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

Bloody hell. It's children's

However C.S. Lewis's treatment of Susan is on a different level

And they all went to heaven. Except for Susan who now likes makeup and boys so is an evil, heathen, slutty non-believer. Enjoy never seeing for family again, Susan!

Beautiful literature, can't fault it.

@nothereoften

OP, you have quite the surprise coming if you think literature should be responsible for showing you personally how to be healthy in a relationship as opposed to tell a story

The point is to entertain, and to make you reflect.

Which it has done.

Correct. What’s the point in an echo chamber?

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.

No! She starts to see the real man through his letter, and has a change of heart long before this. (Though, seeing Pemberley doesn’t hurt, obviously.). EB says (to her aunt?) that she just fell in love with his house but SHE WAS JOKING.

But re: Ron and Hermione. I always thought she got a bum deal, there. She is a goddess and he’s a petulant boy.

Dissecting books and the messages "art" gives us doesn't mean you enjoy it or appreciate it less, it's just an act of critical thinking and context. You can get bloody PHD's for it.

I agree with this but, for me, this article wasn't doing that. It was labelling the book as dangerous and, thereby, inferring responsibility for causing that 'danger' lands on the author.

Discussing the flaws in plots and characters is a great way to understand books more, and should be encouraged. But the point at which authors are considered duty bound to only produce work that portrays the heroes as perfect in every way, lest they inadvertently 'encourage' some individuals to make different choices in their own lives, is the moment literature looses something important: the ability for us all to recognise ourselves and our flaws in aspects of it.

@Passmeabottlemrjones

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.

This.

One of the things that was obvious after JKR 'came out' with her TERF Wars essay is that so many young people had been holding her solely responsible for their happiness. That they never saw her has a human, autonomous woman with her own thoughts and opinions, but as some kind of 'mummy' figure who only existed to keep them happy and mentally healthy through the medium of a set of books that she wrote.

I guess you could say this for lots of celebs, but it did seem rather stark with JKR.

Hard agree

I have a lot of respect for the posters on this thread who've taken the time to give the OP considered and analytical responses because all I feel is weary despair at yet again having to defend a perfectly decent author/entertainer/movie/series etc against nit picking, witch hunting accusations of problematic themes or performances. I was on Sky yesterday looking for a movie. I decided on Breakfast at Tiffany's - love that movie and knowing NYC relatively well, I enjoy seeing familiar streets and places as they were back when it was made. Only BAT now comes with a "trigger" warning. If you click on the synopsis you are warned before anything else that this film represents ideas and attitudes that were of its time that may be offensive/upsetting now - can't remember the exact wording.

I'm absolutely fed up of being infantilised and the constant "woke" pandering. I don't need to be warned before I watch a classic movie, I'm perfectly capable of watching a movie or reading a book and considering it's content for myself without being warned or instructed on how to think about the themes within.

OP YABU and ridiculous and I really do fear for the generation we have lost to this ridiculous way of thinking and related attempts to shame us all for enjoying what we did. However there is a gleam of light. I have teenagers who find it all hilarious and utterly reject this way of thinking. I encourage critical thinking and discussion in them every day and have since very young, no subject or opinion is off limits. We can turn this around and we need to start with our own children.

Hermione can be pretty petulant as well, she's extremely bossy to Ron and Harry at times and is not a perfect goddess, thank goodness.

We need to teach children to distinguish fantasy from reality, both with literature and TV/film, rather than expect all works of fiction to model perfect, healthy relationships. They are there for entertainment not to teach us how to live our lives.

Ron was a petulant child for most of the book, literally. He was 11 when it starts and treated everyone, including Harry, pretty shoddily too.

The relationship between the three of them was a childhood friendship for the most part with all that that brings. Teasing, banter, falling out, learning how to behave and treat others.

True, but on balance I think Ron is much meaner to Hermione than Harry through the years.

Even in the Deathly Hallows, it seems like both Harry and Ron were mean to Hermione whilst they had the ‘excuse’ that they were wearing the Horcrux, but we never see Hermione wearing it and being mean?

I am remembering the films more than the books now though, and agree that JKR bashing is ridiculous.

