How do I break out of those weird tropes but still write something with gnomes and shit? What does it look like when wizards control the means of production?
How do I break out of those weird tropes but still write something with gnomes and shit? What does it look like when wizards control the means of production?
Depends on how magic works in your setting. Is magic something rare and special that some people are simply born with? Is it something everybody can learn? If it's an innate ability, are there wizard dynasties and do wizard eugenics work (a central contention in Harry Potter) or is it a completely random, unpredictable thing as in Shadowrun? If it's something everbody can learn in theory, how hard is that? Is it something everybody pulls off it they try, like learning to ride a bicycle, or is it something most people give up on, like learning to play the theremin? How long does it take to become an accomplished wizard, how many ressources does this require etc.? Does spellcasting itself require ressource expenditure, time investment, labor? Does magic come with a cost, such as draining your life force, fucking with your fate, spells backfiring in random and catastrophic ways or the spellcaster slowly turning into a monster? Does magic pollute the environment, as in Dark Sun, where everything is a post-apoc wasteland because wizard kings fucked up the climate?
The rest will more or less logically follow from such basic decisions. You could expect a world with functioning, powerful magic to be slower on many science-driven innovations when magic is the easier, cheaper, stronger alternative to just building a steam engine, up to and including a magical industrial revolution in an otherwise very backwards, very medieval setting. Or magic could be a niche thing, maybe something that's actively persecuted. Wizards could be the ruling class, or they could be an X-Men style feared and hated underclass.
Once you have your setting fleshed out, you can start doing historical materialism. Which classes would your setting logically have, what are their relations and antagonisms, which means do they have at their disposal to resolve these conflicts? Do you have pre-revolutionary conditions or is it an age of restauration? Is it one of these decades where nothing happens or a week were decades happen?
Would love an off-hand reference to Hogwarts as a eugenics center
Slytherins are pretty open about only accepting those of the purest blood. Says so right in the sorting hat poem. I mean, you could argue that's just general racism instead of being specifically eugenicist, and i couldn't really object to that, but race science almost inevitably leads to eugenicism and Slytherins clearly believe magical aptitude is tied to inborn traits, that your bloodline's magical aptitude is harmed by having kids with somebody outside of your in-group, and that their blood purity qualifies them to rule. It's why Sirius Black's family is so obsessed with their heritage that they decorate their residence with a giant, animated family tree. And as soon as the Death Eaters take power, they start imprisoning muggle-born wizards, and this is justified with m*dbloods being bad for the wizard gene pool.