![[icon]](http://www.journalfen.net/userpic/67365/9138) |
The HMS STFU - Petunia had it right: this is a world which steals children and never gives them back
|
| OH MY GOD WHY DO THEY NEVER SHUT UP ABOUT JKR AND FANTASY
Isn't this like the second or third time some smartypants off Snapedom has insisted that JK Rowling must be pigeonholed because it's just not possible to genuinely enjoy her writing as it is?
And oh look, once again the Dursleys are "vindicated", and for the lulz she actually refers to her fan fiction involving Petunia's neuroses about the magical world as though it were canon.
I shall now commence to karate headdesk.
*THUD* | | (Reply to this) (Thread) |
| Petunia had it right: this is a world which steals children and never gives them back.
Are you fucking serious?
So now JKR created her story just to make muggles suffer? I... erh... uhm... I have no words for this. | | (Reply to this) (Thread) |
| If Petunia had some of the logic of 'I love you, Harry, and am doing this for your own good' when she was being horrible to him, that could make some argument that Petunia was honestly concerned about the wizarding world stealing Harry like it carried Lily away -- but wouldn't say anything directly because grown-ups that talk about wizards are crazy. Or, heck, a sort of apathetic neglect would also work, as if the Dursleys thought that one day they'd wake up and Harry would be carried off by the fairies that left him on the doorstep in the first place, so there was no sense in putting much effort or emotion into him.
But, the feeling we get from Harry's POV is that while Petunia might have suspected* that being horrible to Harry would either get him taken away from her or would drive the magic out, that it wasn't out of concern for Harry that she did such things, but for not wanting wizards to be involved in her own life.
* Or at least Harry suspected that Petunia suspected that keeping him downtrodden and punishing him for any weirdness would prevent his magic from emerging. | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| Oh, for goodness sake. The Secret Garden? I fail to see how that was a fantasy, or how the garden was in any way and "Otherworld".
A spoiled little brat of a girl, who is sad and grumpy as hell because her parents are dead, gets sent to a distant (equally grumpy) Uncle in England. She THINKS she hears ghosts, comes across her equally spoiled (and grumpy) disabled cousin. They have a tantrum competition and become friends. She takes him into a garden, they tend the garden, while meeting a nice little farmer boy (or child of servant? can't remember), make the garden pretty again and disabled boy learns to walk. Grumpy father of disabled boy see's it, can't believe it and they all live happily ever after. Lovely story, but not fantasy at all. Also, the 1949 version of the movie was brilliant - not that it has anything to do with anything, but GEORGE ROPER!! Heeeee.
Hermione did NOT exile her parents to Australia for the fun of it. She was trying to save their lives and fully intended to go back and get them, when it was all over. Frankly, I think it was a bit of an arbitrary decision on her part, and if I was her parents I'd be pretty pissed at her when it was all over ... but I can understand her way of thinking. Also, the books were from Harry's POV - for all we know she DID discuss it with her parents before hand and they agreed.
Seamus Finnigan. He's a half-blood too - it doesn't say much about his father, but there are also bugger all mentions of his entire family.
Dean Thomas. His entire family are muggles. Mother, sisters, stepfather - yet they were still worried about him during DH and would welcome any word of him from anyone. Clearly, they were in touch with the wizarding world about this.
Petunia has only herself to blame, really. SHE was the one who decided that they were all freaks and was deliberately hurtful when Lily was about to get onto the Hogwarts express. I doubt she would have be any nicer when Lily came home from the holidays. Their parents, on the other hand, seemed perfectly fine about it. Using the vase as an example is just silly - we know what her "presents" were like, from what they have Harry, so it not too much of a stretch to think that she just sent the ugliest thing possible (maybe even a re-gift because she didn't like it herself). I fail to see how Lily being happy it broke indicates that the wizarding world takes kids away and never gives them back.
Also, in times of war some people just aren't going to come back.
Does terri_testing (testing my patience *rme*) really believe that every single muggle born or half blood in all of Hogwarts abandoned their families? Also, we don't see Weasley grandparents in the epiloge either ... what does that mean? | | (Reply to this) (Thread) |
| | Her beliefs about Snape were Jossed all to hell, now she's trying to convince herself that she hates the whole damn thing. | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| (Anonymous) | | Link: | (Link) | | Time: | 2009-09-14 03:31 am (UTC) |
|
| Did... did she just compare Hogwarts to a school where they brainwashed Native American children in order to "kill the Indian, not the man"? You know, where the teachers tried to get rid of all connection to their previous culture in horrible and disturbing ways? It's not the like the wizarding children were banned from mentioning their Muggle families; there's certainly proof that Dean Thomas and the Creevey's talked about their home lives.
There's nothing really I can say to that. If I tried, I would start ranting incoherently, and that's bad. You know, if I don't like a fandom, I leave it. Why can these people not do that?
--CallMeBeat | | (Reply to this) (Thread) |
| Ironically, the closest Hogwarts DID get was under the regime of Pius Thicknesse when Snape was installed as Headmaster. And you can bet the Ministry reversed all that as soon as Shacklebolt got in.
| | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| Add this to my list of why Snapefen have no understanding of racism. And speaking as an ethnic minority in my own country who has experienced some level of racism, I'm bit baffled by terri_testing that she would try making this kind of connection and not be bothered by the Deatheater's idealogy and how they behaved.
