Let's Read Tales Of Beedle The Bard: Part Three: The Warlock's Hairy Heart.

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

Because I'm having horrible writer's block regarding a Matthew Stover poem, I've decided to update my Tales of Beedle The Bard recaps! :D

Kyoshi Warrior gear, don't fail me now...



Summary Of The Story: Guy doesn't want to fall in love -- because he kind of thinks that falling in love is for pussies. :P -- so he seals his heart away in a distant room. Fair maiden arrives to help him out. Guy's hairy heart (?!) causes him to start falling in lust or something (?!?!?!?!), so he kills the maiden and then himself. Reader is left to mop up the chunks of brain that have shot out her nose. :P

Dumbledore's Commentary: Nothing too offensive so far...mostly seems that Dumbledore's commenting on how disturbing the tale is, and an anecdote of Beatrix Bloxam being traumatized by the story as a kid, which pretty much started off her...crusade, so to speak (and even though I know I'm not supposed to like her, that story just makes me smile, because it's one of those rare instances real life seems to seep in. *Pets her and gives her warm milk* :) Which sums up most of Rowling's so-called "unlikeable" characters, IMHO). Preaching on about "the power of love", blah blah blah...look, Dumbles, if it weren't for the way the Power of Love was presented in the books, I'd probably find your interpretation pretty credible.

Ironically, it's one of those moments when I welcome the commentary, if only because the story was really, really confusing. Which absolutely kills me.


Dumbles Rage-O-Meter: 5. In tolerable range. And if *that's* normal range...yeah, be very afraid. :P








So yeah...this is probably the point THE TALES OF BEEDLE THE BARD starts to go a little wacky. Be very afraid. :P

Comments

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

Not to worry, my friend; I quite agree. It's mostly peeling back the Fridge Horror/Unfortunate Implications of this story that I'm starting to realize this.

Regarding number one...this, just this. In fact, come to think of it, one aspect of Dumbledore's character really bugs me: not only regarding the whole "gay love leads to the Dark Side" thing that post-DH interview may have accidentally presented, but...has JKR ever really gone into Dumbledore's past? If he was honestly sorry for his decisions regarding Ariana, et cetera, he would have been actively working against Tom and trying to help him during his Hogwarts days instead of, basically, aiding him in becoming Voldemort via his own stupidity/genius. He would have seen an image of himself reflected in Tom, tried to prevent it...and when Tom fell, to Dumbledore, it would have been a genuine surprise and a shame. Plus, some of Dumbledore's issues regarding Grindelwald would rub off on Tom as well...Dumbledore actually having a love/hate relationship with Tom because Tom reminds him of his old lover. *Adds to personal canon*

2. Except if they're Dumbledore, of course. :P (You know the "he hasn't had any sex since Grindelwald" line?) I *could* use that logic to point out another reason why Dumbledore may act the way he does...but I'm not touching that with a ten foot pole. :/

3. That he's extremely bitter, really. In fact, Dumbledore may be one of the most bitter mentors in fantasy -- you know, if JKR had acknowledged it and run with it, you could have ended up with a highly memorable Villainous Mentor. Forget Tom -- he's mostly a General Grievous-esque sideshow. The real villain happens to be the lemon-drop eating headmaster sworn to protect the Chosen One -- but he's not, of course.

That scenario is far scarier than a Hitler-wannabe who owns a pet snake, IMHO.


4. And yeah, kind of hard to argue the "plea for tolerance" thing against evidence like that. :/


5. Or the dragon from Matthew Stover's ROTS novelization... *Is far too obsessed with that book. ;-)* But your interpretation is definitely superior. :3

[oryx_leucoryx]

3. That he's extremely bitter, really. In fact, Dumbledore may be one of the most bitter mentors in fantasy -- you know, if JKR had acknowledged it and run with it, you could have ended up with a highly memorable Villainous Mentor. Forget Tom -- he's mostly a General Grievous-esque sideshow. The real villain happens to be the lemon-drop eating headmaster sworn to protect the Chosen One -- but he's not, of course.


Reminded me of Why Gandalf Never Married - 1985 talk by Terry Pratchett. It was actually about the difference between the way wizards and witches are portrayed in fantasy, but one of the common trait of classical wizards is that they don't need women and if they do get involved with one they are doomed (Merlin and Nimue).

Anyway, wizards can be normatively celibate if they are like priests and monks (or like the Jedi in the prequels), rare individuals called or fated or chosen for their role, within a broader sexually reproducing society. But the moment Rowling created a secluded society of magic-workers she needs to have reproducing wizards (at least most of them). So now she has a conflict between the classical image of celibate wizard and a wizard who is a regular Joe.

