There's definitely more I could say... so I will, with the caveat that many, many other people have analyzed Harry Potter's politics better than I have, and that I realize this isn't the HP thread.
HP's world is very insular and sheltered. Part of that comes from being boarding school fantasy more than magic worldbuilding fantasy, sure, but part of it also surely comes from Rowling's politics and worldview. Specifically, it has a general neoliberal leaning that things should get better over time, sure, but let's not get unreasonable. Overall, it feels like the wizarding world is "how it should be," and has been for the last 400 years. There are no real structural issues; Hermione's treatment as a ridiculous Soapbox Sadie who doesn't listen to the people she's championing is infamous for a reason, but also, all the problems come from individual bad actors. Lucius Malfoy is a slave owner but once Dobby is freed, the rest of the house elves enjoy being enslaved. Mudblood prejudice is largely fixed when Hermione rearranges Draco's nose. The Ministry of Magic is only ineffective because of new personnel who "infiltrated." Even Voldemort's vaguely-defined wizard purity movement is shown to be the result of his birth as a literal bad seed.
Overall, the world is about as good as it should be, it's just that there are individual bad actors who are Making Things Be Wrong and can be defeated to Make Things Right Again. Partly as a cause and partly as an effect, Rowling's wizards are extremely insulated. It's a big theme when Hogwarts is invaded and the adults can no longer manage (or be trusted to) protect the children, which I do think was executed well as part of the main characters growing up... but the feeling that there are Things You Can Trust To Be Right is still there, it's just that there are bad people in those things (Umbridge, Cornelius Fudge, etc.) who are keeping the system from functioning as it should.
The series isn't really interested in examining structural issues because if the power structure can be CHANGED, then that means the way that it is now might be WRONG. Which means that the things you learned and how secure you felt as a child within that structure might be wrong. It's a series that does tackle individual children growing up and learning that they can't be sheltered by adults forever... only to reaffirm that the System can shelter them forever, and doesn't need to change. This is part of why the inertia and inaction of the wizarding world through gigantic sea changes like the World Wars stands out so much.
Compare that with Spellblades, where one of the first things we learn is that mages in this setting carry swords because a famous mage lost to a guy with a dagger once and the rest of them were like "nah, we don't play like that." The thrust of Esmerelda's commencement speech is "the world doesn't care about you. Grab it by the throat and make it fucking care," and every single horrendous rights violation within Kimberly is in the pursuit of advancing the world. It's still apathetic and biased toward its own way of doing things, but the series poises Katie to make some truly remarkable breakthroughs just by virtue of actually caring, for example, and (volume 1 spoilers) while we still don't know why exactly Chloe was murdered, Ollie's revenge quest is built around the idea of writing wrongs against the people in power. In later volumes, it's even arguable that the pursuit of magic is synonymous with the kind of egotism associated with bending the world order around yourself how you see fit.
Tl;DR the way Harry Potter and Spellblades present characters who want to change the status quo, and the status quo itself, are very different. Like M84 says, Spellblades is focused on kids who want to change that status quo, from the ones we've already met like Katie, to the upperclassmen in the Student Watch whose attempt to change the school culture at Kimberly is still working to take root.
Edited by RedSavant on Jul 20th 2023 at 12:20:46 PM
It's been fun.
Oh, bother.
The former more or less presents the status quo as a good thing with the Big Bad being someone who is a threat to it that needs to be stopped.
The latter presents the status quo as a toxic one with the Big Bad Ensemble being people who stand on the top of it and enforce it.
Interestingly, in both series the Big Bad embodies everything wrong with the status quo too.
Edited by M84 on Jul 20th 2023 at 1:48:53 AM
Disgusted, but not surprised
Optimistic Cynic
Another big difference, the main character of the former is a super special awesome chosen one, while in Spellblades Ollie kind of sucks. Like he's straight up average with nothing that he excels at. My one real complaint about Spellblades is that Ollie is kind of bland and boring compared to the rest of the Sword Roses.
I can see why I've seen complaints by people new to the series that Nanao should have been the main character not Ollie.
Oh, bother.
It's actually the opposite. Harry doesn't actually have any special powers or anything. The only reason he survived Voldemort's attempt to kill him was because of something his mother did. Ironically, Voldemort's obsession with killing Harry and his belief that Harry is somehow special is one of the reasons he is ultimately defeated. But otherwise, he's a pretty average wizard albeit one who is very good at riding a broom.
Ollie's pretty average too...but only compared to a truly talented and experienced fighter like Nanao. And he's got a technique that lets him temporarily wield his deceased mother's power and techniques, though it takes a severe toll on him.
Disgusted, but not surprised
Ollie's average, but it's largely because he's already good at basically everything. He's average for, say, a third-year, which is why he sort of shows up his first-year peers.
It's been fun.
