Fred and George: The Bullies You Do Know

[jferer]

No: HPFGUIDX 43212

Cindy:"I think the twins are Bullies, and I think their flaws give 
them depth..."
"Why claim that some flaws are unimportant and some harm the character 
causes is to be dismissed because the character is supposed to be a 
flat "Toonish" cariacature? I guess the most that can be said is that 
some readers look for and appreciate richness and depth in characters, 
even if the depth comes from character flaws, and some readers are 
uncomfortable with that."

JKR is a genius at giving us characters who are not plaster saints, 
characters who are complex; and I appreciate them very much. That 
doesn't alter the fact Fred and George aren't bullies. 

Have you ever met a real bully? someone who is 'A person who is 
habitually cruel or overbearing, especially to smaller or weaker 
people?' The kind that beat kids for their lunch money, steal their 
clothes off their backs, and stick smaller kids' heads into unflushed 
toilets? 

Fred and George are not cruel. If you mean to cite the Canary Creams 
incident with Neville, it was not cruel, since it didn't hurt Neville 
and wasn't meant to. And it wasn't overbearing, especially since 
everybody there knew the twins were up to something.

The Ton Tongue Toffee incident wasn't that, either.  The twins were 
instruments of their own kind of justice against a true bully. 
Comparing the twins to Dudley, a stone Bully, shows better than 
anything how they are not what Dudley is.

What the twins are is Tough. They play Beater. They walk (literally) 
on Bullies they just zapped (for good reason, IMHO), and are willing 
to stand up to a government Minister. They act the same towards 
everyone, not just those weaker than themselves. They are not sadistic 
or cruel, however.  They must have gotten a gene from some ancestor 
who lived in Brooklyn.

If you think that's a flaw, then it is, but it's a flaw that will 
serve the twins well in later life, especially as maturity and 
judgement temper their impulses.