TV Tropes fanbrats on Bellatrix: A Parody of a Rant

[sweettalkeress]

Comments

[oryx_leucoryx]

In real life real people have real motives for what they do, whether good or bad. Even those who end up doing pure evil stuff. They end up doing their evil deeds, but they got that way somehow. Some of it may have been some congenital aspects of their personality, some of it the result of how they were cared for in their early years, some of it the result of their interactions with peers, some of it may have been the result of cultural influences - and the interaction of all these and many other factors. Somehow everything got together with the end result of a person for whom harming others horribly makes more sense than other actions

[static_pixie]

It may have been intentional. Rowling might not put it out there but Bellatrix wasn't the only person in the series to scar a word into a child's skin.

[ladyhadhafang]

That may be true. Unfortunately, she didn't really explore this possibility further, which...sucks. :/

[oryx_leucoryx]

Actually in canon (books) those are Hermione and Dolores, not Bellatrix. Bella 'just' used the Cruciatus. And Rowling chickened out of the Hermione/Dolores comparison by changing Hermione's middle name between interview and DH.

Even Obi-Wan thinks Rowling's Doing It Wrong.

[ladyhadhafang]

Yeah. Rowling, seriously -- if you didn't want the Umbridge comparisons, why'd you just change her middle name at the *last minute*?! If you wanted, by any weird chance of pigs sprouting wings, to explore the Hermione/Umbridge comparisons, at least do it properly. Go into Umbridge's backstory and why she behaves the way she does (but don't go on full on apologist for it, but don't be too unsympathetic either. Be balanced, at least), go into Hermione's backstory and character a little more, and show how they took different routes: Hermione fighting for the side of Good (in the loosest sense of the term, but that's not the point), and Umbridge, while not a Death Eater herself, ultimately choosing to assist Voldemort in his reign of terror. * And if not...well, that sucks, but your choice. Just don't retcon her middle name to "Jean" -- at least make it "Jean" from the beginning. In fact...why would Rowling be so disturbed that Umbridge and Hermione share a middle name? (I...okay, there's the mirrors part, but still

Re: Even Obi-Wan thinks Rowling's Doing It Wrong.

[sunnyskywalker]

This is were coming down on the side of "Dumbledore isn't such a good person actually and he's an enemy of the DEs" would really have helped that message she set up. Instead we get Scrimgeour being moderately questionable and then dying while protecting people/information from the DEs, which isn't much.