Oh, TV Tropes...!

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

Quite honestly, the Harry Potter stuff on that site has gotten to the point where I can't read it because just about everything is fawning over how great and super-special-awesome the series is, oh, and how Snape is an evil douchebag who wanted to get Harry and James killed so he could keep Lily. But this... this makes me want to scream:

"Hermione... [is] one of the smartest and more pro-active females in the whole Harry Potter canon and English literature in general"

WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!

How could they make such a claim?! Hermione is a better heroine than, say, Tiffany Aching?! How about Eliza Doolittle?! And I'm sure you could come up with other examples.

No, no, in Harry Potter it seems fairly obvious that the most powerful women in the series are antagonists. Sure, Hermione's perfectly independent and capable, but in the last several books it's like she becomes Harry's servant because he's too lazy to do anything himself!

God damn it, Harry Potter wouldn't bother me so much if everyone didn't insist it was the greatest thing since sliced bread!

Comments

Re: The madwoman in the attic

[the-bitter-word.livejournal.com]

Hermione would most likely have killed the madwoman in the attic

I actually think she would have kept the madwoman imprisoned in the attic, only let out when Rochester needed to be forced to do something.

Re: The madwoman in the attic

[urbanman1984.livejournal.com]

So do you think Bertha was mad due to being locked in a room for so long, or do you believe Rochester that it was genetic?

Re: The madwoman in the attic

[the-bitter-word.livejournal.com]

I think it's impossible to say for sure. Rochester isn't a neutral party. Bertha does act mad, but I've known people who were reduced by combinations of violence, isolation, and substance abuse to appalling states. I favor the interpretations that look at clash of cultures, predominance of patriarchal privilege and racism, permanence of marriage, restriction of emotional expression in Victorian England, and, yeah, separation from her former life and family, and, finally, imprisonment.

Not a cheery book, actually.

Re: The madwoman in the attic

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

So I take it you're more a fan of

The Wide Sargasso Sea

than of canon Bronte's depiction of Berha?

Re: The madwoman in the attic

[the-bitter-word.livejournal.com]

I've never read The Wide Sargasso Sea! I should probably do that. I should probably read Jane Eyre again, too, but I don't think I'd like it much now.

For me, the discussion gets to how much author intent matters versus the tantalizing but unknowable expression of the author's subconscious, and how much personal prejudice and training affect the writing and reading of characters and their actions. Brontë wrote a groundbreaking novel, with a heroine who tried to maintain her integrity as much as possible despite the restrictions of the time she lived in. Brontë set this heroine against Bertha, very much the shadow, who may have also tried to express herself against a restrictive society and paid a higher price. For Bertha's madness, we have the unreliable origins story of a not-altogether-honorable or socially-flexible Rochester, and the behavioral evidence that Jane perceived long after the fact of Bertha's imprisonment. What was Brontë's intention in creating these two Rochester love interests, one with more agency than the other? Was it prevailing racism and fear of hysteria or sexual libertarianism that made Brontë create the madwoman in the attic, or did she subconsciously create a situation that invited us to look again at the character and her husband's treatment of her, and perhaps be appalled or sympathetic?

For me, it's a layers of meaning thing. Still, to bring the discussion back to HP, Brontë may not have intended a layered reading, at least not of Bertha. For HP, Rowling has expressed that she doesn't find Snape to be anything but unpleasant and can't understand fans of "bad boys" like Draco and Snape -- yet some of us find Snape to be, if not outright consistently good, at least ambiguously good enough to make him our preferred hero of the series. For some, Snape is a Byronic hero -- as was Rochester. These readings are supported by the books, as some have exhaustively pointed out, but many people, including apparently the author, just don't see them. And again, I would say it's our positions and experiences in life, and to some extent, our personalities, that cause us to read characters in certain ways and hold to those readings. Brontë may have tossed-off the character of madwoman of mixed race without seeing anything more than that in the character. Rowling could probably never be convinced that Snape is an attractive character in any way, but she wrote him and some of us do like him. (BTW, Snape's not Byronic for me, but I know that's a heresy. I see him as more the madwoman in the attic dungeons for a good portion of the series.)

Re: The madwoman in the attic

[urbanman1984.livejournal.com]

Wide Sargasso Sea is really good if you are into Jane Eyre fanfiction. I wonder how the author got away with publishing something that is fanfiction...? Oh well.

Re: The madwoman in the attic

[the-bitter-word.livejournal.com]

Jane Eyre had probably been long out of copyright when Wide Sargasso Sea was written. An author can use anything that's in the public domain, and even get the work published.

For works still in copyright, however, U.S. copyright law allows the publication of parodies, as decided in the Pretty Woman/2 Live Crew and the Gone With the Wind/Wind Done Gone (https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Suntrust_v._Houghton_Mifflin) cases. I think British law also allows this. I'm not sure about other countries.

Re: The madwoman in the attic

[sunnyskywalker]

In the book on 19th-century women's novels The Madwoman in the Attic, there's some interesting discussion of Bertha. Their original reading, iirc, was that Bertha was the shadow, and they pointed out the interesting fact that Bertha's actions always end up helping Jane in the end. They also noted later readings that hm, the imprisoned woman from a colonial area helps Jane essentially against her will (she didn't set that fire so Rochester and Jane could live happily ever after, I think!), and so essentially Bertha's oppression allows Jane's fight against societal restrictions to succeed - Jane at least benefits by the contrast (she may be a social rebel, but she's still a "real" Englishwoman, unlike Bertha). Very complicated topic!

