• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 709 0

anything stop her, and as her blazing duel with Bellatrix Lestrange proves: She’s fierce! It’s true that all people marry at a younger age in the wizarding world, women and men, and they have old-fashioned values. The family is the most important social group in their society. Women don’t just become mothers, they become teachers who homeschool their kids until they go to Hogwarts. Caring for magical children takes a lot of stamina and imagination. Look what Molly goes through with the twins: It’s not just simple babysitting, it is more like herding cats. As the tale of Tom Riddle proves, a good family and mother can keep a boy from being abandoned by society. Thank goodness Neville has his gran to raise him, and Teddy Lupin has his own grandmother, Andromeda. Harry is an orphan, but his mother’s blood protects him from Voldemort long after her death.

Most of the women in the books are totally unique. When Madam Trelawney hurls crystal balls at the Death Eaters in DH it is not a stereotype. Neither is Madam Pince in the library with her book of jinxes in Quidditch Through the Ages, Mrs. Figg standing up to Dementors in OotP, or Bertha Jorkins confronting Barty Crouch over his crimes in GoF. Harry couldn’t have defeated Voldemort without Narcissa Malfoy, who chooses on her own to defy the Dark Lord so she can see Draco again. Just like Lily Potter, she has motherly love that is stronger than Voldemort’s evil, and it saves Harry’s life again. Women have the power the Dark Lord knows not.

Verdict

Are the women in Harry Potter doomed to lives of second-class companionship, continuous motherhood, and unhappy spinsterhood? Or are the witches creative and strong, fully equal to the wizards? It’s true the wizarding world is old-fashioned, but there are plenty of witches in the books who are full of vibrant girl-power. No matter how you look at it, any book that features the always smart, always brave Hermione Granger as the main female lead is not one that paints a stereotypical picture of women. Verdict: No, the females are not too stereotyped.

Is the final duel between Harry and Voldemort a disappointment?

Yes!

The so-called duel between Harry and Voldemort in DH was a big zero. It really wasn’t even a duel, but a long, long conversation about love and loyalty, Snape and Lily, the Elder Wand and Draco, droning on and on with almost no action. Harry knows he is supposed to kill Voldemort, not just disarm him, so how the heck does he know that Expelliarmus will backfire and kill the Dark Lord? It’s not convincing that Harry even completely understands the Elder Wand’s special powers at that point, so he couldn’t really know what was going to happen. Was it just the Elder Wand’s allegiance for Harry that killed the Dark Lord, or was Voldemort’s soul splintered so much that it just flew out of his body? It’s mind-numbing to try to figure it out, and there shouldn’t be so many questions about a duel that was supposed to be definitive and clear.

Fans have been looking forward to the final duel ever since the end of OotP when the prophecy was explained to Harry. Obviously, one of them had to be killed by the other, so we knew there would be a fight to the death and only one of them would be the last wizard standing. This duel was supposed to be the grande finale, the high noon of duels with all sorts of made-for-Sports-Center moments. It was supposed to be Harry versus Voldemort in the arena, in the spotlight, face-to-face with no one else to help and nowhere to hide. This was it—the Big Smackdown—time for Harry to put Voldie in his place and show all that he had learned in seven years at Hogwarts.

Instead, Harry mutters one spell—the boring Disarming Charm—and splat: Voldemort falls without a whimper. In the book, the word mundane is used to describe it, because even J.K.R. must have realized that as duels go, this one was full of blah. The sun comes up; the Dark Lord falls down. Not much there to write home about, and the other characters were probably standing around thinking “Huh?” It is a wasted moment and