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

[oryx_leucoryx]

But there's so little actually written about Lily - practically nothing until DH - I can't see how she can be made out to be all that bad.

If you have no expectations whatsoever about Lily then we still have (at the very least) her blaming Severus for reading Petunia's letter, her not even inquiring for his well-being after the werewolf debacle and not listening to his version of events but instead believing whatever rumor that originated with the Marauders - all that while claiming to be his 'best' friend, thinking James was worse than Mulciber because James' bullying was done with spells she considered 'non-Dark', regardless of how damaging his actions were (one of the most hypocritical lines in canon), using Severus' plight as an excuse to interact with James, not even listening to an apology Severus took a social and physical risk to deliver.

In a way I'm glad she picked James because she would have made Severus' life a nightmare anyway.

[oryx_leucoryx]

You forgot 'trying to hide a smile as your supposed 'best friend' gets incapacitated, choked on sope, and hang upside down, his underwear for all to see and pointed at'.

Right. using Severus' plight as an excuse to interact with James doesn't quite capture her behavior in the entire scene.

Lily and Petunia were sisters don't forget

[urbanman1984.livejournal.com]

Lily was essentially Petunia with pretty looks and magic powers. In JKR's creepy world view however, those details made all the difference. Petunia was worthless through being born a muggle, whereas Lily was a Gryffindor, hence always right.

The series is fun to parody when I don't have the stomach for something as monstrous as Sword of Truth. It's amazing that I could once bear to read either of them.

amused giggle or nervous twitch - a theory destroyed

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

"You forgot 'trying to hide a smile as your supposed 'best friend' gets incapacitated, choked on sope, and hang upside down, his underwear for all to see and pointed at'.

I would be horrified and certainly wouldn't smile if this happened to someone I didn't like, but smiling when my *friend* gets bullied and publicly humiliated..?!"

You know, the first time I read the series I completely missed the Sev/Lily subtext until I read fan speculation about it sometime after HBP came out. Even then, I thought it was more of a 'well, every couple gets shipped by *someone*' phenomenon than anything that was actually strongly supported in-text. So, when I read this scene in OotP I was initially flummoxed in how I was supposed to read it since I thought that 1)Lily was stepping in on behalf of someone who was almost a complete stranger to her, and 2)Lily had been set up as one of the most virtuous and saintly characters in the HP world.

What I finally decided was going on given the evidence I (thought I) had was that Lily's lip twitch wasn't really a

'*snort* God, Potter's *hilarious* but I'd better make a show of being indignant for the sake of my reputation'

but more of an *extremely* nervous I-refuse-to-become-hysterical

'Oh God oh God I'm picking a fight with a guy who thinks nothing of sexually humiliating someone who's *INTERESTED* in me and what if he jumps me for this later or I lose this fight or or or-'

who then sucked it up and confronted him anyway.

Yes, this was blown completely out of the water later, but at the time it made me admire Lily immensely since I feel that true courage (and heroism) is more a matter of conquering fear than just taking advantage of a lack of it. So, yes, I could admit that Lily was clearly stalling when she talked to James instead of just hexing him, but I understood it as a matter of her honestly being afraid to start a fight no matter how talented a duelist she might actually have been, and that she might have genuinely thought (or convinced herself) that the best solution for everyone would be to try and deescalate the situation without further violence (something much easier to justify to oneself if one doesn't actually know the person half-choked and still acting as a living reminder of what the guy you're picking a fight with is capable of). Even the extremely creepy flirtatious vibe I was picking up could be handwaved as Lily falling back on stereotypical responses while she had most of her attention on what James was doing with his wand...

Lily just leaving after the "mudblood" comment was still inexcusable, but I read it as an indication of how her character developed later given her sainthood in the rest of the series: learning to give aid even to those who reject it, or don't seem deserving of it. In other words, acting out the ultimate expression of love. (You know, "love." That thing that's supposed to be the ultimate power in HP world?)

*Looks over old analysis* *God* I gave Rowling a lot of credit. I thought the ambiguity was deliberate, and that she wanted us to stop and think about *all* the ways that scene didn't line up with what we thought we knew of the characters. I was just so sure that after having James built up all series only to tear him to shreds with this scene, that we supposed to pivot our attention to Lily, who we'd barely heard 'boo' about, and that she would then show Harry the path forward on how to extend his love (Rowling's then-claimed ULTIMATE POWER) from those in his immediate to everyone, and that using Snape was deliberate. That she would reveal that Lily had had another encounter with Severus where again she was the only one able or willing to help him, and that *this* time she Did the Right Thing - and Harry would learn that he had to follow his mother's example and let go of his father's.

Whatever else you might say about her writing, Rowling's early books were a masterwork in giving readers enough rope to hang themselves on whatever theories they wished.