Working mothers, was Did the Slytherins come back

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 182075

Betsy Hp:
> Up until she gets married, Fleur is not considered a good girl.

Carol responds:
Really? Ginny doesn't like her, and neither she nor her mother wants
Bill to marry her, but "not a good girl"? Strange that the Weasleys
let her stay in their house, then. And, yes, she and Bill flirt rather
sickeningly at the dinner table, but no one comments on their behavior
as immoral. (In one of the funnier DH moments, Harry sees Poly-juiced
Fleur's expression and hopes that "such a soppy, slavish look would
never appear on his face again."

Before that, Fleur is a TWT champion, which must mean that she's a
highly skilled witch (despite being rather inept at handling
Grindylows and the bad--or perhaps good--luck of being Stunned by
Crouch!Moody in the Third Task. Certainly, the famous Viktor Krum
doesn't turn up his nose at her wedding invitation. Yes, she has Veela
blood, which causes the boys to be attracted to her and the girls to
be jealous of her, and, yes, she's French (with all the traditional
English-French rivalry that entails), and, yes, she's annoying until
she movingly and fiercely displays her loyalty to her brave but
mangled future husband, but "a bad girl"? I don't know where in canon
you find any such thing. (She's far from the only girl who engages in
public snogging, and she's never condemned for it, IIRC.)

Betsy_HP:
  The 
> Patil sisters, like Lavender, are considered flighty, 


Carol:
They are? Parvati occasionally behaves in a silly way with her friend
Lavender, but Ravenclaw Padma does nothing more than grudgingly accept
Ron as a date for the Yule Ball, leave him to dance with the
Baauxbatons boys on their invitation (as does Paravati before her),
and complain about it afterwards. she's also, like Parvati, a member
of the DA. But if she's as giggly as Parvati, we don't see it, and
even Parvati is bored by Lavender's behavior with "Won-Won." (I'll
grant you Lavender, impressed by Prefect!Ron's nicking a confiscated
Fanged Frisbee and giving Ron that absurd necklace and all the rest,
but even she seems to have been a competent DA member. I don't recall
any complaints about her abilities, at any rate.

Betsy:
Cho Chang is 
> painted as completely untrustworthy by Ginny in the final battle of
Hogwarts (Ginny's extreme worry about Cho being the one to take Harry
 to the Ravenclaw dorms).  

Carol:
Ginny isn't concerned with Cho's untrustworthiness. The film to the
contrary, *she* didn't betray the DA to Umbridge. (I won't get into
Marietta or Cho's reasons for supporting her here, but her loyalty to
her friend resembles HRH's to each other--and even they haver their
moments of, erm, disagreement.) She (Ginny) is concerned with Cho's
attractiveness and obvious continued attraction to Harry. she doesn't
want them alone together. Much better to have Luna, who is Harry's
friend but purely on a Platonic level, than Cho (who might tearfully
remember Cedric, and there would go all of Harry's resolve!). IMO, of
course, Ginny's feelings for Cho parallel Ron's for Viktor Krum, a
former rival who might still be attractive to Harry/Hermione.

Betsy:
Mme Maxime did dodge a bullet in not settling down with Hagrid, but
she's hardly a main player.

Carol:
I'm sorry. I don't understand what you're saying here. She does find
comfort in Hagrid's arms at DD's funeral, but that's the last we see
of her. (I was worried that she'd show up for Fleur's wedding and
attract too much attention with that house-sized carriage of hers, but
I guess that JKR just wrote her out of the story, so to speak. And
those of us who don't consider JKR's interviews as canon are free to
speculate that Hagrid and Madame M. married and settled down together
after both retired. OTOH, he prefers the simple life with "interestin'
creatures" and she likes luxury and elegant food, so they're not the
ideal couple.) 
> 
Betsy:
> Now I'll freely admit I have a hard time figuring out how JKR wants
us to see her characters (besides her obvious wish that we like the 
big three).  And I've generally gotten it wrong in the past.  But I 
think we're supposed to see Ginny and Hermione as judging people
correctly for the most part.  