*FitA continues to be one of the most fucked up series I've ever read. I read it a lot as well, just to make sure I fully got how fucked up it was....

Harry Potter and the Teenage Relationship Emotional Trauma my arse, these people haven't been born!*

I also read FitA at around 12 years old. This made me properly guffaw!

I then went on to read Stephen King. IT remains one of my most favourite books but his treatment of female characters in it, including Beverley, makes my cringe as an adult. She's in the story a LOT but there is barely any mention of her that doesn't include reference to her breasts in some way

@BrumBoo

However C.S. Lewis's treatment of Susan is on a different level

And they all went to heaven. Except for Susan who now likes makeup and boys so is an evil, heathen, slutty non-believer. Enjoy never seeing for family again, Susan!

Beautiful literature, can't fault it.

Ha! Guess which side I’m on by my user name.

I RTFT to see if anyone else picked this up but do you mean you’re blocked from viewing certain content at work because you’re meant to be working? Can you not read it on your phone in your lunch break?

Certain sites are blocked for Cyber Security reasons. Generally if they are linked to cloud, or are considered social media/linked to social media.

I can get MN, Quora and Reddit, but half the ads and stuff are blocked.

I can read it on my phone and will later. But honestly I've read a lot of similar articles and opinion pieces on this subject before so I'm assuming it's nothing new.

Of course the books are fine. in fact when reading my children fairy stories I always picked the most fun ones -evil step mothers, children left to die, children eaten alive. it's much more interesting.

I’ve only ever heard of FitA on MN, I am giving it a wide berth!

Swallows and Amazon's... some.very dysfunctional adults looming large Which ones? (I never paid any attention to the adults)

Oh look! My woke family have come to play.

Yes, I agree, OP! While we're at it...

Why was Dumbledore the Head and not Mcgonagall?
Why was Voldemort the powerful villain, women can be powerful villains too?
Why was HP a boy and the chosen one? Hermione could have been that- Henrietta Potter or Hermione Potter? Harry should have been the resident 'mudblood' instead.

JKR is sexist, no doubt!

@coldwaterfeed

I’ve only ever heard of FitA on MN, I am giving it a wide berth!

What? Locking siblings in attics until they sleep with each other not your idea of entertainment?

I seem to remember reading Hans Christian Anderson as a child (or it could have been the Brothers Grimm, it was an awfully long time ago) and many of the stories were about witches trapping children in ovens and suchlike. I wasn’t traumatised and I doubt HP would do the same whatever was under discussion.

Fairy stories were not originally written for children. They were entertainment for adults. Became 'cautionary tales' for children, along with some very questionable moralising/tropes from HCA and others. Hansel and Gretel was cobbled together from various older stories, from the look of it:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hansel_and_Gretel

It's fascinating digging into the roots of old fairy tales - Little Red Riding Hood was warning of the dangers of prostitution, for example.

I strongly approve of the rewriting and retelling of fairy tales - and questioning our fiction and its messages is really important. Stories hold huge power. I don't think we need to censor, though, so much as add to the balance and encourage questions and children to retell their own versions (my daughter is currently re-enacting Star Wars with the Senator woman living instead of dying in childbirth.)

Ha! Guess which side I’m on by my user name.

'Stuff you Lion-Jesus, I will look fabulous in Hell' .

FitA continues to be one of the most fucked up series I've ever read. I read it a lot as well, just to make sure I fully got how fucked up it was....

flowers in the attic, lace, and the thorn birds. im glad young teens now have better reading material than i did.

I’ve only ever heard of FitA on MN, I am giving it a wide berth

Ha ha, I remember that doing the rounds when I was at primary age 10 /11. The girls loved it 🤣

I never bothered reading the cursed child. Is it really that bad? I can understand her excusing Ron when he was a kid but has she turned him into some alcoholic, abusive pervert?

Spot on. Halfway through the Deathly Hallows film I remarked to DS that Ron was literally irrelevant to the plot. He contributed nothing. The script writers must have noticed too because they chucked him two frankly embarrassing bones involving him having an idea and Hermione breathlessly declaring it 'brilliant' as if she hadn't done the equivalent of letting him win at snakes and ladders.

loved the cursed child. its great!