#the most agonising piece of fandom discourse ever that we're still somehow not getting in the year 2024

[radlymona]

At one point in time, you people have to admit you didn't actually read the books (or did so with your eyes closed):

Lily feels no remorse, nor does she think it's wrong to half-smile at the bully who’s targeting your so-called friend.

We know that they're already on the outs by this point in time because Snape has been hanging around would-be Death Eaters who are implied to have attacked her friend, Mary MacDonald. She's obviously a lot less sympathetic to him because he's changed from the boy she originally met.

This type of hazing was pretty common during British schools in the 1970s. Many teenagers would have found this funny because it was so normalised. It's almost as if a) Hogwarts is meant to satirise aspects of the British school system and b) show that Lily wasn't a perfect person despite what Harry might have conjured in his head. She was just as capable of having a mean thought/reaction. Because that's how teenagers act, they can often be pretty nasty to even close friends. Harry was a wee bit distracted with what his dad was doing to give it much thought. You have to look at characters/relationships in the context they were written in rather than what you personally think they should act like.

She portrays Draco Malfoy as an irredeemable, terrible character because he’s a rich kid spoiled by his parents, using his power and influence to bully those weaker than him. Yet, she gives James the benefit of the doubt, even though he behaved exactly the same way: a rich bully who used his status and his friends to gang up on the vulnerable.

I think one of the reasons why so much recent HP criticism falls flat on its face is that fails to remember that the series is written from Harry's point of view. Obviously JKR's authorial voice can be seen in the books, but Harry's values and perspectives are written from the point of a teenage boy.

Harry is going to be a lot less sympathetic to Malfoy, who he's personally witnessed years' worth of racism and classism from, than he is to his own father that he knows sacrificed his own life to protect him, worked in an anti-Voldemort organisation, and who he knows acted as an extraordinarily loyal and loving friend.

From early interviews, Rowling claimed Pansy Parkinson is practically the reincarnation of Satan, even though, of all the antagonists, Pansy is probably one of the least relevant and harmless. This is simply because Rowling projected onto her the stereotypical “mean girls” who mock those who read and study—something Rowling clearly couldn’t stand

It's almost as if early on, Pansy was a more important antagonist, given that schoolyard feuds dominated the series pre-Voldermort's return? It's almost as if authors draw from their own experiences, and that a schoolyard bully rather than a genocidal maniac is going to be a lot more relevant for most kids reading the books. It's almost as if when JKR was conducting these interviews, the true recipient audience was meant to be children.

In Rowling's world, there are always two kinds of women. When it comes to younger, adolescent characters, there are the "good" women—those who don’t fit the typical feminine mold, the weird ones (like Luna), the tomboys who are “one of the guys” (like Ginny), or the overly studious ones who don’t have time for frivolous things like reading magazines or talking about boys (like Hermione). In other words, the cool girls, the ones who are supposed to be role models, are those who "aren’t like the other girls." But not because they’re deconstructing gender roles consciously—they just happen to embody the fantasy of the woman who can give you kids while still being one of your bros.

It's interesting that you pick three very different female characters who have no real common interests or personalities and who get along and clash at different times and yet consider them to be one type of female character. It's almost as if in children/young adult fiction, social misfit-type characters have always been the central focus because authors know that these kids are far more likely to be their audience.

And it's also isn't even true? Ginny is a cool girl, she's a great quidditch player, pretty, popular, and known for being great at offensive magic though she isn't a prodigy or a genius. If anything, she's sort of a breath of fresh air in that she isn't this super-skilled character for the love interest to glorify, but a regular if not talented girl whose spirit and nerve are what makes her stand out.

On the other hand, she glorifies characters like Ginny, who has a pretty nasty attitude towards any girl she doesn’t consider cool or "not like the other girls." Ginny treats Fleur like a witch when Fleur has done nothing wrong—her only crime is being incredibly beautiful, knowing it, and not constantly apologizing for it.

This must be projection at this point because she just doesn't do this "towards any girl...", she is mean to (1) adult woman who she obviously feels insecure towards for being exceptionally beautiful. You know...because she's 14. And the story immediately contradicts Ginny when Harry reminds her that Fleur was good enough to be a Triwizard Champion! It's almost as JKR writes a tongue-in-check about the experiences of being a teenage girl, through characters like Hermione and Ginny.

