Feeling guilty about being disinterested in or disliking Rowling's female characters

[torchedsong.livejournal.com]

The title is self-explanatory. After rereading HP, I realized how let down I was about the dearth of interesting and/or likable female characters. As someone who has a long list of favorite female characters from various books, movies, TV shows, and video games, the women in the Harry Potter books leave me cold or bored.

Now, granted, the male characters aren’t spectacular either. Harry is passive, Ron is average, Draco is a waste, Snape is a mess, Dumbledore is also a mess, Voldemort is a standard villain, and plenty of other male characters are either boring or obnoxious.

And yet, as disappointing as some of the guys are, I can still find something about them interesting or engaging. I can see their potential or humanity, no matter how static, simplistic, or irritating their characterization is (well, maybe with the exception of James; I can’t stand him no matter how hard I try - and I’ve tried.)

Maybe I’m being sexist and judging the women too harshly. Maybe I’m not giving Rowling enough acclaim for trying to write a variety of female characters in a story revolving around a young boy. Maybe I’m excusing the poor characterization and lack of depth in the male characters when they’re far from complex either.

Whatever the reason is - it is what it is. Even as a young girl who enjoyed the books, I only gravitated towards Hermione and Luna. McGonagall was the sole female authority figure I found respectable. The rest?

Umbridge and Bellatrix are stereotypical images of evil. Narcissa is all about her son. Lavender and her friends are silly girly girls. Pansy is a mean girl. Millicent is an ugly mean girl. Fleur is French and beautiful. Katie and the other Quidditch gals are just there. Tonks is bubbly until she falls for Lupin. Cho is the first love interest. Molly is Harry’s overbearing surrogate mother. Petunia is Lily’s awful sister. Rita is the “pushy” career woman. Trelawney is an oddball. Sprout might as well be nonexistent. Merope is the birther of Evil Incarnate.

And then there’s the two female characters that I dislike the most: Ginny and Lily. They’re depicted as wonderful young women we’re meant to admire and adore. And yet, I’d take rude Pansy and crazy Bellatrix over them any day. Even Harry, who is portrayed as “amazing” at times, is given some flaws and criticisms within the narrative. Not everyone adores Harry and he’s called out by other characters (including his friends) for his behavior. But Ginny and Lily are overwhelmingly worshiped to the point where I can feel Rowling hitting me over the head on how I must approve of their superiority awesome personalities.

Writing this post is not doing any favors for the feminist in me. Strange thing is, from what I’ve read, JKR considers herself a feminist. But her female characters are not compelling or well written enough. Her male characters fall flat as well, but at least with the boys and men, it seems like she tried to give them depth. With the exception of Hermione, I get the sense that JKR didn’t bother to go any deeper with the girls and women. (And it’s telling how Hermione is an Author Avatar and the female character JKR put the most effort into.)

Well, this bitter rambling post has gone long enough, so I’ll end it here. Am I being too harsh and unfair or is there something off about the way JKR writes women? Or is it no different than the way she writes men? I know this topic is far from new, but I'm forevermore late to the party.

Comments

[chantaldormand]

I'll say this: never let anybody guilt trip you for not liking a character who happens to be woman/black/gay/etc. A character has to be able to stand on it's own, no matter if we are speaking about a Cosmic Pink Teapot or representative of minority. If character ends up being flat or Marry Sue or plainly uninteresting then it's fault of author and/or editor.

As for what is wrong with female characters in HPverse? Well the problem is two-folded.

We are exploring HPverse through Harry's eyes, but because JKR cannot comprehend being attracted to women, Harry ends up looking completely uninterested in them. Most girls end up being described by a trope Jo assigned them and Harry interacts with them only when plot calls for it. Men on the other hand get elaborate descriptions of their clothing or expressions.
It's no wonder that this fandom ended up being full of m/m ffs :P

The other level of the problem isn't exclusive to JKR, but rather common in story telling.
Age old problem of Marry Sue vs. Garry Stu.
A few months back I discussed this over drinks with one of my writer friends. We ended up creating this elaborated table comparing Marry Sues to Garry Stus. Our conclusion was something like this: Garry Stu is special because ofwhat they do, Marry Sue is special because of what they are. That is why it's easier to like/respect/admire a character like James Bond than let's say Bella Swan.
That being said Marry Sue is not always female and Gary Stu is not always male ;P

[t0ra-chan.livejournal.com]

You're not being unfair about the way JKR writes her female characters, she clearly doesn't practice what she preaches. She once said that the wizarding world is supposed to be equal, but when you actually look at what she wrote, it's clearly not the case. Female characters, especially feminine ones, are always treated as lesser, unless they're no-nonsense like Hermione and McGonagall or tomboys like Ginny.

When she took her break between GoF and OotP, I think the critisism of her books regarding her female character really got to her. People complained that apart from Hermione and McGonagall none of the female characters actually matter. All the important roles are filled by men: all the DA teachers, the rival, the mean teacher, the mentor, all the ministry employees including the aurors (the only female one is Bertha Jorkins and she exists and dies completely off-screen). Even with Harry's parents it's all about his dad: Harry looks like him (except the eyes), he played Quidditch like Harry, Snape's beef is with James, the Marauders were James' friends and so on. Lily was just there for her eye color and dying so Harry has a magical protection and a muggle family that could raise him.

