Harry Potter is Anti-Woman/Different Values of Snape

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 181035

Yolanda: 
> I admit checking the train would make common sense, however if I
> remember correctly, she found an invisible boy pretty fast. Either
> she cast a spell or she knows how to search a train long enough to
> carry all of Hogwarts quickly. Remember, in JKR's mind, there are
> 1000 students at Hogwarts. That's a lot of compartments.
> 
> So, Tonks knows a spell that can find people who are concealed or
> she used her "auror skills" to search a train quickly. I think that
> counts as skill either way.  It may not be a heroic battle against
> Bellatrix, but it is validation of her as an auror.

Magpie:
Yeah, but however much of a skill it is or not, it's just Tonks showing 
up in the compartment and finding Harry. I'm not claiming here that 
she's an incompetent, I'm just saying that what the character does 
mostly in the story is chase after Lupin, mope, lose her powers, get 
pregnant, trip over things and die. Acting out Tonks' scenes in canon 
wouldn't be very satisfying if you were looking for scenes of people 
being a great auror.

Tonks' finding Harry on the train just is not cool no matter how she 
did it. Even if there really were 1000 students, which there never are 
in canon, whatever JKR said in that one interview. (She also said "Oh 
dear, maths" in an interview, and that's more proved in canon.) She 
never seems to actually be "picturing" 1000 students when she writes 
the books, since the class sizes and scenes always work out to showing 
far fewer students (40 students to a year).

Alla:

I do not remember Tonks' doing any super impressive fits of magic
either, but I do not remember ANY aurors showing any particularly
impressive fits of magic either, so I think it is more because not
much attention devoted to show how good Aurors as institution are,
not
because Tonks specifically is not portrayed as impressive Auror. 

Magpie:
Yup, I agree. The Aurors are mostly background characters to begin 
with. As a character Tonks' storyline is about Lupin. The Order is lame 
as a group, imo. The main thing they do is twice ferry Harry from 
Grimmauld Place to the Weasleys. If particularly exciting stuff was 
done by Tonks there we didn't see it (just as if anything particularly 
exciting happened when Lupin was spying on the werewolves we didn't see 
it).

Alla:
I mean, I am just wondering which auror in the book you see as
portrayed particularly skilled?

Magpie:
Nobody. For Tonks in particular if I think about what she did in canon 
it would be to be that she was introduced to be quirky in a kind of 
clunky way (changing her hair color, making funny noses, 
saying 'wotcher' and tripping over things) and then becoming that girl 
who pined after Lupin and lost her powers, got married, pregnant, had a 
baby and then got dead. It's like describing Dudley as a character 
who's defined by being a great boxer and so showing all the things we 
imagine a good boxer would be. 

Aleta:
Snape does engage in (intended) animal cruelty to Neville's
toad. When he doses Trevor with Neville's shrinking potion,
Snape fully intends to kill the toad. It is only because
Hermione helped Neville that he had a proper potion, and
Trevor was reduced to a tadpole which Snape could restore
to adulthood. Snape would have been happy to kill the toad
just out of spite.

Magpie:
I don't agree, actually. Snape can already see that the Potion looks 
right when he feeds it to Trevor, and he's known for his constant 
threats to poison things and people with no cases of his actually 
poisoning anybody. It was mean to frighten Neville this way, but I 
never thought there was any actual danger that he'd kill his toad. 
That's what Snape's all about--he can hate people without crossing that 
line. It's Moody who's the teacher truly dangerous to Neville.

-m