Prohibition and Harry Potter

It may not seem like an apropos mix, but bear with me. After all, one can prohibit just about anything. Even in actual Prohibition, it could be argued what the actual thing intended to be prohibited was: a substance (alcohol), a state (drunkeness) or an activity (carousing).

But not to stray too far from either source material, I’ll assume that what’s prohibited at Hogwarts (and allied venues) are certain kinds of alchemical potions.
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Lankhmar and Prohibition

This week, I’m not so much looking at a crossover with a particular fictional source as a more generalised era in history, one so distinctive as to practically be a genre unto itself.

And one that fits very well indeed. It’s widely believed that Leiber modelled Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser on himself and his friend Harry Otto Fischer (who co-wrote one of the Lankhmar stories, The Lords of Quarmall), and their exploits knocking around New York City in their misspent youth. Which was, roughly, in the years covered by Prohibition.

Isn’t it nice when things just work?
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