Jumping Ship from the Lily's Pad

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

On Saturday night I was catching up on reading DTCL and came across a post from terri_testing about why so few people claim James and Lily as friends. (posted 8/6/12, in reply to “Lupin’s ‘Resignation’,” by danajsparks) Part of it reads: 

What did happen to those witch friends Lily had in fifth year, the ones who couldn't understand why she even talked to Severus, the ones she sat and chatted with after the DADA OWL? Did their jealousy over the Mudblood scooping the Head Girl position (and the most eligible Pureblood bachelor) separate them? Were they naturally driven apart by diverging life paths caused by Lily's extremely early settling into marriage and motherhood while her friends all pursued careers....? 

Or there's always the solution I proposed in my abusive!James fic "Liberacorpus," that James had taken the precaution of sleeping his way through all of Lily's friends, so as to alienate them from her.... 

This got me to thinking: Maybe Lily’s friends were alienated, not by her good fortune or by James, but by Lily herself. I see two possibilities, both of which reflect badly on her and which are not mutually exclusive:

1) It’s certainly possible Lily’s friends were jealous because she got to be Head Girl and caught Big Wizard on Campus James. But under normal circumstances, friends get over such things. 

At least, they would have unless Lily rubbed their faces in her triumphs. If she bragged about how lucky she was, or how her success was proof of her greatness, particularly since she was a latecomer to the wizarding world, that would alienate anyone who wasn’t a complete doormat.

Of course, there is no proof Lily did that. But this kind of behavior accords with the assertion some people, most notably marionros, have made about Lily’s being a narcissist. Narcissists love to brag about themselves anyway (think Dumbledore in King’s Cross), and a triumphant narcissist would be worse than normal.

Such boasting is also compatible with the behaviors we see from Lily that indicate she had a poor character. For example, she was somewhat contemptuous and superior towards Severus, such as when she ordered him around, dismissed his feelings and concerns, or automatically took other people’s versions of events over his. 

She also exhibited a sadistic streak by using her magic to scare and torment Petunia. This is the moral equivalent of having your friends hold somebody while you punch them, or shoving over someone in a wheelchair, then laughing when they can’t get up.

No wonder she walked off and left her “best friend” to be attacked. She was doing the same thing outside of school herself, and to her own sister, who could not fight back. Which brings me to my next point. 

2) The other possibility for why Lily’s friendships ended may impart to her schoolmates a level of perspicacity they didn’t possess, but it’s an interesting idea anyway.

Lily may have bragged to or joked with her friends about using her magic to torment Petunia. I would never want to be friends with a person who was debased enough to attack her own family for entertainment.  

Regarding Severus, while Lily’s friends were no doubt happy to see her dump the greasy Slytherin, they may not have liked the way she did it. Initially, they just would have been happy he was gone, but over time, they may have become uncomfortable with her actions.

This was a boy Lily had known for six years, since she was nine. Her friends may have known she’d told Severus they were “best friends.” She had refused to break off their friendship for years, despite pressure from her House to dump him.

Then one day, he slipped up and insulted her while under extreme stress. And that was it. She literally turned her back on him and left him while he was helpless, to be assaulted by a ruthless gang of thugs. 

Severus didn’t just apologize for insulting her. He actually groveled to her, begging her forgiveness, risking his safety in the process. (Every time I think about this scene, I hear the Temptations singing, “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg.”) Yet she refused to even accept his apology, let alone have anything to do with him again.

If Lily was a prefect, her behavior was even worse. Regardless of her feelings for the victim, it was her duty to protect someone from being assaulted, especially by a group of attackers. She failed to do the job she’d been chosen for, to live up the obligation she’d accepted. This makes her nothing but a prettier, spunkier version of Remus the Spineless because they both allowed their personal feelings to prevent them from doing their duty.

