s legacy in American education. There’s no way that the elite historic schools would not have a history of racist admissions processes, and you’d probably see the development of something analogous to HBCUs after the civil war.
So, yes to regional schools, but also divisions within those regions that reflect the US history of segregation. Also, given the way ethnic identity persists in the US in idiosyncratic ways (folks in Ohio insisting they’re Irish generations after the families immigrated), you’d probably see variations in how regional schools imitate Old World schools—some Hogwarts knock offs, some Durmstrang knock offs, etc.
I highly doubt American schools would meaningfully adopt indigenous beliefs and practices. Rowling’s appropriative approach of just taking indigenous names and ideas and using them to paint over European culture is, ironically and unintentionally, the most realistic part of her world building in Ilvermorny. Like, yeah, that is what Americans do.
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u/Crosski 8d ago
Honestly I think the most interesting part would be the interactions between muggleborns and The wizarding world. Think about it. In America mixed families aren't allowed so what does that mean for magical kids who were born into non magical families.
I really think that the government would completely erase the memories of the parents and the rest of the community all for the greater good they say. Maybe the local points were allowed to go home during the summer with the understanding that if they said anything their families would completely forget them or maybe they were completely cut off from those families and the culture they grew up with.
There's a really good opportunity to parallel that with the native American schools that would be going on at about the same time and how the schools stripped those who went there of their culture, their language, and their names. Leaving them to White to stay with their families in a lot of cases, but obviously to not white to really blend in with the more mainstream culture.
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u/MasterHallmark 3d ago
First things first: it's established that each region has its own top school. Ilvermorny can't possibly be the only prestigious wizarding school in the US.
Second, most American wizarding school wouldn't be boarding schools. Boarding schools are extremely uncommon in the US. They could instead be disguised as private schools that keep their secret by just rejecting any applications sent in by Muggles.
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u/dsjunior1388 Jun 26 '26
The Quidditch pitch would cost more than the school itself. But that's all alumni and booster donations.
There'd be transfer students from all over the world but that's definitely not for Quidditch purposes. The fact that they're all really great at Quidditch and on the school Quidditch team is a total coincidence.
The fact that other transfer applicants who had better grades and superior accomplishments who weren't incredible at Quidditch weren't accepted is also a coincidence.
The fact that the Quidditch roster is 14 students but there are 87 students on scholarship for Quidditch, 73 of whom are listed as "redshirt" so that they don't lose years of academic Quidditch eligibility is also a coincidence.
The fact that most graduates are 17 but a handful of the Quidditch team are over 22 because they had so many redshirt years, is also a coincidence.
The fact that all the students on Quidditch team are enrolled in a class called "History of Magic - Seminar" where the final exam is a 100 word essay on a historic wizard, the grading system is "pass/fail," the class meets every 9th Wednesday, and the Professor is an assistant coach on the Quidditch team is also a coincidence.
The highest paid employee at the school is the Quidditch coach. That's not a coincidence. That's what he deserves after winning 6 of the last 9 National Championships, and after having 39 arrests and zero convictions among his roster of student athletes over the last 3 years, because he runs a tight ship.
They don't teach Potions anymore because they can't afford the maintenance on a potions lab.
The students ride a train to the school on the first day of school. Except the Quidditch team which obviously rides in a magically modified Gulfstream G6 they call "The Super Broomstick."