Top 28 Female Characters in Harry Potter (and what they say about J.K. Rowling…)

[@carolineeasom]

Just a reminder that this is not an open forum for debate. Any transphobic or racist comments will be removed and that user will no longer be able to comment on my videos. Any comments that discuss J.K. Rowling’s views as if they’re harmless and ignore the impact her bigotry has on the communities she attacks will be removed. Any comments expressing your disappointment or how this isn’t the content you want from me will be removed and I suggest you watch my video on parasocial relationships. I will prioritize having a comment section that feels welcoming to people in marginalized communities over the ability of individuals to say whatever they want.

[@OhSkyeLanta]

@@carolineeasom she also has more money than she knows what to do with. That is a very real resource that can be used to cause harm because of her beliefs.

[@Has-uo1lq]

Hope going through all these comments isn't too hard on your mental health

[@mommyofkittens4809]

Your house your rules. For the sake of mental health and safety, they’re good rules.

[@katjasarup2859]

Thank you

[@MakingThisUpAsIGo]

Do you explain why in these last two videos you count the Patil twins as one person? Like I know storywise their written as barely a single personality but why do you say 3 women of color or one woman of Indian decent when there are two.

[@jacks.6243]

The fact that reanimated corpse with no lines Bathilda Bagshot outranks several female characters on this list says it all

[@HerHollyness]

I think she’s only mentioned so much in the context of her being an author. Like her name gets mentioned several times on the list of books they need to buy for school, or when Hermione says something like, “Haven’t you read [X] by Bathilda Bagshot?” So yeah. She’d be much lower if it weren’t for that but it’s still not a good look.

[@veronika4870]

I always found her scenes so creepy I can't watch them

[@spriken]

But she was still animated by a female as Nagini was female and had at least at one point been human... Actually, Nagini was mentioned quite a bit, I wonder if they counted her at all.

[@twiceineverymoment]

It's ranked by the number of mentions so she gets a boost from being listed as an author on their book lists.

[@JoRiver11]

@@spriken I think it's questionable as to whether Nagini had any will of her own. I can't remember... did they count Hedwig? Maybe it only included humanoid characters.

[@canibecandid]

I don’t know if this makes Molly Weasley’s situation better or worse: but we often see her magic doing multiple things at once. Cooking, knitting, washing laundry, washing dishes etc. At some point, I think the charms teacher points out that performing multiple charms and maintaining them is hard to do. So Molly, in her own right, is actually pretty strong but we only see that strength in her domestic tasks or in the famous “not my daughter” scene.

[@ShesquatchPiney]

For real! The domestic pursuits aren't the issue, it's that Molly isn't given anything else and the rest of JKR's misogynist weirdness in the text.

[@canibecandid]

@@ShesquatchPiney absolutely! It’s just like… we see her struggle to deal with a boggart, which Harry ultimately has to fix for her, and while it is traumatic to see Arthur injured… she’s already been in the war. She’s slightly older than the Potters would have been… you’re telling me that she couldn’t have pulled it together long enough to dismiss the boggart when Molly has probably seen the effects of the Voldemort’s war first hand? I do love seeing her charms for domestics but it is /so/ weird that it’s the only thing she does, when in context from professors etc what she’s doing is incredibly difficult and hard to maintain but Molly is doing it without any shown effort. Sometimes, even wand-less and wordless. (She goes from stirring a pot and walks away, but the spoon keeps going.)

[@insertchannelnamehere1448]

​@canibecandid and now I desperately need a fanfic with her going full Liam Neeson in Taken but with magic instead of guns...

[@guggelguggel7491]

Sorry for essentially writing fanfiction here but GOD why doesnt she have a part time job during autumn and spring after Ginny goes to Hogwarts in book two? If they're struggling with money and the house is empty except for your usually away at work husband, nothings stopping her from doing SOMETHING! Especially if she's shown as talented even if she lives humbly!

[@Andreeavirginia1]

I remember reading a fanfic about Molly working as a teacher for wizards and witches, teaching them household magic and writing books about spells she invented. It's a good job for a woman who is showed to excel in magic. Maybe she does enjoy being a stay at home mom, so she could persue a career teaching "adult skills" to people who couldn't learn it, to suport her family and also to do something outside of her children. But as she was the avatar of the ideal mom, she couldn't do something as insulting as getting paid for her labor...

[@YourWaywardDestiny]

My favorite thing about Angelina Johnson is that she was crushing on Fred, and then he died, and somehow JKR decided it was appropriate to pair her off with her dead boyfriend's identical twin brother. There's a special kind of dismissive a person has to be to go "one is just as good as the other" and a special kind of douchebaggery one would have to posses to go "That guy I was closer to than any other person, the guy I shared a womb with, the guy who knew every single thing about me, the guy I saw literally every day of my life for at least seventeen years he's dead. His hot girlfriend is free, time to make my move." Oh, wait, that's not my favorite thing. I actually really hate that as an identical twin and a functional adult. Wow, there's nothing good written about Angelina Johnson at all.

[@asarishepard8171]

I'm a twin and that switching horrifies me. Twins are two different people, we do not share partners. Unless its a vc andrews book but anyways 😂

[@YourWaywardDestiny]

@@asarishepard8171 The objectification is everywhere, and the older I get, the weirder it makes itself known.

[@madmadmaddymad]

Angelina becoming George’s girlfriend felt really sad to me. I imagine they were grieving the death of Fred together, but it’s strange that such a relationship could last. Also, didn’t George have a muggle girlfriend in the 6th book? I seem to remember him flirting with a girl and impressing her with card tricks. Since the Weasley’s were the only pureblood family that didn’t give a Snot about pureblood status, I always thought it was really sad that they all ended up marrying witches and wizards anyway.

[@tonystonem9614]

Why didn’t she just kill George he’s less funny

[@Beautyofblackness]

I think Angelina & George gravitating towards each other makes sense. They were just kids when Angelina & Fred liked each other & there is no doubt Angelina cared deeply for Fred but Angelina & George were adults when they got together/married. I believe that grief might have brought them together but they loved each other romantically rather than platonically like they might have when they were at Hogwarts. When we mature we see different sides of each other. They found companionship. I don’t think Angelina tried to replace Fred but being with George probably helped her feel a closeness to Fred & I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Also as a black girl myself it was nice to see Angelina end up with George who is a beloved character because it is rare we see our selfs as the love interest. I think a-lot of the criticism of their relationship is unfair.

[@michellemadsen381]

Another thing about Ginny (and other HP girls) is that Harry actually praises her for not crying. Everytime a girl is seen crying or being emotional in this series, they are perceived as annoying or hysteric. Cho Chang, Lavender Brown and Hermione Granger are all great examples of this. They at one point all cried over serious issues, such as the death of a boyfriend, a break-up, being bullied ect., but instead of being met with sympathy and understanding from the other characters, they are often only met with confusion or annoyance. In HP, girls crying or being emotional is seen as something inherently negative, while girls being "tough" and not crying is seen as something positive. Seriously, what kind of message does that send???

[@nobodysXghost]

I remember the crying being written as gross. “The kiss was wet” “gross” when he kisses cho when she was crying. Or hermione crying to blubbery snotty mess

[@MelissaWickersham-k4o]

Regarding girls crying in these books, the kind of message that these books send about crying is a very toxic and psychologically twisted one. The message essentially says that it’s not okay to cry, and that men would hate women for crying. I would venture to guess that JK Rowling was taught that toxic message when she was abused by her husband or when she was emotionally mistreated as a child.

[@barbararab6390]

​@@nobodysXghost yeah like, no shit Harry, she was crying and grieving her DEAD BOYFRIEND. And you couldnt even wait a little longer to get with her and has the audacity of judging her

[@aesop1451]

You could argue that at a certain time “girlboss feminism” was progressive in gaining representation for women, but it isn’t viewed that way anymore. If girls cry in the story, people will complain and say it’s sexist. If girls don’t cry in the story, people will complain and say it’s sexist.

[@MintyArisato]

@@aesop1451honestly I took one look at this video (I want to write so I’m genuinely curious about feedback of all kinds) and figured “I don’t think Rowling can win either way” and not just because it’s Her, but in the respect that any author/story can potentially seem bad or sexist to anyone. I haven’t seen anyone agree on “good female characters” anymore and I don’t think people are ready to accept that there’s not just one type of good character

[@masonm2232]

fanfiction really added so much depth to the series cause i forgot how flat the female characters are in canon

[@missemmyful]

Legit watching this I was like NO but she did... wait that's fanfic. Over and over again. Yikes.

[@ItsJustValHere]

SAME lmao

[@ShesquatchPiney]

The answers were in the fanfics all along.

[@veronika4870]

True

[@ImmortalKoschei]

I was honestly thinking something very similar when watching this! I never delved too deep into reading fics for HP, but I've always been around folks deeper in the fandom than I was and it was kinda shocking to be reminded of how bad canon treated these people 😭

[@Thankwikipedia]

We actually did learn that Molly has an interest outside of her children - Gilderoy* Lockhart, you know, a man.

[@TemariNaraannaschatz]

​@@labsrdiIt wasn't everyone, all female adults in school hated him right away. And for the young girls, that's just typical star struck behaviour that happens all the time. Even today people excuse terrible stuff if they like someone, as evident by the insane amount of people loving Harry Potter claming JKR isn't transphobic. JKR certainly has a ton of issues in her worldbuilding, but at this point people see everything as an issue in her writing even when it really isn't just because she's a bad person.

[@probablysomeidiot1066]

Also that old singer, Celestina Walbeck or whatever ?? I mean, she is mocked for it several times which is probably worse but...

[@msjkramey]

​@labsrdi damn... could you imagine if people fawned over an obviously shallow and fake person in real life??? Especially one considered hot by a lot of people? Like what if we had male celebrities that young girls specifically liked but teenage boys and adults constantly clowned on them for liking? That would be wild...

[@hanasan4845]

Eh, there's also that one female singer she likes - Celestina Warbeck, but that's a background thing, extremely minor interest, and honestly I had to look up her name

[@morinomajou]

@labsrdi yeah and it’s also just not realistic, like… Harry’s class are all 12 at that point. Even setting aside the fact that statistically, not all of them would actually be into men; even setting aside the fact that the ones who are wouldn’t all have the same taste in guys… they’re 12! People develop at different rates, and not everyone starts getting crushes at that age. Going back to the theme of the video, it just kind of treats all the girls in the class like some kind of hivemind, it’s icky.

[@lys569]

The thing that really sticks in my craw about Hermione in particular, is that she's ALWAYS right, and nobody ever listens to her, despite that fact. Particularly in the 6th book. Harry is so determined not to listen to her that he nearly kills someone. Like dude, you've known her for YEARS by this point, don't you trust her judgement by now!?!? I'm not even sure he ever actually apologizes to her either.

[@feralnerd5]

does anyone ever apologize to Hermione, even once? I think usually she either just “gets over it” or circumstances conspire to force her to do so. after all, a Cool Girl(tm) would never demand anything so ridiculous and sentimental as an apology.

[@amethystimagination3332]

You’d think at least Harry and Ron would have more faith in their BEST FRIEND, but they never take her seriously

[@falcon_arkaig]

It would make sense for them to not take her seriously when they're like 13, but once they're 16 I don't think it makes any sense. Imo I think Ron should've been fully on board with the whole SPEW thing as well...sigh.

[@amethystimagination3332]

@@falcon_arkaig I would argue it makes sense for Ron not to see an issue at first because he grew up in that world, Harry should’ve been able to see how bullshit it was from the start because he’s friends with Dobby. But all it should’ve taken was for Harry and Hermione showing Ron how wrong it is for him to to understand and be on their side

[@Persnikity-yv3nh]

Sirius wouldn't have died. SIRIUS WOULDN'T HAVE DIED.

[@scarymonsterzz]

It's actually hilarious that JKR is losing her mind over the idea that women are getting beat up by 'men' in sports when she wrote quidditch as a mixed-sex full-contact sport where there's literally a position called the BEATER who's job it is to lob magic cannonballs at their opponents lmao.

[@dweeb4]

STOP ITT I didn’t even think about this 😭😭 Peak terf logic

[@bootedbuilds]

😂

[@garak55]

I think it's a case of the idea of a mixed full contact violent sport sounding really appealing in theory (to a second wave girlboss feminist like rowling, to me it's really dumb) but in real life, watching the video of a female volleyball player getting a concussion after a grown man spikes the ball right on her head is a bit chilling (for her, I thought it was hilarious).

[@ZanderMurphy-ol7ub]

I’m pretty sure that’s why there were no women beaters in HP. But I don’t think it was a prejudice thing. Some people are just better at certain things than others. Like how you wouldn’t make a slow muscular powerhouse, a seeker.

[@dweeb4]

@@ZanderMurphy-ol7ub Ginny played on an all female quidditch team when she left Hogwarts. They were in the British-Irish national league (not an all female one). That’s at least two female beaters. Also, we can’t know if there were female beaters on the other house teams because (correct me if I’m wrong) other than Slytherin having an explicitly all male team, there is rarely indication of the opposing players’ identities, let alone genders. I promise I’m not trying to be pedantic- I just don’t think we should give Rowling credit there.

[@gamerliliturra7434]

I always felt for Trelawny. She was this eccentric hippie weird aunt type and I was always bothered by how she was treated by adults, kids and the plot.

[@ShesquatchPiney]

Cosplayed as her for the last book release when I was like 17. Justice for Trelawney for real!

[@ethanlivemere1162]

Well, at least the film portrays it as very sad when she gets fired (I don't know about the book, haven't read it in years)

[@omniscient.nescience]

​@@ethanlivemere1162 It's a saddish moment I think, but very much overshadowed by the characters going on about '[Umbridge] can get rid of Trelawney all she wants, but we can't let her get rid of Hagrid' (paraphrased quote from Hermione iirc)

[@kaiowaio]

yes I felt like an idiot as a kid not getting why everyone hated her but I realized they just,, didn’t like her

[@ptheorist4670]

"Trelawney" sounds super similar to the Greek word for "crazy", so when I first read the book and saw her name, I thought jkr was doing a play-for-words, wanting the readers to see the name and go like "Hah she's crazy, let's make fun of her". Turns out it wasn't, but the fact that the books prepared me for that so that 12-year-old me thought it made perfect sense to dismiss a character as "crazy"... I think that says something.

[@natalierobertsart]

This video made me realize that the reason I remember most of these female characters as more interesting than they actually are on paper is most likely due to the work of the actresses portraying them in the films rather than the books.

[@larissabrglum3856]

Same!!! Emma Watson alone did so much heavy lifting.

[@mamavibetribe8878]

Or because, like any written work, we have the ability to interpret and imagine the characters as they dit into our ideals. All of a sudden, Professor Sprout is an interesting woman in a male dominated field with an impressive knowledge base. We choose them to be wonderful because then and still now female characters are so two-dimensional and lacking in literature.

[@SammyLammy1D]

I also realized a lot of it comes from fanfics anr headcanon, at least in my case, lol.

[@probablysomeidiot1066]

​@@SammyLammy1Dyeah, for me it was most definitely fanfiction that made them more interesting. I'm always surprised at how much of what i love about these characters is not even canon

[@The-Busy-Beeeee]

​@@mamavibetribe8878JUSTICR FOR PROFFESSOR SPROUT I fucking loved her tbf

[@hecateinanna3925]

This video made me realize that lily and ginny are both author stand ins. White, redhead, intelligent but not a know it all, bookish but still pretty, feminine but still "cool girl", not like other girl pickmes. And the fact that one is the main characters mom and the other is his wife, that sort of boy mom energy should tell you all you need to know about Joanne

[@ShesquatchPiney]

She Stephanie Meyer Bella'ed us!

[@ca-ke9493]

Hermione is an author stand in too. J.K. Rowling admitted that she originally wrote Ron×Hermione to be endgame as she was dating someone similar to Ron, but when she realized the Rons in her life were no good for her and ended up with someone more like Harry she made the relationship more tumultuous in the Cursed Child. Most authors write from personal experience so there will be sprinkling of that. But it speaks to their internal prejudices and wonky morals as well.

