#i think most of Ginny's issue was internalized misogyny which i like to think she realizes when shes a bit older

[elisedonut]

i know I've talked about this before but i love the concept of Percy and who he's with getting the same kind of treatment from the family (read mostly Molly)

and Percy handling it in a complexly different way to how Bill did

I always think of him getting into a serious relationship a few years down the line so he's healed a bit and offended as hell over his mom still not trusting his own decisions and trying to set him up with random women(because it would be girls sorry Molly is homophobic but just doesn't realize it) when his SO is literally right next to him

I know that she doesn't actually ever mention the Bluer age gap so really she likely wasn't bothered by that part but I think that would be different if Percy was with a boy tbh

like I think she would complain about the age difference between Perclin

also i think the idea of her inviting like Luna (or like Romilda Vane if you want to play into how she sees love potions as whatever plus shes even younger) is neat because of how messed up that would be and having her be like 'it's different' no no it's not

She honestly thinks shes helping like thats really important when it comes to Molly imo

that she honestly thinks shes doing something good and that Percy would be happier with someone else

shes just you know wrong and hasn't figured that out

So she just doesn't understand why he's fighting this so much when she knows best she knows her little boy far better then anyone else she knows he needs someone better someone worthy of him so she just doesn't get why Percy getting so mad about it

on the bright side

because Percy left once before shes more willing to listen to reason whenever he doesn't talk to her for like a week or storms out of a dinner because she said something and he was at his limit

He'll get her to understand eventually

[aibidil]

On female characters being held to a higher standard

I want to discuss something I've seen in fandom that applies much more broadly, and it involves internalized misogyny toward fictional characters.

Fictional characters often do some shitty things. In fandom, we often explore the shitty things they've done in canon or introduce new shitty things! I can't even begin to list the number of shitty things I've read characters do. I'm not saying this is a bad thing. I love moral ambiguity in fiction! I think we humans have lots to learn from thinking about the inherent messiness of life and of relationships.

I write mostly mlm fic. Which means I write mostly male characters and have mostly female readers. (Another whole thing but not focusing on that right now.) And what I've found is this: in fics where I have prominent female characters who are exactly as messy and complicated as the male characters I write, the comments I get are much different. I can think of maybe one or two comments EVER in which I've been criticized for a male character doing something wrong. But Hermione and Ginny? Lots.

I wrote a fic in which Hermione is literally under attack by men's rights activists because she got love potions outlawed. The fic spends a lot of time exploring the complexity of the issue, and in the fic Hermione is challenged by allies with more and less robust challenges and by men's rights activists who are trying to sexually assault her in retaliation. I have received DOZENS of comments (many extremely impassioned) telling me how wrong Hermione is, how can she think outlawing them is the right answer?!, etc.

I wrote a fic in which Harry and Ginny get pregnant almost immediately after the war and Ginny has an abortion without telling Harry. Harry is triggered and gets super upset, etc etc. I recently got two very serious comments telling me that Ginny should've talked to Harry about the abortion, that her behavior wasn't healthy, and that girls shouldn't do that.

I don't care about the comments. But I do feel like we need to have a conversation about this double standard we apparently have wrt fictional characters—because I'm not writing these women any differently than I write men, and the comments are wildly different.

Why are we expecting so much more of female characters? Why are we expecting what amounts to perfection? Do we not see that this contributes to really poor female representation in books and fandom?

Why are we expecting that fanfiction is offering life advice? And if we are expecting that, why are we expecting it more when it's female characters on the page? Fiction isn't life advice, even if sometimes we get amazing life lessons from it.

Both of the fics I mention above are Harry/Draco fics. My most fundamental question, then, is why it's so easy for readers to redeem Draco when they can't do the same for female characters WHO HAVE NEVER DONE ANYTHING NEARLY AS BAD AS HE HAS?

Draco was a bb nazi. Draco joined a hate group that sought to genocide ppl including Harry's bff and mother and his father was the lead torture. Draco idolized that father's actions until the whole thing got too close and bummed him out.

Listen. I am all for redemption stories. I think Draco is a fantastic character (as should be obvious from my fics). But why is it that we as readers can forgive that type of behavior, but not Hermione having a radical political position on love potions? Why is it that we can handwave bigotry and torture but not a 17yo girl who is traumatized and grieving for getting an abortion without consulting a man?

So first, fictional characters do not always behave in ideal human ways. An author writing that isn't condoning any of the behavior.

Second, if you find yourself outraged by a female character's behavior, maybe take a moment to ask yourself whether your internalized misogyny is showing. Are you excusing much worse behavior in male characters?

[7holyharpy]

On Ginny Weasley (again)

So I saw a Quora post (I don’t know why or when I got subscribed over email) on why people don’t like Ginny. And of course, you’re allowed to not like Ginny, not least of all because JKR wrote her terribly and as a plot tool to further either Harry’s heroism or his endgame romance and the few moments we see of her badassery alone (leading the DA, teaching herself to fly despite misogynistic restrictions, etc.) are given in a miss-if-you-blink way.

