(no subject)

[mmmarcusz.livejournal.com]

One thing that bothers me about the twins is that no matter what they do, they get away with it. There are never any consequences. When they sneak Harry out of his house, flying a magic car into a Muggle area, there are no legal consequences and Molly blusters but doesn't do anything. When they more or less ignore how badly Ginny's getting on (as do Percy and Ron), and don't notice she's being bewitched, there's no real guilt.

They give Harry the Marauders' Map - what if he disappeared some day - would they have told the authorities that they gave him a method of sneaking out of school? Or just stayed quiet and hoped things worked out?

They slip Dudley Ton-Tongue Toffees - he could have died, but again no consequences. They win their bet with Bagman (it was never explained how they knew it - maybe they used magical means in an early draft) but never face consequences (given that the Ministry is notoriously corrupt, it's surprising that Ludo is always on the defensive, and never tries to e.g. get Arthur fired or have the twins prosecuted for their illegal testing). And then Harry hands them a pile of cash, because there are no more worthy causes.

In OOTP, they spy on Order meetings (how bad is the security?) but no DEs seem to exploit this. They also drop out of school without qualifications - unlike in real life, where this would lead to months of them sitting about in the Burrow doing nothing, they instead become master businessmen.

In HBP, their shop sells stuff that is obviously dangerous if exploited, but even when the DEs use their powder, no-one blames them for selling it, or questions a society that allows such weapons to be owned.

In DH, Fred is killed, but a heroic death in battle. It would be much more likely for him to be killed in one of the twins' experiments gone wrong - this would actually force George to undergo some sort of reflection or growth as a character - but as it is, it confirms that Fred was great and everything the twins did was great.

Comments

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

[Um, one thing though: how is being raped while unconscious AT ALL equivalent to any of those other things? I know it's common to assign responsibility to people who are raped when drunk, but it is not right. It's victim-blaming - no matter who the victim is. I won't turn this into a discussion about why, but I will gladly provide links to posts elsewhere if anyone is interested. I simply want to point out that the only one responsible for a rape is the rapist.

Believe it or not, I agree with you. However, by the time they got to that point in the show, it was past the halfway mark, and I was so disgusted and enraged at that girl, I found it impossible to have much sympathy for her even when she was the victim. Reading a brief account of her vileness doesn't compare to watching 25 minutes (at that point) of her obnoxious, hateful, condescending, completely unapologetic behavior. When she said she'd been raped, part of me thought, "Even she doesn't deserve that." Another part thought, "Good, you little shit! Somebody finally treated you as badly as you treat everybody else! Now you know how it feels!" Some people, even when they're victims, are just too unsympathetic for me to feel sorry for them., and that came out in my comment.