Emotional abuse in Harry Potter

[MrsRogerLima]

Don't get me wrong, I love Harry Potter but I never thought about the Ron/Hermione thing this way before and she is SO RIGHT.

AIBU to think this is irresponsible in children's literature?

www.bustle.com/articles/198364-ron-hermiones-relationship-in-harry-potter-wasnt-just-disappointing-but-dangerous

@MorrisZapp

Ffs why does a book series written in the 90s have to be picked apart and deconstructed to this tedious degree? Answer, because it was so stratospherically successful.

Imagine writing fiction for young people now, having to meticulously represent every community favourably and have every character recognisably good or bad in case you accidentally become the biggest selling author of all time and personally responsible for the happiness and mental wellbeing of your readership.

I'd add that it's not just because it was so stratospherically successful but because it was so successful and written by a woman. And we can't have women getting above themselves. Especially not women who won't roll over and let people bully her.

Ignoring the whole it's a story, it's not real stuff...

In almost all the books they are children. In book one they are 11 year old children.they are still only 14/15 (book 4, so year 10 equivalent) when Ron is jealous over Hermione going to a dance with someone else. Even in the final book they are sixth form age - teenagers. So yes, their relationships, romantic or otherwise, are emotionally immature. As would be expected for 11-18 year olds growing up.

I think the writer of the article is forgetting this fact and expecting kids to have adult relationships.

@Aroundtheworldin80moves

I thought this would be about the abuse of Harry by the Dursleys, and how it was ignored for 10yrs by all the people around them...

All the teenage relationships seem awkward to me. Krum and Hermione. ..a 17/18yo international sport star after a 14yo. Harry and Cho.. Cho needing support for Cedric, not another boyfriend. Only one that seems rational was Fred? And Angelina where he just asks her out.

He was protected at the Dursley's by ancient magic. Think the idea was to make his home life at Privet Drive as unbearable as possible, otherwise why would he want to go to Hogwarts and nearly get killed every term if he had a lovely life at his Aunt and Uncles?

Agree though, I really dislike both Harry and Ron.

I'm assuming the OP is 'tongue-in-cheek' because if it isn't then we are living in even sadder times than I thought!

Dissecting Harry Potter like this is no different than if someone wrote an essay on Gatsby's relationship with Daisy and how this correlates to modern day toxic masculinity.

Indeed but just because it happens a lot doesn't excuse wilful misreading of fiction in order to create an attention-grabbing premise or make it valid literary analysis.

I do think HP seems to suffer particularly from this kind of onanistic 'journalism', although perhaps that's just a function of how very successful it is.

JKR actually spoke about this in 2014 with Emma Watson because many readers questioned that pairing (including myself) and I recall debating this with a classmate who was angry that JKR said that Rob and Hermoine was a mistake. Then JKR kind of backtracked years later after that saying it was an opposite attracts kind of relationship while calling Harry and Ginny soulmates. Harry being with someone that looks like his mum, ok. She didn’t call Hermoine and Ron soulmates which they weren’t. I think JKR should have went with her first thought and killed off Ron and kept Fred.

Saying that I found their pairing disappointing. It reminds me of when I hear people, especially women tell little girls that when a boy bullies them or hits them it means said boy likes them. It makes me cringe because it’s conditioning females from a young age to equate male violence with like/love. As someone who was also bullied by boys for years, it definitely hits a nerve.

I think JKR was wrapping things up in an easy bow which kind of makes sense. I think Hermoine would have likely ended up with Ron (unfortunately) because it was easy and after losing her parents, being tortured, dealing with everything she had since entering the magic world, I think she would have taken the easy choice.

Just look at Snape abusing Lily Potters son because he ‘loved’ her, very problematic

PMSL.
It's a series of childrens/early teen books.
You might just as well pick apart Dr Who. Oh wait.....

I don't think JKR would mind this discussion would she? I don't think personally it's attacking the author or about "not letting women get above themselves". Just a bit of feminist critique surely?

How utterly ridiculous. It is a great book and relationship between Ron and Hermione are not between 2 adults, there is nothing abusive there. He was a rather insecure boy, she was also finding her feet. They are teens, it would be silly if JKR tried to portrait either of them as emotionally matured.

JK Rowling is on record saying that she regrets Ron and Hermione getting together. Let's face it, Ron's generally a dick and not just to Hermione.

When Harry's name is pulled from the goblet of fire there is an extended period of silent treatment for Harry, his best mate. He's so obviously an idiot that at times you wonder what Hermione is doing wasting her time with him.

The point is they are all teenagers and presumably they get a chance to grow up and become emotionally mature after the books finish.

It’s a book about wizards and witches. Chill out 😂

Bit of an OTT reaction IMO. Seems you can’t breathe on Mumsnet without it being interpreted as abusive. It’s not irresponsible ffs, how many people can you say were damaged by reading Harry Potter? By all means analyse and explore how things could be interpreted but to label it irresponsible, abusive etc is a bit much. It’s like people saying they liked the Weasleys until they realised Molly and Arthur only stopped having kids when they had a girl. Just enjoy it for what it is and don’t get too deep into it or you’ll ruin what is meant to be a book of magic.

Christ, they really are desperate to tear her down now aren't they? Anything to smear the legacy of the book, just because she had the audacity to publicly say that she doesn't believe you can change sex?