The Incalculabe (2 plus 2 = 4)
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Sorry but this is just wrong. Harry is the "chosen one" but doesn't factor into any of his abilities. At worst he gets lucky and a lot of help (like in chamber of secrets, but that'smore of a MC thing than a chosen one thing) but harry himself only excels at dueling because of he's constantly getting in danger. Oliver, meanwhile, is above-average to good at duelling. Not on the level of Nanao, but far better than most of his year. He also goes into magic school with a lot of magic knowledge and application (exemplified with troll batlle in episode 1). Then there is the spoiler mentioned .
Oh, bother.
Oliver also knows how to perform the Fourth Spellblade Angustavia his mother created, without having to resort to his Dangerous Forbidden Technique.
Disgusted, but not surprised
Some Wanderer
Oliver is the quintessential all-rounder. He's good at just about everything and more importantly knows how to use his abilities well at almost any situation, but that's the result of back breaking study and practice.
Searching for meaning in meanings
Oh, bother.
There's another interesting contrast with Harry Potter.
With Harry Potter, he's already famous and well known in the Wizarding World long before he learns about it.
With Oliver, he's just a regular student because his true identity as the son of Chloe Halford is a closely guarded secret by him and his allies. It has to be secret since he is going after the same people who killed his mother.
Disgusted, but not surprised
I believe as far as the English releases are, we still know nothing about Ollie's father.
It's been fun.
Oh, bother.
I like to imagine that his father was just an ordinary man, possibly not even a magic user. It might be one reason Chloe wanted to end the magic supremacist status quo.
Disgusted, but not surprised
Episode 3: Summoning grody monsters from the intestines of the abyss? Now that is how sorcerers should fight. And apparently if you’re badass enough you get to adopt an epithet, which pleases me greatly.
I continue falling in love with Chela for her proactiveness in helping her friends. She deftly defused the tension with Nanao, helped everyone talk to Nanao about her suicidal thoughts, and gave her some rock-solid advice on about how to move on with life. Nanao subsequently deciding she’s “in love” with Oliver is pretty funny. Katie’s not exactly fine with it too, haha.
Speaking of things Katie is not fine with, she needs to learn some defensive spells or something because there are too many monster-hating jerks around her. I’m glad that there’s an entire faction fighting for the rights of the magical creatures. People do care!
We also finally learn what spellblades are. They’re essentially Avada Kedavra. But the interesting bit is that there’s supposedly only six of them. So where does the seventh come from? Either it’s a secret or it hasn’t been developed yet. I would hazard a guess that Oliver knows more about the subject than he’s letting on. Or perhaps Nanao’s seemingly unique constitution is the key?
I know Andrews is foolhardy but he wants to take on both Oliver and Nanao? Good luck with that.
Optimistic Cynic
Medium spoilers and a bigger one; It's Nanao's spellblade. Ollie only uses the fourth one. He doesn't have anything super special about him, outside of having two souls effectively. That's kind of the point.
Edited by Silentedge89 on Jul 21st 2023 at 11:32:20 AM
That's more like two medium spoilers and one giant one, for much later in the series. Click at your own risk.
It's been fun.
Nanao’s blood splurt got a laugh out of me.
It feels really weird hearing Lexi Nieto voice Pete in the dub, given that I know her best as the tomboy Tomo from Tomo-chan Is a Girl!.
Very solid episode this time around, I think. It was nice to slow down a little and focus on it, and the fight choreography was actually pretty solid. Nanao remains the best, though I'm curious to see if anime-only folks will feel like Andrews made a good enough showing to get back off the shitlist.
Given the title for episode 5, I'm going to assume that we're getting the Milligan fight and Nanao's spellblade by the end of the next episode.
It's been fun.
He isn’t off mine.
Is the anime worth checking out?
I'm very much enjoying it. It has cut out a few details/scenes from volume 1 that I think are unfortunate to lose, but overall I think it's a fine adaptation. It earns a lot of points simply by using actual 2D animation for the monsters, for one.
It's been fun.
What was cut?
The big one is an extended scene where the members of the group go to the school entryway and do some detective work to figure out who it was who cast the running spell on Katie, by making the pride plants laugh. I can understand why they cut it, but it's still a shame, since it helps round out Ollie's character quite a bit and also gives Guy more to do.
It's been fun.
Aww, that sounds like a fun little side quest.
Anyway, wow, the entire fight with the garuda had no business looking that good. It was definitely cathartic seeing the hunters become the prey. I guess whoever planted the running spell on Katie is also the one behind this mess of monsters? Or they might be two separate people in cahoots.
It may or may not get explained next episode, since I feel like we might be zipping through some stuff, but: the one who put the running spell on Katie is Mackley, the girl with the headband that Ollie and Guy confronted in this episode (and who was later at the Colosseum). Her family is anti-demihuman rights. The culprit for the Garuda incident will be shown next episode.
It's been fun.
The story basically examines exactly what kind of people would run a school this way.
Disgusted, but not surprised