[@christianwise637]

If you want further indication that Lily Potter was an author self-insert character, they were apparently originally considering having Rowling play the character when they were making the first film, but she (in a remarkable display of self-awareness and humility in hindsight) turned it down

[@emilyrln]

@@christianwise637thank Merlin for that 😅 we dodged a cannonball there

[@celisewillis]

​​@@ShesquatchPiney any romance, esp. YA, is exactly like this. Stephanie Meyer isn't weird for that. The hero in romance is usually a blank slate to project onto. Also, Meyer doesn't use Twitter, so she remains head and shoulders above JKR for that 😆 You might like Contrapoints Twilight video essay, lots of good stuff in there about the romance genre and how society treats women!

[@michellegodwin6567]

"There's no better mother than a dead mother" is a strangely accurate way of describing the female representation in the Harry Potter series

[@DesiWeidner1309]

*cough* Disney *cough*

[@poogeasaurus5684]

Narcissa malfoy was a #boymom

[@synnefo_]

stop the chuckle i chackled at this...

[@joyc.e.7511]

​@@synnefo_chackled😂

[@sarahnelson8836]

They were ALL #boy moms

[@ineshomemcardoso]

Damn

[@MirandolinaAmaldin]

Even though Molly Weasley had a lot of sons she clearly was very proud to finally have had a daughter. So, I don't think she's a #boymom in the internet meme sense

[@ghiblicat]

when ursula le guin said that harry potter was "ethically rather mean-spirited" and really looking back on it, everything about the series was just filled with casual cruelty towards the majority of characters for no reason at all especially women

[@rosesweetcharlotte]

I feel bad because I used to hate this quote. I just thought she was being jealous. But no, Ursula LeGuin knew the books for what they were. Her books are full of so much empathy and kindness, understanding and humanity. She knew there was something not quite right with Joanne

[@Heyiya-if]

​​@@rosesweetcharlotteoh indeed UKL had nothing to prove.... I struggle to think of a more humble, reflecting and intellectually honest and rigorous author than UKL. Including self reflection.

[@JC-yy8iv]

I only wish she’d been invited to elaborate, I’d love to hear her more detailed opinion

[@damien678]

It's crazy to me honestly, especially after reading Terry Pratchett's Equal Rites and how kindly he wrote even his very flawed characters

[@this_Kwazicat]

I mean the fact that even that girl from "The wizard of Earthsea" who was in a couple of scenes in one chapter and got called ugly by the main character still has more personality and drive than half of jk Rowling's female characters and is more memorable than them (also got more recognition by the male characters in universe itself because THE great Ogion literally said "don't mess with this girl and her mother, they are both sorcerers, I don't like her mom, she doesn't like me, this woman is dangerous)

[@iinktongue]

i really wish that j.k. rowling had gone a different direction with the house elves. the mythology of brownies is literally RIGHT THERE, and it even mostly works within her intentions of house elves-when treated well, brownies truly love to help kind humans of the home with small household tasks, like doing the dishes, sweeping the floor, little mending projects, etc. however, if they are treated badly, and they don’t receive meals of gratitude from the family they live with, they turn into a boggart, and create havoc for the humans in the house, and if they’re offended enough they’ll even follow a rude family to their next home and continue to terrorize them. i think this concept could have been so interesting to explore in the harry potter universe, but nope, instead we got a strangely willing servitude out of creatures that are inspired by REAL folklore that wouldn’t hesitate to literally kill or severely curse a human for mere rudeness, let alone abuse edit: i don’t usually leave comments too much online because i hate the ceaseless, unnecessary arguments that come with it, but i absolutely love the conversations that have sparked underneath what i said in this case. all of you are so amazing and i wish more online spaces were as thoughtful and creative as this one 🩷

[@umbra1948]

THIS. RIGHT HERE. WHEN I FOUND OUT ABOUT THE BROWNIES FROM ENGLISH FOLKLORE I LITERALLY THOUGHT “This would be so interesting if Rowling had leaned more into this with the house elves instead of just making them into docile s-ves who have to suffer horrific ab-se by human wizards but are okay with their circumstances for some reason”, BECAUSE IT WOULD HAVE ELEVATED THE MAGICAL FANTASY ASPECT OF THE SERIES. They could have been such an interesting part of the world building because they would’ve been these creatures who absolutely had their own autonomy but co-existed with magical families in a mutually beneficial relationship that would tie back to brownie folklore. I personally think it would’ve made Dobby even more complex by having this background for the house elves but then showing how some wizards take them for granted and, in their own arrogance and greed, abuse their magical abilities to violate this dynamic that these beings have with humans by trying to reshape it into something where they get to have complete power over them instead, placing enchantments that forcefully bind these beings to serve their family and prevent them from fighting back. Dobby’s story would’ve established this problem, and with this angle I feel like Hermione’s arc with the S.P.E.W organization should have been handled with much more respect as it would show one of our main characters trying to help prevent this issue in Wizarding society, with Ron and Harry actually trying to help her do so (or at the very least not antagonize her for it) and eventually in honor of Dobby, so that no more house elves like him would have to go through what he did.

[@asarishepard8171]

@@iinktongue yeah imagine the Weasley kids not doing the dishes then the household wakes up to a wrecked house cause the brownies were annoyed with them. So many possibilities!

[@hatientacetlen4246]

I wonder if JK heard the word "Brownies" and her mind went straight to "slaves" because she immediately thought of black people or if it's just a very unfortunate coincidence.

[@vilmublues752]

I'm from Finland and in our mythology house elves are also "will beat you to death if you disrespect them even a little" kind (hyperbole, but you _will_ suffer the consequences.) Like they only _appear_ humble with their simple clothes, only asking for a little food as payment, doing small household duties and not wanting to be seen by people...but they're actually _very_ prideful and humans have to be the ones to act humble around them.

[@evintyde]

This has bothered me for years. Like it's right there. You didn't have to make a race of slaves who inherently love being slaves just because. You could have had it be a mutual "you treat me right and I'll treat you right" dynamic without much issue. WHY DID YOU NOT DO THAT??? IT'S RIGHT THERE!!!

[@Bokatisha1234]

I can't imagine how Lavender's original actress must have felt when she was told "Oh, actually, you can't come back for the movie where you'll have actual lines. We want a white girl." Absolutely fucking ghoulish.

[@SharkYNate]

Omg that is horrible...

[@NShomebase]

Otoh, having one of the only speaking roles for a black woman in your series being an annoying nag the main character can't wait to be rid of is a bad look too.

[@demonchildmina]

and genuinely what was the reason other than "she's a focus now and needs to be white" because y'all did not care about accuracy. most of the witches that are described as blond (also why are so many blond ??) have brown hair in the films. eye color of multiple characters is different (harry potter as the biggest example.) you made a decision and should have stuck with it like the rest 😭😭

[@clotildebesson1991]

Lavender was played by two black actresses before Jessie actually: Kathleen Cauley and Jennifer Smith. I believe Kathleen isn't even mentioned in the credits...

[@comradewindowsill4253]

@@clotildebesson1991 right, cause they're all the same or something... seriously there is no credit to be given to anyone making the decisions in either books or movies.

[@bigpapamagoo8696]

It always bothered me how JK pit the female characters against each other at every opportunity. She has Molly Weasley hate Hermione and send her a blatant 'fuck you' gift for Christmas because she read in a gossip tabloid that she was dating Harry, but when Harry literally destroys their only car by crashing it into a tree, she doesn't say a word about it. Ginny, Molly and Hermione all hate Fleur, even though she has done nothing to them, and is nothing but pleasant and sweet towards them. Hermione has no female friends and seems to actively not want to befriend the girls in her year. Cho gets jealous and Harry spending time with Hermione, and the message of that scene is that girls are too confusing and demanding and they should just say what them mean, even though what Cho was trying to communicate to Harry was fairly obvious and makes some sense for a teenager. Hermione hates Trelawny the most out of all of the students, and McGonagall looks down on her, too, even to the point that when she is publicly fired and humiliated Hermione is laughing at her misery like she deserves it. The male characters are get sympathy and understanding from one another; even if we aren't meant to excuse their actions, we at least get to see their humanity and treat them with some dignity (unless you're a muggle, in which case you can go fuck yourself). But the women are written so shallow and unsympathetic, because JK doesn't feel the need to develop women.

[@jaguarenduda]

Molly hates Hermione???

[@ManaverisDracona]

​@jaguarenduda For a time. Rita makes the gossip that they are dating and Molly believes it. It's after a few months that Harry tells her it's a lie that her behavior with Hermione changes again. She doesn't apologize to her for believing the gossip

[@saberthecoolest]

The worst part is that Hermione was FIFTEEN. Like, tabloids going after teenagers is bad enough, but why was Molly Weasley beefing with a literal CHILD???

[@Gotten1888]

@@saberthecoolest she is hard core that way

[@IsaacMayerCreativeWorks]

i mean, to be fair, of course all her female characters hate women, she writes what she knows

[@briannaobrien4419]

Slughorn remembered Lilly for her magic and I remember loving how he talked about her, he seemed to remember her as like a whole person.

[@a.n.9800]

Whoa that’s a good point.

[@jamiefrontiera1671]

And Remus (I may be confusing that with the speech they gave him in the movies)

[@jamiefrontiera1671]

And Remus (I may be confusing that with the speech they gave him in the movies)

[@veronika4870]

Yesss

[@Ruth_Rosa]

This was my favorite thing about Slughorn.

[@ohnopleasestop483]

I always hated the treatment of girly girls in the books. The Patil twins were so excited to go to the ball only for their dates to ditch them as soon as possible and destroy their evening because of pettiness. Lavender was a teenage girl in love, was she overbearing? Yes but she’s a teenager with her first love and Ron treated her horribly. Instead of talking to her about it he treated her like trash and made fun about her. And Fleur? Don’t get me started it’s not just misogynistic but also xenophobic because she’s not English. She participated in the most dangerous tournament there is and didn’t die, she did great. Then she went to England to learn the language and the Weasley women and hermione make fun of her for her accent. Well then speak French molly. She loves being pretty and takes care of herself as if that’s a crime. And to insinuate that she now doesn’t like Bill anymore because of his scars is just disrespectful. And fir that to be the only reason molly likes her now is even worse. The treatment of girls who like “girl stuff” always annoyed me and all of them deserve better.

[@dan_mnght]

In the first part, in defense of realism, harry and ron are also teenager boys and they aren't known for their emotional maturity and they being jackasses are clearly character flaws, its sad that the Patils had to deal with that, but that's life. Now Molly making fun of Fleur as an adult is wild 💀

[@bluester7177]

​​@@dan_mnghtbut Mollys behaviour could also be realistic, people are not mature just because they are adults, my father is 66 years old and more immature than my 17 year old cousin. In the end it's still a choice, JK wanted to write this way for whatever reason, by how much tr@uma Harry went through it would be realistic for him to be more mature or more introspective too, I don't know, the problem is all the things together.

[@dan_mnght]

@@bluester7177 Oh yeah, I didn't want to mean that in an un-realistic way, just wanted to say that it's a bit more excusable being an a-hole when you're a teen than when you're an adult.

[@erika-paigehutch3930]

Lavendar did nothing wrong and I stand by that because yeahs shes a bit annoying but shes a teenage girl and thats normal. Same for the Patil twings and Fleur JKR really does hate women 😭

[@badkafka908]

It’s not even that she likes being pretty and taking care of herself-she has Veela blood, which means she’s naturally *magically* pretty. It’s basically not something she can even control because magic is involved. So it’s like vitriolic resentment against effortlessly or naturally pretty girls and depicting them as vapid airheaded succubi who tempt and seduce good boys/men into hysterical obsession, and as natural competition for the “right woman/cool girl” those guys should be with. I can’t even remember the criticism and framing of her relationship with Bill Weasley (it was Bill right??) but I’m pretty sure it was also hella toxic. And imo, it’s 100% even weirder xenophobia when you include that Veela “genetics” aspect of it. Because Veela aren’t even considered human. They’re considered humanoid magical creatures. So Fleur is literally coded as (at least part/half) subhuman-which is *so* aligned with the central dehumanization function in the whole “Madonna vs the wh^re” dichotomy that drives so much (if not all) sexist + misogynistic perception and treatment of women. It’s just “cool girl vs the Veela” in HP. Her treatment always confused me as a kid. I never got why they hated her so much-she was just a sweet French girl who loved her little sister. But also-that *she* was the only Triwizard competitor (…the female one too…) that failed to save her most precious person in the second trial, and was narratively condemned for not like…sacrificing herself and basically drowning for it/for her baby sister and needed Harry to swoop in and be the hero pissed me off SO MUCH. Like the only value that women (or at least beautiful women??) can have is dying/martyring themselves for children. But also men are still better at it + heroism and sacrifice somehow. WOW so original, JK.

[@-raecat-]

I feel like it's also important to mention the male characters who have stereotypical feminine traits; namely, Percy Weasley. Percy is often described as fussy, bossy, stuffy, and humorless, all misogynistic feminine stereotypes. He's compared to Molly Weasley at times, and is rather romantic (writing to his girlfriend all summer, keeping her photo with him, even being somewhat interested in Divination). He acts submissive towards his boss, Barty Crouch Sr. who he is the secretary for. His brothers mock him for this behavior, saying that "they'll be announcing their engagement before we know it" (a secretary having a crush on their boss and eventually getting married? Wonder where I've heard that plot line before). I found a really good tumblr post that explained it much better than I ever could, I can't link it rn unfortunately but I'll do it on the morning. This is just to illustrate that Rowlings misogyny is not limited to her female characters. Men who display feminine traits are also not to be liked or trusted.

[@bluesheep7]

I never saw it that way, but wow. It does make sense. I always felt bad for how badly his own family treated him at times, Percy isn't a saint and his behaviour in the fifth book isn't good, but man. It's also worth noting that his best allies in conversation were his mother and Hermione. The two women of the house (Ginny doesn't count because she's the enbodiment of "not like other girls" trope).

[@DanialTarki]

I- Is- Is J.K. secretly attracted to cis tomboys? Honestly, I would have preferred her to have that specific preference rather than actually be transphobic.

[@TigerDragon1001]

Fleur being last in the Triwizard Tournament really recontextualises JKR accusing well-performing women athletes of being men 😬

[@PlatinumAltaria]

Women just have a natural biological disadvantage at fighting dragons, duh /j

[@asarishepard8171]

@@TigerDragon1001 justice for fleur. I doubt she'd just fail the swimming part and stand there waiting for someone to save her sister. Very unrealistic

[@nonbinaryjimin]

omg, yeah it does ur so correct

[@AstronomicalJelly]

terfs in general just think there's no way a woman can be good at sports and are inherently worse at it than men- a very progressive and feminist mindset

[@saberthecoolest]

OH MY GOD NOW THAT YOU MENTION IT-

[@kataevellei415]

What annoyed me about Moaning Myrtile was that nobody - including the **friggin' school staff** - had ever bothered to question her about her death before Harry and co. came along. There's a ghost of a schoolgirl haunting the bathrooms, obviously having died in a gruesome fashion, and everyone is like, "well, she's a nuisance so let's ignore her." I was pissed at this even as a 11-year old.

[@l.n.3372]

In fairness, she doesn't know who killed her or how. She just says big yellow eyes. That could have been helpful tho so they should have asked her ghost

[@shevrelock1005]

@@l.n.3372yeah but remember how they fetched her body, dumbledore was in the staff, and apparently he didnt tell anybody the ghost was her 🤷🏻‍♀️

[@l.n.3372]

@@shevrelock1005 I think everybody knows Myrtle was killed from the chamber. That wasn't a secret or anything. The mystery is of who killed her tho

[@christianlimonsoto1596]

⁠​⁠@@l.n.3372yea I remember that it was explicitly explained that she died by the monster of the chamber though I did only watch the movies so I don’t know if in the books it’s explained or obviously it was the monster (if I remember correctly it was a teacher who said there was one victim who died tho she did not say name or sex but it’s implied the staff new who it was)

[@l.n.3372]

@@christianlimonsoto1596 In the books, Harry and Ron don't realize until late game that Myrtle was the victim. But it was never said that the teachers weren't aware. The audience only learns when Harry and Ron do.