I can’t help comparing Lily and Remus as prefects with the black American soldiers who served in World War II. These men fought and died for their country, even though they had been the victims of vicious racism at home and knew they would be again once the war was over. They realized many of the people they were fighting for were disgusting bigots who didn’t consider them fully human. They usually weren’t even allowed to serve in the same units as white soldiers. Many of them were only a few years older than Lily and Remus. Yet despite all that, they put their sense of duty ahead of their personal feelings and risked their lives for all Americans, regardless of how loathsome many individuals were. That is why they are now considered groundbreaking heroes. 

Imagine having Lily as a comrade in the Order. You will go into battle with her and trust her with your life. You’ll expect her to have your back, no matter what. 

What if you say or do something wrong while under pressure? How do you know that, when you need her the most, she won’t turn her back on you, too, and leave you at the mercy of your enemies? If she could do that to someone she’d been friends with almost half her life, why wouldn’t she do it to you as well?

Would you trust someone like that in battle?

I wouldn’t. 

  

Comments

[sunlit-music.livejournal.com]

You raise some excellent points here. Lily's friends might not have liked how she ended her friendship with Severus. I know the characters were teenagers at the time and teenagers can do awful, hurtful things that they regret later once they're adults. Yet only one person in SWM changed for the better. All parties behaved badly here, but only Severus apologised for his behaviour and learnt from it. Severus became an adult who told Phineas Nigellus not to use the word Mudblood and died fighting against Voldemort (and Voldemort persecuted non magic users and people with non magical parents. Please excuse me - I don't like using the word 'muggles', it sounds ridiculous to me).

Lily and Remus did not meet their duties as prefects. Severus' racial slur against Lily was inexcusable, but she should have protected him from being beaten up and humilated by James Potter and his friends.

You're right - the black American soldiers you mentioned fought for their country in WW2, having experienced horrifying racism. They served their duties and risked their lives. They deserve all of our respect and admiration.

I wouldn't want to have 15 year old Lily as a comrade in the Order. Maybe if she'd lived longer she might have matured and regretted her past behaviour. It's hard to say.

Thank you so much for writing this thoughtful and intelligent post. :)

[aasaylva.livejournal.com]

Severus' racial slur against Lily was inexcusable, but she should have protected him from being beaten up and humilated by James Potter and his friends.
Hm, I think there are two aspects in all of this:
First, as you say, Severus' slur was inexcusable and, IMO, cannot be explained by him being under a lot of pressure. Pressure and humiliation tends to bring your defences down, meaning you cannot controll yourself from saying things you normally wouldn't say. It doesn't MAKE you say things you don't think. So - in Lily's stead, I think I would have ended our friendship as well - not because I couldn't believe in Severus saying he was sorry for it (I'm sure Lily did - there is no indication she was daft, after all), but because of the reason behind him using this slur. Just as I wouldn't want to be friends with a man who believed women in general to be some sort of pet or piece of meat to use - no matter if he treated ME differently.
Now you say, she should have helped him all the same, because it was her duty no matter what and agree in principle. If he had been just some random student, being harrassed by James. But up to that moment, Severus had been her friend and - as weird as it may seem - I think she might have owed him to respect his wish for her not to interfere on his behalf. He clearly is very much humiliated and obviously to him, it's even more humiliating to be "the damsel in distress" needing protection from the original damsel, so to speak. Of course, this idea is misogynist in itself, but I think it might have been a sign of mutual respect to leave him alone instead of patronizingly protecting him against his express wish.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Pressure and humiliation tends to bring your defences down, meaning you cannot controll yourself from saying things you normally wouldn't say. It doesn't MAKE you say things you don't think.

So? Consider the other swear word in HP-canon, the word 'bitch'. For a long time it was often used to specify a woman who didn't 'know her place' - whether by standing up for herself or rejecting a man who believed himself entitled to her attention or any other way. The word criticizes a woman for not being 'womanly enough'. But it became an all-around insult for a woman for whatever reason, whether said reason would also apply to a man or not. So people may intend it either as 'insufficiently submissive woman' or as 'evil person who is female' (even if they don't believe all women are inferior to men). In other 'net places I hang out at the more vocal posters are raising awareness for such behavior and are advocating the idea that gendered insults are uncool, regardless of the reason the word was chosen, because even if the speaker did not intend the word in a sexist way, its use promotes a culture of sexism. They tell people that if they want to insult someone call them an asshole because everyone has one. Or use random words as equal-opportunity insults (the most common one is 'cupcake' and believe me, it is pretty obvious when the word is being used to insult). Debate continues as to which other insults to add to the list of words to be discouraged. (Is 'douche' sexist? Homophobic?)

