Comment on Dolores Umbridge was a JK Rowling Self Insert all this time.
andros_rex@lemmy.world 6 days agoDon’t forget love potions - a girl basically roofies Ron trying to get Harry. Voldemort is evil because his mom drugged his (muggle!) dad, and he left once she stopped drugging him.
Rowling is dealing with sexual trauma, as we know from her eagerness to weaponize it against trans people. But she also seems to have a morality system where anything the Good Guys do is Good, and anything the Bad Guys do is Bad. Whatever happened to Umbridge is something that was so traumatic even the sound can bring her back - that we are showing a character with signs of clear PTSD and think it’s funny to try to make them relive their trauma.
MotoAsh@lemmy.world 6 days ago
Not that JK rowling deserves the benefit of the doubt (definitely not), but teenagers and many children would definitely do such a cruel thing without understanding why it’s so cruel.
andros_rex@lemmy.world 6 days ago
Not that all stories need to have morals attached to them, but I think showing older teen protagonists who also struggle with PTSD (the threstrals serve almost as a direct “visual” metaphor) as treating the symptoms of someone who is experiencing some sort of severe psychological shock so callously. It’s the kind of thing Harry might think of doing, because what she tortured him with the pen, but you should have your good protagonist consider how that would make them worse than the bad guys, or maybe have Dumbledore or McGonagall give a speech. It’s not that Harry Potter has to be moralistic, but it does try at times?
Shouldn’t they mentally be flashing back to St Mungo’s - to see how fucked up Neville’s parents were - the way that Bellatrix jokes about it is considered fucked or I think Malfoy also does at a point.
Should Hermoine feel some form of subtle guilt, or, even just respect for a fallen foe? I guess the assumption is she’s not dead and magic medicine can make brains better.