[HPforGrownups] Fat Slytherins? - Ugly Slytherins? - glasses - Pretty stereotypes

[Neil Ward]

No: HPFGUIDX 20476

Amy Z said:

<<Pippin's point about Draco is interesting.  I use a similar logic to
conclude that he's neither drop-dead gorgeous nor hideous, because I think
the narration would comment on either one.  JKR clearly doesn't fall into
the beautiful face=beautiful self trap (Lockhart, e.g.) so I don't think she
would hesitate to describe Draco as good-looking if
he were strikingly so.  After all, Harry doesn't dislike him from the very
first moment he sees him; he could observe that he's "remarkably good
looking" a la Cedric, rather than simply "pale with a pointed  face"
(paraphrase), as he does.>>

There are some great threads going on here and we have some wonderful new
members.  I just wish I had time to to do more than just lurk, or loom in my
hairnet.  :-(

***

Assuming Harry's POV, I'm fairly sure that a boy of 10 or 11 would not
describe another boy as "remarkably good looking," even inside his own head,
and is much more likely to make a cursory assessment of looks.  At that age,
children are inclined to pick out a notable characteristic -  whether that
be a pale face, a pug nose or a pair of glasses bound up with tape - and
define their friends and enemies in that way.  Hence, we get nicknames such
as 'spotty', 'speccy' or 'pigface' that are insulting, and perhaps
emotionally scarring to the recipients, but not always accurate.

Once kids hit puberty, hormones rage and the people around start to look
different and behave differently.  For a start, puberty brings the joys of
secondary sexual characteristics: acne, greasy hair (tufts of which
sprouting up in uncharted territory) and other such alluring features.
Girls start their periods and boys' voices begin to crack up amusingly.  I
doubt many of us would claim to have been at our most attractive at this age
(indeed, I have photos of myself as a lanky, oily-faced geek with bad hair
plastered to my scalp, sporting unfashionable glasses perched at an angle on
my zitty face because a boy in my class trod on them for a laugh. [Sigh]
....those were the days).

Adolescent blood, pus and grease aside (JKR hasn't really gone there, so why
should we?), this is the time where we start to notice the attractive
features of our peers.  Perhaps, at age 14, Draco's pale, pointy face has
started to morph into a handsome, fine-boned profile of alabaster
complexion, and perhaps Pansy Parkinson's pug nose has realised its
potential as a pretty, retrouss feature under eyes dancing with dappled
light.  No longer just "a Slytherin girl" and "a Slytherin boy," they are
drawn to each other by forces beyond their control... etc, etc.

Since our impressions of the other characters are, to a large extent, formed
from the impressions made on Harry before he hit puberty, I think we hold to
these stereotypes and caricatures until we are told something to alter that
view.  Personally, I doubt that the Slytherins as a group are any uglier
than the Gryffindors; it's just that the Gryffindors are on Harry's side and
the Slytherins are 'the enemy'.  It's no surprise that he applies a
different vocabulary to each.  I think the same applies to the Dursleys and
to the Hogwarts' staff.  As a child, Harry notices singular things about the
people around him, and it is only later, as a young teenager, that he starts
to see them in a more realistic light.

Neil
________________________________________

Flying Ford Anglia

"The cat's ginger fur was thick and fluffy, but it was definitely
a bit bow-legged and its face looked grumpy and oddly
squashed, as though it had run headlong into a brick wall"
["The Leaky Cauldron", PoA]

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