Back to Severus. He heard the word 'mudblood' a lot. I bet his mother referred to Lily as such. So when Lily behaved badly to him he called her the way others did when they disparaged her (and people like her) - and you can't know if it meant 'Muggle-borns shouldn't behave like that, but I would accept such behavior from someone who wasn't' or 'she is behaving unacceptably *and* Muggle-born, so I'll call her an insulting word for a Muggle-born'.

But up to that moment, Severus had been her friend and - as weird as it may seem - I think she might have owed him to respect his wish for her not to interfere on his behalf.

That moment was already too late. Lily should have done more, whether as a prefect or a friend before things got bad enough that he lashed out at her. No, I don't expect her to be a mind-reader, I'm saying her supposed 'defense' of Severus was not. She was standing there arguing with James instead of disarming him and undoing his hexes. If she was going to use Severus' humiliation to mentally bat her eyelashes at James then yes, he had no need for her 'help'.

[snapes-witch.livejournal.com]

That moment was already too late. Lily should have done more, whether as a prefect or a friend before things got bad enough that he lashed out at her. No, I don't expect her to be a mind-reader, I'm saying her supposed 'defense' of Severus was not. She was standing there arguing with James instead of disarming him and undoing his hexes. If she was going to use Severus' humiliation to mentally bat her eyelashes at James then yes, he had no need for her 'help'.

Good point, even JKR says she's flirting with James! She even has a quick smile as she walks up to them.

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

/She was standing there arguing with James instead of disarming him and undoing his hexes./

And that’s why the revelation of Lily and Severus being best friends in DH was such a surprise. Not only did Lily not act as if she knew Snape personally, she didn’t even behave as if he was there at all! Her whole focus during the scene was on James. It was as if she’d caught James bullying Severus, Severus had run away, and then Lily had confronted James, instead of Lily confronting James and having a long argument with him while Snape was *still there.* Instead of both Lily and James treating Snape like he was a background prop, not worthy of their attention.

Again, if Draco had done the same thing to Harry and Hermione had rushed to the scene, how many people believe that she would have ignored Harry’s predicament in favor of arguing with Draco, then telling Draco to put Harry down instead of doing it herself, and then continuing to ignore Harry in favor of arguing with Draco?

/If she was going to use Severus' humiliation to mentally bat her eyelashes at James then yes, he had no need for her 'help'./

Or for her “friendship.”

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

So? Consider the other swear word in HP-canon, the word 'bitch'. For a long time it was often used to specify a woman who didn't 'know her place' - whether by standing up for herself or rejecting a man who believed himself entitled to her attention or any other way. The word criticizes a woman for not being 'womanly enough'. But it became an all-around insult for a woman for whatever reason, whether said reason would also apply to a man or not.

What makes me really angry is when people use female-related terms to insult men, such as "bitch," "cunt," and "pussy," or when they denote someone in a subordinate position by calling them "so-and-so's bitch." Those are just modern ways of calling a man "womanish," meaning that he's automatically weaker if he's like a woman than a "real man" should be. Considering all the crap women have had to put up with over the centuries, if anything, women as a group are stronger than men, not weaker.

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

“First, as you say, Severus' slur was inexcusable and, IMO, cannot be explained by him being under a lot of pressure. Pressure and humiliation tends to bring your defences down, meaning you cannot controll yourself from saying things you normally wouldn't say. It doesn't MAKE you say things you don't think. So - in Lily's stead, I think I would have ended our friendship as well - not because I couldn't believe in Severus saying he was sorry for it (I'm sure Lily did - there is no indication she was daft, after all), but because of the reason behind him using this slur. Just as I wouldn't want to be friends with a man who believed women in general to be some sort of pet or piece of meat to use - no matter if he treated ME differently.”