And then OotP comes around and all of a sudden we get a whole slew of female characters, either new ones or the old ones get an upgrade. Umbridge is both a ministry employee and a DA teacher, Amelia Bones is another ministry worker, Tonks and Emily Vance are female aurors and Neville's mom Alice also gets upgraded to auror. In GoF she was just Frank Longbottom's wife and didn't even have a first name. As for the students, we get Lun, Cho gets a lot more screen time, Angelina becomes Quidditch captain and Ginny got a personality transplant. But it's clear that JKR never truly cared, because by the time HBP came out so much of this got undone. Emily Vance and Amelia Bones die inbetween books, Tonks becomes a sad sack because of love, Ginny just exists as a love interest Mary Sue, Luna's role is greatly reduced, Cho is mentioned only once, Angelina has graduated so Harry becomes captain, Snape becomes the new DA teacher, the new teacher is also another man and even Hermione is all caught up in relationship bullshit. Not a single female character does anything of importance in this book.

JKR should just admit that she has no real interest in female characters unless they are exactly like herself and that she has a lot of issues with girly girls and femininity.

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Your last question is interesting, and I"m not sure I have an answer. I am one of the people who noted that Rowling is a good observer of peoples' actions and looks, but very bad at interpreting them. This is especially true, for me, in the depiction of Severus, but it's pretty universal with her characters. The female character who bothers me the most? Molly Weasely. A younger colleague called her a harridan when we were discussing the books. She's just awful to Ron. Yet, because she's kind to Harry and always giving him food, we're supposed to see her as a generous, earth-mother type. She's not.

But is Mr. Weasely any better, as a character, than his wife? I always liked him, but he, too, is deeply flawed and also somewhat stereotyped.

I do think it's true that it's easier to visualize Rowling's male characters than her female ones. They are mostly so vague that, when Rowling says things about them, it seems to come completely out of left field. Example: She was discussing Pansy Parkinson as the type of girl who would fat-shame others. Excuse me? Pansy,in the books, didn't seem body-conscious at all. She scarcely seemed to have a body. The only description I ever remember of her is "hard-faced".

Yet, it's Pansy who broke my heart in DH. Not by giving up Harry Potter's whereabouts, but by her cry, "Where's Professor Snape?" That child knew who was protecting her. But I bet you anything Rowling wouldn't' interpret it that way.

[sunnyskywalker]

Her female characters usually lack character arcs or subplots of their own. And they usually have a lot less backstory or interesting details that you can use as a springboard for imagination. It's harder to imagine what they're like when Harry isn't in the room.

I think more often, the male characters get to exist for themselves, and the female characters react to them. It's very unbalanced.

Teachers: McGonagall... is often harsh, occasionally encouraging, and that's about it despite her page time. Umbridge is a tyrant, and then she gets kicked out, and then she shows up later but doesn't really do much. Poor Trelawney is literally a plot device--the only things she does that affect anything are things she can't remember! Other than that, she stays the same for 16 years as far as we see. Charity Burbage is a redshirt whose name we never even heard until she showed up to die. I think Sprout's big moment is growing mandrakes, and maybe giving Harry points that one time.

Compare to the massive plot relevance and emotional journeys and page time and overall detail we get for Dumbledore, Snape, Lupin, Hagrid...

For Ministry employees, compare Crouch Sr. and Amelia Bones. One of them has a rise and fall and mystery, and one shows up for a scene and then dies.

Villains (I'll leave out Voldemort): Bellatrix is fanatical and evil and then dies. Narcissa is rude but also a mom who loves her son; I guess at least she gets to do two things that affect the plot in the two books where she's anything more than a cameo, so that's something. Lucius inadvertently kick-starts CoS because Dobby hates him enough to work against him with Harry's help. Then he gains political influence, rises in Voldemort's favor, goes to prison, becomes a prisoner in his own house, and finally decides being a dad is more important than taking over the world. Barty Jr. is crucial to the plot of an entire book and interacts with Harry regularly, and you can see him go from scared teenager (who was a DE, but a scared one who nearly died) to Most Devoted Servant. Peter was a friend who betrayed Harry's dad, then hid, then resurrected Voldemort, then hesitated to kill Harry because even if he didn't get a proper resolution, he at least had inner conflict. Lockhart was pretty one-note, but then he shows up for a cameo later that adds pathos to his story.

Even in the Trio, Harry gets his whole attempt at a hero's journey, Ron fights to overcome jealousy and his feelings of inadequacy, and Hermione... well, she gets more ruthless, I guess? Er, gets a boyfriend? But she pretty much fills the same role, so you have to really work to knock her story into any kind of journey. It takes filling in a lot of gaps. That one is particularly galling, because Hermione could have had a better developed character arc with probably very little more work.