Harry Potter is Anti-Woman

[montavilla47]

No: HPFGUIDX 181072

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "sistermagpie" <sistermagpie at ...> wrote:
>
> > > Magpie:
> > <snip>
> > > I actually must disagree with all the "Tonks is a great auror"
> > > defenses because I've never seen her be a great auror. I've
> > > seen her be a woman who leaves her post and loses her powers
> > > because her primary focus in the books is her man and not her
> > > job--which doesn't make me condemn her since some people are
> > > more focused one way than another, but she had a long time to
> > > impress me with her auror skills and instead gave the consistent
> > > impression that this wasn't her strong point. She's mostly
> > > linked to Merope Gaunt.
> 
> Yolanda
> > 
> > I disagree with your disagreement. Tonks is one of the "new"
> > members inducted into the Order. DD or Moody must have thought
> > well of her abilities to trust her. Neither of them, wouldn't
> > have selected someone to stand beside them or other Order members
> > in life or death situations if they didn't think she was up to
> > the task.
> 
> Magpie:
> I didn't disagree that she *was* an auror, I disagreed that I ever 
> saw her doing anything to show she was a particularly good auror. 
> You're not describing that here, you're saying that she must have 
> been a good one or else she wouldn't have been there, but I didn't 
> see any of it. This is exactly my point--yeah, I can "tell" myself 
> that it's hard to become an auror and if she's in the Order maybe 
> she's supposed to be good at it, but when it comes to showing her 
> doing things in canon she doesn't stand out in that regard. She's far 
> more known for pining after Lupin and losing her powers and getting 
> left by Lupin. The barrel must be pretty empty if we're scraping the 
> bottom to come up with checking an empty train and finding Harry 
> stuck there into impressive auror action. 
> 
> -m

Montavilla47:

Not to run down Tonks or anything, but I wasn't very impressed
with her abilities in OotP.  Yes, she was part of the Order, but 
so was Mundungus and he seemed pretty useless.  Surely,
he wouldn't have been given the job of guarding Harry if he 
weren't responsible?  Well... not so much.

Tonks struck me as very young, humorous, but not especially
compentent.  She confided to Harry that she wouldn't have 
made it into the Auror program if she didn't have her 
unique metamorphmagus talent, since she was "dead
clumsy."

She didn't do much worse than the other Aurors in the MoM
raid, although I seem to recall she was the only Auror who 
was unconscious at the end of the skirmish.  If we're to judge
competency by that conflict, Lupin came out the best, being
both conscious and unharmed (and alive).

In HBP, she seemed more competent than before in the 
early part of the book when she rescued Harry.  Although, since 
she was on the train to guard HIM, she was bit late on the 
uptake (unless she wasn't on the train, but rather meeting
it.)  Or was she just generally guarding students?  I'm not
exactly sure on that.  Still, I was impressed that she 
managed to jump off the train without falling on the tracks,
since in OotP, she couldn't navigate a hallway without
knocking something over.

Also, I give her points for fixing Harry's nose.

But, as the book progressed, I couldn't help wondering
why she wasn't given compassionate leave, since she 
seemed so terribly depressed and listless in her 
duties.  The time that she came hurrying to talk to 
Dumbledore instead of staying at whatever post she
was supposed to be filling did not impress me as 
being excellent Auror work.  

Also, about the Aurors... I don't put a lot of stock
into a brochure in describing the status or difficulty 
of Aurorhood.  Brochures always hype things.  Given
that the Aurors weren't able to provide proper security
at the QWC, I figured that they were only about as 
competent as the rest of the Ministry.  In other words:
Not much.

Montavilla47