Page 8 | Emotional abuse in Harry Potter

Sinful8 · 29/12/2020 11:18

@PolkadotsAndMoonbeams

She would have been 15 (September birthday) but I did think it was a bit odd last time I read it!

It doesn't help that it's all seen from Harry's point of view, and Harry is a bit dim unobservant. I don't think Ron and Hermione are particularly well matched, but you do get a pretty one-sided view if it.

As an aside, how does Amortentia work? Can it smell of somebody you've never met, or does it smell of somebody you have a bit of a crush on, even if they're not ideal for you?

Its smells of the things you love, people not in love smell inanimate smells of things she smelled a pwrson

MrsMiaWallis · 29/12/2020 11:20

Dd wrote a very critical EPQ on JKR depiction of women in Harry Potter and tbh she was so convincing that I can't really think of the books in the same way tbh

Sinful8 · 29/12/2020 11:20

@yeOldeTrout

If we're picking apart things we'd like different in the HP books, I don't care about Ron-Hermione-Harry. However...

The Wizarding world attitude to physical injury & potential death (especially children) is shocking. The hazards of Quidditch are shocking. Their safeguarding sucks.

Snape is openly abusive to many children; why was this allowed?

Why are Slytherin so awful? Do they have know noble selfless heros in the Wizarding world at all?

Dumbledore's partiality to Griffindore house is shocking.

That rich kids could openly flaunt their wealth & power to other kids in front of teachers: I guess this fits with how 1920s schooling in England would have worked.

Thank goodness for Newt Scamander because until he appeared, Hufflepuff seemed utterly eternally useless. The huge message was only Griffindores & Slytherins were powerful magicians. If you went into another house you must be completely lacking in talent, aspiration or motivation. Know your place.

Medicine cures nearly everything in there world, qho cares if a kid cracks a skull if it only takes a wave of a wond to fix

BigFatLiar · 29/12/2020 11:21

Harry Potter is a story and the main group are children/teenagers. I think a lot of the criticism says more about us as adults projecting our view of the world on to children. Next we'll be complaining that babies that don't sleep and cry a lot are emotionally abusive.

Sinful8 · 29/12/2020 11:22

@MrsMiaWallis

Dd wrote a very critical EPQ on JKR depiction of women in Harry Potter and tbh she was so convincing that I can't really think of the books in the same way tbh

Your daughter got a qualification in harry potter?

unmarkedbythat · 29/12/2020 11:22

This is the problem when people treat a popular children's book series as something other than it is. JKR wrote really entertaining fiction for kids that took off in a big way and got more attention than most children's literature could ever hope for. She wasn't aiming to provide a guide for life including appropriate peer and romantic relationships.

chillied · 29/12/2020 11:22

I think the point made by the article is fascinating.

I also think that Hermione married Ron because of his family. In fact both Harry and Hermione loved being with Ron's family, the warm and loving wizard family that neither of them have. Hermione is desperate to succeed in the wizard world and she can't get the security of being in a wizard family through studying and learning.

So that's my theory - and why Hermione picks Ron not Harry. She's marrying him for his mother...

I do agree it doesn't look likely to be the most truly successful of relationships.

PodgeBod · 29/12/2020 11:24

I'm probably getting too cross about this because I am a Ron fan but I think you could just as easily make an article claiming Hermione was emotionally abusive. She sniped at Ron regularly. She targeted his insecurities by dating McClaggen (who she didn't like) to make him jealous. She attacked him and Lavander with magical birds. She refused to apologise when it seemed that her pet had eaten his, and dismisses his feelings about losing his pet.
I think they were just teenagers trying to figure it out. I actually think they are a good pairing who could have been very happy together.

BrumBoo · 29/12/2020 11:24

@RufustheSniggeringReindeer

Not the snort!!!

The draco bit

I did figure that it wasn't for the childish snort

lyinginthegutterstaringatstars · 29/12/2020 11:27

Personally I think you're reading too much into this, as is the author of the article ( I didn't look at their name)
It's just a story.

queenofknives · 29/12/2020 11:30

@Helmetbymidnight

AIBU to think this is irresponsible in children's literature? i think in the past people got that stories were stories and not life-manuals and also that you could enjoy a book even if you werent that keen on the author. something very strange is happening to young people now.

Yep. Leave kids alone to read and imagine.

queenofknives · 29/12/2020 11:30

@unmarkedbythat

This is the problem when people treat a popular children's book series as something other than it is. JKR wrote really entertaining fiction for kids that took off in a big way and got more attention than most children's literature could ever hope for. She wasn't aiming to provide a guide for life including appropriate peer and romantic relationships.

Exactly.