I think Severus’ humiliation did bring his defences down, but not it the sense of making him express secret long-held racist views. Rather, people who’ve just been humiliated often lash out at others to try and regain some of their lost status. What grounds did Snape have for trying to increase his status? None with regards the talented, handsome, male, pure-blooded Marauders. With regards to Lily, there are two potential things which would give Snape higher status than her in wizarding society. One is sex: Snape is male, Lilly female, but we don’t know just how big a difference this would make (JK Rowling once said that the WW was always more feminist than the muggle, because magic acted as an equaliser between the sexes, but we don’t really see much evidence of this in the books, so oh dear, consistency). The other is blood status: Snape is a halfblood, Lilly a muggleborn, which would probably raise his relative status at least a little. So yes, I agree that “a filthy little Mudblood like her” (or whatever it was) was meant to recall the racist aspects of wizarding society, but whilst it might indicate that Severus personally was prejudiced against muggle-borns, it is possible to make a case that he was just looking for anything to make himself look like less of a loser to the onlookers.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

An interesting way of looking at it. I could also see him using it, not because he secretly thinks it, but (subconsciously) precisely because of its hurtful power to Lily specifically. (That is, its not the meaning of the word itself that leads him to use it but the fact that she specifically will feel hurt by it. If being called a self involved cow would have been particularly bad to her he would have used that, etc. It's like her jab at his poverty - it's using knowledge of a personal point of particular vulnerability as retaliation.) He feels helpless, he is humiliated, but he is also IMHO angry at her specifically for flirting with James and using him like a prop, etc. He feels deeply hurt by *her* - but given their dynamic he doesn't feel able to consciously acknowledge it fully or feel that he has a right to be angry at her. So instead he subconsciously goes for something that will let him express those feelings in the moment, in a way that will let Lily know that *she* too has hurt him, but later genuinely regrets having tried to hurt her because he does care about her. I could see this coinciding with the status aspect too, and with feeling a need to defend his 'manhood' in front of James et al.

[avery567.livejournal.com]

"First, as you say, Severus' slur was inexcusable and, IMO, cannot be explained by him being under a lot of pressure. Pressure and humiliation tends to bring your defences down, meaning you cannot controll yourself from saying things you normally wouldn't say. It doesn't MAKE you say things you don't think."

Nope. You forgot to include the male ego into the equation. He had a crush on Lily, and as such she was the last person he wanted to see him in such a vulnerable position.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

Please excuse me - I don't like using the word 'muggles', it sounds ridiculous to me.

I never use it, either. I think it's both ridiculous and racist.

Lily and Remus did not meet their duties as prefects. Severus' racial slur against Lily was inexcusable, but she should have protected him from being beaten up and humilated by James Potter and his friends.

I don't blame Lily for ending their friendship for whatever reason. Nobody is required to be anyone's friend, and it's common for childhood pals to drift apart as they grow up.

What I've always objected to is the way she did it. What we see of their relationship clearly indicates it was deteriorating before "the mudblood incident." But Lily wasn't straight with Severus and didn't just tell him she didn't want to be friends any more. Instead, she waited for him to screw up so she'd have an excuse to break it off and blame it on him, knowing that his social awkwardness and the pressure he was under would cause him to do something wrong sooner or later. Then she laid a (life-long) guilt trip on him on top of that, acting like it was all his fault, and the insult was the only reason she was ending it.

That's not brave Gryffindor behavior. Severus was right. She should have been in Slytherin.

Thank you so much for writing this thoughtful and intelligent post. :)

You're welcome. I'm glad you appreciated it.

[sunlit-music.livejournal.com]

I don't blame Lily for ending her friendship either. People drift apart. And you're right - Lily should have been honest with Severus about why she wanted to end their friendship. It's not like she avoided talking to him because she was afraid he might hurt her. To me it seemed like Lily had all the power in the relationship, as Severus flinched when she said,"Let me?" after Severus had said,"I won't let you-" (before SWM). He camped outside her dormitory to ask for her forgiveness, and she acts like she's never treated him badly. Severus deserved so much better than that.