Carol:
If that's the case, Hermione's judgment of Cho is highly sympathetic
(and, I think right on the money). However, both of them are shown to
be wrong, along with Harry, about Fleur, who truly loves Bill. Mrs.
Weasley's offer of the tiara, not understood by HRH or Ron, is
immediately understood as a peace offering by Fleur, and both women
break down in tears and hug each other. that moment seemed to me to
show that everyone except Bill was wrong about Fleur. (Hermione is
wrong about Tonks, as well, thinking that she blames herself for
Sirius Black's death and completely failing to grasp that she's pining
for Lupin. Snape figures it out, though!)

As for Hermione and Ginny being generally right, they disagree rather
significantly over Harry's use of Sectumsempra, though admittedly,
they're not talking about people there. And Hermione is wrong about
Lockhart; I can't recall whether Ginny also likes him. (As for Snape,
Hermione is right about him--though perhaps wrong about the HBP--until
Snape "murders" Dumbledore, at which point she and almost everyone
present accepts Harry's version of events. (There's some doubt about
Hagrid, who certainly doubts the story when he first hears it, and
slughorn, who doesn't hear the whole story.)

Harry, the protagonist, is wrong about Snape throughout the books,
about Quirrell, about Draco (though Draco's motives in the RoR in DH
are not entirely clear), about Sirius Black, about Crouch!Moody, about
Neville and Luna and even Ginny, about Kreacher, even about Dumbledore
in some ways. Ron is generally wrong along with him. Hermione is
closer to right than the boys regarding Snape and Kreacher (and is, I
think right in her psychoanalysis of Depressed!Sirius and of the
tearful Cho Chang), but all of them are wrong on more than one occasion.

I don't think that any character (unless we're being factual
information from a book or discussing Snape's loyalties) is intended
as the voice of the author, any more than the (sometimes) unreliable
narrator is. Each reader can and should decide for him or herself
regarding the correctness of the various characters' judgments.

If we look to anyone as the voice of the author, perhaps it should be
Harry in the Epilogue--a Harry who has learned that Slytherins can
have courage and named his second son, the one with Lily's eyes, after
Dumbledore and the formerly hated Snape.

Carol, who thinks that we should look at the changes in Harry's view
of the other characters as the story progresses (even Hermione starts
out misunderstood; she's the first for whom his [and Ron's] blinders
are taken off)

So if either of those two girls judge 
> another girl as morally deficient (and they are two rather judgy 
> girls) I figure JKR wants us to agree. For example, I think we're 
> supposed to think Ginny quite the clever young thing for switching 
> Luna in as Harry's Ravenclaw guide.
>   
> > >>Pippin:
> > <snip>
> > Then of course there's Merope, who would clearly have been better   
> > off if she'd  gone for a roll in the hay instead of a family.
> 
> Betsy Hp:
> I think we're supposed to see Merope's lust (or as JKR would call it, 
> love) as a bad thing that set this whole trainwreck in motion.  That 
> she tried to force it into the marriage sphere was, I think, JKR's 
> attempt to paint Merope as a tragic victim as well.  (She *tried* to 
> be a good girl.)
> 
> > >>Pippin:
> > BTW,  if JKR sees not getting to marry Draco as a punishment,
> > it would seem her opinion of him isn't as low as some think <g>.
> 
> Betsy Hp:
> Well, Draco's a boy.  JKR prefers boys to girls as far as I can 
> tell. :)
> 
> > >>Carol:
> > <snip>
> > What about Ginny, who calls Ron a hypocrite for his double standard
> > (it's okay for him to snog Lavender publicly but not for Ginny to   
> > snog Dean)? Surely, we're supposed to side with Ginny in this      
> > respect?
> > <snip>
> 
> Betsy Hp:
> Whenever Ginny says anything, I think we're supposed to side for her; 
> but Ginny only snogged other boys to be worthy of her true love.  The 
> boy she picked out when she was 10 (if not earlier).  So 
> Ginny's "playing the field" was okay because it made her more ready 
> for the marriage bed.  Ditto with Hermione.
> 
> But neither Ginny nor Hermione seemed all that sexually interested in 
> the boys they dated before their husbands.  Ginny dumped both her 
> boys, and Viktor annoyed Hermione more than anything.  And we know 
> Hermione was interested in Ron when she dated Viktor, hence her 
> yelling at Ron to ask her first next time.
> 
> Combine that with the fact that girls can enter the boys dorms 
> whenever they like and you've got a series of books that seems to 
> deny the existance of female sexuality as a natural thing.  Which is 
> a throw-back view, IMO.
> 
> Betsy Hp (all my opinion! <g>)
>