(Of course the secluded world also breaks the whole aspect of person with unusual abilities putting them at the service of greater society, as in the first story.)

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the link to the Pratchett talk!! It's excellent!

The classical witch, on the other hand, with her often malevolent interest in the small beer of human affairs, is everything we fear only too well that we would in fact become. ... the witches will perform their evil, bad-tempered spells.

Like Merope Gaunt. Can't let the women have magic!

In his discourse about witches with warts and bad magic Pratchett conveniently omitted to cover Glinda the Good Witch of the ... North? From the Oz books.

Maybe Narnia's White Witch cancelled her out.

[sunnyskywalker]

I think in the books there were two good witches, one nice old lady witch from the North, and Glinda from the South. But it's been a while. Still. There were two good witches to balance the two bad ones, I remember that much! And while Galadriel isn't technically a witch... she has a magic mirror, and I think falls into the Good Witch tradition. Like the Oz good witches, she doesn't get to be a hands-on mentor going on the quest with the heroes, but she is in a mentorly role, plus noble and powerful (magically and politically), so there is some resemblance to the traditional wizard role. Except she's married. But overall, yeah, I think the pattern of noble awesome wizard/petty evil witch is the more prevalent one.

One thing that puzzles me in that Pratchett piece is that he concludes that the fictional wizard is what we'd want to be and the fictional witch is what we're afraid to be - and that therefore "The sex of the magic practitioner doesn't really enter into it." Did we flip a coin? Why don't we have the lady wizard we want to be and the grubby man-witch we're afraid to be as standard tropes? I don't know the answer, but I don't think we need to rule gender out as a possible factor just because we found another possible factor; they aren't mutually exclusive. The few historical "wizards" I know about, like John Dee, worked for royalty - he advised Elizabeth I about astrology, among other things. So it isn't like there wasn't a real(ish) precedent for the fictional discrepancy. He even has a white beard according to his portrait.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Yes, I remembered that there was a balance of good/evil witches in Oz.

Galadriel is a great example of a she-wizard. If I recall correctly, whereas the other two bearers of the three Rings of Power were male - Elrond and Gandalf? - I think hers, Nenya, was 'the most powerful of the three', something like that. And the Wikipedia tells me that she was "the mightiest and fairest of all the Elves that remained in Middle-earth".

You know, if Pratchett is tallying the gender of magic users maybe he should have included all of the 'dark lords' strewn across the literary landscape. There's a reason why they're called dark lords, and not ladies, after all. Morgoth, Sauron, Grindelwald and Voldemort, anyone?

[baeraad.livejournal.com]

You know, if Pratchett is tallying the gender of magic users maybe he should have included all of the 'dark lords' strewn across the literary landscape. There's a reason why they're called dark lords, and not ladies, after all. Morgoth, Sauron, Grindelwald and Voldemort, anyone?

More sexism at work, I think - a witch is not only per definition evil, but she's a petty sort of evil, using her magic to do small, mean things and (at most) to try to steal some man's power base since she's incapable of building one herself. For proper evil-overlording, you need a wizard gone bad.

There are exceptions to that too, of course. The White Witch of Narnia, and the Green Lady after her, were full-feathered evil overlords (okay, so the Green Lady's plans to take over Narnia did involve corrupting a powerful man, but she ruled her own subterranean empire by virtue of her own badassness alone). And while the witches of Oz, good and wicked alike, looks like they are inferior to the Wizard at first, in the end it turns out that he's a fake whereas their power is real. Still, the tendency is there.

[oryx_leucoryx]

So traditional witches are like fat people in the Potterverse?

[baeraad.livejournal.com]

Heh, now that you mention it, the same principle does seem to apply...

[sunnyskywalker]

And Galadriel's temptation with the Ring opened up the possibility for her to become an Evil Overlord/lady ruling her own empire. Of course she didn't do it, so we can't say how she would have compared to Sauron et. al., and I agree that there aren't as many Big Evil witches compared to the Petty Evil versions (at least, not that I've encountered).

[go-back-chief.livejournal.com]

I think the OZ books may have been ground-breaking when it came to gender-roles, though. I barely remember anything in them, but I do remember the lead of the second book was a boy who found out he was actually a girl by the end of it.

[baeraad.livejournal.com]

If I recall correctly, there was indeed a witch for every direction. The Good Witch of the North is the one who turns up and advises Dorothy when she first arrives in Oz, and Glinda the Good Witch of the South is the one Dorothy goes to in the end and who tells her how to use the Ruby Slippers to get back home. The movie apparently didn't see any need to have two different characters when one would do perfectly well, so there Glinda plays both roles.