[HPforGrownups] Re: JKR and the boys

[k12listmomma]

No: HPFGUIDX 161465

> Miles:
> The question is not so much whether the girls and women in the Potterverse
> are like women and girls in real life are or should be - the point is, 
> that
> there are much more details and shades of grey in the description of the
> female Hogwarts students we know compared to the male ones.
> JKR knows girls better than she knows boys, yes, but as an author she 
> should
> be able to write about both in an appropriate way - especially when her 
> main
> character is a boy.
> We see lots of girls chatting in groups, talking about whatever, giggling
> and so on. Quite realistic, right? Hermione does not care too much about
> these groups. But do we see groups of boys hanging around, talking or
> fighting, like in the PoA film scene mentioned? Rarely - but real boys do
> have social interactions with their peer groups, not only girls. The film
> makers seem to have realised that problem and added some "boys scenes" to
> the films that are not in the books.


I think you are looking at Harry and Ron, and maybe missing Malfoy and his 
gang. Boys do fight, and such, and we definitely see that with Dudley and 
his gang, and with Malfoy and his gang. Harry and Ron don't get into fights? 
Baloney- they are tempted to in the many scenes when Malfoy confronts them 
(as a bully) in the hallway or in Potions class, and in most of those scenes 
that Rowling writes, there is a teacher nearby that prevents them from 
really going at it, or Hermione is there to nag them to behave. Malfoy baits 
Harry for a duel on the roof at midnight, and he takes that offer. 
Circumstances that Rowling writes along the way always seem to get in the 
way of them having a good brawl (in one Mad Eye Moody's imposter steps in), 
but she doesn't stop it in one Quidditch match when Umbridge was at the 
school. We can't forget that Ron was only burping slugs because he did try 
to hex Malfoy, and had he successfully done so without a broken wand, no 
doubt that would have been a nice brawl. And, didn't Hermione actually punch 
Malfoy? In that one, I can only image the two boys being in shock, 
otherwise, they would have jumped right in and finished what Hermione 
started.

We have to remember that they are at school, and as such, there are always 
teachers hovering around. And, for the boy "conquest" of girls, 
realistically, that wouldn't happen until their 6th and 7th years, and she 
does show them pairing off in Book 6, meaning that sex would have only 
followed after that (so, they haven't gotten to that yet?) They aren't 
exactly hanging around the older kids to really "hear" it, although Ginny 
did know of Percy and his girlfriend, and you have no way of knowing how far 
they went when they met in secret. In our world, we see boys best "being 
boys" when they are in all male settings, such as gym class. Rowling has 
written this setting as mainly mixed classes in everything- the broom flying 
exercises are mixed, Quidditch is mixed, the classes are mixed. You do see 
boys being mischievous- the Weasley twins, for example and a fair amount of 
boy stuff.

Frankly, any comment I see of Rowling not knowing her teenage boys is 
hogwash- Ron and Harry look like the type of boys that I hung around with as 
a kid. We were always mixed groups too, at late middle school age. Those 
boys that were always in boy-only groups were the bullies, like Malfoy and 
his gang, and frankly, those were the boys that were always bragging of 
their sexual exploits too. Those that hung around in mixed groups were 
usually more mature, in my estimation, that those that didn't mix. 
Personally, I think Rowling is spot on in her description of boys. She 
didn't want Harry to be a Malfoy, or a Dudley. She's drawing a more mature, 
sensitive character, and those types of boys really do exist in life.

Shelley