FAT and looks

[dfrankis at dial.pipex.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 20450

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Amy Z" <aiz24 at h...> wrote:
> One of the saddest lines in all of the books is "and he would be 
> spending his birthday pretending not to exist," CS 1.  Maybe it's 
one 
> reason I stuck with CS despite the looksism-related irritations of 
> that first chapter. 
> 
> Amy Z

Looksism - lovely word!  I feel that that comes in other ways, 
particularly with the Slytherins such as Millicent Bulstrode as well 
as Crabbe and Goyle.  It's odd when some of the adult characters are 
more carefully described - Narcissa Malfoy is good-looking, Hagrid 
superficially scary, Karkaroff smiles with the mouth only, and so 
forth.

I've kept out of the debate largely because I'm not sure how much 
Dudley's fatness actually affects real children's perceptions of 
themselves and others, but I don't like it when, say, the way 
Millicent's looks are described somehow implies her character is bad.

David,

still thin except where he's not