These are "manic pixie dream girls," hiding a deeply internalized misogyny as they are presented as individuals opposed to the “other” women—the “other” being less cool because they lack traditionally masculine traits, and thus are less than.

Again, nothing in the text actually supports this. None of these girls have deep internalised misogyny, beyond what a normal teenage girl might have. Just because they don't get along with every other teenage girl in the vicinity, doesn't mean they secretly hate other women. The manic pixie dream girl is actually a very specific male fantasy from male-written stories, that doesn't apply to every vaguely gnc female character you come across. You're projecting your own expectations for how non-hyperfeminine female characters might act.

We see this not only with how Fleur is treated but also with the disdain or prejudice Hermione shows towards girls like Lavender or the Patil sisters, just because they act like normal teenagers instead of validating themselves through academia to compensate for their inferiority complex (cough, cough).

The way Lavender and the Patil sisters are viewed, is because the series is from Harry's point of view. And surprise, surprise, teenage boys have a tendency to think teenage girls are either one dimensional or so emotionally complex that they need a manual to figure out. Hmm, I wonder what point JKR is making here? Perhaps she is poking fun at teenage boys' perspective here?

You're like so close to getting what JKR is trying to say with Hermione but so very far away. JKR is making fun of herself and the way she acted as a know-it-all kid in school via Hermione. She's blatantly said it more than a few times. Hermione alienates her friends throughout the books because of her too-logical approaches and lack of empathy. Just because the books don't come out and say it, doesn't mean it isn't there. When Lavendar's rabbit dies, Hermione pretty coldly tells her off for believing in Trelawney. JKR leaves it up to her teenage audience to realise that maybe swallowing your words and being empathetic to a friend in need is more important. It's almost as if there are implicit lessons in these books for literal children, that you seemed to have to miss.

I'm going to hold your hand gently when I say this- being an unfeminine girl, who isn't considered pretty, and whose self-value entirely rests on their intelligence is a very alienating experience for a teenage girl. Especially one from the pre-2000s. That is what Hermione represents, and just because she isn't the sanitised picture of "girls supporting other girls" type feminism, that doesn't mean her characterisation is worth nothing. You have all the sympathy in the world for "cool girl" type characters who rarely suffer socially in real life, and little sympathy for Hermione-like girls who are socially ostracised throughout school. If you don't understand this very core concept to Hermione's character, you're unsurprisingly going to misunderstand what JKR is trying to say through her.

Then we have the adult female characters, where Rowling’s toxic and incredibly conservative view of motherhood kicks in. Except for McGonagall, the rest of the adult women who are seen in a positive light are either already mothers or end up becoming mothers. And for them, motherhood is everything. They are mothers first and women second, in every case.

I know this going to be hard for you to understand, but JKR was raised in a very transitional period for women in human history. She was attending school just as women were mass entering the professional workforce and leaving the domestic sphere. She was also writing the books after just having become a single mother, and reflecting on her relationship with her own mother. Ergo, there is a significant and very affectionate role mothers play in the books.

Molly as the matriarch of seven children in a poor family is obviously drawing upon the experiences of British working-class housewives in the late 20th century. The seemingly cool, distant and refined Narcissa is obviously based on perceptions of upper-class British women. JKR plays with many stereotypes and tropes in British culture, the books are sort of built on them. But she does her best to add complexity to supporting characters she doesn't have the page time to add in-depth storylines for.

She does so by having Molly enter the Order and fight Bellatrix one-on-one in the final battle. Narcissa making the single most important choice in the entire series, was her way of showing that people we consider to be cold and cruel are capable of deep love and affection. JKR giving these two important moments to Molly and Narcissa wasn't done to keep them in a conservative box, but to show her deep love and appreciation for women of an older generation who were traditionally stuck in the domestic sphere. Contrastingly, Tonks going out to fight in the Battle of Hogwarts two months after giving birth is a nod to a new generation of working mums.

Lily's sacrifice for Harry contrasts male-centred media, where the father would traditionally be the most important parent. Even the books deconstruct the initial focus on James to switch to Lily later on, even highlighting that Harry's much more like his mother in nature despite everybody's expectations of him. JKRs' portrayal of motherhood is thus her own exploration of the changing role of women and mothers in the latter part of the 20th century. It's about her context, her feelings about a very complex role that even many otherwise, progressive millennial women find hard to dissociate from and remain wholly distinct individuals.