[@witchywoman2008]

What breaks my heart about Hermione’s writing is that the reason she’s an insufferable know it all is because she presumably spent all summer since she got her letter trying to learn everything she could about Wizardry so she wasn’t behind when she arrived. She just wanted to prove that being muggle born wasn’t a disadvantage. That it didn’t make her less than the other students. And yet it’s always portrayed as her just being annoying. And even Harry, who was also raised by muggles and didn’t know wizards existed until recently, doesn’t view her in a positive light. It’s so frustrating.

[@saberthecoolest]

And her literal worst fear was failing all her subjects and being expelled from school - and it was played for LAUGHS

[@black_forest_]

Like, she is so much more relatable than Harry I think. Like, if you suddenly discovered you could do magic tomorrow, wouldnt *you* want to learn everything there is? Like, wouldnt you want to know the boundaries of whats possible? Can you imagine getting a book about casting spells and not once looking through it, reading passages that jump out at you before you arrive at class?

[@princeapoopoo5787]

​@@black_forest_To be fair, Harry's home situation didn't exactly foster curiosity. That being said, I would have loved to actually see what Hermione was up to during the summer. I liked the Weasleys and all but ...

[@Nikki-tx1wd]

​@@black_forest_ I suggest you check out Harry Potter and the methods of rationality fan fiction... In this version Harry is Ravenclaw and does exactly what you say... Attempt to figure out how magic works.

[@NakanaiJP]

@@Nikki-tx1wd While I would argue HPMOR goes to some odd places in the latter half, so much of it is fantastic. My favorite bit is Harry teaching Draco [spoiler subject].

[@TwistyKitty]

Honestly one of the most dispointing things about Tonks is something I'm surprised wasn't mentioned. Harry sees her several times throughout the year after Sirius dies and he assumes her distraught behavior was over the loss of her cousin, you know, the only family she had who wasn't evil. But no. It was because "boy I like doesn't like me back." An entire YEAR of her moping about Remus rejecting her. Seriously, wtf?

[@Anni_renee]

It blows my mind there are no real female friendships. Girls having bffs at age 11-17 is the most typical thing but the only ones we see are Ginny and Luna, which is convenient to establish Luna's presence, and Cho and Henrietta which is awful!! The only remaining female relationships are familial, and usually have large age gaps. No wonder the fandom struggles so much with female characters. They're so divided compared to the rich world of boy drama

[@TemariNaraannaschatz]

There is one normal girl friendship I can think of and it's Lavender and Parvati.

[@RoseProseFroze]

With the understanding that I agree with everything you just said I do like that theres a platonic male-female friendship between Harry and Hermione. I have a lot of male friends and I love them and I've been realising theres a pressure to make those relationships NOT platonic in my culture that's honestly kind of annoying? So I appreciate that friendship rep even if it might have happened on accident. Mind you I love my fellow female friends too. Good to have a variety!

[@Siures]

@@TemariNaraannaschatz And they're the "mean girls"... But I think at least after the fourth book you could describe Hermiones's and Ginny's relationship as a friendship. And with just one year gap its a quite normal friendship.

[@Anni_renee]

@@RoseProseFroze Hard agree, the male-female friendships are a genuine strength of the series

[@a.n.9800]

@@Siures Idk if I’d say they were portrayed as “mean girls” necessarily, but one thing that bites about them being the most frequently-seen female friendship (they’re in the background of a LOT of Gryffendor moments) is that the narration always seems to be mocking or belittling them for their interests or concerns. They’re super into divination, for example, which the golden trio all think is rubbish.

[@1337karm]

This series is so etched in my brain that when you said “Parvati’s sister is also in Gryffindor” I immediately went “no, she’s in Ravenclaw”. Then I started thinking what else I could say about Padma. Which is nothing. Because she’s less developed than a houseplant. She got annoyed because she was a cheap replacement date and Harry didn’t even try to make her evening enjoyable. Then she disappeared into the void like all the others.

[@TemariNaraannaschatz]

I don't think Padma is a good example for this. It would be like asking someone about the sister of someone you share a few classes with but aren't friends with, while also trying to survive multiple attempts at your live. Harry has classmates he spends much more time with but still doesn't know anything about. JKR isn't a good person, but not everything in her writing is an issue because of it. And there are actual glaring *caughing in house elves* issues in her writing.

[@holographic6129]

@@TemariNaraannaschatzI think it was the fact that there are 28 of these women in the top 100 characters list and the lowest on the men’s list is Gilderoy Lockhart who has a significantly more impressive backstory and fleshed out character than the girls that are on the quidditch team and that is all they truly have. Many of the women play minuscule roles and that is fine yes because there are a lot of men that have minuscule roles but the difference is the ratio in those groups as well as the fact that plenty of those guys have more importance in the story. With some of these girls, all JKR tried to get us to focus on was them being a love interest, not a character that played an important or at least semi-important role.

[@TemariNaraannaschatz]

@@holographic6129 Welcome to the 90s where for every women there were two men. That's not a joke btw, this is sadly based on studies where they found men thought women were equal when they talked about 1/3 of the conversation and it tickeled down into media. You'll find the 1:3 ration in a ton of media from back then including books, video games, movies and shows. In this case you can see it quiet well from just looking at the men:women ration in death eaters, students Harry knows or adults he meets outside of school.

[@holographic6129]

@@TemariNaraannaschatz Yes. I am talking about what JKR did not do with any of those women she did have. It’s one thing to debate about with the number of men vs women and the racial and ethnic diversity of the characters because maybe her environment was not that diverse growing up (but she’s made many distasteful comments on a certain social media platform that show us otherwise and also hint at her views towards women as well as other groups). Just entirely with what she failed to give the female characters as characters is what I am talking about. JKR could have included something in the book as a simple description of more than their appearance. She is talking not directly from Harry’s point of view. She could include a bit that was there to just inform the readers of what this character is like. Because we are given nothing to know about the twins, it’s difficult to sympathize with characters who have no backstories or purpose when Harry and Ron ask them to the dance then show they clearly didn’t want to go with them. How does Harry not at least know more than that she is a twin? Even with the quidditch players too, we barely know anything about them either and he’s always playing with them. He should be in classes with those twins and they’re in the very same group as the main trio: Gryffindor. Surely they should’ve gathered more of a description than they are twins.

[@asarishepard8171]

@@1337karm ikr im a twin and I was very annoyed at that

[@dionemartins0212]

And then Tonks quiets down when she has a kid, doesn’t have colored hair anymore and dies.

[@AnnkrisNorthe-qx7mt]

I think Rowling realized she'd written a female character with too much potential. Couldn't have that.

[@dionemartins0212]

@@AnnkrisNorthe-qx7mt Fr tho, Tonks deserved better 😭

[@Londoño-14924]

when an older man that she knows since childhood

[@flugsven]

@@dionemartins0212 She's out there fighting for the future, anyway, like her husband, even with a baby at home with granny.

[@kikiTHEalien]

The problem was the quality of the writing in the books after the 3rd one as a whole. You can tell the books were written under contractual obligation. The last one was a struggle to read- so bad and soooo loooong.

[@Jordan-kw8jr]

"is described as having light skin, blonde hair, blue eyes" "is described as having light skin, blonde hair, blue eyes" "is described as having light skin, blonde hair, blue eyes" "is described as having light skin, blonde hair, blue eyes" "is described as having light skin, blonde hair, blue eyes" "is described as having light skin, blonde hair, blue eyes" Benevolent, worshiped, self-sacrificing mother character: "light skin, FULL, RED HAIR, GORGEOUS GREEN EYES" "this character is not really supposed to be liked. she has brown hair, brown eyes, maybe, maaaaaybe darker skin" Geez, Rowling.

[@leaxan8228]

have you heard of hermione?

[@mariya_tortilla]

what about her? did she not have light skin?

[@leaxan8228]

read your comment again, maybe just maybe it will come to you….. who am I kidding, it won’t. all you lot in the comments can’t even tell that this video is pure satire lmao

[@abithefallenhuman921]

​@@leaxan8228it isn't satire, it's a discussion of how poorly JK treats her female characters

[@leaxan8228]

@@abithefallenhuman921 honestly if you take this vid at face value, you can't tell your asshole from the hole in the ground. also, go read the channel description.

[@daniellespencer5026]

Justice for Cho Chang. Other characters thinking she was weird for grieving is so sad.

[@morbidsearch]

Katie Leung won the competition of delivering the best Twitter shade to JKR over her racism and transphobia (not saying anything directly and instead linking a charity for homeless black trans women)

[@endTHEhegemony_Today]

Yeah I agree, it was totally unfair she just had a heart and full of compassion 🖤💜💙💚💙💜🖤 Also: I didn't know that about her actress, What a LEGEND!

[@Sam-gy3ok]

Cho Chang was a cowardly traitor for bringing in and then defending her friend who snitched on DA. Pro-death eater ministry sympathisers deserve no sympathy.

[@DevilboyScooby]

Wasn't it just Harry that said that? He was a complete ****head in that book- trauma is no excuse for lack of tact. I get the impression we were supposed to agree with Harry throughout, but from book 3 onwards I vastly preferred Hermione and her more level head.

[@Carlos-bz5oo]

Tara Gillesbie's Ghost of You made her a goth and have an apartment in Tokyo

[@starchan2036]

I can't believe the slavery character was followed immediately by the transphobe point character. S.P.E.W was one of those storylines that, even as a child, i clocked as so messed up. Imagine writing a children's book where slavery exists, and at the end of the series the hero doesn't abolish it. Imagine.

[@arsena5209]

it's like she forgot what she wrote in the entire series by the end of writing it 😭

[@brooke4502]

and don’t ron and harry think hermione is stupid for spew because “the elves like being enslaved” and “they wouldn’t have anything else to do if they were free” or something ridiculous like that

[@starchan2036]

@@brooke4502 ron was staunchly anti s.p.e.w. i don't recall harry having much of an opinion on it, which was even more shocking considering his past experience with dobby and that he (like hermione) grew up in a world where SLAVERY ISN'T LEGAL

[@fbwsrd9910]

I was on the same page. Spew really rubbed me the wrong way even as a 12 year old. I can't stomach the oringinal books anymore, so I just read fanfiction.

[@feralnerd5]

they even blatantly showed the abuses allowed by the system, through Dobby and Winky and even Kreacher later on, but still somehow acted like this was fine and nothing should be done, not even to like, make house elf abuse illegal or something. or create a spell where any violence visited on a house elf is immediately returned upon the caster. something, anything, to make sure there would be no more Dobbys. but no, he dies a hero’s death (presumably so that society doesnt have to deal with the complexity of him anymore) and everyone just moves on to their happy little epilogue in a perfectly preserved status quo.

[@Treegona]

I feel like Tonks needs a bit more... detail. More context. Because JKR has explicitly said that she thinks being queer is a "phase" women can grow out of, if only they're not ~supported in their delusions.~ (Please excuse the oncoming Remus slander. I like him and his character, for all that the lycanthropy=HIV thing is horribly misguided.) Tonks is a woman in a male dominated field with colored hair (and pronouns) who uses a very masculine name, rather than her given name or a nickname derived from that given name. She's active and a little wild. She's queer-coded. But then she meets Remus. She meets a Good Man who makes her his Wife and a Mother. He calls her "Dora", a very feminine name, and while Tonks doesn't stop changing her hair color, she does stick to more natural colors. Tonks' story arc is about a queer woman and the man who fixes her. And then she dies.

[@margodphd]

Oh my... I didn't think of that and now I can't unsee it.

[@starrr365]

Woahh this is really recontextualizing how I (sapphic) identified a lot with Tonks as a kid for some reason 👀 & I always felt like that romance seemed forced & it always made me feel weird about her character after that....

[@ZimVader-0017]

I always felt that Tonks was, if not genderfluid, at least gender noncomforming. By complete accident, of course. She can shape-shift into any person, any GENDER she wants. I think the sudden and forced romance with Remus was Rowling realizing that she accidentally wrote one of "Those People" as a cool character, and that's no good.

[@KuroiandNoukon]

To piggyback on another comment I just saw, she also became a working mom, taking away what little plot armor she had

[@MxNEWCASTLE]

Tonks was so special to me as a kid who hadn't realized that they were queer and nonbinary. I took her pairing with Remus (my other favorite character) and immediately made it incredibly queer. Sad to see how Rowling dislikes the things that made those characters so special to me. I am glad that they exist beyond her scope, for me to keep seeing as queer. I actually have a poster of Tonks above my vanity, she will always be nonbinary and trans to me

[@izzypedal6371]

jk rowling either does not understand, or refuses to understand, just how much fandom has saved her ass and for how long. the fanon version of these characters are SO much more interesting, and i think its also a pretty interesting commentary on how much she really left to desire with these hollowed out pick me female characters. if you had asked me about ginny or hermione or even lily in the books, i would have had a completely different perspective before this video just because of how much the fanon versions of them has been burned into my brain and how long its been since i actually read them. joanne is SERIOUSLY biting the hand that feeds her. there are so many parts of the fandom that contribute to her continuing wealth and success that are happily choosing to see the holes and problems with the canon plot and characters and have no issue separating from her entirely. why continue to make an enemy of the community that wants to memorialize your creation and expand on it into infinity, while also paying you for it? ohhh bc of the black mold telling her that the trans demons are going to eat her soul, got it

[@v3n71lat0r]

hey!!! that last line is SUPER rude. first of all? it is TOTALLY not the black mold's fault. the black mold is fully innocent in all of this, and simply wanted a place to live! how could it have KNOWN it was gonna end up with a transphobic famous writer who was ruining her reputation all on her own..

[@MelissaWickersham-k4o]

It’s not known if Rowling’s castle or home actually has black mold. Some people say that what appears to be black mold in some pictures and videos of her home is actually really bad wallpaper.

[@adamdavis1648]

​@@v3n71lat0r #JusticeForTheBlackMold!

[@fbwsrd9910]

The lack of many female characters is probably why hermione gets shipped with basically everyone. Actually thats probably the reason M/M ships are so common and F/F is so rare, there just is a lack of developed female characters

[@callmekitto]

It's the same problem that happens in a lot of Shonen manga: if you didn't want so much gay shipping maybe you shouldn't have given all your depth both individually and in interpersonal relationships to/between male characters lmao

[@nightrose6116]

i feel like this comment opened my third eye youre literally so right omg

[@bluester7177]

​​​@@callmekittobut at least in shonen it's expected to be the way, it's a marketing term, it's manga for young boys, seinen is the more mature version, in a lot of them romance isn't even that important or prevalent and friendships between boys are going to be the focus. I think the biggest issue is we tend to expect women to write women well, and JK is just disappointing in that sense.

[@boqoz5930]

I remember shipping Susan bones and Hannah abbot when I was younger and I was quite passionate about it, I can't remember why, like I just woke up one day and decided to ship them, they even went and adopted a son in my little head lol

[@veronika4870]

True

[@SirRias]

Tbh I never realized that Umbridge being feminine could be seen as demonizing femininity; I always took it as being meant to juxtapose her horrible nature, and really emphasize how evil she was. To be creepy, how "cute" her tastes were compared to how truly vile was. A shock factor. You wouldnt *expect* someone so cute and pink to be evil.

[@vtheory7531]

In saying that, hyper femininity has been seen as 'bad' in many other movies, mainly the 'mean girl' trope. I guess it's a bit less common when the woman is older though

[@ashmein6021]

@@vtheory7531 definitely. Hyperfeminine characters like mean girls or sharpay from HS and other medias from 2000s made it appear that performing feminity esp extremely would be seen as shallow and vapid. I mean sure, they do not explicitly say that but the association of vapid/shallow/villainy with hyperfemininity subconciously affects us. It's so funny coz as a child, i internalized this so heavily. Almost shy to admit I am in fact like feminine things as cisgender female lol. or how some are born into the "not like other girls" mindset.