Re: The madwoman in the attic

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

It's scary that I can kind of see her doing this.

Re: The madwoman in the attic

[oryx_leucoryx]

Hmm, there's a fic where Severus survives the war and Hermione imprisons him in an attic (because she doesn't trust him to stay 'good' now that his job is done and his promises kept). It ends with an implication that he was going to kill her.

Re: The madwoman in the attic

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

That is so incredibly creepy...

Re: The madwoman in the attic

[oryx_leucoryx]

What is creepy is how in-character I found that version of Hermione, not that long after DH.

Re: The madwoman in the attic

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

I second marionros' call for a link. Also, have you read Caveat Inimici? It's an excellent portrayal of ruthless Hermione - quite believable in my mind.

Re: The madwoman in the attic

[oryx_leucoryx]

Well, I found it (see my latest response to marionross). Yes, I read Caveat Inimici (left a comment with a nit-pick of the Aramaic). I wonder how many other believable Dark!Hermione fics are out there.

Re: The madwoman in the attic

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

I did as well. Quite creepy and believable.

Just curious, but what was your nitpick?

Re: The madwoman in the attic

[oryx_leucoryx]

I looked my comment up to realize I left two rather longish ones. But the nitpick part is as follows:

I'm afraid Hermione's Aramaic is as bad as Rowling's Latin. But if dog-Latin works for spells so should its Aramaic equivalent. I'm actually fluent in modern Hebrew and can read archaic Hebrew. It's been a while since I did anything with any form of Aramaic. However the Hebrew for 'thought' would be 'machshava' in one word and the Aramaic would be a single word as well (because of the way semitic languages work). The Hebrew for 'my wrath' is 'chamati', not 'anichemah'.

I'm afraid the author translated individual words without considering grammar or syntax. But then Potterverse 'Latin' isn't better.

Re: The madwoman in the attic

[oryx_leucoryx]

I have no idea how to find it. I read it on Ashwinder years ago, I can't remember the title nor the name of the author. I will try some more search strategies.

Re: The madwoman in the attic

[oryx_leucoryx]

Found it!


Letter Of Mercy One Sunny Morning

(The title is a reference to 'Letter from Exile, One Merciful Morning', one of the earliest SSHG fics on the 'net.)

Re: The madwoman in the attic

[oryx_leucoryx]

My impression was most of them were creeped out by Hermione. They call her psychotic, compare her to RL criminals. The only one 'justifying' Hermione's motivation is the author, and only from the character's POV.

Re: The madwoman in the attic

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

Don't forget the author repeatedly saying that she (?) wasn't necessarily implying Snape murdered Hermione. She said she imagined Hermione dying because of her job, and Severus dying of grief because he didn't want to live without her.

WTH? How sexist is that? There have been many battered women in my family, and I've never heard one of them say she'd rather be dead than live without her jailer. Not even my grandmother, who was born in 1902. And jailer is precisely what Hermione is in this story. Or maybe prison camp commandant is a better analogy, particularly given the sadism she displays: forcing Snape to severely burn both his hands for making an escape attempt (How dare he!), then leaving him to starve for two weeks as further punishment for this "infraction."

Nobody with an iota of self-respect could love or grieve for someone who treated them so cruelly and exploited them so much.

This passage really encapsulates the sickness of this story. Hermione sounds just like a DE, the way she objectifies her "possession."

His plight was, after all, understandable. And my insistence on keeping him apart from the world, for his own protection of course, had caused it.

“I am sorry I have bothered you,” he said. “Perhaps you could, er, incite someone else to come over for a visit…?”

“Someone else? But then your existence wouldn’t be that secret any more, would it?”

“Then maybe we could reveal it to the world, Hermione. I am prepared to go to trial if it comes to that, I-“

“No. We have discussed this before, Severus, and I have not changed my mind.”

“Shouldn’t I be consulted,” he cried out. “It is my life, after all!”

“Your life,” I answered with deadly calm, “ended the day you got yourself bitten in the neck by your Master’s pet and abandoned to die on the dirty floor of a werewolf’s former home.”

He blanched.

“Finder’s keeper, Severus. I found you on the floor in pieces, brought you back together again – I do not remember you objecting to it then – and what I got out of it is mine. Mine, do you understand?”

Re: The madwoman in the attic

[oryx_leucoryx]

Don't forget the author repeatedly saying that she (?) wasn't necessarily implying Snape murdered Hermione. She said she imagined Hermione dying because of her job, and Severus dying of grief because he didn't want to live without her.

I hold the author's opinions about as high as I hold Rowling's. S/he wrote Severus repeatedly demanding his freedom and bringing up his fate upon Hermione's death. S/he wrote Severus engaging in an escape attempt that took months to pull through. Hermione's letter enables him to survive her death. I say the implication he killed her is very strong (though the author may have gotten cold feet about it).

The plausible Hermione/Snape fanfiction

[urbanman1984.livejournal.com]

Popular perceptions in the English speaking countries of victims of whatever age or gender who are injured by female malefactors manages the difficult feat of being even worse than popular perceptions relating to victims of male on male abuse. The "blame the victim" mentality is always very strong in such cases. I wonder if the vast majority of ignorant people consider that something being more degrading means the victim should be villified. The callousness of ordinary people never ceases to shock me. Certainly Snape's fate in this fic is more ignominious than being Dumbledore or Voldemort's slave would have been, although it was certainly less arduous than being Voldemort's slave would have been. The reviewer and author may have been being flippant about Snape because of the added dimension of degradation included in being Hermione's victim instead of Voldemort's or Dumbledore's.