Stereotyping

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 84964

I (Carol) wrote: 
> > In JKR's case, it's self-evident that she's opposed to racism and
> > discrimination against people who are different in any way (with the
> > possible exception of the giants, who do seem rather subhuman--Hagrid
> > and Madame Maxime as half-giants not included). I for one think her
> > politics are a little too transparent and that the House Elf business
> > comes a bit too close to allegory (it seems too closely patterned on
> > American pre-Civil War slavery just as Voldemort is patterned in part
> > on Hitler, by JKR's own admission). In any case, we can refute the
> > charges of stereotyping simply by looking at the House Elves. Dobby,
> > Winky, and Kreacher may all speak like variations of Gollum, but they
> > have distinctly different personalities. In fact, the only two
> > characters who seem to me to be stereotyped are Crabbe and Goyle, who
> > are virtually indistinguishable except for their heights and haircuts,
> > and I confess that it would be hard to avoid stereotyping in their
> > case. They're intended as "flat," "static" characters in any case, to
> > borrow E.M. Forster's terms. Their sole purpose is to bolster Draco in
> > his role as bully without having any real identity themselves.
> > 

Kneasy wrote: 
> Hmm. I wonder if I'm reading you correctly. Or vice versa.
> My original complaint was not with any supposed stereotypes perpetrated
> by  JKR, (I made more or less the same point about the three elves), but
> with the stereotypes that some of the posters want to impose on JKR in
> order to make her  tale *better*.


Exactly. My intention was to defend your view that JKR's characters
are not stereotypes and that certain readers are imposing their own
values on her by reading Molly et al. in that way. She can't possibly
satisfy every readers' view of what her book "ought" to be. She has to
follow her own vision of the WW and put on paper the characters who
live in her head, whether we approve of them or not.

<snip>
> 
I wrote:
I hope this helps to cheer you up. That was my intention, anyway.
>
Kneasy wrote:  
> Thanks for the thought, but a couple of beers would be better.


Accio beers! Make that butterbeers. :-)

Carol