She presents characters she sells as "good," whose attitudes are absolute trash, yet she continues to insist that they’re good and perfect.

Quite honestly, I don't think you understand how to write a complex, layered character. People aren't going to be good or bad 100% of the time. JKR does not tell us they're good and perfect, in fact there's about seven books worth of deconstructing how Hermione's lack of emotional intelligence is a complete hindrance to how she interacts with her loved ones.

Ginny is probably a projection of who Rowling wishes she could’ve been, and Luna is the quirky girl who isn’t “threatening” to other women, and is treated with a condescending, paternalistic lens. They are either Rowling’s aspirational figures or archetypes that don’t bother her, or they’re reduced to filler characters who are mistreated by the narrative.

You have made this up in your head. Looking at two very female different characters with layered personalities and storylines and reducing them to archetypes/filler characters is your misogyny talking. Ginny's growing bravery and sheer nerve becomes important when she becomes a central DA member and later one of the three leaders defying the Death Eaters at Hogwarts. Luna's out of the box thinking encourages Harry and the others to think creatively. She is someone who helps Harry process his grief and makes him feel less alone, without any romantic undertones which is actually a very progressive male-female friendship for the early 2000s. Are Ginny and Luna ultimately supporting characters? Sure. But so are Fred, George and Neville and they are treated with a very similar level of complexity/development. There's just not as central to the storyline unlike the golden trio...like almost every other character in the book series.

I didn't even include "Hermione is a self-insert" because it's a very common thing for authors to have an Author Avatar, but people (read: misogynists) only seem to have a problem when female authors do it, even when they are lovingly poking fun at them.

When it comes to Lily, the problem is that Rowling spends half the saga painting her as some kind of Mother Teresa. She’s the quintessence of motherhood—but not a conscious, modern motherhood, but one rooted in traditional Judeo-Christian ideals. This is the kind of motherhood that can do no wrong, the one that represents women because, in this view, a woman can’t be fulfilled unless she’s a mother.

No she doesn't. You again made this up all up in your head. The whole point is that Harry tragically knows little about his actual parents, because the Durseys told him next to zero and the adults who were their friends can only tell him a romanticised version of who his parents actually were. This is a sort of common thing when it comes to talking about dead people- you're much more likely to focus on their positive attributes. Talk to anyone who's lost a loved one like ever.

Clearly, she must be a saint, because everyone describes her as such. And while the narrative does question James’s perfection, even if vaguely and unsuccessfully, it doesn’t do the same with Lily. Harry questions his father’s actions but never his mother’s.

He doesn't know her. She's dead. How the hell are you going to question the morality of a dead person who you've only seen a few memories about (most of which he sees in the last portion of the series)? It's almost as if one of Harry's most important characteristics is that he's an orphan whose greatest wish is to know his family and that apparently went completely over your head. Incredibly media literacy going on over here.

He never stops to think about how problematic it is that his mother almost laughed at Severus or refused to hear his apology, or that she couldn’t empathize with what he was going through, knowing full well the kind of situation Severus had at home.

2. I'm sorry but why the hell would he? This is not yourfaveisproblematic.tumblr.com circa 2013. This is a teenage boy who's been bullied by a grown adult for five years. A few glimpses into a poor childhood isn't going to change that. Especially when a) Snape has been pretty cruelly delving into his own memories and b) does so even more intensely straight afterwards.

Rowling is obsessed with showing her own moral line through her characters and doesn’t realize how incoherent it is to portray Lily as someone who always does the right thing when what we actually see of her suggests that, if she really liked James all along, not only is she a hypocrite, but she’s also quite superficial with questionable principles

Again, the tragedy of Lily is that she's dead. She died at 21. We don't what changed between her and James for her to fall in love with him, nor the extent to which he bullied Snape (and how mutual it was). Their whole point is they act as the ghosts looming above the main story. In fact, their last appearance has them literally return as practically ghosts. What's not clicking. We're not supposed to really know who they are beyond broad strokes. Otherwise, it would be less of a tragedy.

