I’ve figured out why I take such a strong dislike to fantasy stories where people are persecuted for their special powers. They’re often modeled on real oppression of people who were considered unimportant–poor, unattached, and not influential within the community. The stories reframe them as having supernatural gifts that make them more special than their oppressors, and that makes their oppression wrong. But if you need to be special to deserve not to be oppressed, then what does that say about the real not-special people who were persecuted, cast out, and outright murdered?
muggle pride! although they are something of a majority, so not quite the same.
Reminds me of a great insight I got from (IIRC) John C. Wright: the X-Men is such a powerful fantasy precisely because it allows you to imagine being both the innocent victim of persecution, with all the moral legitimacy that conveys in the modern world, and the ubermensch, the next stage of human evolution – at the same time.
Everyone wants to be Adam Jensen.