After recently watching Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix I noticed that there is not one left handed wizard in the entire movie!!!
Being a southpaw myself I tend to look for weird things like that when I watch movies or TV shows, and while I assumed that the principal cast (Harry, Hermoine, Ron, etc.) would be their right handed selves as in the books, there aren’t even random small characters who wield the wand in their left hand.
I very well could be wrong, but I was looking at scenes when they are in the Room of Requirement and training…didn’t see any. I was looking at the scene where they were taking their O.W.L.s and the Weasley twins disrupt it…didn’t see any.
Speaking of the twins, out of the two sets of twins in the movie (Weasely and Pavrati) not one of em has a left handed counterpart. I happen to know that “mirror twins” is a very common occurrence and none of them are lefties???
Someone either show me how I am wrong, or join the outrage!!!
It’s a question of selection. Left-handed people tend to be “right-brained”, while right-handed people are “left-brained”. Everyone knows magical ability is housed in the left hemisphere of the cerebral cortex, so, of course, wizards are almost always right-handed. I think the Dursleys may be left-handed though.
Could it be that any left-handers wield their wand in their right hand simply because that’s what their teachers did? If magic in Harry Potter requires somatic components, (finger-waggling, wand waving, or something like that), it might be easier to learn if you don’t have to worry about whether the actions you are mimicking have to be mirrored for a left-hander (as in sports) or not (as in writing).
It wouldn’t occur to me to try and use my wand right handed. I would almost say because magic is so personal (the wand chooses the wizard etc.) that you would want to do whatever feels natural and not have to worry about your mechanics.
To add to what susan said a little, I use the mouse right handed to, but I don’t for the life of me know of anyone who uses it left handed
I’m right handed, but I use my mouse left handed at home. I learned it many years ago when we’d play DOOM on the computers at work. I could use the mouse and the numeric pad at the same time to move better. I continued using it left handed at home because I could point and click left handed and type one handed at the same time.
When first there were mice, I first used them left-handed, but back in the old days, my children, there were no USB mice and the mouse plug was on the back, right corner of the machine I had, significantly decreasing the amount of play in the cord if dressed left. Thus, I became a forced right-handed mouser.
I have a friend who’s a left-hand-mouser. When I’m using her computer (which happens regularly) I reach over and use the mouse with my right hand. It’s a little awkward for me, but not really a big deal. I can use the mouse left-handed, but I prefer not to.
I type more-or-less “properly” with both hands, and I know most of the keyboard shortcuts, so I don’t often need to use the mouse and the keyboard at the same time.