HOWEVER, this answer was so ridiculous I wanted to break it apart piece by piece. Essentially, this person argued Ginny was widely hated because in the mid-2000s everybody and their mom was obsessed with figuring out why bullies existed and sympathizing with bullying victims - so they related to Harry, Hermione, Neville, Luna, you name it because they were bullied. But they hated Ginny because she represented a bully and they explicitly gave their textual support for this based on (I kid you not) boys’ attraction to her, her athletic prowess, and her overall popularity.

If this isn’t the most ridiculous HP take I’ve ever heard, I don’t know what to say. So textually, despite all of JKR’s mistreatment of Ginny, here is what Ginny is written to be:

The youngest girl in a family of boys

The youngest kid in an extremely poor family

Pretty and popular

Athletic

Very feisty, to the point where it can be rude

An actual trauma survivor

No, like, do people forget she was possessed by the Dark Lord at 11?!

A defender of bullying victims

In the text, Ginny is the only person who defends Luna against her bullies, even when Hermione would mock her. She went to the Yule Ball with Neville and allowed him to step on her toes all night long, when everybody else had turned him down. And then she re-started the DA under the Carrows’ rule (which I think we can all agree was about a hundred times worse than under Umbridge, especially when we think about Amycus’ inappropriate commentary on her looks and what exactly he was capable of and might have done during that year).

And then I want to go back to the fact that Ginny has obviously had to deal with severe mental issues after her first year and getting - once again - possessed by the Dark Lord in pursuit of his evil agenda and nearly killing multiple students, including her friends. It is not shocking that Ginny Weasley is as aggressive as she is when you consider what happened in her first year, and it is extremely unfair to call her a bully when she puts that fire to defending those who need her help.

So again, you can dislike Ginny Weasley. But to call her a bully is absolutely laughable. (I’m not going to go into the Fleur stuff because that’s also irrelevant - Ginny and Hermione and Mrs. Weasley all had various forms of internalized misogyny and by no means was 15 year old Ginny bullying a successful adult by making a few nasty comments, and neither was 16 year old Hermione, even if both were acting in poor taste.)

So let’s get to heart of this kind of bad-faith argument against liking Ginny. She’s not a bully, so what is this person (and there’s certainly more than one of them) so mad about? They actually put it clearly in their answer: they’re angry that she’s pretty, and she’s popular, and she’s athletic. Because what their shallow grasp of media has taught them is that the smart, strong, popular, pretty girl has to be the villain somehow. That sounds like something for them to work on, and it has nothing to do with the character of Ginny Weasley.

(And I’ve stayed out of this discourse nowadays because 1) who wants to discuss JKR or her work lately and 2) I’m an adult now but like... come on. This was such a lazy, early 2000s misogynistic take. And far be it from me to go around defending JKR’s white characters, but I’m not excited for the TikTok takes’ resurgence of “here’s why the one white rich character who is smart without any introspection into why exactly they got to prioritize education at a young age is the only Good Female, and why do she and the heroic male character associate with the gross poor people?”)

[idratherbebaking]

was reading a fb thread on non-villain characters people hate. there was lots of complaining about protags who are whiny/rude/unlikeable (which is actually generally not a bad thing, since you the reader/viewer are supposed to be able to relate to them, and perfect people aren’t relatable). also lots of complaints about romantic interests of “cool” characters who are “bland” or “uninteresting,” as though it’s impossible for “interesting” people to fall in love with someone not as ~cool~ or ~quirky~ as they are. (the comment that really drove this home for me was a complaint about jean grey from x-men being v. boring, yet somehow a ~*cool*~, ~*amazing*~ mutant loves her, and then jean has the gall to choose “total square” cyclops. also multiple complaints about harry potter, for both ginny as harry’s romantic interest and ron as hermione’s.)

but i feel like these complaints are ignoring some really significant issues. when you have an “interesting” life, you might actually want or even need a partner who can be a place of stability and calm. i’m not an x-men fan, but it seems to me in that case that jean grey is actually making the choice she “should” make. (why be offended that a “boring” character can interest a “cool” one, then also be offended when the “boring” character picks an equally “boring” partner?)

idk, really, i’m just kind of typing random thoughts. there was also plenty of dislike expressed for female companions of the doctor (starting from the reboot with 9) and tbh i just want to roll my eyes at anyone who’s super against any of those ladies. there’s plenty of problematic writing in DW but overall i think the female companions have been decent characters who actually have a chance to develop both in themselves and in their relationship with the doctor. and i’m not saying i love every aspect of every companion but i like that they’re all clearly unique persons with strengths and flaws instead of perfect Mary Sue-types.

(not really an in-depth analysis, but i did count and about half the comments named female characters. which sounds fine, until you remember that most media - books & movies - center around and dominantly feature male characters. my guesstimate would be that only 1/3 of the available characters were female, so for female characters to be 1/2 of those named as hate-worthy is troubling to me. because it means a) we’ve all got some serious internalized misogyny to contend with and/or b) writers are absolute shit at creating female characters who are complex/nuanced instead of flat and boring. likely a combination. i, too, dislike it when characters are totally flat but we can’t then turn around and hate every character that actually has some depth.)