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

I think it's both ridiculous and racist

I know I am not the first to say it, but I wonder if JKR ever realized how similar that word is to a terrible real-world racial slur? Maybe it doesn't come up as much in the UK?

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

I know I am not the first to say it, but I wonder if JKR ever realized how similar that word is to a terrible real-world racial slur? Maybe it doesn't come up as much in the UK?

It's something that I picked up right away, which is why I try to use "nonmagikals" instead of "muggles"...

I even brought it up in my own fanfiction, where 9 y.o. Snape accidentally uses the word "muggles" when referring to his new American acquaintances, and then is forced to try to explain what the word means. What is first taken as a silly word by the American kids is quickly recognized by an African-American girl as being little different than the "N" word...

[snapes-witch.livejournal.com]

Then there's the fact that Lily apparently had no one to stand up with her at her wedding, and Harry has no godmother. What's up with that? It sounds to me like James managed to separate her from her girl friends, perhaps actually alienated them in some manner.

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Good post!

But actually, it's worse than just Lily.

Where are ANY of the female characters' women friends? Who are Molly's kids' godmothers, or Petunia's maid of honor, or Ginny's girlfriend, or Tonks's bff? Who's Cissy's or Bella's or Minerva's confidante? Hermione's? Dolores's? Luna's? Alecto's?

Jo has female characters, but they all orbit around men: Tom, Albus, Cornelius, Harry, James.... If several orbit around the same man, they're considered friends. Or at least allies, where they are not rivals.

Luna's golden ropes illustrated that pathetically--if she bound herself in loyalty to Harry, those others bound closest to Harry might let her in, like they let her come along on the Ministry raid.

The only canon females I can think of who are friends with each other are the Human Hosepipe, Cho, vilified by Harry for her loyalty to Marietta, and those worthless girly-girls Lav-Lav and Parvati.

And, of course, briefly, Lily and Mary McDonald and those other girls at the lake, before Lily wised up and cast her lot in with the (male) Marauders. And was seen no more among the girls. No godmother, no maid of honor, no female visitors except James's elderly neighbor instructing James's ignorant bride on ancient history and Pureblood etiquette.....

There was a misogynist myth current in my youth (Jo's youth), that women were incapable of true loyalty to one another. We could form temporary alliances, but our lives were defined by our relationships to MEN, and we'd always sacrifice other women. Fighting like cats over A MAN, or in defense of OUR MAN'S interests, or of OUR MANCHILD.

Very weird to see a world in which that's all TRUE, that any woman, however bright or powerful or "spunky," can best be defined by her loyalty to a man. Just as racist ideas are ACCURATE in the Potterverse: there exists a biological superiority which justifies the possessors' mistreatment of their inferiors.

Actually, this is a phenomenon I first observed when I was 13, reading Ayn Rand: that she was writing S/F UNINTENTIONALLY. I don't mean ignorant of genre conventions, fulfilling/transgressing them without understanding--I mean that, reading Ayn Rand, her characters sometimes acted so differently to how the people I saw daily acted, I could only account for it by assuming AR was wrtiting in some AU of her own creation where human nature was different than it is in RL.

And so is Jo.

In RL, women have friends. At least, in my experience we do.

Okay, we can cut Hermione some slack: if Forugh Farrokzhad could write "I'm as much alone as a schoolgirl crazy about geometry" and expect that image to resonate, we can accept that an overly-intellectual schoolgirl at Hogwarts (surely more benighted than mid-20th-century Tehran) might feel isolated. And after all, Hogwarts is a MUCH smaller school than any I ever attended. Maybe there actually weren't any kindred spirits among ANY of the girls. Or rather, given the structure of Hogwarts, among any of the Gryffindor girls. You whittle a group down to 3-4, and yes, you might achieve isolation.

But the other characters? No excuse. There should have been some scene, somewhere, of Harry barging in on a tea-party at the Burrow of alarming veterans of the Maternal Wars, or of Minerva conferring with Pomona or conspiring with Amelia, or of Tonks telling Ginny and Hermione about Girls' Night Out with the younger members of the DMLE....

