The Female Students (and other female charcters)

[ftah3]

No: HPFGUIDX 33391

> > Cindy (thinking the pressure is on to have Mrs. Figg be even 
better
> > than Lupin, Black and Moody put together)

I suspect that Mrs. Figg is either extremely powerful or nothing much 
at all.  This is due to the fact that she seems to have been set 
around the corner from Privet Drive to watch over Harry until he went 
off to Hogwarts, and my thought is that either Dumbledore had learned 
from the past mistake of assuming that a hiding/protective spell was 
infallible (cf the Potter's secret keeper not keeping the secret) and 
took the precaution of stationing a very powerful witch nearby just 
in case ~ or Dumbledore felt that the threat to Harry was minimal, 
but that a watcher would be handy, and stationed someone who was 
available, but not necessarily powerful.

I'm leaning toward the former, because I think Dumbledore *would* 
have been cautious after the Potters' deaths, and also because Mrs. 
Figg garnered much mention and much suspiciously underwhelming 
characterization that now that she's due to return, unmasked as one 
of Dumbledore's inner circle, I just expect great things from her. 

Elizabeth Dalton:
> Hopefully we'll see McGonnagal get sent on a secret mission, too, 
or otherwise
> do something amazing and impressive. 

I love McGonnagal, and I think she is awfully discounted by readers.  
I suppose that, like Molly Weasley, Prof. M seems terribly unexciting 
by the fact that she 'keeps the home fires burning' in terms of 
Hogwarts.  But the fact is that she continually takes on great 
responsibility, and as the apparent second in command at Hogwarts is 
yet three times as accessible an authority figure as Dumbledore.  I 
mean, what does Dumbledore *do*?  Other than head up banquets, and 
possibly do administrative things behind closed doors.  He's great, 
according to all of his fans, but so far his greatness has only been 
expressed by timeliness and the occasional wise word (granting that 
great things are implied for him in future books per the end of 
GoF).  

McGonnagal is at least as impressive and Dumbledore, but far more 
busy.  She actually teaches, actively watches over her house, is a 
participative fan of her house Quidditch team, interacts as an 
authority figure quite a bit with students outside of just teaching, 
mentors Hermione, teaches a difficult subject as well as uses her 
power in that arena, is virtually inflappable (though when she *is* 
shaken, she's able to overcome and act quickly, reliably & 
effectively), and she's the one to whom Dumbledore entrusts the 
running of Hogwarts when he's deposed from the Headmaster position.

Dude.  She rocks!

Elizabeth still:
> I will agree with Christi that Molly Weasley is a good strong 
female character.
> I'd kind of like to find out she has an interesting past-- it would 
be cool if
> she's a retired Auror. (Not likely, but cool.) 

Molly Weasley is a fabulous character, and doesn't need some 
spectacular secret to make her significant.  Imho, she's *the* 
counterpoint to Lucius Malfoy.  Sure, the active bad blood exists 
between the Messrs Weasley and Malfoy, but in every other way ~ 
symbolically/metaphorically, literally, and in sum total 
characterization, the Yin & Yang is Lucius & Molly.

Lucius and Molly embody the Nurture aspect in the books.  Thanks to 
the elder Potters' deaths and the fact that the Dursleys are less 
parent-figures than really lousy zoo keepers, there is a huge vacuum 
in the HP books where the "Home Base" should be.  "Home Base" equals 
family ~ the place where some form of nurturing and moral structure 
begins, and where close familial ties exist.  (This doesn't always 
occur in RL, but it's an archetype, something that the hero comes 
from or searches for, in many stories.)  In HP, Harry has absolutely 
no point of reference when it comes to Home Base.  He comes to feel 
that Hogwarts is "home," but imho that is more in the sense of a 
place of refuge.  Rather, he discovers that point of reference in 
dual form: the relationship between Lucius and Draco, and the 
relationship between Molly and her children.  As spiffy as Arthur 
Weasley is, he's not the parental force in that family ~ Molly is.  