[@CesRaisons]

I thought it meant to represent those annoying old ladies who were all prissy and frilly, exploiting their power to lord over others

[@Pinkywinkykinky]

I think both things can be true at once here honestly 🙏

[@TerylBrat]

@@CesRaisons I had the same thoughts, but I was grown by the time this stuff came out so I was viewing from an adult lens instead of the perspective of a child. She reminded me of all the holier than thou old bats at church that I had to put up with. Never once did equating it to femininity cross my mind, it was related to age for me, though I suppose old "women" specifically meant there was a component of gender to it. I was dealing with patronizing ageism more and more since I was that in-between 20s phase where you don't really know where you fit in because you pay your own bills but everyone still calls you "kid" because you look fifteen.

[@circling-girl]

Honestly surprised that you didn't mention during the Ginny section that she looks exactly like Harry's mother, and Harry is always described as looking exactly like his dad except for his eyes. So... meant to be because it's like a second coming of his parents. JK is weird.

[@alexyssaubrie1606]

I never thought of that!

[@karasunostherapist]

youre right, i sometimes play this fun game where i look at hp fanart and try to figure out whether the protrayed couple is lily and james or ginny and harry, its hard

[@emyasoul8858]

​@@karasunostherapistThe only real indicator of that as far as I can tell is if baby Harry is there, other Marauders are there, or if Harry has his lightning bolt scar in the picture. It's a very fun game, though. 😅

[@angelad230]

Would’ve been fun if it had been the opposite, with Harry being a brown-eyed redhead. I feel like it would’ve made sense for Ron to treat him more like a younger brother-not because Harry’s immature, but because he doesn’t know anything about the wizarding world and Ron gets to explain it to him. With the added dimension of Harry constantly getting a lot of recognition and cool opportunities.

[@angelad230]

But obviously Harry having the same hair as Ron would have been bad for merchandising. You need distinctive figurines.

[@FlutterliciousLP]

According to JKR, there is one correct way to be a woman: cool-girl-turned-mom.

[@juliagoetia]

As long as you're not too concerned with looking good, or identifying with your femininity, but also not too masculine, and are completely okay with just being a toy for man to hang on their arms, but not so much that you're seen as a shallow bimbo obsessed with boys, and ... I could keep going.

[@tamarabrugara]

Cool girl turned significantly less nonconforming self-sacrificing mom. You only get to be somewhat quirky if you have more than five kids and then your husband will significantly outquirk you.

[@cvl9053]

Bonus points if you die protecting your child

[@scrittle]

Japan in a nutshell. When Dragon Ball Super released, Videl was my favourite character and she was changed from a tomboy fighter into a disciplined housewife, and it made me reflect and hate on the show's writing. Android 18 is still a badass but she's relegated to "badass mom" and a far cry from what she used to be. And Chi-Chi used to be super supporting of Goku, but then the writers gave her permanent menopause for some reason. Moms can be cool, but character assassination really sucks.

[@waleuska]

@@scrittle Oh i hated how they treated videl and gohan. But videl is worst in my eyes. She stop being a superhero and stops being a martial artist to be a boring chi-chi.

[@aptalsandvic5355]

I'll always find it hilarious that Jk. Moulding made Harmione black later. The S.p.e.w. storyline was bad enough, it's absolutely horrifying when you add that on top of it. Imagine being a black girl who has her only 2 friends make fun of her for wanting to end slavery. And Harmione struggles to make friends already, people find her annoying. If she ended her friendship with Ron and Harry there she would've been left all alone, and she's already marginalized for being a muggleborn. Just... wow, i wouldn't been able to write something that uncomfortable if i tried.

[@tonystonem9614]

That’s another ploy of hers like saying dumbledore is gay a couple years after she finished the books. Also makes it worse cuz hermione is constantly made fun of for her hair even by teachers. The other black girl Angelina is made fun of for braids

[@autumn_sunday]

They call her slurs (Mudblood), they don't like her for being vocal, and, like you said, they don't like the idea of SPEW. No, they downright hate the idea of SPEW. HMMMMMM...

[@godslaughter]

0 self-awareness on her end, as usual. Horrible.

[@theoneandonlymichaelmccormick]

Her only two friends who are WHITE, and also regularly dismiss what she has to say regardless of the topic.

[@aptalsandvic5355]

@@theoneandonlymichaelmccormick Harry truly sucks as a character and a person. He can't even be bothered to pay attention in class when he knows Voldermort is trying to kill him and his loved ones.

[@OhSkyeLanta]

Analysis like this one and all other Harry Potter critiques hit so hard because hatred from the start is one thing, but hatred that started out as love? That’s a different beast entirely. Nothing hurts more than realizing something you love is deeply flawed, or that a creator of something you love would hate you just for trying to be you

[@sanjanaaartiragbir]

that’s exactly it lmao that’s why I’m watching this

[@SlavoidUkr]

True I think many of us feel this way

[@paul_atardis]

Very well put.

[@shio_juniper]

So true. I used to love HP books as a teen, but later I discovered all that stuff about this woman. And I'm transgender.

[@heyna1185]

You are so right. I‘m trans and I used to love Harry Potter as a child. I wasn‘t a big fan anymore when I was a teenager but I still felt like HP was a huge part of my childhood. My dream career was to be a writer and JKR was the only person I ever called my idol. I remember watching an interview with her once where she spoke about the connection she felt to her characters and it made me cry because I could relate to it so much and I looked up to her so much. By the time she announced Dumbledore was gay I was not that emotionally attached to her anymore but I still considered her an idol. I was so heartbroken when she started being publicly transphobic. It caused me so much pain. It‘s been years since I last really felt the pain but I remember it. It might seem silly but critical videos about Harry Potter like this helped me heal. For a while, I would watch them quite often. It allowed me to still engage with a world that I loved so deeply in the past, which I can‘t do in a positive way anymore (I know there‘s plenty of fanfictions written by trans positive people but I just can‘t enjoy the world of Harry Potter anymore). And it makes me feel validated in my grief. It may sound dramatic but realizing that a person I once admired and felt really connected to has nothing but hate in her heart for people like me was genuinely traumatizing.

[@FairyofGhosts]

Another thing about Molly Weasley is that in one of the later books, 6 or 7 maybe, her son Bill is attacked by a werewolf and his face is scarred and she tells Fleur, Bill’s fiancée, that she expects Fleur will leave her son because he’s ugly and scarred and she’s gorgeous and pretty and therefore assumed to be shallow. Pretty fucked tbh

[@TheNikNik212]

Dang! I totally forgot she did that in the books. She’s one of my favorite characters in the movies, but the book did paint her in a different light with that one.

[@Victoria-_]

I HATED that!

[@SirDanFilmsUnltd]

That was, for sure, JK self reporting.

[@TemariNaraannaschatz]

​@@SirDanFilmsUnltdThat's actually something that is Mollys character through the books. She straight up treats Hermoine badly because Rita Skeeter wrote about her that she was playing around with Harrys feelings. That behaviour certainly didn't come out of nowhere for Fleur and Bill.

[@asarishepard8171]

Yeah she couldn't possibly, ya know, care about him 😂

[@fifirodriguez52]

I know this isn’t an earth-shattering observation at this point, but going through this list really brought home just how fucking bad JKR is at naming characters, and not even just the characters of color. Like ah yes, what should the school bully be called? How about Dragon Badguy, with his parents Lucifer Badguy and Narcissist Badguy. What should I call the annoying woman who causes pain? Dolores (meaning sorrow) Umbridge (meaning offense)

[@swishfish8858]

Names are often a lot simpler than we give them credit for. They're shorthand descriptions of the thing we're trying to name. Look at all the cities and towns in our world that are named after the fact that there's a river or a lake nearby. Or the names of other popular characters, like superheroes and villains. Darth Vader is named after the fact that he's Luke's dad! If anything, I think Rowling's names in HP do exactly what they're meant to do, describe the character while sounding good, and not being obvious unless you look them up. If you wanna get mad at the laziness, look at the characters themselves. The Malfoys are so flat and uninspired that "badguy" is really the only way you CAN describe them.

[@roseripples]

JKR's degree is in Latin rather than writing and I feel like half the time her books are about showing us just how much she knows about Latin - because she can't show us how much she knows about writing

[@snarkbotanya6557]

​@@roseripples Her degree isn't even in Latin, it's in _French,_ with a minor in Classics.

[@Albinelor]

To summarize, Jkr's female characters are born from the "I'm not like other girls" mindset (which most of us got over at 15) and white European feminine standards! And she calls herself a feminist! Even back when I was a teenager and a fan, I felt most of these characters were hollow and flat but didn't think about them critically. Thanks for the video

[@piros100]

even in my early 20s I was a fan, but I still hated how she mocked all the coolest female characters, the ones I related to the most, like Tonks and Luna or Fleur.

[@erika-paigehutch3930]

Shes a feminist but inly if youre white and straight it seams 💀

[@Eyes_On_America]

Not sure if you noticed but Harry Potter is set in the late XXth century UK, not in modern day US...

[@giordanodsouza9563]

​@@Eyes_On_America not sure if you noticed but feminists existed in the 90s and this wasn't it.

[@Satnanat]

​@Eyes_On_America "this was set in the UK a couple decades ago!!! There was no silly "feminism" or "three dimensional women"'

[@edithw-k7946]

JKR, like many other career-driven baby boomer women, grew up learning that if they wanted to be taken seriously, they had to hide anything about themselves that was "feminine" - pink, frills, heels, glitter, makeup, and so on. Some women have internalised this mysogyny and have come out of the other side looking down on women who embrace the more traditional "girly" things, and in JKR's case it absolutely comes out in her writing. The signs were there all along: we just had to look critically. Thanks for making this video Caroline!

[@Exudedmemes]

@@thereisauniverseinsideyourhand i dont think they were trying to excuse J.K's choiced but it was an explanation

[@Angie-ux3xr]

I was thinking the same. Didn’t she avoid putting her first name because she wanted boys to be interested in her writing and didn’t think it would be if they knew it was written by a woman? It’s sad that the end result was some pretty insensitive content, to put it mildly. I still like HP overall, but there’s definitely a lot lacking.

[@fee33bee]

Disappointing. No allowance for debate. This will probably be deleted. No way older women were not allowed to be feminine to be successful. That is ridiculous. I’m the same age as Rowling, successful and feminine. By the way, we are not Boomers, we are Gen X. My mother, an actual boomer, was successful and feminine.

[@lepapercastle]

​@Angie-ux3xr That wasn't her choice, her publisher asked her to do that.

[@msjkramey]

Unfortunately, I know that feeling. I went through an awful not-like-other-girls phase where I was so focused on defying gender stereotypes that I didn't even realize how that goal didn't make me a good feminist because I was disparaging other women/girls and centering men in my mind when doing so many things. Now, I dress how I want; sometimes I'm a little girly, sometimes a little more butch, but always what is going to make me feel good and preferably comfortable clothes when the situation allows it

[@rainbowmeowmix]

Honestly she missed an opportunity with Narcissa. Narcissa was practically a textbook example of people who were married off and have zero hope at personal happiness, she could barely stand her husband but loved her son for who he could have been if his dad didn't screw him up, she obviously was influenced by women in survival mode who knew they had no way out of a toxic marriage. And young me thought Madame Maxime sounded gorgeous which explains so much about my taste in women (my type is can easily throw you through a wall)

[@shio_juniper]

Me too, I was sooo surprised that madame Maxime wasn't supposed to be seen as a beautiful woman! For me, she is truly a beauty! ♡

[@rainbowmeowmix]

@shio_juniper right and the PRESENTATION 👌 shows up with a carriage pulled by some of the most difficult to train dangerous magical equines in existence? Like that's a power move and it's played off as if it's supposed to be gaudy? Durmstrang shows up in the damn black pearl like a stereotype of villainy and that's fiiiiine but gods forbid the effeminate French school be anything but a Lavender menace trope 🙄

[@Digital111]

"She could barely stand her husband" Someone's been reading too much fanfiction. Quote me a sentence from the books that shows Narcissa "could barely stand her husband"...

[@connorrussell2084]

they didnt say it was in the book that Narcissa "could barely stand her husband" they were talking about how JK Rowling could've written Narcissa as a woman in an abusive marriage that she was forced into to keep the wizarding bloodline pure and was in survival mode trying to protect herself and her son, but refused to do so

[@drawingsticks5333]

@@connorrussell2084 ...I mean that would be very much against the point? The Malfoys are clearly there to show another facet of racism and classism and whatnot - perfectly happy families of spouses who love each other and very much love their children are still capable of committing horrible crimes to everyone they see as inferior. Their whole arc during the book is that their fantasy of how cool things would be once The Right People are in power, is very much a mistake. We can argue about the execution and how Rowling handles' the thing, but the idea imho was good.

[@wherefancytakesme]

Anyone find it funny how JK is so obsessed with people who she doesn't consider women using the same bathroom, yet Harry and Ron go into the girls' bathroom ON MULTIPLE OCCASIONS?

[@swishfish8858]

One of my favorite points by far _The second book's plot relies entirely on boys going into the girl's bathroom and suddenly Joanne decides to use it as a weapon???_

[@BlazingSteel]

​@swishfish8858 and there's a big snake controlled by a 72 year old man posing as a 16 year old student there.

[@clara_corvus]

Well, you see, Harry and Ron are cis boys, not trans girls. Rowling doesn't hate men, she hates trans people

[@warhawk1420]

​@BlazingSteel why the girls bathroom? It could've been in the boy's bathroom

[@BlazingSteel]

@@warhawk1420 because Salazar Slytherin decided to be weird about it.

[@Thefaenook]

Im honestly surprised theres even 28 female characters in hp

[@kball4737]

Fully thought the title was.indicative of a bit

[@Randomstuffxx4]

same,never thought we even had ten at the time(i was 11 when i first watched it)

[@christinal.222]

I guess it's debatable, how many of those are actual characters, and how many are more akin to cardboard cutouts.

[@LaPrincipessaNuova]

From some quick googling, it looks like there are 772 total characters and around 1/4 are women. yikes 😬

[@grimai3257]

My thoughts exactly lmfao

[@joshuab3918]

Fun how McGonagall's redeeming trait is that, while she can be stern and humorless, she ultimately caress about the well-being of the kids. That's a mother figure right there.

[@foxpro3002]

She's one of my favourite characters for that reason!!!!!

[@l.n.3372]

Um I remember the opposite in book 3. She punished Neville by forcing him to stand outside the Gryff common room while supposed mass killer Sirius was on the loose. That Neville could have died doesn't make her seem like she cared about students much

[@aikikaname6508]

But… she’s a teacher… in a book from the POV of school children. Of course her caring about the children under her authority is gonna be a key part on either her heroism or villainy. Dumbledore was definitely a father figure too. Professor Lupin and Slughorn were the same way (esp Lupin).

[@Hakainokami]

She knew he wasn't a mass killer

[@l.n.3372]

@@Hakainokami Minerva absolutely did not know Sirius was innocent in book 3. Maybe read the book before saying such. Nobody knew Sirius was innocent until the shrieking shack climax scenes.

[@msjkramey]

Re: Moaning Myrtle and annoying victims. I do wish that more victims were just kind of as*holes or annoying or whatever. And that authors would do it intentionally WHILE EMPHASIZING that those qualities do not justify the horrors that happened to them or mean it's okay to make fun of them. There is no such thing as a perfect victim, and we need to stop expecting that of people, both in fiction and real life

[@marmelade8331]

This. Moaning myrtle can be annoying AND a victim, it only takes away from it once the other characters start respectinf her being a victim less BECAUSE she's annoying.

[@emcee.escher]

yeah myrtle was annoying she didn't deserve?? to die??? nobody does??

[@cassieb2813]

….OR normalizing their own rage at what happened to them - acknowledging the rage, the disbelief, the survivors gulit - WITHOUT immediately marking them as a bad guy. Like the Maleficent films with Angelina Jolie. They literally explained Maleficent’s rage through a beautifully horrific grape analogy of someone she trusts drugging her and cutting her wings from her body. Survivors can feel how they want to feel, and we need to listen to them to learn how to help. Myrtle was angry at how she was treated, she was angry at how she was murdered, and then NO ONE CARED - so she was angry about that too. Her feelings are entirely valid. Even in death she cried for friendship - and I hate Joanne for how she wrote her in book 4 being a creepy stalker. Justice for Myrtle.

