[HPforGrownups] Re: Sexuality in HP/Freud/Sexist!Voldemort

[Laura Ingalls Huntley]

No: HPFGUIDX 40651

Just got back from a vacation in London :) So, I'm kinda playing catch-up here...I guess most of this stuff is ancient history..but, oh well.

Buttercup said:
>It's interesting that the Freudian aspect has come up, because I've 
>noticed a lot of psychoanalytical symbolism in PoA too. Ok, maybe 
>I've been studying psychology too long, but here goes. A theory:
>Assuming that he was mistreated by the Dursleys from day one, Harry 
>would not have experienced his Oedipal complex (which according to 
>Freud should happen around the age of five) at all (it's pretty 
>obvious that he doesn't identify with Uncle Vernon). At the beginning 
>of PoA, whenever Harry encounters a dementor, he hears his mother 
>screaming and feels the need to protect her. He also feels hatred for 
>Sirius (not his actual father, I know, but a substitute in a sense). 

Okay, first off, I guess it's only fair to admit right here that I have absolutely *zero* respect for Freud.  He's just a Fraud, IMO.  ^_~  In fact, his theories tend to fill me a strange, pervasive feeling of hatred and anger.  Go figure. ^_^

Bearing this in mind, one would not be totally out-of-line in suggesting that my opinions on this subject are highly colored by my own feelings for his theories.

However, even when I (try to) take a objective look at your assertion here..it still seems to be a little..grasping.  Harry has very specific reasons for hating Sirius, and it doesn't seem to have much to do with some kind of Freudian father-son dynamic.  When these reasons are disproved, the hatred is erased as well.  Harry's initial feelings for Sirius were not based on emotional complexes or the like -- rather, on the fact that he thought Sirius had had a horrible hand in his parent's death.

Buttercup:
>When he begins Lupin's anti-dementor lessons and tried to produce a 
>patronus, he is only able to produce small spurts of white stuff from 
>the end of his wand (ahem). At the end of the book, when he 
>encounters Sirius and identifies with him, he also identifies with 
>his real father and is able to produce a proper, full-on patronus, a 
>stag, which "erupts" from the end of his wand.

This is not entirely true.  He produced a proper patronus at the Quidditch match, don't you remember?  ^_^ It's one of my favorite parts in PoA -- after all is revealed and Lupin comments on the "unusual" form Harry's patronus had taken.  Imagine Lupin seeing it at the Quidditch match...it was probably like seeing James again.  Very touching...in fact, it made my mother cry (we were listening to PoA on CD last night).


Darrin said:
>The notion of Harry being most afraid of losing Ron is, as has been 
>said, easily ignored. But, to point out something else: Hermione and 
>Cho had already been taken. And Cedric and Krum are at least three 
>years older, certainly at the age where the most important person in 
>their lives would be girls they were dating. 

Actually, Hermione and Cho as the things that Viktor and Cedric were most afraid to lose (respectively) struck a little hollow to me.  Ron as Harry's sacrifice made sense to me -- Ron is like Harry's brother, the first friend he ever had, practically his *family*, one of the first people to show kindness and comradeship towards him, *the* first peer to do so.

Fleur's sister also made perfect sense to me.

But Cho and Hermione?  In my experience, relationships between kids that age are not that serious.  They may *feel* serious to the people involved -- but in reality, the romantic bonds you make at 17 or so are flimsy at best.  It would have made much more sense to me if, say, Cedric's sacrifice had been his mother or a close, lifelong friend or something.  *Not* his girlfriend (if, indeed, their relationship was even that).  As for Hermione and Viktor...


Darrin said:
>Hermione is Krum's most important person after one date? Certainly, 
>we're talking about a Quidditch God here, who probably went through 
>groupies like Ron goes through Every Flavor Beans. The rules
>obviously dictated a person be the object the contestants had to 
>rescue -- how else can you insert the fear of drowning -- else Krum 
>might have had his broomstick down there.

I think that Hermione is more than a groupie-flavored bean to Krum.  IMO, he seems frankly obsessed with the girl.  Also, I think we are supposed to assume that Krum *doesn't* "go through" groupies...that he finds them annoying and avoids them if at all possible.  However, I still find the fact that she was his hostage a little "off".  Hasn't he got a family member or a good friend or someone who takes precedent over a girl that he, while enamored of, barely knows?

My guess is that the hostages were *not* what the Champions would necessarily most miss -- as in, there was no magic preformed to divine who *exactly* was most loved by each contestant (a la Mirror of Erised).  I think D and Co. just picked people to put down in the lake based on their observations and what was most convenient.  Notice that three of the hostages were students at Hogwarts.  All easily accessible and trusting of D. and Co.  Probably the only reason they had to use Fleur's sister is because it was obvious that she *didn't* care much for anyone at Hogwarts at the time.

Darrin:
>But I find myself remembering Jerry Falwell's rants about a 
>Teletubbie being a gay pride symbol. Disney has long had to deal with 
>accusations of subliminal messages in their cartoons and I've seen a 
>doctoral thesis on Bugs Bunny's alleged homosexuality.

*twisted smile* well, the accusations leveled at Disney are not *entirely* unfounded, as you may or may not know.  For instance, take a good look at the scenes in The Little Mermaid where the sea witch (in disguise) is marrying Prince Eric (I used to watch this movie three times a day when I was little -- we didn't have TV) ... the priest has a humongous..erm, erection.  (I can say that, right?) 

Elkins said:
>I do think that Voldemort cares about the 
>sex of his victims, not because of any normal preference for men as 
>romantic objects, but rather because of his contempt for women.  
>Neither as the teenaged Riddle nor as the reincorporated Voldemort 
>does he seem to recognize women as valuable, powerful, or even as 
>particularly interesting.  He is profoundly dismissive of them.  They 
>barely seem to register on his radar.

Hmmm...I wonder how this could be used against him?  Underestimating/ignoring females such as Hermione in the midst of a battle seems particularly dangerous to me. *has visions of Hermione surprising the socks (does he wear socks?) off a ready-to-blast-Harry Voldemort*

Actually, it's already been used against him, hasn't it?  He totally underestimated the strength of Lily's sacrifice, didn't he?


laura (who has jet lag and is having trouble stringing her sentences together in an understandable fashion)


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