long response to Beauty in HP (WAS: Re: THEORY: Hogwarts curriculum)

[antoshachekhonte]

No: HPFGUIDX 112608

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "mrs_sonofgib" <tinainfay at m...> wrote:
>  Kneasy wrote:
>  
> > > Oh - has anyone come across anything described as 'beautiful' in 
> the books? Can't recall it myself. A society with no concept of 
> beauty - how primitive can you get?> >
>  
> I can think of a few examples:
> 
> "Fair Ravenclaw from Glen" (one of the Sorting Hat's songs)
> and I think the general impression of the Veela was that they were 
> beautiful, obviously before they threw a fit.  And Arthur comments 
> about not going (for girls) based on looks alone.
> But as far as the students, they are generally described in ways 
> other than 'ooh, she's so pretty' etc.  Ron certainly notices who is 
> NOT beautiful when thinking about who to ask to the Yule Ball.
> 
> ~tina


Antosha
Hmmmmm.

Okay, so this one had me scratching my head for a while, but...

Animals and places are described frequently in the books as beautiful. In PS/SS, Harry sees 
the dead unicorn and thinks he's never seen anything so sad or beautiful and Hagrid says 
of baby Norbert, "Isn't he beautiful!" In CoS, Fawkes lays his "beautiful head" on Harry's 
wounded arm. In GoF, the word "beautiful" is used to describe the veela on a number of 
occasions (are they creatures or beings???), and the unicorn that Grubly-Plank brings in to 
her first lesson is oooo'd and ah'd over by the girls: "It's so beautiful!" Also in GoF, 
Wormtail creepily describes his silver hand as beautiful, and Trelawney's model of the 
Solar System is so described as well as is the phoenix song that comes from the web of 
light surrounding Harry and LV in the graveyard. In OotP, Parvati sighs to 
Lavender about how beautiful Hedwig is and Harry remarks on both the room with the 
flickering lights in the DoM and Dumbledore's office as being beautiful (I think the 
headmaster's office is described that way in several books). 

The only people who are described as being physically attractive that I could come up with 
were Lockhart (though that might just be my memory; I couldn't find the description), 
Cedric ("good-looking") Lily, Rosmerta, Fleur and Cho (all "pretty") and the statue of the 
witch and wizard from the Fountain of Magical Brethren, who are in fact described as 
"noble-looking" on the one hand and "beautiful" on the other. I think we can sense that in 
each of these cases (excepting Cedric and, so far, Lily and Rosmerta), physical 
attractiveness has turned out to be a negative, rather than a positive attribute. And even in 
Cedric's case, his attractiveness was a goad to Harry's ego; it got in the way of any 
possible friendship between them (which was Harry's problem, not Cedric's, admittedly).

I think we can take from this that JKR is more interested in people of character than people 
who fit some sort of norm of attractiveness. Think about it. Who are the most appealing 
people in the series? Harry, the skinny, pale boy with the perpetually messy hair. 
Hermione, with the bushy hair and the one-time buck teeth. Ron, who's tall and gawky 
with a long nose. Neville, who is moon-faced and clumsy. Ginny, about the quality of 
whose features we know almost nothing except that she's small, fair and red-headed with 
bright brown eyes. (Sounds very attractive to me, but then I'm married to a Celt.) I could 
go on. The Weasley parents (he balding and bespectacled and she short and plump)? Luna 
(with her protuberant eyes and tangled blonde locks)? Profs Dumbledore (with his twice-
broken nose) and McGonagall (with her severe bun)? Hagrid (with his beetle-black eyes 
and wild hair and beard)? Greasy-haired Snape or threadbare Lupin? Sirius may have been 
attractive once (when he was young and foolish), but by the time we meet him he is a ruin 
of his former self. Tonks? Heck, we don't even know what she *looks* like!

In JKR's fictional world, outward beauty seems to go hand-in-hand with vanity, an evil for 
which she has little patience. It will be interesting to see if Fleur continues to flourish 
(pardon the pun) and Cho redeems herself. 

Then there's Lily Evans. When Harry sees his mother in the Mirror of Erised, she is 
described as pretty; when he sees her in Snape's memory, her eyes are "startling". So 
perhaps there is a place for good-looking people in the WW, too.