[@msjkramey]

@cassieb2813 exactly! When someone hurts you in such an intimate way, you're going to have very strong, complicated feelings. What kind of world do we live in where we expect a person to just "get over" that sort of thing? There are so, so many emotions that happen after that, and sometimes there's none at all, just totally numb (sometimes your body is literally less sensitive). Sometimes you can't tell which of the two you're feeling because you can lose your ability to judge your own emotions, your own safety, your sense of self. After all, if you are in free fall for long enough, eventually it feels like you're not moving at all, eventually you forget about the idea of hitting the bottom or stop caring about hitting the bottom because at least that would be different, at least you could stop feeling what you feel now

[@lenabluejay1166]

I used to be a big fan of the books (JKR's recent behaviour makes me uncomfortable with anything to do with her now, especially as an adult watching videos like this and realising the signs were always there) and never realised that we weren't supposed to feel sorry for Moaning Myrtle. I always felt bad for her.

[@RowanTS]

“Katie Bell only exists for Harry’s character development.” How dare you. She existed to fill up the numbers of the Quidditch team back when Joanne thought boys and girls could play the same sport together.

[@cooldog1994]

as a young girl who matched hermione's physical description in the books and had a lot of her same issues getting along with peers due to my undiagnosed autism, i related so heavily to her and it was such a punch in the gut to realize while reading the first few books that we genuinely weren't meant to like her. she just grew out of her rigid ethical code and tendency to infodump and correct people's mistakes over time without any explanation and then suddenly she was likeable. a lot of other autistic people talk about having seen themselves in luna and being hurt by how the narrative treated her, but for me it was hermione :(

[@niamhs6042]

I feel this so much too, I have always loved hermione so much (I'm autistic too and think she definitely could be) and it's one of the reasons I'm not watching this entire video right now because I don't want to cry over harry potter and Jk Rowling again today. Hermione is my comfort character and I know she has character flaws but to me that just made her more real. Maybe she isn't developed enough but I think I projected onto her in a way that made her devloped in my mind. I didn't see her character arc as making her conform but you're right I suppose she did learn to keep her views to herself more. I guess I tried to view it in the positive sense of she's saving her energy so she can fight the battles that really matter to her. I hadn't even realised she wasn't supposed to be likeable until reading this comment. Anyway the long and short of it is I'm glad I'm not the only one who related to hermione like this so thanks for this comment

[@niamhs6042]

Also want to add to this, hermione still is my comfort character really and I've got really into her portrayal in the a very potter musical series (not related to Jkr yay!). Her determination to fight for her beliefs is one of the things I remember when I get tired of explaining why I never wear my HP merch in public anymore, why Jk is transphobic etc. And she's still really important to me

[@Jess_talks_book]

Hermione was my favourite for the same reason. It wasn't until I reread the books as a adult that I realized that she wasn't meant to be likeable

[@silviasabo962]

I'm sorry that you feel that way but don't people usually realise over time that not everything is "good" or "bad"? That happened to Hermione, growing up and getting more experience while going on adventures with Ron and Harry she slowly realised that some rules can be stupid and unnecessary, that there are things more important than exams, that sometimes it's necessary to break the rules and that sometimes people don't want to have their mistakes corrected.

[@princeapoopoo5787]

Oh my god gurl I feel this so much. It took forever to realise stuff about her was "problematic" at first, because I found her relatable lmaooo I'm glad to find a comment like this because she's the first character I thought of when it comes to JKR's sometimes questionable (whether intentional or not) writing choices. I do kind of like the idea that she was only "annoying" at first because Harry is an unreliable narrator, but this idea can only do so much and shouldn't really hide unfortunate writing choices.

[@Smogget]

One thing that struck me about Hermione as I got older was that she was never presented as having any female friends. It's loosely implied that she talks to other girls in her year, but only when she's telling Harry and Ron about what they've said.

[@saberthecoolest]

And her only ACTUAL female friend seems to be Ginny, whom she meets through Ron

[@ThePhantomTomo]

I mean if you think about it, Harry Ron and Hermione don't have close relationships with any of the other students outside of their little trio do they? Neville, Ginny and Luna Lovegood seem like they're the 3 other students they actually do stuff with the most and they don't really seem like the other three are especially close to the main 3. The other students are all kind of minor players

[@mindovermatterbecomingyour1561]

​@@ThePhantomTomowhen Harry Ron and Hermione go to hogsmeade on the weekends I don't think they EVER intentionally go with/meet Neville Ginny or Luna there outside of Luna being at Harry's interview with Rita in ootp since her dad's the editor of the magazine the interviews going to be printed in even them being at the ministry with the golden trio is more happenstance that they interfered with the inquisitorial squad so were in umbridges office at the right time and the text even says flat out that if asked to pick members from the DA harry wouldn't pick any of them and he tries to stop them from going but gives in because he doesn't want to waste anymore time

[@cassandro9445]

Well that's the reality for a lot of girls. As a weird, too smart and too poor girl I was ostracized by my fellow females all of my life and had almost only male friends till my late 20s. I felt less weird, validated, by Hermione. So yeah, there's that. Nothing to root for, just a reality like any other.

[@brianfoss571]

You'd think that, since Hermione was almost Sorted into Ravenclaw, Padma Patil would be her Arithmancy BFF. But nope, even that bar was too low for JKR to avoid tripping over. Can't have a Desi girl be just as good as Hermione (JKR herself) at Wizard / Witch math, particularly since JKR has admitted she's always been bad with numbers!

[@yourfriendlyneighborhoodbi6207]

When you mentioned that Tom Riddle had a sympathetic backstory of sorts that just reminded me of something about him that drives me absolutely insane. Tom Riddle was conceived via assault essentially, his dad was basically drugged with a love potion into having sex with Tom's mom. It's implied that the reason Tom Riddle is unable to feel love is because he was conceived via assault. And this. Drives. Me. Insane. What kind of messages are we sending to victims and kids of victims? I hate it so much.

[@TemariNaraannaschatz]

Not only implied JKR literally said that the reason he can't feel love is because he was convicted via love potion. That is sick.

[@VulpineNinja]

I was about to comment on this!!! I remember when reading the whole back story about Tom's mom, it made me uncomfortable, but I was too young to pinpoint what was wrong with it.

[@dan_mnght]

Convicted 😂

[@jamiefrontiera1671]

Jk could have taken the road were his borderline personality disorder is linked to inbreeding more than assault considering how many royals who litterally were inbred historically have been found to have a number pyschological personality disorders.

[@emryspaperart]

this combined with her crap about how lycanthropy is analgous to/a metaphor for AIDs in the HP verse then had our only sympathetic werewolf be a man who acquired it after being graphically and violently assaulted as a child like jesus christ you always had some real rancid views, rowling

[@kirkmt]

I read Dolores Uxbridge as a trans cipher. She’s not “physically feminine” in any way, but she’s trying too hard to be feminine by surrounding herself with pink and frills and putting on a cutesy voice. This is, I think how JKR sees trans women.

[@ArielKalati]

I hate to be pedantic about Harry Potter details, but the reason Lily's sacrifice saved Harry's life but James' sacrifice didn't is NOT because a mother's love is seen as more pure. It's actually a way more fucked-up misogynistic reason. It's because Snape made a request to Voldemort to spare Lily, since Lily was the object of his affections, but told him to do whatever to James, since James was in the way of his affections so he didn't care- AND that he could kill Lily's child, too, and he didn't care if the child died. So Voldemort, out of gratitude to his follower Snape, killed James (suggesting that James didn't really have a choice about "dying for Harry"), but then asked Lily to move out of the way. Because Lily refused to move out of the way, it suggests that she (unlike James) CHOSE to die for her child, because Voldemort had given her the choice to live since he saw her as a consolation prize for Snape.

[@watertribeskye]

Jesus. I forgot about this and it's actually sickening. especially the "consolation prize" bit

[@marty890]

But Snape couldn't ask Voldemort to spare James, what would be his excuse? And what about Harry? "Please, Dark Lord, you know the child of that prophecy I delivered you earlier? The one who'll grow to be a great wizard and defeat you? Could you please spare him?" Snape wasn't a good person in his 20s and he was very problematic at his best, but he wasn't a creep to Lily, he always respected her boundaries and I am sure he didn't stalk her, because he had no idea the prophecy could be about her son. If he wanted her as a slave he wouldn't have "betrayed" Voldemort. He could have slipped some love potion in her goblet during the end of term feast or something. He always treated her like a person, not an object. I wouldn't call Snape misogynistic at all. The only time we see him interact with women outside school it's with Bellatrix and Narcissa, he is sarcastic with Bellatrix and treats Narcissa (a beautiful young pureblood woman that literally throws herself at his knees and would do anything to save her son) with respect, he made an unbreakable vow to protect Draco without asking anything in return. Voldemort is the sexist one, the one who sees Lily as a prize and doesn't take her seriously, calling her "silly girl" when she was trying to protect Harry. What he got was enabling that "silly girl" to create the most powerful protecting spell ever. Sorry, but being pedantic about Harry Potter is one of my favorite hobbies, lol.

[@StrawberryQuestions]

I heavily dislike Harry Potter, and please correct me if I’m wrong or something, but I feel like Voldemort having bad and sexist views is…good? Not GOOD, but he is the villain….would it not make sense for him to feel like that? Sorry if I’ve said something bad, I have never been a hp fan so…idk lol just a thought fuck jk Rowling

[@messibessi11]

@@StrawberryQuestions I agree him having bad and immoral qualities makes him a good villain and good villains should be bad people with controversial views.. the issue here is that volde isn’t even portrayed as sexist he’s a wizard supremisict.. the part that speaks volumes about JK is the running theme of sexism that’s portrayed throughout all of her characters in the books not just the bad guys

[@mindpearlgirl]

Voldemort does not give Lily the choice. It's Snape's misconception that he would let Lily live if Snape bargained his loyalty for her life. but Voldemort doesn't give a shit about non pureblood witches who get in his way. Lily is nothing but a minor obstacle to him. Not sure if Im misremembering but, the in story reason it's not James' sacrifice is because he died first telling Lily to run and Lily was the last protection between Harry and Voldemort. Out of story it's the valoration of mothers and motherhood that jk loves. Notice that even the "bad" mothers like Mrs crouch and petunia dursley are shown as less bad than their husbands, but nonetheless love their sons.

[@sunnisideupplz3920]

Luna Lovegood was my favorite character, though that is likely because she's very much autism-coded. Her whole character is very much representative of how neurodivergent girls/women were portrayed at the time.

[@lycianempire]

It broke my heart with the way she was sort of shuffled off to the side with the epilogue. Like girl spent months imprisoned in a wizard nazi dungeon, always supported and defended those she cared for and the things she believed in, and JKR just waves her away. Not even nargles get to be real around JKR.

[@emiliereal1520]

Luna was really the best. I wish they did so much more with her. :(

[@Geyser39]

I remember as a kid reading an interview with Rowling where she said that growing up, she and her sister would always be introduced by their parents as "the smart one and the pretty one," and I wonder if that affected the way she saw female relationships throughout the rest of her life, that women always have to be rivals with each other and that being smart was more important than being beautiful (but don't worry, if you're smart then you're automatically beautiful).

[@annice9216]

wow, that could explain a lot

[@thirdwheel9938]

Guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree after all

[@mantramoon9]

Yikes. My mom always praised my two sisters for their beauty but never said it about me. This did give me a bit of a complex, but it didn’t get in the way of my love for them. I hate it when parents play favorites 😡

[@pooplenepe59]

my mom always said that i was smart AND pretty but instead of giving me high self esteem it just told me that my personality traits are passive inborn and unchangeable and effort doesn't matter

[@EmeraldAshesAudio]

Christ, is THAT why the Petunia & Lily sister relationship is so toxic?

[@reallycoykoifish9734]

You make a fantastic point that she gives "evil" or "bad" characters traits associated with the opposite gender as a way to demean them. It was a trait I didn't even notice about her until I finished the Cormoran Strike Book in which the HERO threatens someone with being r**ed in prison for being trans. I shut the book and thought "this is supposed to be the person I'm cheering for..." It all started to came back to me and fall in to place, how much she hates fat people, how she thought being assaulted by the centars was a good punishment.... It was at that point I was breaking out of the delusion. I was thirty years old and heart broken that something I loved so much was written by a person who had such nasty opinions/intentions and how much I allowed my own opinions to gloss over this stuff with "surly she didn't mean it like that." I'm a girl with PCOS so I have masculan features, I'm fat/chubby, and I think trans people and everyone has a right to their own body attonomy and identities. I'm glad now that JK would hate my guts cuz she took something from me and I hate her for it. Sorry for leaving essentially a blog entry on your video lol but I really love your content and can't wait for more. Best Wishes.

[@georgegreen224]

It's interesting that all of the protagonist's mentor figures are male: Dumbledore, Sirius, Lupin, Hagrid etc. And the female characters who could maybe be considered mentor figures at a stretch like McGonagall and Hermione are also portrayed as naggy and a bit overbearing. The male mentor figures get to be fun while the female 'mentor' figures always have to be sort of naggy and annoying.

[@msjkramey]

I always just saw McGonagall as a bit stern and serious but caring. I wouldn't call her a "nag," just by the books

[@joelbailey176]

Dumbledore sets the boy up for cannon fodder. He’s seen as secretive and manipulative, not fun. Sirius is seen as a villain through almost the entire book he is the focus of, always on the run and an unstable father figure before dying. Lupin is a negligent teacher and a werewolf, he is treated as impure and cursed because of this and. On top of that, lupin and Sirius are both bullies when they were students in the school. Hagrid is treated like a giant dumb oaf and comic relief. If you think any of these characters are portrayed as good while the two most empowered, strong, independent and in-control female characters you mentioned are “Naggy and overbearing” because they, unlike all the men above, care about education, care about safety, and care about ending the problems in the school with logic instead of brute force, then you just don’t want to see that Rowling does not like men either

[@Jdudec367]

Nah McGonagall isn't naggy or overbearing she is caring but serious. And the male mentors all have their flaws too especially Dumbledore and Hagrid.

[@alexandramcdonald3085]

​@@joelbailey176yeah I don't remember many of the characters (female or male) being only two dimensional in the books, but yeah JKR seems dead-set on refusing to accept and understand transgendered individuals, so that's disappointing.

[@sunshine-dz6xj]

I only watched the movies so maybe in the books it's different but I never got the impression that McGonagall is naggy and overbearing. she can be strict sometimes but a mentor figure is supposed to be like that, a mentor won't get good results if they just let the kid do whatever they want. Hermione is seen as annoying by Harry and Ron but at least in the movies we're supposed to disagree with them and feel bad for her (the scene where she's being smart and Ron says "no wonder she has no friends" and Hermione runs away crying is supposed to show that Ron and Harry think she's an annoying smartass but in reality she just is very passionate about studying because her parents are muggles and to her this magical world is a miracle, and at the same time she isn't completely focused on studying and cares about her relationships with people). also I personally always found McGonagall very fun. Hermione and McGonagall have always been my favorites

[@fallenangel-s4b]

as someone who was abused by their mother the "nothing trumps a mothers love" message got exhausting after a while. like, its a fine message but oh my god have a single mother who isnt perfect.

[@oliviastratton2169]

Merope Gaunt? Walburga Black? There are examples. Eileen Prince, Kendra Dumbledore, and Petunia Dursley definitely had issues too.

[@cowestgirl3746]

it's interesting how it's almost like jowling kowling rowling needs us to see a mother to be an inscrutable figure of love and authority. I think there's definitely a link between her self-identitication as a single mother and the way she talks down to people online as the singular authority about women's issues (and also "women's issues" aka her blatant transphobia).

[@singingofsilver]

Or even better! A good dad! The closest I can think of but Siris, but the second he started parenting Harry, he became dead as a doorknob.

[@oliviastratton2169]

@@singingofsilver Arthur Weasley? Amos Diggory? Xenophilius Lovegood? (He had issues, but he seemed to have a good relationship with Luna).