But Rowling brushes all this aside, as she does with so many other things, because to her, Lily was a role model, despite the fact that anyone with common sense can see she was just a terrible friend who got tired of justifying why she hung out with a poor, scruffy kid and ultimately decided it made more sense to date the rich, handsome bully.

No, she didn't. Lily isn't a glorified role model. She did what many loving parents would do by sacrificing herself for the sake of her son. Parental sacrifice has happened commonly in wars globally throughout all of human history. Molly, Arthur, Remus, Tonks, Lucius, Narcissa, also make sacrifices for the sake of their children. It's actually almost anti Judean-Christian (a term that's practically a misnomer in itself) because if you've read any part of the bible, you'll see that it's patriarchs sacrificing their sons (Abraham-Issac and later God-Jesus). This tends to happen when you have a pop culture knowledge about important literary influences.

The actual reason Lily hung out with the poor kid is because he's the only magical person she knows before Hogwarts. They even have a fight during their first conversation. The reason they stop being friends is because he's hanging out with the wizard equivalent of Hitler Youth and then later calls her a slur. Which you seem to have tiptoed around throughout this whole stupid post. Which seems to be a long, uninformed cover story for the fact that you don't like that Lily was slightly mean to Snape one time when they were 16.

More than anything, you seem fixated on "show don't tell" but what you really want is the author to spell out everything according to your own set of values and principles. You want every complex question answered for you and seem utterly clueless to the lessons contained in the book, and the culture and tropes JKR is referencing.

Tldr: Examine characters and relationships in the context they were written, not from your own perspective of what you think should happen. i.e. Have media literacy.

On an unrelated note, please never write a book.

Lily doesn’t seem to think she’s done anything wrong by insulting his poverty and aligning herself with his abusers - only Severus is remorseful, and the trauma that caused him to lash out was considerably worse than the trauma that caused her to lash out. She believes he deserves it, as apparently she believed his abuse was amusing. And I’d be totally fine with this from a character perspective because it’s the teenage condition to be self-centred and poor at self-reflection. But the *narrative* (and the author in interviews) doesn’t believe Lily was in the wrong here. And it believes Lily made the correct moral judgment on the two boys when she casts Severus off for his crime and falls in love with James despite his. But I just don’t buy into that framing, and I didn’t even when I was 10. The use of the word ‘mudblood’ while in considerable distress is not a greater sin than sexual assault.

Lily feels no remorse, nor does she think it's wrong to half-smile at the bully who’s targeting your so-called friend. She doesn’t even consider that this might be why your supposed best friend insulted you in the first place. But here’s the thing: this isn't Lily's fault. It's J.K. Rowling's fault, and the way she portrays ethical dilemmas throughout the series, blurring the lines between what's morally right and wrong. Now, if you’ll allow me, before diving into the dynamics between Lily and Severus, I’d like to provide some context as to why I believe the biggest issue with many of the characters’ attitudes in the series lies in Rowling’s constant attempt to project her own moral compass through her writing. In doing so, she falls into repeated inconsistencies and creates a narrative that’s all over the place when it comes to how certain characters are treated.

Rowling is never consistent. She portrays Draco Malfoy as an irredeemable, terrible character because he’s a rich kid spoiled by his parents, using his power and influence to bully those weaker than him. Yet, she gives James the benefit of the doubt, even though he behaved exactly the same way: a rich bully who used his status and his friends to gang up on the vulnerable. From early interviews, Rowling claimed Pansy Parkinson is practically the reincarnation of Satan, even though, of all the antagonists, Pansy is probably one of the least relevant and harmless. This is simply because Rowling projected onto her the stereotypical “mean girls” who mock those who read and study—something Rowling clearly couldn’t stand. On the other hand, she glorifies characters like Ginny, who has a pretty nasty attitude towards any girl she doesn’t consider cool or "not like the other girls." Ginny treats Fleur like a witch when Fleur has done nothing wrong—her only crime is being incredibly beautiful, knowing it, and not constantly apologizing for it. And this treatment of female characters throughout the series deserves a proper gendered critique, because they fall into every stereotype and archetype set by the traditional male gaze.