Then again, maybe the love for Snape really is that powerful. O_O | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| | We all imagined Dean's football posters. That or they were wizarding football posters, and we imagined the wizarding kids boggling at how the players were stationary. | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| Another poster on Snapedom also said this:
As FictionAlley is down I couldn't access the story, but knowing the WW, it sems unlikely that school authorities would permit Muggleborn children to stay away from Hogwarts for any reason. There must be normal, decent parents who just don't want their child to go some place called "the warts of the hog" and learn parlor tricks instead of an actual education, and I'm sure the policies for dealing with them would involve Confundus and Memory Charms rather than leaving them alone. The wizarding attitude is that a magical child belongs with his own kind, not with his inferior Muggle parents -- a close parallel to the authorities who used to take Native children away from their own culture "for their own good". I can't see wizards giving a damn if the child would have been the next Stephen Hawking, or conversely, understanding what a learning disability is and how it might hamper someone at Hogwarts. The concept of learning disabilities, or special needs children, requires a grasp of basic psychology and neuroscience that wizards simply don't have. Nor would they ever concede that Muggles might know something they don't. Unless the child was obviously developmentally disabled, they'd insist on taking him and throwing him in off the deep end. | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| (Anonymous) | | Link: | (Link) | | Time: | 2009-09-14 05:18 am (UTC) |
|
| I dunno, I actually see some of her points.
_The Secret Garden_ does feature an Otherworld of fantasy, but only in the heads of the main characters. They see the changes in their lives through the lens of magical thinking, while at the same time their shared imaginary world, bounded by the real secret garden, gives them a safe, hidden place in which to grow for real.
I've read most of the stories in the list, actually, and the comparison of different types of Otherworld is accurate AFAICT, except for Narnia and Rowling. OTOH, I have read some pretty good fics treating the Wizarding world as the OP described. One about the Astronomy professor as a young woman, slowly realizing that the education she received at Hogwarts has effectively removed her ability to go on to Muggle university because there's a seven-year gap in her transcript, for example.
The thing that strikes me about the Wizarding world is that nobody raised in it seems to understand how tiny it is compared to Muggledom. The attitude of some of the nicest Wizards and Witches toward Muggles is equal parts ignorance and condescension and I think an accurate Muggle studies class, starting with the population of (say) London, would be upsetting to many students. And I wonder how many of them would even believe that Muggles have walked on the Moon. Or that it's possible to make a long-distance call without getting a crick in your back or smoke in your eyes.
BUT--I still don't think that Rowling was writing horror(?!). For some people, the Wizarding world is a dead end; for others, a cozy little nest of preconceptions; for still others, a tragedy; and for some, like Harry, it's the opening of a whole new life. Because the HP series is a school story, so it's about growing up, good and bad. | | (Reply to this) (Thread) |
| (Anonymous) | | Link: | (Link) | | Time: | 2009-09-14 05:20 am (UTC) |
|
| Rrrrrrrgh. I need to learn to sign these first and put the text in later, THEN post. Above was me.
Jenny Islander | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| (Anonymous) | | Link: | (Link) | | Time: | 2009-09-14 06:24 am (UTC) |
|
| I sort of thought one of the main points in the Harry Potter series is that the muggle and wizarding worlds exist WITHIN THE SAME WORLD. Which is why it was so horrible that people like Voldemort would want to erradicate the people of the one world in favor of the other. Wizards can't choose to be a part of the wizarding world any more than muggles choose to be part of the muggle world. If you are a wizard, the moment you find out, your perspective shifts to encompass this new layer of the world in which you already live. You don't go back and forth between your worlds, but rather live in a single world with coexisting...peoples. Am I making any sense? At all?
-Katy | | (Reply to this) (Thread) |
| oryx_leucoryx
So if Severus Snape actually survived Nagini's bite, returned to the Muggle world and became some kind of counselor to delinquent youth or someone who runs an anti-bullying program (by working both with victims and perpetrators) he would be a hero with a rather protracted but complete journey? Starting out as the victim of neighborhood bullies (I doubt Petunia was the only one who knew that the strangely dressed kid was the Snape boy from Spinner's End) who must have dreamed that magic would solve his problems, learned that magic simply gave bullies more dangerous/'interesting' ways to hurt people, played a key role in getting rid of the biggest bully in the magical playground and came home to use non-magical ways against bullies?
jenny_islander
You know, I don't think I've ever read a fic like that. It would be interesting. Snape has a conversion experience in his version of King's Cross Station and realizes that staying in the Wizarding world is the last thing he wants to do because he has given it more than it ever gave him. (Yes, there can be some self-pity in there. I said conversion, not sainthood.) So he starts over in Muggle London by . . . disappearing from the Shrieking Shack and becoming a John Doe in a shelter? Tying up loose ends in the Wizarding world, then telling everybody to go to Hell and using Spinner's End as a base of operations to get reacquainted with Muggledom? Maybe he revisits his issues with his parents by volunteering at a soup kitchen or something, eventually building a resume he can use in a social services job. Given his Huge Gigantic Issues with preteens and teens, I think he would probably end up working in a victims advocacy program for adults who are being stalked or something like that. And he would never invite people to his home because he would still use magic there. Muggles might know him as somebody you absolutely want on your side, but not the easiest guy to get to know. And he would probably spend his life alone.
