(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

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Yes, I do think Mr. and Mrs. Weasley are modeled on the Bennets.* I also agree that Jane Austen is far, far more aware of her characters' flaws than Rowling is.

*(I said this years ago, when someone in another discussion claimed the Weasleys were working class. I said they weren't. Snape is working class; the Weasleys are the Bennets. Yeoman class, essentially, who have fallen on hard times. They are landowners and purebloods; they just don't have any money. In that, too, they are rather like the Bennets.)

[oryx_leucoryx]

They just went and had more children than Arthur's salary can feed. If they had stopped at 3 I doubt they'd have been poor at all.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Vimes deserves any promotion he gets on other fandoms! (Of course one reason Vimes was hopelessly poor until he married Sybil was because he spent half his salary supporting widows and orphans of watchmen friends who got killed in the line of duty. But the Theory of Boots still applies.)