Pathetic.

When I read HP, like others I felt like the Ron and Hermione thing was just a loose end too - it certainly wasn't a relationship goal or in any way romantic. But then I never really got Harry and Ginny either, and I definitely never understood what Lily saw in James who just seemed like an arrogant prick in the flashbacks? But none of those relationships were ever really 'pushed hard enough' to make them seem like some sort of goal iyswim, it's not like Edward and Bella or Christian and Ana!

characters have to act badly/face obstacles/do the wrong things/make poor choices etc etc otherwise there is no story....

Eugh yes let's make sure all books and films are only about completely perfect relationships. So sick of people trying to sensor everything. Soon enough it will be a waste of time reading/watching anything at all.

They were children and children are horrible to one another.

I'd be far more concerned about a teacher subjecting a pupil to emotional abuse, by the way. The Snape / Harry dynamic is not what one would expect as an example to follow either.

But hey ho - it's fiction folks.

Anyway, what sort of role model for girls is Elizabeth Bennett in Pride & Prejudice? She only decides she's in love with Mr Darcy when she finally realises how rich he is. She falls in love with his house first.

Trouble with reading the books as 'normal life/normal relationships' is it maybe works for the first couple, maybe, but then the kids were 11-13ish and would be expected to grow up a bit and have the edges rubbed off the poorer parts of their personalities. After that they're literally growing up through wartime, family and friends literally dying at regular intervals around them and they're expected to fight on the front line while the adults around them do relatively little in comparison (compared to age and ability), they should all have PTSD and would almost certainly struggle to have healthy relationships for years so analyzing their relationships seems a little unfair. If it was about 15 year olds being taken off to assassinate Hitler in WW2 I think people would give their relationship a bit more slack

JK ROWLING ATE MY PUPPY

She didn't actually, but goodness knows if I tried hard enough I could probably write a completely empty and easily twisted article about how it could possibly be true on some level.

Harry Potter was a children's book. I have always thought the characters were two-dimensional and have some questionable characteristics (Molly is a bloody awful parent at times, Lupin turns into a shit, Fred was actually bordering evil). The world building is beautiful and intriguing though, so I can forgive some very obvious human flaws coming through the characters (especially immature children). It's still a children's book though, so many adults who have personal issues with JKR need to grow the fuck up over analysing it like War and Peace . Like the odd adults who are obsessed with Disney, except most Disney lovers aren't some immature brats who need to over analyse what a silly child Ariel was, or how Eric took advantage of a mute, vulnerable teen girl, then dumped her when possessed. Amazing how the woke brigade pick and choose what's 'problematic' in their agenda.

Shall we go through all children's literature to tear apart how awful and abusive the characters are? Roald Dahl is about to be seriously cancelled haha no, he's a bloke silly.

The book wouldn't be as popular if it had to remove anything that might be giving the wrong message, or be a bad influence on children.

The world is full of complex, varied and somtimes negative relationships. You shouldn't sugar coat children from that and if you tried, litriture would become very dull and the children would stop engaging in it.

Surley it's more important to know what your children are reading/viewing, and then have conversations with them about it.

YABU. It’s a silly article. You could pick apart all sorts of things in HP if you decided to do so but it’s reading too much into it. It’s a kids series.

*Indeed but just because it happens a lot doesn't excuse wilful misreading of fiction in order to create an attention-grabbing premise or make it valid literary analysis.

I do think HP seems to suffer particularly from this kind of onanistic 'journalism', although perhaps that's just a function of how very successful it is.*

Of course it doesn't make it valid. Not sure how you infer validity on an opinion piece in any case. But to say she's the first author to undergo this kind of scrutiny, especially once their work becomes popular, is wrong. Many famous authors have undergone similar, and continue to go through it in every University Literature class across the world. It's just less headline making when it's about an author who died 400 years ago.

@IamTomHanks makes a very good point. Any book from the Bible onwards will reflect the mores of the time it was written. Should we refuse to read `Jane Austen because in her books the only good future for a young woman is marriage? I love Louisa May Alcott despite the fact that they portray Irish people as feckless beggars or servants, somehow of a different class to other white people. Reading that as a 10 year old from an Irish family I knew it was wrong and that modern people didn't think that way.

One of things I loved and still love about Harry Potter is that the protagonists, young and old are all flawed. They can be lazy, slow, selfish, stupid even. They ignore advice and make mistakes. They judge one another. But just as the good aren't wholly good, most of the bad aren't wholly bad. That's so true and showing it is a rare thing in any fiction, let alone something aimed at children.

I think it's the mark of great novels that they are still read and appreciated for their strengths even after society changes radically. I don't know if HP will stand that test of time or whether it will go the way of the soupy romantic Pegs Paper type fiction of the 20s or Billy Bunter, dismissed as irrelevant, but at the moment I can enjoy it for what it is.

@Feministicon

Just look at Snape abusing Lily Potters son because he ‘loved’ her, very problematic

@feministicon is this not more about the fact that has Lilly not been with James and had Harry she would still be alive?

Not that it makes his treatment of Harry OK of course.

Rather than Harry Potter, I could understand getting your knickers in a twist about Disney and how their stories pan out. Or about the abusive relationship that was 50 Shades of Grey.

It just seems fashionable to jump on the bandwagon to criticise certain things and right now, it’s JKR.