Where are Petunia's loathsome cronies, her spiritual sisters, those narrow-minded, cold-hearted, irredeemably shallow bitches who put irrelevant markers of status and respectability before considerations of decency, kindness, and indeed self-preservation? (I'm imagining, here, the Landscaping Covenants Committee of Little Whinging's Garden Estates Properties. Chastising the Death Eaters for defacing property.)

I want them!

Nah. What's going on instead was, Jo was writing some weird AU universe in which true commonality between women simply doesn't occur. That sixties fantasy lampooned (among other places) in Russ's The Female Man.

But... here's the true question, finally--why on earth did Jo want to? Of all the weird, unaccountable, bizarre twists to bend the Potterverse Diagonally away from the real one, why pick THAT?

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

The simplest explanation is that she truly believes that's how the world is. If she doesn't have any true female friends, only strategic 'alliances' like she learned growing up, why should she believe other women when they say their relationships are different? The same goes for the racist sentiments.

Although, there is a more disturbing options if we assume that she subconsciously wishes these things were true, even though she consciously denies them in interviews and the like. The world certainly would be much simpler and less stressful if you could tell at a glance who was good or bad or stupid or cruel....

[sunnyskywalker]

You whittle a group down to 3-4, and yes, you might achieve isolation.

Okay, I have to chime in as someone who actually attended a small high school. My graduating class was the largest to date at 39 kids - ie, almost exactly the same size as Harry's class - and the class before mine had 22.

You know what happens when there are 40 kids in your year? You make friends in other years, that's what. At minimum, with the kids one class ahead and one class behind. Especially since given the way school cutoff dates work, the kids one year ahead or behind you might actually have been born just a few months (or one month) apart from you. There really isn't that much of a gap. Hell, I was two years younger than most of the students in my year, and they didn't even know unless I told them. Also, wasn't exactly uncommon for, say, seniors and sophomores to hang out sometimes either. Occasionally even seniors and freshmen, though that was less common. My school also would almost certainly have had inter-house friendships, had we had houses, given that we never had rigidly defined groups of, say, jocks, nerds, and theater kids - plenty of students legitimately fell into all categories simultaneously (plus were on the newspaper and student council), and even those who didn't were still friends with people in the other groups.

So to me, "there's only like four Gryffindor girls in her year!" is an unbelievable reasons for someone not to have friends. Especially since Hermione is one of the oldest in her year and so ought to be closer in maturity to the second years when she starts. She could easily have been friends with Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff girls in her year, or girls from those houses one to two years ahead of her, in a realistic small school - if there weren't other factors involved. That would have been a good place for JKR to introduce the idea that Hermione really was excluded from some things for being Muggleborn, for instance. Or that her personality really is that off-putting.

I was also one of the most introverted and unobservant people around, and I still knew who all the kids in the other years were, and I didn't even live with them! I find it utterly baffling that Harry has no clue who most kids one year off from him are when they live in the same dorm and share a common room. How has he never noticed Cormac McClaggen for six years?

Maybe this is unusual, and there are small schools out there with rigid social barriers between students of different years and interest groups. I just find it hard to fathom.

[sunnyskywalker]

Oh, and yes, it is bizarre that none of those characters are ever so much as mentioned having girlfriends in an aside. That Landscaping Covenants Committee of Little Whinging's Garden Estates Properties, or something like it, seems so likely that it's utterly bizarre it doesn't exist. And it would fit right in! "Harry had to do more chores than ever that day, because Aunt Petunia was going to her equally horse-faced friend Mathilda's house for tea, and she would not be able to scrub the kitchen herself..." Or perhaps Petunia is so warped by her fear of accidentally revealing Harry's freakishness that she has deliberately isolated herself? But that still wouldn't explain why Molly never mentions friends, or Harry never comes across McGonagall discussing Quidditch scores with Sinistra.

