[HPforGrownups] SHIP: Sexuality in HP (WAS So, why did Snape turn on Voldermort?)

[Rochelle]

No: HPFGUIDX 40078

> Sunday, June 16, 2002, 6:40:06 AM, darrin_burnett wrote:
> d> My point is that the real world and the Harry Potter world don't work
> d> the same way. JKR has made a point of delaying puberty. Those are the
> d> rules in the world she has created. It's not unlike the old Hardy
> d> Boys books. Yes, they had girlfriends, but frankly, they were too
> d> busy solving crimes to worry about nonsense like that.

And Dave Hardenbrook responded:
> At least JKR acknowledges that girls (even magically adept ones) do
> "notice" boys, and vice versa... Even *that* is major taboo in
> most orthodox Oz stories.

But when you examine them closely, are the HP books REALLY that
innocent?  Here are a few things to think about, mostly subject to
interpretation, and some harder to ignore than others.

1)From the "easily ignored" category, we have the thing that Harry would
"sorely miss" [p.463] which, of course, turned out to be Ron [p.498]
Granted, this is innocent enough; Harry IS ron's closest friend.  But
especially when given the fact that two of the other three competitors
had to rescue their girlfriends/dance dates (Krum had to save Hermione;
Cedric had to save Cho), the homoerotic subtext here isn't that hard to
find.

2)This incident:
-"Have you been spying on him, too?" said Harry indignantly.  "What
d'you do, sneak up here in the evenings to watch the prefects take
baths?"
    "Sometimes," said Myrtle, rather slyly, "but I've never come out to
speak to anyone before." [GoF, p.462]

*g* Humorous, yes, but a little perverted no matter HOW you interpret
it.

3)Tom Riddle's "hungry eyes" in CoS [p.309, 311].  Okay, so maybe
looking at someone "hungrily" means something completely different in
England than it usually does in the States (though I doubt it).  And
yes, if you try, you can just brush it off.  But nonetheless, we've got
some pretty blatant homoerotic subtext going on.

4)CoS, pages 285-286 where Percy goes to great lengths to keep Ginny
from telling anyone what she caught him doing.  All right, so it turns
out that he was kissing his new girlfriend [p.341].  But up until that
gets revealed, you know very well what you THOUGHT he was doing! ;) I'm
pretty sure the scene was written that way to lead older readers'
thoughts in precisely that direction.

5)And finally, we have the elephant that's sitting in the living room:
that entire... thing... that happened near the end of GoF [p.636-658]. 
We have Harry bound and helpless as his blood is "forcibly taken"
[p.642] -- a violation of his body.  To me, this looks like a fairly
obvious metaphor for rape; to make it even clearer, the knife (a common
phallic symbol) "penetrates" [p.642 again] Harry's flesh.  Not slices. 
Not pierces.  But "penetrates." There's just too much going on here for
the parallel to be unintentional.

This list is not complete.  I could add quite a bit more if I wanted,
but I think that's enough for now.

Personally, I think J.K.R. is a closet slasher. ;) But that's just my
opinion.

*Rochelle. :)
-- 
http://www.YaoiGoddess.com/ --Long Live the Slash.
http://www.fanfiction.net/profile.php?userid=26023 --My fics on FFN.
http://www.YaoiGoddess.com/light/ --Dying of the Light: A history of
Severus Snape, Dark Arts prodigy turned Death Eater.
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