AIBU to think the Weasleys were not actually poor?

[Jane379]

With the HBO show coming up I've been rereading the books and on several forums discussing them I've noted people describing the Weasleys as poor, saying they're a good portrayal of a poor family etc
I'd seen this before and assumed I must have missed those details but rereading (although not fully finished the series yet), they don't strike me as particularly poor. They have 7 kids which means money is tighter, Ron has hand me downs etc but overall they seem comfortable. Arthur has a steady job, Molly is a SAHM - presumably if they were really in financial trouble she would get a paid job too. A lot of families might find 7 kids financially tricky, rely on hand me downs etc, not holiday abroad much but is that necessarily poor?

I will say my own experience growing up with a single mother in fairly low-paid work was that we did scrimp on various things including holidays (which we never did when I was a child), but we could always afford good enough food, necessary clothes, had a warm house & books etc that I wanted (living in a place with good libraries and various cheaper services helped). A bit like Ron, I went to a school where a lot of people were much more well-off, but I'd never have considered myself poor. That would have felt insulting given far too many people (even more now) lack money for essentials or have enough for basics but not much else.

AIBU?

That's how we want you Muggles to think.

Agree with all of this!

I suspect so.

https://www.grunge.com/703536/the-historical-figures-that-inspired-bellatrix-and-narcissa-in-harry-potter/

I think this article is probably at least partly right. Tonks running away to marry a Muggle would parallel Jessica.

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Definitely!

Hang on...when you mention the accent do you mean Rupert Grint in the films or is the accent mentioned in the books?

I expect JKR would probably have corrected the film accent if it was wrong...but then there were other inconsistencies.

Yes I mean Rupert. It’s many years since I’ve either read the books or watched the films so can’t comment on how JK depicted his accent. Does she describe them merely as poor or lower class? I think in the films they’re very much mocked for being lower class which is odd given the dad’s job, would we define this as working class?

🤣🤣🤣

Are you thinking of the 1890s, because foreign travel in the 1990s was nothing unusual. Package holidays to Spain started being popular in the 60s and 70s and were probably cheaper than they are today when you’ve added on all the extras to a budget airline flight.
Even if you didn’t go on a package it was easy to travel. My parents had a disastrous, wet and cold holiday in Norfolk when i was about 2 back in 1969 and we went on foreign holidays every year after that.

No, they aren't poor, largely because they are fictional characters.

I sort of agree but otoh novels (series especially) now generally create more backstory as they have more space to do so, aren't only dialogue etc. Also rightly or wrongly, JKR has built quite a detailed world, done extra books like the Fantastic Beasts one, (though not in the way Tolkien etc did) so it makes sense people wonder about minutiae.

I do agree that details like this aren't crucial or anything but they still can be fun to discuss...

To me, it's more that several people on forums I'd seen seemed to see the Weasleys as 'poor' in Muggle terms, which I'm not convinced by- also, it's interesting to think whether 'wizarding poor' is measured differently compared to 'Muggle poor'.

I think it's more having less money than lower class. The Malfoys are presumably snobby because they are a bit shorter on money: but also isn't it because they're seen as a Muggle-lovers, although they're pureblood?

I don't think Ron's accent is described in the books.

I think I once read an interview with the actress who played Ginny where she said she grew up in a 'working class family like the Weasleys'. Unless I'm misremembering, this did seem a bit of an odd claim as Mr Weasley's civil service job as you say isn't working class.

Clearly you aren't aware of Gamp's law of Elemental Transfiguration. I suggest you repeat your final year at Hogwarts.

I agree with a lot of this..this one though: 'Like you’re telling me Lupin wasn’t clever enough to get the hang of the Wolfsbane potion and only Snape could make it?'

• making that potion does seem to be quite specialised though. Lupin isn't a potion expert, Snape is.

I love His Dark Materials but I appreciate Harry Potter a lot - I don't think JKR's ever claimed the write high literature or endorsed more exaggerated fan claims about literary value.

I was always slightly confused about how little interaction the wizarding community had with the muggle world and how little they seemed to know about it.