[@noahsdragonfruit]

​@@oliviastratton2169 thank you for your comments, I dislike jk rowling as much as the next person but I love to hear some counter arguments, just like I'm sure the male characters are less flat but I would like to see a bit of a comparison

[@RX-12]

Another thing about Ginny is that she becomes so assertive and aggressive in the later books that she comes off as a bully- she insults and hexes anyone who annoys her, even crashing into Zacharias on her broom and leaving him "feebly stirring" because she didn't like his commentary, and not only is this not called out by the narrative, it's presented as Ginny being a "strong" female role model which suggests Rowling sees this as admirable behavior.

[@deeznoots6241]

Shaun of shaunvids made a good point when he said that in harry potter there are no good or bad actions, just good and bad people, so mocking somebody for their weight is portrayed as negative when the victim is a ‘good’ character, but portrayed as positive when the victim is a ‘bad’ character.

[@GraceE1111]

Yess!!!! Ginny is so mean in the later books and it's always framed as "wow how cool!" I had friends who loved her when we were younger and when I finally read the books as an adult I was like... this is your queen???? That's your home girl for real?

[@jythoden3523]

I mean look at how much of a bully Hermione was and she was also essentially praised for it.

[@ununhexium]

Omg please don't tell me Ginny is JK's Mary sue

[@vinx.9099]

i mean as someone else pointed out ginny is a self insert. and rowling is a bully.

[@SonarTheBat]

It seems like JK hates women for being either too feminine or too masculine or too ugly or too pretty.

[@thehermit8618]

JK hates women. Full stop

[@AriellaLilien]

This is especially obvious in the way she treats trans women: either they're masculine and ugly and will never be a real woman, or they're trying too hard and reducing womanhood to looks and clothes. Like jfc how obvious of a double standard can you have

[@meaganpitcock6158]

Something else about how Rowling portrays moms- for the most part, you cannot be a working woman *and* a mom in the HP universe. The few examples we have are Mrs. Edgecombe, Dr. Granger, Mrs. Longbottom. Mrs. Edgecombe - Marietta's anxiety for her mother's career causes her to betray Dumbledore's Army. Dr. Granger - we don't know much about her, but she gets her mind wiped (against her will) by her own daughter. Mrs. Longbottom - gets the worst fate where she is left disabled by her job after being tortured by Death Eaters. Being a working mom is, apparently, one of the worst things you can be in HP.

[@heatherofhyrule9050]

Tonks also dies after she comes to the battle of hogwarts to support her husband

[@NosebleeddeGroselha]

Didn’t Ginny pursue a career in quidditch after the saga ended? I’m genuinely asking I heard someone say that years ago but I didn’t read the books and didn’t read/watch cursed child either

[@meaganpitcock6158]

@@NosebleeddeGroselha Both Hermione and Ginny became working moms in the epilogue, that's true. But, in the entire HP series, that means we get only 6 working moms (including Tonks cuz I forgot her the first time) and it only has positive results 33% of the time (presuming nothing exceptionally terrible happens to Ginny and Hermione. IDK, it's been awhile since I read "The Cursed Child").

[@willowarkan2263]

@@meaganpitcock6158 Is Ginny still playing quidditch by the time she has kids?

[@AntipaladinPedigri]

For a time Rowling was a single mother living on welfare. Hmm. Makes you think.

[@lukebonser4899]

Another thing about Tonks that I think is worth mentioning is the fact that her marrying Lupin in the later books seemed to "tame" her a bit. She became less rambunctious, less goofy, her hair returned to another colour, which is a somewhat common trope you see when female characters are written by men. It's interesting how many of these tropes JKR falls into as a woman herself.

[@brookedickson4118]

Her patronus, literally the embodiment of her soul, became her love interest. Wow. Great writing, Rowling. Exactly how a healthy relationship works. A happy woman is a woman who traded her soul out for a husband.

[@Geyser39]

@@brookedickson4118 To be fair, it's mentioned that that happens to anyone who's in love with someone. BUT--the only example I can think of of a man whose Patronus changes into the same shape as the woman he loves is...Snape. Whose Patronus turns into a doe. Just like Lily's...because her husband's Patronus is a stag. So...yeah. Yikes.

[@galaxyjam3742]

She keeps writing female characters like a man would?? Thats...Ironic.

[@adina8666]

Or maybe it was because they were at war? lol

[@lukebonser4899]

@@adina8666 zero media literacy mfers be like:

[@Starmadien2019]

I always found it uncomfortable that Cho Chang was critized and put down for grieving Cedric while Harry was allowed to still be traumatized from his death. Is as if Rowling was saying that unless you are related to or watch someone die you need to get over their death. Cho loved Cedric and she was perfectly nice to others before book 5 and in book 6 she disappears into the background.

[@saberthecoolest]

Oh, didn’t you know? Crying makes you weak and feminine and therefore the totally appropriately named Cho Chang is horrible for crying over someone who was possibly her first love and someone who was good and kind and treated everyone fairly no matter what.

[@silviasabo962]

The books are from Harry's perspective! It's how Harry feels about it, he doesn't understand Cho's behavior and maybe doesn't fully acknowledge that he's still not over Cedric's death. I'd feel weird too if the person I have a first kiss with started crying in the middle of it or if on my first ever date they started to ask about their previous boyfriend who died before my eyes. And Hermione explains it from another perspective to Harry later, saying that Cho still grieves about Cedric and everything. It's not like Harry is always right, it's his first relationship and Cedric is the first person that died before his eyes (that he remembers).

[@Starmadien2019]

@silviasabo962 but they're not all from his perspective. There are passages in the books that Harry is nowhere in the picture. Yes, they're to set up plot points, but the fact that they're there throws out thar argument. Plus, Hermione, who is supposed to be the smartest and the voice of reason, is rather dismissive of Cho as well. Instead of saying, "Harry, maybe no one is letting Cho grieve or really talk about Cedric." She attributes it all to Cho just being a silly girl. I'm saying the writing could've been done better to try and make Cho's emotions not seem silly and vapid. Plus, there's the whole point of Harry icing Cho out because her friend snitched!

[@ale_lingua]

Yes, those silly sentimental girls. Crying over boys they hardly knew just because those boys died suddenly and unexpectedly in adolescence.

[@silviasabo962]

@@Starmadien2019 Yes there are 4 chapters that are not from Harry's perspective but they all are the 1st chapters of the books and when they end the rest of the book is Harry's point of view again. And yeah, that wasn't very good of Harry to ghost Cho like that to say the least but the book doesn't say that Harry did the right thing. It just states the fact. And unfortunately I would do something like that when I was a teenager, I would ghost a person instead of directly talking with them because I was too awkward and shy.

[@timothymcqueen3408]

As someone who has personally collected data on the number of pages One Piece characters appear on and tried to exhaustively list their prominence in the manga, it makes me appreciate that even the top 150 characters by number of appearances in that series have a plethora of traits and fun memories that I can associate with them, when it's apparent that Rowling can only concern herself with maybe 50 characters.

[@Miata-gp5bp]

Ok but well how many of them are women have full personalities instead of stereotypes. Harry potter is mainly dominated by male characters who have interesting traits and one piece a shounen manga might be the same.

[@timothymcqueen3408]

@@Miata-gp5bp Out of the top 100 characters only 19 of them are women (21 if you count non-binary characters that skew fem) and Harry Potter at least has that leg up when comparing to 26. I guess you'll just have to read it for yourself to judge how true my praises are but every one of those 19 characters has a lot more going on than anyone outside of HP's top 5 and I can list Nami, Robin, Vivi, Linlin, Bonney, Hancock, Viola, and Pudding as being more enjoyable characters than Hermione. You just have to take my word for it but One Piece does a lot to add depth to its characters that Harry Potter just doesn't really bother with. Even the most underdeveloped of those 19, Kikunojo, has an army of fans and a plethora of memorable moments. I think One Piece is certainly misogynistic in quite a few (mostly horny) areas and I would be an even bigger fan of it if those elements weren't present but you can tell that the author doesn't hate women like Rowling does. He actively tries to write stories with his daughters in mind, especially recently, and incorporates parts of his own life experience when writing some of the best character arcs I've ever seen women go through in fiction.

[@DanialTarki]

@@timothymcqueen3408It’s the ridiculous shared body type that are my (and many others’s) issue.

[@timothymcqueen3408]

@@DanialTarki Absolutely. I think that’s my biggest problem with the series, even including the fakeout deaths.

[@mundoatena1674]

​@@Miata-gp5bpsurprisingly, One Piece is one of the best manga and one of the best shonen when it comes to female characters! While there is well deserved criticism of their designs (especially in the anime), it's very rare for a female character to be one dimensional, especially if she appears in more than one singular episode. Also, there isn't a single One Pieces arc in which female characters aren't essencial for the outcome of it both on the enemy and ally side things (the most notable arc in this regard being Alabasta and the worst ones being the first one, but the first one only really focused on three characters as actual full fleged people because we were trying to introduce our first two strawhats and the disaster boy of Koby lol) I'd really like to recommend the video "The Women of One Pieces" by MelonTreee on the subject.

[@nixaa_]

even as a kid (who LOVED harry potter at the time), i was confused by why molly, ginny, and hermione hated fleur so much. they despised her for no reason, and the writing never outright condemns them for this until fleur chooses to stay with bill even after he was attacked by greyback- and even then, she never gets a proper apology; not to mention she still proved herself to be kind beforehand. the men see her as nothing more than a pretty face, and the women see her as competition. poor her :(

[@meciocio]

how was the writing supposed to condemn them?

[@aexious]

@@nixaa_ if only the repulsion was based on orientation and bisexuality negated it, would it be less problematic.

[@yllejord]

@@meciocio writing can present a character's action in a negative or positive light. Writing can do a lot of things, in fact anything is possible.

[@meciocio]

@@yllejord i asked you how the writing was supposed to condemn them in this situation?

[@yllejord]

@@meciocio I honestly don't understand your question. You do understand that writers make writing choices, both conscious and unconscious, all the time, right? Any text could have been written in countless different ways. What we end up reading is only one of those.

[@Honeydoyou]

Why is no one talking about when Pansy Parkinson said "Why would anyone want to look like they've got worms coming out of their head?" in regards to Angelina Johnson wearing braids in OotP? It hit me so hard that one of the only black characters got shit on for her hair!!!

[@sandra6108]

my immediate thought when we started talking about Angelina?!?! vile.

[@britt6184]

Pansy is supposed to be a bully character. Bullies say and do mean things. That doesn't necessarily mean it had anything to do with Angelina being black.

[@shio_juniper]

​​@@britt6184 Sure, but I think I understand why the user Honeydoyou feels bad about Pansy's words. I think if there were kind characters who told Angelina has pretty hair or if JKR wrote that Angelina has pretty hair, the situation would've been better.

[@IWillNeverReadYourReply]

God I remember that line so clearly too. They brush it off so quickly in the book and I remember being shocked at it.

[@nigeladams8321]

​@@britt6184well considering no other characters really described with braids Joanne has had enough shity takes and creations you don't need to give her the benefit of the doubt

[@PaddleboardingFL]

On the topic of Moaning Myrtle: not only are we made to not feel sympathy for her & she's a creep to Harry.. but then Harry's invasion of privacy is ALSO played as a joke!

[@celisewillis]

That scene where Myrtle peeps on Harry in the bathtub was so awful to read! JKR being horny on main again

[@aralornwolf3140]

We (I) feel sorry fer her... but she's insane. There is a reason none of the ghosts interact with the living... Other than Peeves who just is a poltergeist and wants to make people miserable.

[@Josh-vc2ul]

Imagine if Nealry Headless Nick had made innuendo at Hermione and tried to peek at her privates in the bath!

[@PaddleboardingFL]

@@Josh-vc2ul Exactly! but JK is so blinded by her hatred of men (& internalized misogyny that leads her to believe woman are too weak to be predators) that she thinks its just a joke when Harry gets creeped on or drugged by a love potion! It's so gross!!

[@idiomasentusiasticos7954]

Finally hearing somebody saying Snape is an incel OUT LOUD is refreshing.

[@safirak7988]

I have one minor thing to disagree about - Minerva McGonagall actually has several scenes where she is allowed to be funny, particularly in the fifth book. She is one of the characters that is genuinely cool in my opinion. And everyone in the series likes her and respects her. So maybe that's a small win?

[@sophiescodingcorner1955]

Thank you! I found myself agreeing with a lot of the Video but for the McGonnagall part I felt like it came up short, in the first few books she's mostly the strict one, with a caring side, but I feel like in the latter part of the series we get more of a feel of McGonnagall the person, who's a total badass, witty, caring, smart, fair, wise and powerful and I feel like the characters have a lot of respect for her, so it kinda misses the mark in my eyes, though it would fit to categorize her into the NLOGs as well, as she isn't girly / has no fem interests, cares about sports, etc.

[@lightsinadarkworld2013]

She was always my favorite

[@ItsJustValHere]

I'd say she's one of my favorite characters (even tho I do think she was a bit undeveloped) and imo she deserved to have one of Harry's kids named after her. Like, I like Luna, but why?! Why not Minerva?!

[@meejjj.]

I still cant believe Harry went for naming one of his kids Severus but not Minerva like? There were choices being made.

[@veronika4870]

Exactly

[@geeblocks3981]

Holy shit I hadn't paid attention to how female characters and female traits are treated in these books/movies. It's so sad to see how we grew up normalizing these stereotypes, admiring and aspiring to be the "cool girl", "the girl not like other girls", "the smart girl", "a guys girl", and suppress all the things that could be potentially feminine because those were simply not the aspirational girls in these stories. Damn

[@popcornparker5390]

"Modern Classics" amiright 😅

[@msjkramey]

I mean, being the "smart girl" is still a decent goal as long as you're not acting like you're the ONLY smart girl

[@neoqwerty]

@@msjkramey If you're not bookish it's perfectly fine to be "the sportsy girl" or "the artsy girl" or "the gaming girl" or "the music girl" or "the cooking girl", though, is the thing. The "smart girl" is actually a really cramped stereotype to be put into. Source: trans guy who was constantly shoved in the "smart girl" stereotype and the amount of surprised pikachu faces I got for showing interest in anything that wasn't academic or belonged to a different nerddom were unreal, especially considering, y'know, I just liked reading and I come from a FAMILY of musicians, music is what's in my blood and creating is what's in my soul, I still don't understand why so many people wanted me to go into "smart careers" like actual academia or lawyer or doctor or something STEM-y. I was always aiming for something creative, not something academic.

[@msjkramey]

@neoqwerty are you sure you didn't feel put into a box because people were trying to make you live as a girl rather than the "smart girl" box? I was the "smart girl" as a kid, and I absolutely had a blast. I was a total little nerd/overachiever and was proud of it. (Until I got to college, met a guy, and spiraled out, but that's a long story.) I never found it to be limiting. Sometimes, there was a lot of pressure that came with it, but I think that happens whenever you excel at anything. There's a big difference between playing soccer casually or playing on a varsity team or playing professionally

[@angelsartandgaming]

I honestly feel this because I grew up thinking that being girly was... Bad. "Ew pink even though I love wearing it and it's a really good color!" "Ew Barbies but don't tell anyone I had a collection and even used some for my art references before!" "Ew make-up!" ... Okay, I still don't particularly like makeup. It feels weird on my skin. But still! "Ew I'm not boy crazy like those other girls!! Now excuse me while I gush about the guy I saw for 2 seconds at the skating rink because I thought he was hot!"

[@bluesheep7]

Ginny was literally groomed by 17 year old Voldemort when she was eleven, but we never get to see her trauma or her thoughts about it. She just becomes Harry's sports girlfriend and wife. For being a "defender of girls", Rowling didn't even gave her fictional girl a proper way to handle her trauma, nor she gave real girls a good example of how to overcome these terrifying situation. Edit: guys, I'm not asking the books to become "Ginny Weasley and the Unsolved Trauma". I'm pointing out that Neville, who also was hurt by the villains in an indirect way, gets much more scenes and acts according to his trauma. Ginny (or her family) never acts as if Chamber of Secrets ever happened, except one time she mentions it just to calm Harry down. It's ridiculous.