As far as the Yin/Yang: Lucius represents, somewhat obviously, the 
Bad Parent.  He teaches his son prejudice, arrogance, misaligned 
priorities, dependence, and misuse of power.  Countering this, Molly 
Weasley teaches her children about caring, diligence, respectfulness, 
teamwork, humanity, responsibility.  And while we don't see her use 
her powers to do much more than housework, she is written as a force 
to be reckoned with ~ not because she relies on flash or power or 
some superspecialsecret past, but because she has a strong character, 
strong will, and a strong moral foundation.  She's also generally 
level-headed and right-minded compared to Lucius's rash and hateful 
nature, and quite frankly, based on character alone, I would put odds 
on Molly Weasely in a wizard's duel between them.  

> Susanna/pigwidgeon37 remarked:
> 
> > Frankly, I'd rather prefer a complete absence of strong women to 
an 
> > unspoken, yet inherent equation "strong women = bad women".

Ditto that.

Elizabeth:
>It's a good opportunity for Rowling to pull out of the current rut, 
if
> she manages to make Lily's past overshadow James' by the end of the 
series.

and then judyserenity 
> >But, it still adds up to a pattern of very weak 
> > female characters.  JKR's quite creative, she could have fixed 
this 
> > problem if she wanted to. 

You know, *this* bothers me as much as the former statement in 
regards strong women=men.  A rut of weak female characters to me 
would be a smattering of simpering fluttering girlie girls which was 
only broken by a single Evil Woman.  I see none of that in HP, and am 
not at all concerned that neither Harry's nor Lord Voldemort's boat 
has so far been rocked by some scene-stealing Joan of Arc.

And I actually hate these arguments.  They are no-win kinds of 
arguments.  On one hand JKR has no strong female characters; on the 
other hand her strong female characters might as well have been men.  
And if she had crafted an upstart female to rival the main males, who 
is both strong and lovely, the character would no doubt be 
deemed "the token strong female" or criticized for having to be 
beautiful to be important (unlike, say, McGonnagal and Hermione, who 
are important without being beautiful) and once again, shame on JKR.

Eh.

> Debbie (elfundeb) adds:
> 
> > I would add that in my view JKR's treatment of women (and 
minorities, 
> > for that matter) doesn't square well with statements she has made 
> > that prejudice is a major theme of the books.  After paying lip 
> > service to the lack of traditional prejudice in the wizarding 
world 
> > by peppering the sidelines with female professors and Quidditch 
> > players and making sure we're aware that the Hogwarts population 
has 
> > a reasonable percentage of minorities...
Elizabeth: 
> And at that, Dean Thomas being Black was added by Scholastic for 
the American
> edition!

Piffle.  Who, exactly, is at fault, here?  We can assume that Parvati 
and Padma Patil are of Middle Eastern/Indian extraction by their 
names, but what's to stop any of us from assuming that some other 
characters are black, or Jewish, any other defined ethnic group?  
Should JKR call such things out, or force in a whole lot of pointed 
ethnicity just to be politically correct, or is she allowed to write 
a book based on her own life experiences containing characters based 
on people she knew without having to worry about whether or not she's 
satisfying some sort of "minority quota" in terms of the human 
characters?

Some will say yes to that, I'm sure.  But I fully intend to not see 
sins of omission where they do not exist, current politically correct 
atmosphere notwithstanding.  Especially because the books *are* rife 
with the theme of rampant prejudice in terms of muggle/magical/squib 
as well as human/non-human, and even wealthy/poor.  

Elizabeth:
> I won't comment on Michael Goodman's remarks, except to say: you'll 
either get
> used to this kind of discussion or leave, because whatever you may 
have thought
> you'd be getting into on a group like this, this is the kind of 
thing we talk
> about a lot here. (Not exclusively, but a lot.)

Harsh.  Unless I missed a post by this guy (which is possible, since 
I only read the posts on the web, and if he deleted a post I won't 
have seen it), his single post says he finds the argument absurd, and 
then gives his interpretation of the text to support his own 
perspective, all in the spirit of commenting on a discussion.  And so 
he oughta get used to 'it' or leave?  Then what of myself, who also 
thinks that this topic and others are absurd, but still enjoys 
joining in anyway?

Mahoney