No you’re right re Lupin not being a skilled potion maker, but if it changed your whole life, you’d be very focused on getting that potion every month. Even if, when not at Hogwarts, they came to some kind of agreement via Dumbledore. Just seems madness that his whole life is shit because he can only have that potion if he’s physically working at the school. Could even Slughorn not have sent him a few bottles every month, if Snape was too unkind to do it? Then Lupin could have got a job and paid for it at some stage. There’s a lot of things that they just sort of trudge along with and accept that makes no sense to me to not find a solution.

I think the issue is in part that, as with all children’s books, adults need to be dead, absent, useless or evil, otherwise they will just solve the problems, protect the children, save the world, and the children don’t get to have adventures of their own.

If Hogwarts and the Ministry were staffed entirely with the most brilliant, ethical and powerful wizards and witches of their era, they will lead and defeat Voldemort (or go a large part of the way at least until it’s clear what Harry’s role is) and there’s no child-centred story. So instead Dumbledore is killed off, Umbridge is evil, Snape seems evil, Lupin is fired, Lockhart is useless, Sirius is thought evil, is then absent, then killed, Hagrid is good but not talented at magic, Trelawney is a drunk, Filch is an unpleasant squib, and the Ministry is weak and then corrupt.

Good, present, strong adults who are also good at magic are pretty thin on the ground because they have to be for there to be a story. A brilliant, sympathising Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher would cushion Harry too much.

Spot on. Same in the Famous Five, there are rarely adults around and if there are they are either evil or thick or dont listen to children!

Compared to the Mallory’s they might seem “poor” but I agree they aren’t.

Malfoys live in a mansion, with cellar, have house elf’s etc. the weasleys don’t have house elves.

I agree with this...it reminds me of a US homeschooling blog I saw criticising the amount of dead/absent/disobeyed parents in children's books & films as 'anti family'. Something like 'A Little Princess' isn't being anti-family, of course, Sara's parents being absent and/or dead is necessary for the plot.
Harry Potter being (especially at first) for children/teens is a big part of it. But adult fiction often still has to have some level of coincidence/plot convenience even if trying to be more realistic. Eg, even otherwise realistic crime novels need to have crimes continually taking place which only their protagonist will be able to properly solve (if protagonist is a police officer that partly solves that issue, but not completely)

You’re spot on, and I guess this is the trouble with being too grown up and having less ability to suspend disbelief (speaking for myself). Or maybe just more picky and easily frustrated. You hit the nail on the head, though, a group of multitasking people with their shit together would have solved it all properly from the beginning and there’d be nothing to tell.

They are not too poor in every day life, but represent a less shiny and material lifestyle. And Ron is the center of that, because there is enough stuff to equip him, which wasn't true for the older ones.
The family manages all other wands, we saw big presents for big occasions.

The knowledge that hand me down wands aren't a good idea for learning isn't generally available (only mr Olivander and Dumbledoor seems to have it in Harry's circles), so to the families it makes sense to re-use a perfectly good wand.

Molly not working - I'd just assume she does some caring in the broader family. It's just an artifact of the child narrator - adults don't exist outside the relevant frame.

I don't think they're poor, they're probably middle class but they have a big family and they aren't super rich and living in a huge country estate like a lot of the families in Harry Potter seem to be. Doesn't Harry have a massive trust fund?

I'm back on Order of the Phoenix.

I wonder if Ron & Hermionie ever got to enjoy some time in the glorious prefects bathroom together? There's probably a hex on it preventing both sexes being in there at the same time.

Did the Weasleys know Ron’s wand was broken? After it broke and caused problems, Harry told Ron to write home and ask for a new one, but Ron didn’t want to because he thought he’d just be told off again.

(Sorry if someone else already said this; I didn’t RTFT.)

No they didnt because he didnt tell them but they knew it was second hand. It was one of the points in the other thread I linked to above. It is well known that the wand chooses the wizard but Ron's wand was Charlies originally, so it didnt choose Ron and it didnt change allegiance because Ron never won it from Charlie (he wouldnt have had a wand in order to do that).

It would explain why Rons wand magic was always so ropey in the first book. He had to work extra hard to make it work because he didnt have a bond with Charlie's wand, like Harry with the hawthorne wand in the DH.

Ginny got a brand new wand....quelle surprise.