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

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

There are lots of people posting that sort of stuff: calling anyone who questions anything about Lilly "misogynist", "racist", "hater", etc. It upsets me a lot, but I guess they're the same people that cut you off in traffic and then flip you the bird. The world is unfortunately full of 'em.

I always think it's funny when they do that. In this context, those insults are the adult equivalent of calling somebody a "poopy-head" or saying they have cooties. That is, they don't really mean anything. They're just a way for people who say those things to marginalize people who disagree with them. When they call me those things, I just imagine a three-year-old calling me a poopy-head. It knocks them down to the size they really are.

I used to have a more open mind about Lily, but they changed it for me. I'm now firmly in the camp of "she was a narcissistic gold-digger."

IKR? Being so rabid towards anybody who disagrees with them only has the effect of making people angry. It makes me want to hate and insult Lily just to spite them. ;-)

I don't think she was a narcissistic gold-digger, but I don't think she was any more virtuous than Severus, either. She certainly wasn't warm and nurturing. As for the gold-digging, like all girl baby boomers, I'm sure she grew up having her mother tell her, "It's just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as it is a poor one." That kind of indoctrination has an effect whether you want it to or not.

There's also nothing virtuous in her joining the OP rather than the DEs. It doesn't take goodness to turn your back on the group that's threatening people of your ethnic group, and join the group that's protecting them.

Regarding the racist and misogynist claims: If criticizing Lily makes you a misogynist, then criticizing Severus logically must make you a misanthrope. Calling people like me racists for criticizing her is also ludicrous. Minority fans can claim Lily as one of their own all they want. The fact remains she is white. That's canon. She's a WASP, and so am I. She's a witch, and I have abilities that would have gotten me condemned for witchcraft in previous centuries. We're just alike. I can't be a bigot for criticizing somebody who's just like me.

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

and I have abilities that would have gotten me condemned for witchcraft in previous centuries.

Waiiiit a second... huh?

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

There's also nothing virtuous in her joining the OP rather than the DEs. It doesn't take goodness to turn your back on the group that's threatening people of your ethnic group, and join the group that's protecting them.

There nothing virtuous about her joining the order rather than the DEs. There is something positive, at least, about fighting to protect your group, even yourself, rather than letting other people do it. Do we know of any other Muggleborns in the Order?

[oryx_leucoryx]

Do we know of any other Muggleborns in the Order?

Other than Lily and Hermione there are no confirmed Muggleborns involved in either war until the battle of Hogwarts (where we have Colin and Muggle-raised, but probably half-blood Dean).

Of the members of the first Order we have confirmed purebloods: James, Sirius, Gideon and Fabian Prewett, Frank and Alice Longbottom.

Confirmed half-bloods: canonically Albus and Aberforth, Mundungus Flethcer, and extra-canonically Remus and Minerva.

Confirmed child of wizard-other species: Hagrid.

Confirmed having at least one wizard relative or showing signs of wizarding upbringing: Elphias Doge (had dragon pox before school), Edgar Bones, Alastor Moody (can't manage a faucet?), Dedalus Diggle (driving is such a rare ability!), probably Peter Pettigrew (would the Ministry have sent his Order of Merlin to his mother had she been a Muggle?).

Unknown: those we know nothing about except that they died: Marlene McKinnon, Dorcas Meadows, Caradoc Dearborn and Benjy Fenwick.
Also Emmeline Vance who lived to the second war and died after having one appearance in OOTP ch 3 and Sturgis Podmore who also survived to the second war to appear briefly, become Imperiurized and be arrested.

Hestia Jones - may or may not have been in the first Order, isn't any more clued into Muggle life than Dedalus Diggle.

Of those who joined the second Order - we have the Weasleys who are purebloods, Tonks - a half-blood, Kingsley - of wizarding upbringing (firelegs? really?).

Others who get involved in DH include Fleur, whose parents are a wizard and a half-Veela, Lee Jordan whose father is a wizard and Augusta Longbottom - pureblood.

Maybe some of the parents and Hogsmeade folks that joined Horace Slughorn's reinforcements were Muggle-borns but we don't know of specific examples.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

There nothing virtuous about her joining the order rather than the DEs. There is something positive, at least, about fighting to protect your group, even yourself, rather than letting other people do it.

Well, yeah, but...

Given how small the wizarding world is, it might have been hard for her to sit the war out, particularly when one considers:

a) She was a Gryffindor, and you know how they love to fight. ;-)

b) She had made a big deal out of publicly dumping her "future DE" friend, thus declaring her opposition to that group. After that, joining the Order would be a reasonable next step.

c) She was slated to marry an Order member, all of whose friends were in the Order, and whose parents were friends with the founder of the Order. It would have looked awfully weird if she hadn't joined, given all that. One of my sisters joined a church she didn't care about when she married, just because her husband and in-laws were dedicated members, and her joining was expected. Lily may have looked at it something like that.