TaraR2020 · 29/12/2020 11:33

@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.

Yes...these people really need to read Go Set A Watchman.

Personally, I don't agree with the cancel culture in general but if people find that their enjoyment of the HP books is spoiled because they disagree with JR'S views then it's their perogative not to the read them.

Btw...no one ever seems to talk about how vindictive and spiteful Hermione could be. Her behaviour at times always struck me as more harmful than Ron's.

MintyMabel · 29/12/2020 11:34

I haven’t read the books but form what’s being said, it’s no different from any other strong female portrayal in pop culture, movies, books etc. The strong female always has to change themselves, dull it down on order to win the guy. I spent many wasted relationships trying to work out why guys always said they loved strong women, but whe actually faced with one they couldn’t handle it. Thankfully I met OH who could handle it just fine.

GCAcademic · 29/12/2020 11:36

@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 gather from people who work in publishing that the young adult fiction and teen fiction market is on the road to self-effacement. The drive for everything to be preachy and morally unproblematic means that the kind of stuff being published is so dull and worthy that no one wants to read it.

herecomesthsun · 29/12/2020 11:37

Meanwhile is it very bad that I immediately misinterpreted this title in an unduly adult fashion?

Daydrambeliever · 29/12/2020 11:40

Or you know we could just let our kids read books then have conversations with them in real life about boundaries and healthy ways to deal with conflict. I bet you a million pounds that those who pontificate about JKR characterisation of the children in her books are not always good role models themselves when it comes to dealing with conflict and emotion.

How are we going to raise critical thinkers if we stop our kids from reading anything and everything that does not adhere to today's moral codes?

BiBabbles · 29/12/2020 11:44

People have analysing books for their perceived messages and calling them dangerous for centuries. The reasons for the danger change, but it's pretty much always been there.

I think fiction can be a great way to explore and a focal point to discuss issues, but no, I don't think an awkward-unhealthy teen relationship in a children's book as 'irresponsible' on its own and it can be a great way to discuss things with children.

I think with Twilight there were some issues with adults praising the relationships as well as really misogynistic pushback that we see time and again with something that gets popular with teen girls. I think it can also be used to talk with teenagers, but it would need to be done with thought, not act like the literature by itself is damning people.

The harm in fiction comes when it's alongside wider social systems that give greater meaning. It can feel into wider problems in society, but on its own, it's no more dangerous than old fairy tales where parents murdered naughty children. Yes, that still happens, but the stories existing doesn't cause it, they reflect things that happen which can make it a lot easier to talk about.

TheChampagneGalop · 29/12/2020 11:51

This trend of nitpicking every single thing about JKR's works is tiresome.
So the characters have flaws. Should they not have those? Imagine if Harry and his friends behaved perfectly in every situation and Snape was a real nice bloke. There would be no tension.

Kalula · 29/12/2020 11:52

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

That is exactly what I thought, too. Ron and Hermione were typical kids. To call a kid an 'emotional abuser' really jumps the shark, I think.

MrsMiaWallis · 29/12/2020 11:54

@TheChampagneGalop

This trend of nitpicking every single thing about JKR's works is tiresome. So the characters have flaws. Should they not have those? Imagine if Harry and his friends behaved perfectly in every situation and Snape was a real nice bloke. There would be no tension.

That's literature for you! Of course people should nit pick. It's interesting to do so.

herecomesthsun · 29/12/2020 11:54

Ron is a character in a book. JKR is not necessarily holding up his behaviour as a shining example of how people ought to behave in relationships. He is allowed to have flaws; if characters, even broadly sympathetic ones lacked flaws they would not be believable.

Ron, Harry and Hermione are stumbling into adolescence (in very difficult circumstances, what with Voldemort seeking world domination, and 3 school kids being his biggest challengers) and they make mistakes and bicker and are unreasonable. Hard to see how that isn't ok?

Underadesk · 29/12/2020 11:56

Oh for gods sake..... I remember my friendships with teenage boys being like R&H. In fact I probably recognised most of the characters I went to school with in the HP books. And for any teen now who says that is not their experience, I’d love to know where they are because the teens I know who aren’t all wokeified have the same experiences.
Maybe I’m getting old, but I really am beginning to struggle with teenagers picking at everything now, its not this, its too that, whether it be books, music or films. Life is sometimes just to be enjoyed for what it is.

Clymene · 29/12/2020 11:57

It's not interesting, it's dull. I don't suppose your daughter would have written an EPQ about Enid Blyton

MrsMiaWallis · 29/12/2020 11:58

@Clymene

It's not interesting, it's dull. I don't suppose your daughter would have written an EPQ about Enid Blyton

I think she considered Malory Towers, yes 😂