Dumbledore,Maxime, Lupin and Snape, stereotyping, female characters

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 33505

Dumbledore and McGonagall:
I don't think there's any doubt that McGonagall is being groomed 
as Dumbledore's successor and that the teachers regard her as 
such. She does indeed take over for him when Dumble is sent 
away in CoS. After Ginny is taken, she announces to the staff that 
Hogwarts will have to be closed. The teachers accept this from 
her without question, even though it means they'll soon be out of 
their jobs. There's no murmuring, no one asking that this be 
referred to the Ministry or the Board of Governors. What 
McGonagall says, goes.

As for what Dumbledore does all day, he answers all those Owls 
from the Ministry asking for advice. He's been Fudge's kitchen 
cabinet, and a force in the International Confederation of Wizards 
too. I think he uses Hogwarts as his "bully pulpit" and 
McGonagall does most of  the day to day running of the school.

Madame Maxime:
Mme. Maxime, it's true, has been in denial about her giant side, 
but after all she never had any reason to acknowledge it before. 
She adjusts remarkably quickly, in a matter of months, once she 
sees she has something to gain by it. This is a mark of her 
maturity. We don't know when she and Hagrid made up, but I like 
to think that Hagrid's improved teaching skills are the result of 
her coaching.

Lupin and Snape:
I salute Cindy's valiant defense of the wolf. I would love to think 
that everyone at Hogwarts, including 7th years who aren't trying 
for a N.E.W.T. in Potions and the irrepressible Peeves,  is so 
solicitous of Snape's feelings that no one ever did anything like 
walk behind him and make vulture noises, or imitate his 
distinctive walk while pretending to carry an oversize handbag.  
Or come to think of it, put fingers in front of their teeth and 
pretend they were fangs. (Hmm, that would go along way toward 
explaining his  deplorable treatment of Hermione, wouldn't it)
I'm sure if they did, Snape could have forced Filch to tell him what 
was going on. 

In fact, Cindy's defense has inspired me so that I wish to 
advance a new theory: Snape really did have a Hagrid moment 
when he outed Lupin. After all, it's only Lupin's impression that 
the dirty deed was a quote accident unquote. Suppose Snape 
stalks into the Great Hall after that exhausting night, and some 
clueless Slytherin pesters him about Lupin's absence. Snape 
snarls, "I don't give a damn where the werewolf is." Only as 
shocked silence spreads across the Slytherin table and people 
turn to look at Lupin's empty chair does Snape realize what he's 
said. For all we know, he went straight to Dumbledore 
afterwards and offered his resignation, which Dumbledore 
refused to accept. After all, the damage was done. Sacking 
Snape wouldn't change anything.

More on  stereotyping:

I think that Rowling simply reflects the real world when she has 
the kids encounter women mostly in traditional professions. The 
professionals children are most likely to meet in daily life are 
those concerned  with the care of children, and those  are the 
traditionally female occupations, after all. I think it will change as 
the trio's circle of contacts grows wider.

Ramsey, my pet literary expert, says that shadowy females have 
been a feature (or defect) of the child exile story since its 
inception, back in the twelfth century or so. It doesn't sound like 
they'll be going away any time soon. :P

 According to Ramsey, the characters in child exile stories  
represent aspects of the family that the hero has lost. The 
female characters whom the hero encounters correspond to 
aspects of the missing mother. They are shadowy because 
none of them can be entirely satisfactory as replacements.  IMO, 
many of  the female characters Harry has come in contact with 
so far   function in this fashion. In fact an amazing number of HP 
females  have "M" in their names: McGonagall, Molly, Hermione, 
Myrtle, Rosmerta, Malkin, Pomfrey  and even Narcissa Malfoy. 
Rowling isn't religious about this: Sprout doesn't have an M 
name, but she does play a maternal role with the mandrakes 
(and kills them...I'd love to hear from the psychologists about 
that). As mother surrogates, good and bad, McGonagall offers 
discipline, Molly, love, Hermione, counsel, Myrtle,guilt trips, 
Rosmerta, nourishment, Malkin, clothing, Pomfrey, healing, 
Narcissa, rejection. 

So I agree, the books encourage the reader to think of women as 
mothers. That's part of the story Rowling wants to tell. In fact, she 
has said she wrote the books out of the grief she felt when her 
mother died. The fear of losing one's mother is real and powerful 
and every child understands it.  Who can forget the image of 
Harry gazing wistfully into the Mirror of Erised?

I don't see that this should be a problem for girls (or boys) 
reading the books, unless HP is all they ever read. No novelist, 
however skilled, can capture more than a few facets of human 
nature anyway. Rather than trying to police our children's dreams 
I would suggest making sure they understand the difference 
between dreams and reality. There are fascinating real-life 
women to read about. As soon as it became clear that I had a 
Hermione-sized appetite for the printed word, my parents 
stocked my room with three encyclopedias and a shelf of 
biographies for children. I read about Martha Custis, Queen 
Elizabeth I, Joan of Arc, Pocahontas, Cleopatra, Marie Curie, 
Annie Oakley, Clara Barton, Florence Nightingale, Mary Tudor, 
Marie Antoinette, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell and others. Not a 
traditionalist in the bunch except for Marie Antoinette, and look 
what happened to her! My mother didn't read romance novels or 
women's magazines, she didn't watch soaps, and she wouldn't 
take me to see any 'kids' movie she didn't think would entertain 
her. No one  had to tell me the pop lit  view of women was 
hollow. I could see  that for myself. I loved the adventures and the 
suspense, and those wonderful sexy guys in the stories, but I 
couldn't understand how Scarlett O'Hara, for example, could be 
so *stupid*. (Apologies to GWTW fans)

Female characters:
Hermione is the active heroine. IMO, Rowling isn't interested in 
telling us much about the other girls because, as an artist, she 
wants our attention on Hermione. The other female students,  
are like the background in a picture...at the moment, they exist 
mostly to show us what Hermione is *not*. She's not a snob like 
Pansy, she's not athletic like Cho, she's not giggly like Lavender 
or  Parvati, she's not a flirt like Fleur, she doesn't invite people to 
treat her like a little girl, the way Ginny does in PS/SS and CoS 
(okay, Penny, I admit it :P --Gin does seem to be growing out of it 
now, thank goodness) . It may seem an artistic flaw, in that some 
of us are getting a little tired of Hermione, but I think that's partly 
because we've studied her to death. We need Book Five!  

Pippin
not a literary expert, but I play one on HP :-)
Silliest argument ever for H/G: there's no M in Ginny.