JK Rowling should have set her new school in Illinois

We Midwesterners often feel like the world put an invisibility cloak over our patch of the map. With the majority of American mass culture emulating from our coasts, it’s reasonable to question if the rest of earth sees American geography a certain way:  California and New York on two ends, and other stuff in between. The University of Illinois, one of the largest colleges in the country, is eclipsed somewhere in that in between.

A technological and cultural hub surrounded by cornfields, we stand as a symbol for America’s exceptional rugged individualism. However, when compared to the international cultural fetishization of the Northeast and the Pacific Northwest, the Midwest is often underutilized in our nations’ stories. This “coastal favoritism” was shown prominently on Friday Jan. 29 when Luna Lovegood actress Evanna Lynch announced at Universal Studios that America’s premiere Wizarding School Ilvermorny is located in the Northeast.

Obviously an attempt to connect her stories to the Ivy Leagues, it’s disappointing that JK Rowling picked the most historically British area in the US to represent America’s Wizarding World. Ivy League schools were built with the British university system in mind.

Rather than differentiating America from its transatlantic cousins, Rowling has simply made another Hogwarts in America. There’s nothing inherently wrong with Harvard or Yale as our representation for the Wizarding World, it just seems to discard other universities that arguably  better represent the majority of American collegiate education, namely, the University of Illinois.

The Union might not look like a typical Wizarding School, but you can always renovate

Although Rowling’s canon is final, she truly missed out on an excellent opportunity to add a more quintessential American perspective to her mythology.

Imagine an immense Wizarding School located in the heart of Central Illinois. A logical midpoint in America, Illinois is the perfect beacon for witches and wizards all over the country. Tens of thousands of magic students flock to Lincolnway for its vast recourses and seclusion from  the intrusive Muggles or No-Majes.

Would fit right in in Hogsmeade

Vast fortunes are thrown into Lincolnway’s Quidditch team, which is rumored to be cursed by evil dark lords who continuously thwart their chances for the Rose Gauntlet. However, students still attend the matches in throngs, showing support for the school that’s opened magical doors for them.

Apart from the world class magic lessons and the exciting Quidditch team, Licolnway is also known as the perfect magic school to rage your fucking face off.

Lincolnway is world renown as the number one party magic school. Nowhere else can you learn about magic while simultaneously drinking gallon upon gallon of Butterbeer. Socially accepted and surprisingly encouraged by Headmasters, magic juice reins free through out the campus.

Just before Spring Break, students are known to observe Must Not Be Named, a week of Butterbeer and other debaucherous experiments with the Dark Arts. Magic students from all across the country jump on their broomsticks and join the Must Not Be Named festivities.

Although nowhere near as wholesome as some other Wizarding Schools, Lincolnway would undoubtedly be a welcome change from Hogwarts’s stiff-upper-lip. It’s a shame Rowling refused to expand her mind to the more interesting side of American collegiate education.