[maidofkent.livejournal.com]

While agreeing in general, I have to point out in Petunia's defence that she does apparently have a friend called Yvonne. Yvonne is on holiday in Majorca when Mrs Figg breaks her leg, meaning that she can't mind Harry and he has to accompany the Dursleys to the zoo.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Molly makes one explicit mention of some unnamed friends in HBP, when she says none of her friends has a clock like hers, so she doesn't know if her clock showing the entire family being in 'mortal danger' is something specific to them (presumably because of their involvement with the Order and Harry) or general to the wizarding population. She also mentions that 'everyone' was eloping around the time she and Arthur did - this may have been a reference to some friends of theirs - whether hers or Arthur's we do not know.

Petunia's most common interaction with her neighbors seems to be that of constant one-upmanship - she has to spy on them to know where she stands relative to them, and she has to let them know how well she is doing (recall loud admiration of the company car that Vernon got to use).

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

I agree with annoni_no, Jo's HP universe is the universe Jo herself -- or at least her psyche -- inhabits in RL.

No close female friends, no close biological sisters, except for the 2-dimensional almost cartoonish Parvatis and the dysfunctional Blacks.

But in Jo's HP universe we are not only faced with the question regarding the absence of close friendships amongst contemporaries of the "Marauder Era", but also the question of why, by Harry's era, there is a decidedly strange lack of any large extended families spanning generations. For a population where living to over 100 years of age is not unusual, why are there no grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, great-aunts and uncles, etc.?

What happened to Harry's grandparents, both Evans and Potters? Ditto Molly and Arthur Weasley's parents. The only grandmother we see mentioned is Neville's, leaving open the question of what happened to his other 3 grandparents.

So what we end up with is a singularly disjointed society that Jo presents to us, one that seems to have had it's moorings cut from it's immediate past.


This is the moral equivalent of having your friends hold somebody while you punch them, or shoving over someone in a wheelchair, then laughing when they can’t get up.

Bizarrely, the above statement exactly applies to the current Republican candidate for the presidency of the United States! :-P

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

Is he the one doing the bullying or being bullied?

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

“No close female friends, no close biological sisters, except for the 2-dimensional almost cartoonish Parvatis and the dysfunctional Blacks.

But in Jo's HP universe we are not only faced with the question regarding the absence of close friendships amongst contemporaries of the "Marauder Era", but also the question of why, by Harry's era, there is a decidedly strange lack of any large extended families spanning generations. For a population where living to over 100 years of age is not unusual, why are there no grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, great-aunts and uncles, etc.?”

I think this might be largely due to the fact that JKR seems to have been much more interested in telling her story than she was in making a consistent and believable world. So, for example, the grandparents etc. of Harry and his friends weren’t really relevant for the story she wanted to tell, so she didn’t bother to write any. Similarly, in Harry’s parents’ generation, the only relevant characters were the Marauders, Lilly, and Severus, so they’re the only characters she really writes about, and their other friends don’t get more than a brief mention. The plot only requires a small number of teachers, so Hogwarts has a small number of teachers, even though they wouldn't in reality have enough time to teach a school as large as Hogwarts is supposed to be. And so on.

[oryx_leucoryx]

I replied elsewhere in this thread about what canon says about Molly's social life.

Hermione and Ginny (yes, connected via Ron and Harry) sometimes appear to have some kind of friendship - especially in parts of GOF (when Ginny was still in v1.0). Maybe Ginny's (v2.0) revelation (in HBP) of Hermione's snogging with Viktor really did hurt Hermione's feelings and caused that friendship to freeze over.

As to why Rowling does this - a combination of several things: Rowling appears to be a 'chill girl' - she displays much of the internalized misogyny that characterizes this type. At the very least, she finds anything to do with girls and women unappealing so she just keeps one female character of each type and keeps interactions between them to the minimum required by the plot. Rowling writes from the POV of a boy who is late to develop an interest in the opposite sex - and doesn't do much world building beyond what he needs to know for the purpose of the plot. And despite the impression she gave in the early books, Rowling hardly knows what goes on in her world when Harry isn't looking.

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

Wow, good call. I'm kind of amazed that I never noticed this before.