Mugglenet.com's Harry Potter Should Have Died - Emerson Spartz [40]
Verdict
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then magical paintings that communicate are priceless. If memories are golden, then the ones swirling around in the Pensieve are a treasure trove. Harry needs both the paintings and the Pensieve to complete his task, but from one of them he receives a bounty of rare and helpful information. Verdict: The Pensieve is the most useful magical object.
Are the female characters too stereotyped?
Yes!
The girls and women in Harry Potter are all stereotyped, and there’s just no excuse for it. Young witches study hard at Hogwarts apparently so they can marry immediately and have as many children as possible. Even the strongest female characters seem to plan their whole futures around their boyfriends. Molly Weasley has no life beyond the Burrow. Hermione is fixated on Ron. Fleur lives just for Bill. Tonks is so determined to marry Remus Lupin that she throws her life away. Harry’s mother Lily existed just to be . . . well, Harry’s mother and James’s wife. What did she want to study after Hogwarts? What was her career going to be? None of that ever comes up. The career women are sometimes evil, like Umbridge or Rita Skeeter, or depressed, like Tonks and Trelawney, or old and alone, like Minerva McGonagall and Bathilda Bagshot. None of them have well-balanced lives. None of them have the maturity, wisdom, and power of Dumbledore, and that’s a shame. The men, good and bad, run the wizarding world.
Girls and women are portrayed as overwhelmed by their emotions and that limits their choices in life. Except for the serene Luna Lovegood, the females react to every little thing by either blowing up in anger or falling to the floor sobbing uncontrollably. Merope Riddle gives up and dies because her husband left her. Cho Chang is so weepy over Cedric’s death that Harry has to stop dating her. Madame Trelawney is an alcoholic, just like Winky, the only female house-elf. Narcissa Malfoy has Lady in Distress syndrome: With her husband in prison and a son controlled by Voldemort, she sees no option but to run and ask a man for help. Only Severus Snape can solve her problem, and he has to give in when she cries, begs, spills wine, and acts like a helpless female [HBP, p. 33]. Plus, she resorts to trickery with the Unbreakable Vow. So she is both weak and dishonest.
Real women have to be controlling nags. Molly Weasley scolds her husband, Arthur, as if he is one of the children, and she isn’t afraid to give Sirius Black a tongue-lashing about parenting Harry in OotP. All it does is make Molly sound like a petty shrew. Her younger version, Hermione, takes it as her mission in life to give Harry and Ron a stern lecture every day. Not that they listen to her very much, but it lets her feel useful. Mrs. Black’s portrait in OotP is the best nag in the books—she is still screeching from the walls of home long after her death. Thanks, Mom.
Of course, the real “hero” of Harry Potter is a male, so the females only exist to be “helpers” along the way. Ginny and Cho are just there as love objects for Harry, while Luna is the jester who makes him laugh. Hermione is his personal encyclopedia, but she is also talented at packing her giant pocketbook for extended camping. In DH, all of Hermione’s intelligence goes to waste while she sits around a tent, crying about Ron and drying off wet clothing. Then there are the Real house-witches of Potter County: Molly Weasley cooks, folds socks, and knits sweaters, while Petunia Dursley scrubs the kitchen night after night. They might as well be house-elves. Of course, Harry is forced to work in the Dursley household, and Molly makes all the boys and men clean