Chapter Discussion: Twenty, Goblet of Fire: The First Task

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 192353


> Alla:
> 
> Remind me, I truly do not remember, where does it say that their school has male students? Regardless though, my point was that she seemed the weakest and less prepared out of all champions, not anybody else.
> 
<snip>. 
> 
> Alla:
> 
> Right, we do not know why she had trouble and JKR does not tell, but she makes sure to tell us that she placed last and to me that's what she wanted to stress as important.

Pippin:
Is it important because it tells us something about Fleur's character, or is it important because it tells us something about the way that we evaluate men vs women?

Granted, JKR wants us to notice how poorly Fleur performed in the second task.  But suppose that Cedric and Fleur's performances are reversed, so that it's Cedric who does well against the dragon but places last in this task because of the grindylows. Meanwhile Fleur gets severely burned and has the slowest time in the first task, but frees her hostage handily, though not as swiftly as Harry, in the second. No doubt, Fleur comes off a bit better that way. But would we be so quick to say that Cedric must have failed because he was weak and unprepared? 

Geoff has pointed out the male Beaux Batons students. I asked a similar question about the female Durmstrang students a while back. They are so peripheral to Harry's adventures that, like Fleur's fighting skills (which Harry attests to later), or the moderate Slytherins,  or women in positions of highest authority, or the female Irish chasers,  they might as well not exist. In the movie, pared down to Harry's adventures, they generally don't. But they *do* exist in the books, and our failure to notice them, or give them the credit they deserve, has, I think, more to do with JKR's desire to show her readers how easy it is to overlook what clashes with our preconceived ideas, rather  than with her own ideas of what is important. She had to deliberately  create those things, after all.  


I think that JKR tried to depict a world where male privilege was largely obsolete and in that world women would be free to compete against men without feeling that they'd let down their entire sex if they didn't win. Compare that to Harry, who's told by Hagrid that if he wins it will be a setback for those who want to keep the non-purebloods down. 

There might be a similar dynamic in the hope that  JKR would introduce a witch with mad fighting skills and a disappointment  in Fleur for that reason, although Harry points out somewhere (DH?) that Fleur wouldn't have been a contestant all if she wasn't capable. Fan fiction, OTOH,  is full of witches in thigh boots, mowing down Death Eaters like hay.  Though  canon does have a heroine finish off a Death Eater eventually, it's with a very strong hint that if that's the sort of thing we'd like to see more of, we should go rent a copy of Aliens. JKR's Potterverse does not need more kickass witches, or wizards for that matter. That's not what makes a wizard great, remember?  it needs, well, you know, friendship and bravery. Fleur is clearly not weak or unprepared in those. 

As for the thought of Molly dueling in thigh boots -- well, clearly, some witches should not wear them. <grin>


Pippin