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

That's true. (c) is particularly convincing; that *would* have looked weird. Still, that doesn't necessarily mean that she wouldn't've wanted to join the Order anyway. Fair's fair.

[sunnyskywalker]

She could have kept her head down and not joined any groups, relying on the Order to protect her instead of actively taking a risk and joining... although given that we don't know what she actually did for the Order, maybe there isn't actually much distinction between the joining and not-joining options.

Because I love vocabulary: misandrist, actually! "Anthropos" > misanthrope is more like "human" than specifically "male" (though it is a masculine noun). Aner, andros is the word for specifically male human beings, as opposed to gyne (woman). So, misanthropes hate people, misogynists hate women, and misandrists hate men.

[oryx_leucoryx]

We don't know if Lily joined the Order because she wanted to (in order to fight for her place in wizarding society?) or because she followed James. We don't know if James joined because of some principled belief, to protect Lily, out of family loyalty to the Dumbledore faction, or because fighting DEs was the most exciting game in town.

We know Lily and James defied Voldemort 3 times (each? altogether?) but we have no idea what this entailed. (Nor do we know if the Longbottoms did anything as Order members apart from what they did as Aurors. We have no idea what the Order did period.)

[sunnyskywalker]

I think pretty much all we can say about that defiance was that it did not involve fighting Voldemort and escaping, since supposedly no one ever survived until Harry. They might have just published scathing letters to the editor in the Prophet about how strongly they disagreed with Voldemort.

[oryx_leucoryx]

So you think Dumbles was lying about both the Potters and the Longbottoms having 'narrowly escaped' three times each? I don't think we are ever told nobody escaped. Nobody had survived an AK directed at them with no intervening obstacle before. Doesn't mean nobody managed to duck behind some furniture and escape before. (Don't forget that Albus is the only one who really knows what hit whom at Godric's Hollow.)

[sunnyskywalker]

Didn't escape Voldemort himself, that is - they certainly could have escaped DEs Voldemort sent after them... which is escaping Voldemort, from a certain point of view ;-). I think if four or more were known to have escaped Voldemort by ducking behind potted plants, Voldemort wouldn't have had quite the "if he wanted you dead, you were dead" reputation that he did. (Four people in the wizarding world is a lot!) It would have been more like, "If he wanted you dead, and you weren't quick and nimble from seven years of Quidditch practice, you were dead, but athletes and Aurors would probably be okay," which just doesn't inspire the same level of terror.

[oryx_leucoryx]

But he did get the Potters eventually. They escaped 3 times, succumbed the 4th (according to Albus). He claimed Harry escaped 4 times already by then (OOTP - but of course it's a matter of how one counts. I count 6 attempts on Harry's life by Voldemort in assorted forms by the time Albus makes that pronouncement.)

If Voldemort wants you dead you are dead, it's just a question of when you will notice.

Since Terri's post about Albus' realization that Tom had the resurrection stone in his possession I'm toying with the idea that Albus founded the Order with the goal of stealing the stone from Tom (assuming he was carrying it, in order to use it to raise an army of the dead). But if so he didn't tell them that was the objective. Probably some instruction about bringing Tom to him, dead or alive.

[sunnyskywalker]

I wonder if escaping before Voldemort walks in the door counts? Like, you're fighting some DEs, Bellatrix mouths off about how they'll be sorry when the Dark Lord gets there, and they manage to Apparate away five seconds before Voldemort arrives so he can gnash his teeth and say, "Curses, foiled again! Those damn meddling kids!" Then you do have the scariness aspect of Voldemort personally trying to kill them, without the problem of him failing six times to kill two couples (which rather undermines Harry's accomplishment of escaping Voldemort-in-person several times besides making him less scary in general).

That might work - Dumbledore could tell his recruits that he suspected Voldemort might have a weapon or weapons which it would be very helpful to deprive him of, without going into too much detail, and so if by chance they ever got ahold of any of his personal effects, they should summon Dumbledore right away so he could handle the no doubt horrible curses Voldemort probably placed on some innocuous-looking object. Or something.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the correction. I knew misanthrope meant hater of humans, but I couldn't think of a word that specifically applied to someone who hates men. I just love learning new words, also.

[sunnyskywalker]

There's so many interesting words out there, too.

[sunlit-music.livejournal.com]

There's nothing wrong with calling misogynist/racist if that's what they are. But to call someone a misogynist/racist because they question anything about Lily is just ridiculous and hurtful.

I liked Lily when she stood up for Severus on the train and smiled at him sadly when they went to join their separate houses. It was so sad to see her friendship with Severus fall apart. I don't think she was perfect though. I am fascinated by Lily and Severus' relationship, and I think they are both deeply flawed.