Chapter Thirty

[merrymelody]

Grawp -

This’ll be fun! Who doesn’t like Grawp?

(Am still behind a good five chapters. I’ll post them sooner or later, unless Mirabella/y’all would rather we keep moving in a more linear fashion?)

Comments

[sistermagpie]

Crabbe and Goyle are emphasised as much stupider than both their friend Draco, and Harry and Ron ((who are equally gluttonous when it comes to food, interestingly.))

Harry and Ron are just growing boys who use all those calories to become good, tall people, while C&G are big and maybe fat. Slow metabolism is a sign of inner disgrace.

The Slytherins are helping a Squib? I guess they supported Hufflepuff, there’s not much they won’t do.

You do have to wonder if this is something the author notices, since Snape and Umbridge both seem to get along with Filch. Filch may be Pureblooded, but still, the Squib question seems like an obvious angle on bigotry where the Slytherins come out better. (I'm sure if this is noticed it will change and Hermione will knit Filch something and become the only person to appreciate him.)

I guess they’re really showing Umbridge. It’ll be SUCH a burn on her when they all fail their DADA exams. Surprise that Umbridge suddenly forgets what she used to be so good at and let's the kids get away with it. If

[merrymelody]

Harry and Ron are just growing boys who use all those calories to become good, tall people, while C&G are big and maybe fat. Slow metabolism is a sign of inner disgrace.

I think one of my all time favourite parts of the books is that bit in CoS where they 'greedily' eat four desserts, compared to Harry and Ron's moderate three. Those pigs!
It serves them right that their food was drugged, I guess. (Maybe that's why Dudley's lost weight from GoF? I imagine you'd be looking at a phobia of food in a real person...)

The Squib question seems like an obvious angle on bigotry where the Slytherins come out better.

Yes, perhaps to them it doesn't matter so much about your magical skills as it does your blood, and vice versa in Gryffindor.
(I found it interesting that Ron views himself as better than Filch after finding out, which I guess kind of backs that up.)
Not that the Slytherins are likely to be all 'We love you just the way you are!' but obviously if being untalented was considered awful, a lot of them would be shunned.

(I'm sure

[dphearson]

I think one of my all time favourite parts of the books is that bit in CoS where they 'greedily' eat four desserts, compared to Harry and Ron's moderate three. Those pigs!
It serves them right that their food was drugged, I guess. (Maybe that's why Dudley's lost weight from GoF? I imagine you'd be looking at a phobia of food in a real person...)

I love the series, but one of the things that make me very uneasy is all the body judgements and size judgements. Iknow kids do that sort of thing, but there is something very ugly in how Harry takes such glee in his descriptions of plumpness or fatness, while his own eating habits are not examined, except to say whether he got as much as he wants. But other kids getting as much as they want to eat? Then they are fat, spoiled children.

[merrymelody]

Yes, it's something I'm not comfortable with.
It seems that quite a few negatively portrayed characters are introduced as being plump and ugly before displaying their personalities (Dudley, Crabbe, Goyle, Umbridge) as if they're just living down to their looks or something. (Of course, this could also apply to Veelas, who conceal their 'true' characters/looks. That's getting into a gender issue as well, though...)
And adding to that, you have the tendency for fat/ugly people to either turn out evil or else just remain fairly inept; and the delight the narrative takes in describing the lengths of their hideousness (Dudley basically being a walking, talking 'Your momma's so fat' joke) as if this is somehow indicative of their moral worth (which is somewhat of a double-standard, considering the Slytherins are quite often referred to as shallow because of their preoccupation with appearances, and at least twice are criticised for mocking people's weight - Molly and Neville's, iirc.)

[sistermagpie]

And yet strangely, the Slytherins are described as practically the ugliest students in the school--and it doesn't always seem like Harry's bias at work there. Malfoy's attractiveness is squabbled over in fandom, but I'd say he exists at least somewhat on the level of the Trio--he's got flaws (pale and pointed) but not much more than somebody like Ron or Hermione. With the other Slytherins, though, it's hard to not notice that Crabbe, Goyle, Millicent and Montague all seem described as ape-like with a Neanderthal quality, and Snape is greasy and sallow with that jerky awkwardness while Gryffindor gets MWPP, two of whom have some reason to believe their God's gift to women, and Lily who is pretty. Peter's pudgy but, well, we all know how he turned out.

[merrymelody]

I guess that should have been MWPP's first clue as to his real nature... ;)

[mariagoner]

Hah! I wonder if JKR knows that she's repeatedly slamming quite a large percentage of her adult fan population with her fat = EEEEVIL! propoganda. (Myself included! I'm not exactly svelted at 140 pounds and 5' 4", damn it!)

[dphearson]

Sometimes I wonder if there is a change in teh books in other countries, like in West african countries, where healthy chubbiness is prized in youth as an indicator of wealth.

And yes, there is a double satndard- but then, most of the characters are hypocrites, so there we have it :(

[merrymelody]

If you cut out all the double-standards and hypocritical characters, the series would be about eight pages long! ;)