[@_DOCA_]

Fr, Ginny got kidnapped and could die but the takeaway is her massive crush on harry, who saved her. Same thing that irked me about Cho, she is in grief, criyng but the takeaway is 'don't go only for looks' like..??

[@bluesheep7]

​@@_DOCA_ not only that, but Harry specifically says that he likes Ginny because "she doesn't cry", unlike Cho. Or Hermione. Yeah, I want my women quiet, I don't have time for their stupid crying or their trauma. Only MY trauma matters.

[@mindovermatterbecomingyour1561]

Well to be fair ginny didn't remember being possessed by Voldemort or being dragged down to the chamber she says flat out that the last thing she remembers is him coming out of the diary and in ootp she says flat out that she couldn't remember any time she was possessed and she only figured it out retroactively by piecing the context clues together

[@mindovermatterbecomingyour1561]

​@@_DOCA_well to be fair it was MASSIVELY insensitive of her to bring up her dead boyfriend to the guy she's currently on a date with who just so happens to be the guy who was present at his murder and has serious PTSD from it also her line about "I NEED to talk about it I thought you of all people would understand" like nice job cho way to invalidate and disrespect Harry's autonomy and trauma

[@nathanpetrich7309]

If we consider the work as a window into the trauma that birthed it, maybe the author personally felt a great deal of jealousy and resentment toward women for a wide variety of reasons, and probably had very few friends. Without having normal interactions with women, one would probably not be very good at writing them. The author should stick to personal experience and write something that mindfully works from that trauma, rather than mindlessly reproducing it.

[@hokardjo]

I agree on a lot of things here, outside of one thing: Minerva had one scene that stuck with me, one scene that I think recontexctualize a lot about her, and that's the scene where she makes all the statues (or armors, I'm not sure) move to defend the castle, as she yells them something along the line of "Do your job and defend this place!" (didn't read the books in a long time, and it was in french) before confessing she always wanted to do that spell. She gets to be a badass and show that, yes, she likes her magic, she likes her powerful spells, but she restrains herself. She's strict with others but also with herself. But there is something underneath that allure. Though, again, it is one and only one scene, for the freaking third most mentioned female character in the whole series. She also fights with Snape which, like, every time I think about, it's just a freaking shame that Dumbeldore trusted Snape with his secrets but not Minerva. Like, hello, that woman is begging to have more action, to be in known. She respected him so much. Guess she is the Bellatrix of Dumbeldore, in a way.

[@hodarinundu]

I *think* she only says that in the movie tho. I agree that she deserved to have more action and that it seems very strange that she being such a loyal and competent person wouldn´t be trusted with anything by Dumbledore and Snape. I suppose there's two possible explanations; a) that Dumbledore considered she, being a brave and loyal friend, would probably try to defend him/prevent his death which could potentially ruin his plans (whereas Snape, although he respected Dumbledore, didn´t actually love him, and so was more likely to go through with the plan without being stopped by an emotional attachment), and b) she is shown being very into gossip in a scene in book three, in which she spends her free time giving all the tea to Madame Rosmerta on the Potters and what not. Which could imply Dumbledore feared she would not resist the temptation to say something about his plans. In other words, Dumbledore trusts McGonagall enough for her to be the deputy headmistress, but rarely for anything else.

[@toxicallypink]

Winky and the whole house elves arc was depressing af. I hated it as kid. I thought Winky was gonna end herself at any moment.

[@Lakadaisy_and_Foghorn]

I remember my mom pondering if JKR was sexist when I was 9, because she had noticed that so many of the female characters required rescuing. I vehemently disagreed at the time, but as an adult I see what she saw

[@infpdreams]

Good mom moment!

[@DesiWeidner1309]

Your mother is amazing for noticing that!

[@claraquinrulez]

The fact that we never see Hermione's home, Hermione never has a female best friend and Harry & Ron use her to have her make their homework tells me a lot about J.K. Rowling's childhood...

[@shinyagumon7015]

Also the fact that she gets rid off her parents off screen and its never mentioned again. Not even in a "Oh she reversed the memory spell later on after the danger was gone" kinda way, for all we know her parents are still living in Autralia while Hermione has completly abandoned her Muggle heritage in favour of living in the Wizarding World.

[@pluutonius]

the only thing i remember about Angelina was a member of the Slytherin quidditch team making a racist remark about her. Not a remark about her muggle parents or heritage, but a remark about her hair. There's one black woman in HP, and JK Rowling makes sure to have a racist comment on her hair.

[@AS-ls1uq]

Yes, in the fifth book the Slytherins watch the quidditch training and Pansy Parkinson asks Angelina why she wears her hair like there are worms coming out of her head (she probably has braids). I always found it weird how no one called her out for such a racist comment and Angelina just shrugges it off.

[@AK-rx8gp]

Man they really have regular racism as well as wizard racism imagine being a black muggleborn fucking hell

[@belovedobserver]

Yes I remember that too. I also remember Dean being on the run bc his blood heritage was put into question bc his dad had run off, and he didn’t know, or couldn’t prove he was a wizard.

[@amerki874]

So weird that the ‘evil’ women is either too masculine or too feminine

[@itisALWAYSR.A.]

I mentioned elsewhere but I think the "masculine" characters are more menopause coded. The characters were women and I don't think JK would have tried to imply transness since she doesn't believe transwomen are so. Like, I respect the reading, but I get different energy from it. Especially as the stories are written in 3rd person omniscient, so it's basically Harry's POV and his take on them, he's describing things he's noticing, which is why they're so course-grain. Also i imagine a transfem character would have been called something Amanda Badenscourge

[@veronika4870]

I mean at least it's not just one it's extremes I suppose

[@erika-paigehutch3930]

This very much feels like the whole thing where if women do literally anything they are critisised for it because misoginy

[@the_last_ballad]

​​​@@itisALWAYSR.A. no one is saying Rowling was insinuating that they were trans, just linking masculine or hyperfem traits with characters we are supposed to dislike. Like Rita Skiter. I'm not entirely sure what "menopause coded" would imply(I'm just getting granny vibes), but square jawed with huge hands I don't think are caused by menopause...

[@Spamhard]

@@itisALWAYSR.A. You're misreading. It's not that masculine coded = trans. It's that Rowlings misogyny means not being 'woman' enough is being displayed as poor qualities. She's not implying transness, and people aren't saying she is. It's that looking at a woman and considering some of their traits to be "mannish", plus a masculine woman being associated with ugliness and evilness is inherently misogynistic. Of course she's since applied these misogynistic beliefs to her anti-trans rhetoric too (just look at her calling a literal woman a "man" in the olympics because this woman dared to have muscles... as a boxer).

[@someonerandom256]

My biggest criticism of her female character development is the fact that none of her characters are really multidimensional. They tend to be extremely ugly or extremely pretty. They tend to be extremely maternal or extremely cold. They tend to be all bad or all good, all masculine or feminine, and relatively shallow, with Hermione being the only possible exception that comes to mind. Even then so much more could have been done to flesh her out. I think it's a testament to the fact that she(Rowling) herself is self- absorbed and one dimensional, and she has trouble understandinging that other women can have substance, since she herself has none.

[@silviasabo962]

What? Like is Snape only good or only bad then? And Dumbledore? Grindelvald? What about Quirrel? Sirius? Pettigrew? Lupin? Even Harry isn't fully "good", he sometimes gets obsessed with some ideas, can't be patient for too long, needs to act as soon as possible, had a row with Ron, Hermione, Lupin, screamed at Dumbledore. Ginny is a quiddich player, is ironic and funny and can stand up for herself but she still likes girly stuff like Puffskeins, perfume, dresses. Did you even read the books or only watched films or something?

[@someoneunimportant3064]

​@@silviasabo962 Most of the characters you listed as "neither good nor bad" are male. The original comment specified this as an issue with female characters. They never said Snape or Harry are one-dimentional, because , once again, they're men and thus not related to the original point being made. Sorry for bad English

[@silviasabo962]

@@someoneunimportant3064 Oh ok sorry, my bad! I thought you were talking about all the characters, not only female ones. Yes, it's quite sad that there are no mysterious or morally grey characters like Snape, Dumbledore or Regulus that are women. The only one that is remotely morally grey that I can think of may be Narcissa Malfoy but she's very minor character

[@someoneunimportant3064]

@@silviasabo962 No problem! I agree with you completely, it is quite sad.

[@andreavantzet1962]

Teehee! So funny, in the last couple of years I switched my preferred color for clothes and accessories from green to pink. I am somewhat older and own a cat. Should I change my name to Dolores?

[@justasleebylilguylittlesle1496]

Honestly, something that started to bug me about Lily Potter recently is that I feel that she's more of a thing to be won in a boy's game. James is always being an ass and flirting with her and she hates him because he's mean and rude, until Snape spouts slurs at her at which point she apparently runs into James arms because he was right, I guess? Like, aren't we kind of told that she's a spitfire? You're telling me years of this man bullying her best friend and she just... walks willingly into the arms of this absolute jerk? Forgives him? It just felt like a contest, with her as the prize. With Snape, as well. She's his consolation. She's never a person and she's meant to move plot, and I mean... so is literally every other character in basically anything, but you have to make them feel like people with agency. Lily is essentially there to create competition between two male characters, give birth, and then die for her son.

[@silviasabo962]

Yeah, I never understood what exactly happened there actually. We (and Harry) don't know the full story because no one talks about it and then everyone's dead and the only thing we have is a couple of Snape's flashbacks. But if there was nothing more to this story, Lily acts quite questionable here to say the least.

[@aexious]

Snape's worst memory wasn't using the slur. It was the public SA by the marauders and he knew they'd never face charges for it. The memory cut off as they were about to remove Sev's underwear.

[@aexious]

@@justasleebylilguylittlesle1496 oh and Ginny is Lily. In an almost oedipal mommy issues way.

[@salomeeserol2129]

He was not bullied by the Marauders, they were quarreling, he was attacking them too, just not in this peculiar memory.

[@neptuneplaneptune3367]

She fell fore James because she always saw there IS a decent guy underneath all that arrogance but he was too immature. When he cleaned up his act and became a decent guy she was willing to give him a chance because he matured. But yeah the rest dosnt make much sense. Grantet I think after being called the M word Lily dosnt care about Snape anymore in any form so thats probably what made her fogive the bullying.....wich is honestly pretty bad.

[@Mithcoriel]

Nice overall list. But I think you were too hard on McGonnagal. She's also got the really cool moment of getting Harry into the Quidditch team, and the way she sided with the students against Umbridge, and whispered to Peeves "it unscrews the other way".

[@beautifulinksbyjena5008]

Its so weird, JK seems to hate masculine women AND feminine women. Its almost like she just hates women

[@JC-yy8iv]

I think to her there’s one perfect gender expression for women that’s not worthy of ridicule, and it’s something like: former tomboy who now as an adult wears sensible makeup and sensible heels and performs femininity juuuuuust the right amount to not read as nonconforming in any way, but she doesn’t, like ENJOY it, she certainly isn’t INTO makeup or clothes or anything because then she’d be a shallow bubble-brain

[@FxdGearQueer]

That's 'coz she hates herself. Look at the sad spectacle she's become.

[@heyfell4301]

@@FxdGearQueerI'd feel pity if her self loathing didn't lead to her supporting to the point of actively funding a hate campaign against 1-2% of the entire population that includes myself and some of my best friends.

[@miidnxghts]

that leads me to believe her ideal image of femininity falls somewhere around the 2013 wattpad y/n archetype: feminine in looks with a conventionally attractive face but is "boyish" and "not dramatic" and "not like other girls"

[@Levacque]

Probably just hates anybody who is sufficiently (by which I mean barely) different to her own status and sensibilities.

[@palinurus]

One of the funniest things to me about the Yule Ball stuff is that someone- possibly Seamus or Dean- literally gets on to Harry and Ron because (paraphrasing here) "How do you get the two prettiest girls in our year to come with you and then ignore them the whole time?" Because yes. They did. The Yule Ball is something Hogwarts students only get to experience once, yet these two lumps decide to make the experience utterly miserable for their dates. And Ron goes out of his way to make it miserable for Hermione too- shaming her until she runs away. I think she might've cried, too. As a young girl reading the books, I had been so excited for the ball scene, so the combination of Harry's dour, bored perspective and the boys' actions made my child self genuinely *sad.* I had wanted dancing and fun- not them constantly ragging on the whole idea of getting dressed up and being formal for a night. I think it really feeds into how much JKR clearly hates traditionally feminine things (except for having babies, of course. Don't you know that's the *only* thing that defines womanhood?) Also, JKR can fight me in regards to Madame Maxime. Who wouldn't find a tall, olive-skinned woman with a hooked nose (which I'm guessing is what she meant by beak-like?) and deep black eyes attractive?? Oh, she's meant to be gangly or ungainly or whatever? Well, so am I, and I don't even have the height to justify it! Maybe I'm just gay but imho Madame Maxime could get it

[@l.n.3372]

I always wondered why Parvati and Padma were single if they're the best looking girls. Makes you wonder why JKR didn't have the two Indian girls paired off yet if they're so beautiful

[@Yamainthejar]

@@l.n.3372 Same with Angelina Johnson. She's attractive, she's athletic, and she's smart enough to captain the quidditch team along with balancing her schoolwork. But the only time we see her treated as a romantic interest was the single moment when Fred asks her out as a split-second decision to go to the Yule Ball. There's never any follow up of her dating Fred or anyone else during the run of the books. Dean Thomas too is basically discarded after Ginny dumps him. And though Cho is treated as desirable to Cedric and Harry, she doesn't end up with either of them for various reasons. Rowling doesn't see poc as important enough to have them end up with the main cast or have any permanent love interests by the end of the series.

[@l.n.3372]

@Yamainthejar Cedric is kinda dead lol. Hard to end up with Cho is that case xD I totally get your implications tho. I, too, have long since thought it "strange" that supposedly beautiful Patil twins have no dates and get stuck with Harry and Ron. If so pretty, then why are they never asked out beforehand? It's almost like JKR doesn't want any interracial couples or something, so she claims the twins are beautiful but clearly they have no dates prior to the ball. Almost as if white English boys don't want them as dates. It definitely feels like Cho and Dean are "Harry and Ginny experimented in college before marrying, traditional white partners instead" unfortunately. Dean could have married Ginny and Harry could have married Luna. At least that would have had some better build up lmao. But nope. Can't have Ginny marrying a non white partner lol As for Angelina tho, I'm gonna say she's a weirdly strange exception. She's asked out by Fred many days before the Patil twins get stuck with Harry and Ron. Supposedly, Angelina married George post canon, which is an interracial couple albeit off screen cuz post canon. Angelina is considered less ditzy than Parvati and Lavender, who are considered stupid girls who like divination. Angelina is relevant, unlike Padma. And unlike Cho, who gets dismissed by Harry, Angelina is never dismissed by main hero cuz she's never intended for him.

[@Ross516]

Yeah, no fucking way the Patel twins wouldn't have dates already. It could have been spun as maybe Parvati dumped her date for a chance to hang out with ~the boy who lived~ + a competitor, but I doubt she could convince her sister to go out with his frumpy and kind of mean friend. Like Ron didn't really have a great reputation, did he?

[@TheQuashingoftheTub]

Edit: I meant to add this comment as my general comment on this video, not in the replies. Just wanted to clear this up for people receiving a notification from me about a comment that has nothing to do with the conversation at hand lol

[@OhsweetOhno]

I didn’t even know there was 28 female characters in Harry Potter. That number in itself feels too high for this series.

[@carolineeasom]

You’ll notice that many of them are minor characters. Meanwhile, number 28 out of the top 28 male characters is Gilderoy Lockhart, a major character who moves the plot.

[@bradleynugent4991]

oh dont worry, some of them are corpses or paintings

[@KermitdaToad]

@@carolineeasomI actually found this video to be VERY moving for me. Like, I’m a male so I never thought about it but when you do think about it, this woman (J.K. Rowling) quite literally harasses trans people and disguises is by calling it for “women’s right” while literally being misogynist herself. I loved Harry Potter so much this actually depresses me how awful of a person the author is….

