Tonks as Auror and aurors in general WAS: Re: Harry Potter is Anti-Woman

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 181036

Alla wrote:
> 
> 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 <snip> I do see the mention of them
doing their job though from time to time, even if it is not done a la
Twins' fireworks. I mean, really, what is impressive magic? The magic
that gets the job done, yes?
<snip>
> 
> But I do see Tonks doing her job - as Yolanda said she is in the 
guard who brings Harry to Grimmauld place. I do not remember any of
them showing spectacular magic there, they just did their job in 
delivering Harry, no?
<snip>
> Apparently Tonks was good enough dueller to knock Lucius Malfoy out
in the battle of MoM before she was hurt. After she throws a stunner 
> Lucius dear is not heard from anymore. Sounds impressive enough to 
> me. <snip>

Carol responds:
Right. OoP Tonks seems to be as skilled as anyone else in battle. (I
do wonder what that green-lit curse Bella threw at her was; it sent
her to St. Mungo's but it couldn't have been an SK or she'd have died
two year sooner.)

Also, her finding Harry on the train involves a nice bit of deduction:
she goes to the compartment with the pulled blinds, and she knows that
he has an Invisibility Cloak, so, IIRC, she feels around for him
instead of merely looking. Granted, that's not an impressive feat of
magic, but it shows intelligence and the ability to reason. She easily
fixes Harry's broken nose with an Episkey spell (which raises the
question of why neither DD nor Bagman got their noses fixed), and she
jumps without hesitation from a moving train--again, not a feat of
magic, but a nice demonstration of courage and athleticism. (*I
coudn't have done it, even when I was her age, but, then, I'd be a
complete disaster as an Auror.) And this is Tonks when she's depressed
over Lupin.

We *do* see her using her impressive (but admittedly, inherited rather
than acquired) abilities as a Metamorphmagus twice, once as she
escorts Harry to Platform 9 3/4 (I wonder, though, whether her uncle
by marriage, Lucius Malfoy, recognized her as he recognized his
cousin-in-law, Sirius) and once as she escorts HRH onto the Knight
bus. (She takes on the appearance of two different older women; I can
find the descriptions if anyone wants them.) She deals rather
forcefully with Stan Shunpike, who calls her, IIRC, "that bossy woman." 

We don't actually see her doing her job as an Auror, but we know that
she got at least an E on five NEWTs, including Potions (and would have
needed an O on her OWL to get into Snape's NEWT Potions class in the
first place). We know that she can fly (on a broom, I mean) and cast
an effective Stunning spell. And she passed all those Auror tests
despite being "dead clumsy."

It's a shame that this likeable character, who is not a bit domestic,
having never mastered "these householdy spells," had to become so
woebegone in HBP, complete with a "weak" Patronus (yes, it was Snape's
jibe, but there might have been some truth to it), and a shame that
she didn't live to raise her baby boy. (I can just see them together:
her hair pink and his turquoise). 

Partly because of the limitations of Harry's pov and partly because of
the needs of JKR's plot in DH, which required the main characters to
be isolated and Tonks to be killed by her family-tree-pruning Aunt
Bellatrix, we didn't get to see much of this promising character.

Carol, who likes to think that Tonks would have been both a great
Auror and a happy wife and mother had she lived



> Moody is so skilled that he spent a year in the trunk.
<snip>

Carol:

LOL!