In Rowling's world, there are always two kinds of women. When it comes to younger, adolescent characters, there are the "good" women—those who don’t fit the typical feminine mold, the weird ones (like Luna), the tomboys who are “one of the guys” (like Ginny), or the overly studious ones who don’t have time for frivolous things like reading magazines or talking about boys (like Hermione). In other words, the cool girls, the ones who are supposed to be role models, are those who "aren’t like the other girls." But not because they’re deconstructing gender roles consciously—they just happen to embody the fantasy of the woman who can give you kids while still being one of your bros. It’s a common male fantasy, where women abandon the graceful, ethereal, delicate image to fit into a set of needs the modern man has. These are "manic pixie dream girls," hiding a deeply internalized misogyny as they are presented as individuals opposed to the “other” women—the “other” being less cool because they lack traditionally masculine traits, and thus are less than. We see this not only with how Fleur is treated but also with the disdain or prejudice Hermione shows towards girls like Lavender or the Patil sisters, just because they act like normal teenagers instead of validating themselves through academia to compensate for their inferiority complex (cough, cough).

Then we have the adult female characters, where Rowling’s toxic and incredibly conservative view of motherhood kicks in. Except for McGonagall, the rest of the adult women who are seen in a positive light are either already mothers or end up becoming mothers. And for them, motherhood is everything. They are mothers first and women second, in every case. Lily is Harry’s mother, who sacrifices herself for him. Molly is the Weasley matriarch, whose entire life revolves around her kids—she hasn’t even looked for a job (which wouldn’t be a bad idea, considering the family’s financial situation), nor does she have any aspirations beyond knitting sweaters and worrying about her children. Even Narcissa, a negative character throughout most of the saga, earns her redemption solely because she loves her son and is willing to risk everything for him. Nymphadora Tonks, a 25-year-old woman, ends up pregnant by a man 13 years older than her and goes from being an independent Auror with her own life to a passive housewife waiting for her man, who is off having an existential crisis. The adult women in the saga aren’t independent individuals—they’re extensions of their children. And any woman who isn’t a perfect, self-sacrificing mother (like Merope Gaunt) is either a psychopath or portrayed as a terrible person.

What I’m getting at is that Rowling is far from impartial in the moral narrative of the story. In fact, she’s absolutely inconsistent. She presents characters she sells as "good," whose attitudes are absolute trash, yet she continues to insist that they’re good and perfect. This is especially obvious with her female characters, because throughout the seven books, she constantly emphasizes her ideal of the "perfect woman" in terms of tastes, motivations, and behavior. Hermione is a self-insert, Ginny is probably a projection of who Rowling wishes she could’ve been, and Luna is the quirky girl who isn’t “threatening” to other women, and is treated with a condescending, paternalistic lens. They are either Rowling’s aspirational figures or archetypes that don’t bother her, or they’re reduced to filler characters who are mistreated by the narrative.

When it comes to Lily, the problem is that Rowling spends half the saga painting her as some kind of Mother Teresa. She’s the quintessence of motherhood—but not a conscious, modern motherhood, but one rooted in traditional Judeo-Christian ideals. This is the kind of motherhood that can do no wrong, the one that represents women because, in this view, a woman can’t be fulfilled unless she’s a mother. Lily dies for her son, and that love creates a divine, protective magic. She’s beautiful, popular, and one of the most popular guys at school is after her. Clearly, she must be a saint, because everyone describes her as such. And while the narrative does question James’s perfection, even if vaguely and unsuccessfully, it doesn’t do the same with Lily. Harry questions his father’s actions but never his mother’s. He never stops to think about how problematic it is that his mother almost laughed at Severus or refused to hear his apology, or that she couldn’t empathize with what he was going through, knowing full well the kind of situation Severus had at home. When a narrative tells you something but never shows it, and worse, never questions it, that’s a problem. Something doesn’t add up. Rowling is obsessed with showing her own moral line through her characters and doesn’t realize how incoherent it is to portray Lily as someone who always does the right thing when what we actually see of her suggests that, if she really liked James all along, not only is she a hypocrite, but she’s also quite superficial with questionable principles. But this is never addressed, never explored. It would be fascinating if it were, giving the character more depth and making her more relatable. But Rowling brushes all this aside, as she does with so many other things, because to her, Lily was a role model, despite the fact that anyone with common sense can see she was just a terrible friend who got tired of justifying why she hung out with a poor, scruffy kid and ultimately decided it made more sense to date the rich, handsome bully.