[@vamp_bat_chomp]

Can I ask where you found this top 100 characters list? I'd love to go take a peek, or did you compile it yourself? Cause that's awesome if you did. I'd love to do a compare and contrast with my favorite kids series, I'd just have to find or compile the lists for them.

[@ebishop6922]

@@vamp_bat_chomp it's possible the sporcle one, if not sporcle will have same list as it just how many times they are mentioned

[@Ikajo]

Rowling created a meritocracy, then had all her characters hate on smart people. Especially Hermione

[@saintsea-hat7891]

5:27 “It’s fine because she’s a muggle” really like, struck me for some reason. I feel like it’s an unspoken assumption in Harry Potter that muggles are simply Worse than wizards and characters like malfoy aren’t wrong for their supremacist views but rather the fact that they voice them. This is because rowling believes the existence of an underclass is natural and good for society.

[@andrewdunn8778]

In the very first book, Harry asks Hagrid why the worlds are kept separate. Hagrid, pretty much the moral authority of the entire series, says that it's because they would be "looking for magic solutions to all their problems"

[@saintsea-hat7891]

@@andrewdunn8778 doesn’t hagrid also tell harry that hermione is stupid for protesting house elf slavery and that it’s a very Muggle worldview of hers?

[@saberthecoolest]

The fact that the extended WW history makes use of the VERY REAL WITCH TRIALS and treats them as a joke rather than as a perfectly legitimate in-universe argument for wizards hiding from Muggles is the shocking bit. What Hagrid said: “if people knew we had magic they’d want us to solve their problems” What he SHOULD HAVE said: “our ancestors were targeted and persecuted, and we’d rather be safe than sorry even if times have changed”

[@yllejord]

@@saberthecoolest "people react with violent hate to what they perceive as different and they can't understand" is what he could have said.

[@shio_juniper]

I think that portraying an underclass is not always a bad thing, it depends on HOW the writer does it. For example, if it's shown that society is not fair and perfect and main characters want to make it better and ruin the difference between classes, it's okay. It's a good thing to write. So, JKR failed to portray underclass.

[@skj0k]

The way most of the female characters are described as "white, blonde haired, blue eyed woman" like yeah we get it😭

[@mi1kguts]

the venn diagram of TERFs and nazis is a circle let's be real

[@gatorfruit]

Yeah it’s really not helping those n*zi allegations 😅

[@lepapercastle]

I mean, the UK has is very blonde.

[@Teabazile]

I'm really happy the movies didn't adhere to that.

[@ecenbt]

​@@lepapercastleI mean, they also have a lot of brunettes and red heads, and also a considerable amount of south Asian and black minority groups

[@dawn8293]

It's weird that she doesn't want her women to be feminine, but they also can't be manly. And also, they probably shouldn't be poor (skeeter), unless that poverty is endearing (Weasleys).

[@plushdragonteddy]

this !! people dog on the barbie movie for not doing a good enough job at being feminist, but that speech about the contradicting expectations of womanhood just HITS. “you have to be thin, but not TOO thin, and you can’t say you want to be thin, just that you want to be healthy” etc etc. i’m guessing JKR buys into those standards entirely without examining them. that’s how you end up with the simultaneous villainizing of both masculine AND feminine women. you have to be this perfect balance between the two; performing the expected level of femininity so as to conform to your assigned gender, but still being masculine enough to be “low maintenance” and respectable. ugh. i shudder to imagine what it must be like to live in the prison that is her mind

[@nellautumngirl]

That's actually really sad. If she believes this herself.. what does that leave her with? A very limited life 😢

[@yllejord]

@@plushdragonteddy I'm sure she occupies that perfect spot herself and is perfectly happy with her terf buddies.

[@letitiajeavons6333]

British society has a lot of class prejudice.

[@jgr_lilli_]

The Weasleys are poor because they are Irish-coded. And Irish are of course naturally poor, there is no cultural (colonial?) background at all. They're just poor. 🤷

[@m0nkeywrench]

Just wanted to say how much this video opened my mind, I've very much been aware of Rowling's descent into TERFism but listening to such a thorough breakdown of every female character in her book series has really hit home the issues with how she writes women. It's got me thinking that reading this stuff and watching those movies probably affected my worldview as a boy growing up, especially all the femininity=bad stuff and the 'ideal girl' trope stuff, well everything really. It's insidiously subtle too, because it never outwardly states it, it's just how the characters behave and are expected to behave, so I can only imagine what reading those books would do a girl growing up.

[@keithives6721]

i never understood why harry would be so vocal about his hatred for his cousin by mentioning how fat he was. like, the cousin was a scumbag. but when u try to talk back to him, all u can think of is telling him he's fat? or call him another thing but putting fat somewhere in the sentence? awful

[@Fireflies2202]

Not Harry Potter said this about Dudley, J.K. said this in her description of him (as far as I remember)

[@thoopsy]

He's bad because he beats you up, buddy, not because he's fat.

[@TemariNaraannaschatz]

I mean if I was an incredibly underfed kid who only got the bare minimum of food, I'd probably also use fat as an insult. Other characters Harry likes he doesn't insult, like Molly, Sprout or Neville. Sure it says something about JKR that she made Dudley fat but it seems a much more sterotypical kid that gets everything he wants than general fatphobia, given that there are literally more fat characters on the good side than the bad side.

[@keithives6721]

@@TemariNaraannaschatz but being "on the good side" doesn't mean they aren't a portrait of fatphobia. Being "Bad" isn't the only way you can be a victim of such things. For example, i am Black. If you don't like me, If u was rude to you, is It okay to call me slur or call me like "oh that b*tchy Black"? No. Its still racism. That its my whole point. Bc, you see, If you're not fatphobia, u will call me insults, but they won't have anything to do with being FAT because If you are not fatphobic, you won't see being FAT as an insult. Its as simple as that. Harry having FAT friends is like racist people that says "oh but i'm not racist. i even got Black friends!"

[@TemariNaraannaschatz]

@@keithives6721 I think we're not meaning the same thing. An author can write a character saying something fatphobic without being fatphobic. And given how fat HP characters in general are written as mostly good people, except for two (Dudley and Vernon), doesn't neccessairly reflect JKR being fatphobic when she wrote Harry insulting one as fat (no idea if she is fatphobic now). Harry the child-teenage character insulting Dudley as fat because he gets too much to eat when Harry is just getting enough to not starve isn't a sign of fatphobic writing. If all the fat characters were evil and bad that would indicate fatphobic writing, the pissed off protagonist saying something does not indicate fatphobia. Because with that logic no one could ever write any villains, racists, honophobes etc.

[@ckilbarger01]

I honestly still didn't understand why "Always" is supposed to be this incredibly romantic sentiment. Um Snape was more obsessed with Lily through the books and then these memories come up in the last book and we're all just supposed to 180 on Snape and make Always this whole thing.

[@bibitch]

Thank you! Snape is so gross. His "always" obsession is so gross. And JKR is so gross for writing it thinking it redeemed his character somehow.

[@marnenotmarnie259]

right like i wasn't allowed to read the books in elementary school (parents thought it was evil) and when i finally did read them in hs, i knew there was some big twist with snape. and then i got to it and was like ?? that's it?? we're supposed be chill with all his child abuse just because he was obsessed with harry's mom even after she rejected him???

[@margaretforsey7763]

Yeah, to me Snape is an incel.

[@margaretforsey7763]

Oh, haha, just got to the part in the video where Caroline said that, too!

[@lordbaylay]

Snape is what happens when someone who's not a very good writer tries to write a tragic character

[@epicsharkduck7635]

Terfs often are misogynistic. It's pretty hard to have such a rigid view on gender and not be misogynistic

[@OsirisLord]

They are also misandristic, Rowling has said that she assumes most men are predators or aspire to be predators. She assumes the only reason someone AMAB transitions is to sneak into women's bathrooms to commit sex crimes. This is an important component of hate groups: they hate everyone, they don't limit it to just one group. And even if they pretend like they just want to support the group they identify with either women or white people or their country, they never do. White supremacists never celebrate the accomplishments of other white people, they just attack other people, and TERFs never celebrate other women, they just attack other women.

[@skadi6750]

I mean...the whole homophobia, transphobia and any kind of LGBTQ phobia kinda stems from misogyny. "The good gays are the tops, the ones who are not frilly and twinky...The semi-acceptable trans people are transmen, because of course "the girl would like to be a guy", (of course we will never accept them as men, but we feel for their "aspirations"), but "a guy wanting to be a girl and rejecting masculinity" is an attack on masculinity itself!...lesbians are sort of cool, cuz they are like tomboys, right? Of course the girls want to live a life of a male, thats understandable. As long as we get to still dream about fucking them and giving them babies." In my eyes, every homophobe or transphobe is a misogyn. They just dont always tend to know that.

[@felixhenson9926]

Yeah also if you have a v fixed and biologically based view of what makes a woman it ends up misogynistic almost immediately. Like if you say women are defined by their ability to bear children well done you've defined women as baby machines basically, if you say it's by having periods, well good job older women amongst others are no longer women and again, they're being defined by their ability to bear children basically. And so on.

[@werners96412]

​​@@felixhenson9926 Is it really so incorrect to argue that a woman's ability to carry children defines her? While not all women are able to become mothers due to biological reasons, many attempt to make up for it in other ways. It still doesn't alter the reality that her primary value has been diminished to that of a man, as men must earn value through hard labor and don't have the intrinsic biological worth that comes with having a uterus from birth. It's simply biology and plain sense. I mean, humans are literally just biological organisms and the meaning of biological life is to survive, adapt and reproduce. I'm not sure why this is controversial.

[@Telarii]

@@werners96412 great for you that you're good with reducing being human to being on the same level as bacteria with that "survive, adapt and reproduce", but I find if inherently hilarious that you're commenting this on the internet, under a video about a (no matter how bad) creative work. Humans are so much more than their ability to reproduce.

[@bearowl4101]

So JK Rowling is alright with shapeshifting but not transitioning? Transitioning is kinda like limited shapeshifting in slow motion, so maybe this whole time she's just been impatient 😤

[@Flameclaw123]

Rowling: Okay so when you're making the movies, there's this house elf Winky- Warner Bros: Ohhh nooo that's okay! Why don't you keep that one Joanne :) We'd totally looove to add her but like, limited screentime, yknow?

[@frickenarrg3826]

On the same note of JKR not liking cats is how she handled Hermiones cat. The entire time the cat is in the books, it’s described as a en evil cat and Hermione was seen as crazy for even wanting to keep the cat. Every character was against her for even wanting a cat

[@SillyBilly-w7s]

I forgot hermione even had a cat

[@theoneandonlymichaelmccormick]

The cat whose only crimes were attempting to kill a rat which was secretly an adult man sleeping in the same room as a minor under false pretenses.

[@rinmartell2678]

But the cat turned out to be a smart cat who allied with Sirius and was infact helping Harry. After that reveal everyone loved hermoines cat

[@JoRiver11]

Yeah, the behaviour of Crookshanks as described in the books was so obviously written by someone who doesn't like cats. And then there's Mrs. Figg! The batty old cat lady and squib.

[@yllejord]

The thing is, a lot of catpeople, myself included, are very much "cats are assholes" most of the time. So when I read the books (as an adult) I could not say if Rowling liked or hated cats, honestly, the writing would be the same.

[@cervicalvertebrea]

Petunia Dursley is really a missed opportunity for a character. I have this whole AU Petunia who sees the magical world as a cult that took her sister from her and is determined to protect Harry from that fate. She found out as a child that magic was real and that she was not magical. That led to understandable resentment towards her magical sister, and I think there's a story there of a kid learning to manage those emotions and even direct them at the appropriate source. TLDR, I want a character with Petunia's backstory who is an interesting main character.

[@Megi-k1d]

You're so right. I think that in the books at first Petunia was ectually happy for Lilly and she wanted to go to Hogwarts too, but then something happened (cant remember what) and she started hating magic. And i totally agree with you, J.K.R. made Petunia a bad character for no reason at all, and made her hate her own sister for no reason at all

[@patrycja933]

OH MY GOD. It sounds great, like really... If my sister was abroad or in a boarding school for a majority of the year and she couldn't tell me a lot about stuff that happens, she wouldn't learn normal things like maths, languages etc., and I could visit, I would be DRAGGING her out of this. From a muggle character pov it can look fishy and suspicious... I would read that.

[@amethystimagination3332]

Normally I hate when people assume that a negative relationship in the story is automatically meant to parallel an author’s real life relationships. But with how blatant Rowling makes her hatred of any woman who isn’t exactly like herself, it wouldn’t surprise me if she sees her own sister as a jealous shrew who would abuse her children if she got the chance.

[@kajamiletic3223]

I mean Lily quite literally died young as a direct consequence of going to Hogwarts. Seeing her sister get roped into doing increasingly dangerous things, by people who often look down on her as inferior, and watching her die at 21 after having completely cut herself off from your shared childhood context, would be enough to make one determined to hate wizards.

[@ryanstardust_]

I actually wrote a thing based on her and Harry's relationship. It's just a short thing but I find her character so interesting so I'll probably be writing more about her at some point

[@bespectacledheroine7292]

I don't disagree with most of your points but we laugh at Marge floating away because she calls a dead woman a horrible word in front of her orphaned son. Not because she's fat and a muggle.

[@Ihavenoideawhattowriteasauser]

It also interesting how most of the villainous women are compared to animals at least once

[@thedeliveryboy1123]

omg that reminded me of Nagini 😭😭😭

[@stephenhunsaker8531]

Voldy is compared to snakes Snape is compared to bats Wormtail is compared to rats... Srimgour is compared to a Lion...are we saying that if a character is compared to an animal that means the character is bad?

[@instantdoodles4828]

This makes so much sense to me, and it's laid out so clearly. I remember as a young girl who LOVED harry potter, reading an interview done with JK Rowling where she said something along the lines of "the books never would have been popular if the main character had been *Harriet* Potter, Harry being a boy was one of the main reasons the book succeeded", and it made me feel so.. deflated. Like there would never be a main character that I could relate to, because books with those characters wouldn't succeed. It made me sad then, but now it just makes me angry. Angry that she knew women were underrepresented and misrepresented in media, and she wasn't even trying to make it better. That all of her female characters were either "not like other girls", "motherly", or "evil". The transphobia was just what first opened my eyes to how awful of a person she was, but looking back there were a lot of signs in her work.

[@catmanmenace]

It's insane for a woman to act like she's such a feminist and cry abt her oppression as a woman but when she had the opportunity to change so many little girls' lives and open their worlds she gave them nothing.

[@saberthecoolest]

Which is so weird because I’m sure JKR would’ve grown up reading Enid Blyton, and HER school stories did so well! And she set them in all-girls schools! So what if you only have girls reading your books? Is that SOOOOOOO shameful for Ms. “I care about women” JKR?

[@CoolScratcher]

@@saberthecoolest I'm an American teenage boy and I happened to grow up reading Enid Blyton because of my family. I loved all her books despite most of her series being about girls. JK needs to understand that gender has nothing to do with who can connect to what.

[@Rosie-jn4qr]

It is also rather peculiar to claim that a girl-centered story cannot be successful, as if we have never had Nancy Drew, Pipi Longstocking or Lyra Belacqua - you name it.

[@ARCtheCartoonMaster]

If it makes you feel better, then been *plenty* of stories with female protagonists in various types of media, including literature, for decades if not centuries now.

[@sayven]

Rowling went on to say that Lily's sacrifice worked only because she chose not to defend herself. Which is a very patriarchal idea, to have a woman's passive sacrifice be her main contribution to the plot.

[@nathanpetrich7309]

The single mother who refuses to defend herself is also failing to protect her child, but that idea clearly didn't occur to the author. I think the author just wanted the main character to be an orphan protected by in-universe plot armor, and the martyrdom of a boymom checks all the boxes for that.

[@l.n.3372]

​@@nathanpetrich7309 She also makes Teddy an orphan for a parallel to Harry. She likes making orphans for plot only