BRB, loling forever. | | (Reply to this) (Thread) |
| (Anonymous) | | Link: | (Link) | | Time: | 2009-09-14 07:36 am (UTC) |
|
| Why? It would be a bittersweet story at best. Man turns his back on a world that screwed him over, but also gave him most of the happiness in his misspent life. Carves out a niche in another world, where he must always be something of an outsider even if nobody knows it but him. Probably never deals with his real issues; learns to stifle his seething resentment of being slighted in any way shape or form in order to get along in a normal job (or else finds another manipulative father figure for a boss--urgh), but most likely loathes and fears preteens and teenagers for the rest of his life. And almost certainly has no close friends, much less partners. Somewhere in the middle of this, though, he might do some good and find some grace.
Speaking of school stories, I do like well-written Snape-lives AUs that start with some character growth on his part, but I've never read one yet in which his Huge Gigantic Issues came roaring back when his kids hit Hogwarts age, which they would. And possibly smash his relationships with said kids and end his marriage unless he found some kind of counselor. Ficwriters more often address his other Huge Gigantic Issues about his parents. And being poor. And the PTSD, and . . . He's an interesting character, and I enjoy AUs where he finds some happiness, but he has more psyche-knots than a roomful of Gibson Girls. He also seems to be the type to stubbornly refuse to get help untangling them.
Jenny Islander | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| (Anonymous) | | Link: | (Link) | | Time: | 2009-09-14 08:51 am (UTC) |
|
| >> So if Severus Snape actually survived Nagini's bite, returned to the Muggle world and became some kind of counselor to delinquent youth or someone who runs an anti-bullying program (by working both with victims and perpetrators) he would be a hero with a rather protracted but complete journey?
Huh. I think the only thing that Severus Snape learned about bullying is that it's more fun to be on the dishing-out end than the receiving end.
~~ Fernmonkey | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| Sigh. Another Snapefen whine fest about how HP sucks because Snape is ded from snake it's not exactly like every other story ever written. | | (Reply to this) (Thread) |
| Fun fact: the magic in TSG is Christian Science and New Thought.
The stories of people staying in the Otherworld, Faerie or wherever, are generally horror stories. ... Which is one thing that makes JKR's Wizarding World so troubling--people seem to enter it for keeps.
Personally, at least half the time I *want* the characters to stay in the interesting new world. And both Neil Gaiman and Diana Wynne Jones have written stories in which main characters are no longer happy with "this" world and go back to the fantasy one: Neverwhere ends with Richard realizing that London Below is more awesome than Above, and Everard's Ride ends with Cecilia marrying into the nobility (the hot nobility) of Falleyfell. | | (Reply to this) (Thread) |
| (Anonymous) | | Link: | (Link) | | Time: | 2009-09-14 07:57 pm (UTC) |
|
| Exactly! I don't know what modern fantasy she's been reading, but the ones I've read aren't horror stories in the least. P.C. and Kristen Cast's House Of Night features the main character leaving an emotionally abusive home life to become a vampire at a school where she finds friendship and love. Both that series of books and Rochelle Meade's Vampire Academy are a lot like HP in that, yes, bad things can happen at the magic (or in these cases, vampire)school/world, but ultimately it is the best place for these gifted individuals to be. It's not that hard, really. But they can't bash JKR if they acknowledge that Hogwarts is a good place to be that makes people happy. The bitterness, you can almost taste it through the Intrawebz. Idiots.
Miss_Mercurial on LJ | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| | Okay, so the comments descend into craziness, but she makes a point - not so much about how HP 'doesn't fit', because that's a bit stupid, but about how the WW does overtake the Muggle world as soon as a child enters it, and while Muggles are ignorant of wizards because the wizards make it that way, the wizards are ignorant of Muggles, despite a constant influx of Muggleborn children, because they choose to ignore the Muggle world as much as possible. "How do airplanes stay up?", seriously. We hear about people who marry Muggles or are the product of a Muggle/magic union, but we don't ever really see anyone managing to actively live in both worlds - and they always choose the Wizarding world. | | (Reply to this) (Thread) |
| Oh god, not marion fucking ros again. She spewed another diatribe and even repeated all the noncanonical stuff that she got directly challenged on. There really is something unhealthy about that woman's psyche.
Is anyone maintaining a list of all the stuff she makes up to justify her screeds when she starts blasting at the keyboard?
So far we have:
1. Centaur rape trope
2. Hermione allegedly using Unforgivables in DH
3. Hermione allegedly "laughing" at Umbridge
4. ??? | | (Reply to this) (Thread) |
|
The HMS STFU - Petunia had it right: this is a world which steals children and never gives them back
|
|
![[info]](http://www.journalfen.net/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
