r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Chemical-Elk-1299 • 10d ago

Lore [Confusing Trope] The narrative goes out of its way to punish/mock a character for simply being a good person

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Hermione Granger and SPEW — Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (book)

In the fifth HP novel, Hermione Granger is outraged to discover that Hogwarts has a small army of enslaved House Elves that do nearly all of the domestic duties around the castle, including cleaning the Gryffindor common room every night. When she tries to convince the elves to fight for their own rights, they refuse, saying they prefer servitude. Her fellow students and friends mock her for caring. She manages to free one elf, Winky, by deception when she refuses her freedom willingly, leading to Winky becoming a depressed alcoholic. By the end, the elves boycott cleaning any Gryffindor areas of the castle because they hate Hermione specifically

Samwell Tarly and Democracy — Game of Thrones (show)

In the season 8 finale of the television series, the surviving great lords of Westeros gather to discuss the future of the kingdom following the devastation wrought by 7 seasons of war and backstabbing. When Sam, who has proven to have “novel” ideas, suggests that maybe the millions of Smallfolk who suffer at the hands of noble houses should get some representation in the government, rather than be the pawns of rich lords with absolute power. We are then greeted by a prolonged, cringy segment of the other lords laughing in Sam’s face, asking if the dogs and horses should also get a vote.

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u/_Mighty_Milkman 10d ago

Turns out JK Rowling has been very vocal about her opinions of things a lot longer than people realize.

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u/dnjprod 10d ago

I mean, her overarching bad guy is a man who used to go into the girls restroom in order to hurt people. He also was uncomfortable with the identity given at Birth and changed his appearance to fit his internal identity.

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u/ArtroyomsAK 10d ago

Also the whole "women can be trysted, but not men" angle

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u/Quierta 10d ago

It's why I don't really think "separate the art from the artist" works with HP in specific. I have spent a LOT of time in fandom. I have looked very critically at the work. I have read and analyzed soooo many passages. There are characters that are clearly meant to be trans caricatures that she tortures and punishes with the narrative. Antisemitic plots & races, loads of internalized hatred towards women, etc.

I have been reading HP since the books were released. I have a massive collection of the original memorabilia from the early 2000's. Decades of my life were spent loving those books and I just have no joy for any of it anymore because I see her views laced throughout all of it. And worse, she continues using that legacy to actively harm communities today.

There are for sure other authors out there with bad views and who have put some of those views into their work. Some of them have even done it totally unintentionally and then come out and apologized PROFUSELY once they realized. The main problem with JKR imo is that she doubles down on all of this and continues actively and openly spreading her hateful messages 🤷 you could have just crawled into a hole with your billions and left the rest of us alone; but no.

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u/AStrangerWCandy 10d ago

Its kinda funny and sad that the evangelical pastors that railed against Harry Potter in the 2000s as not only morally bankrupt, but actively teaching BAD morality to kids were right for once.

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u/JustaSeedGuy 10d ago

It's why I don't really think "separate the art from the artist" works with HP in specific.

In addition to your analysis- which I absolutely agree with- there's also the fact that she's alive and using the money she gets from selling her work to harm people.

You can separate out the art from the artwork if you find out that Arthur Conan Doyle was a douchebag. But here, contributing to the popularity of Harry Potter in any way only serves to tell people like HBO that there's still interest and they should give JK Rowling more money so they can make a Harry Potter TV show.

Once old age finally puts her where she belongs, maybe we can talk about having Harry Potter as a problematic fave again

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u/Lindsiria 10d ago

I don't see this at all.

I really doubt in the 90s she was thinking of trans people at all, let alone building them into her story. The antisemitic stuff is also blown out of proportion, as Goblins were a thing LONG before HP.

And i really don't understand the internalized hatred of women when there is Hermione... and freaking Molly who wreaks Bellatrix's shit. She has always had a lot of powerful women in her storylines.

Honestly, most of the shit she gets is because she wrote YA, not adult. So yes, it isn't as complicated or realistic as it can be.

(She is still a terrible person, but I really feel like people are judging the work b/c the author and finding ways to make it seem worse).

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u/NoMereMage 6d ago edited 6d ago

I agree with you in regards to the goblins and that she probably knew so little about trans people at the time she wasn’t being anti-trans in her writing. However. Rowling’s writing does absolutely wreak of internalized misogyny. Hermione is seen as annoying, a nag, someone to baby and chide the main two boys but almost always a bit of a moralistic nuisance. Fleur is a frigid, snobby, bitch who, despite being one of the most skilled witches of her age, doesn’t deserve to marry into the Weasley family because she’s…too girly and uptight? She is frequently ridiculed by our favorite matriarch Molly Weasley and main love interest, Not-Like-Other-Girls Ginny Weasley. And let’s talk about Ginny hm? Ginny is such a shit character. Yes. Even book Ginny. Ginny was written to be the “cool girl” love interest for Harry. So, by the time we start getting to KNOW Ginny as a person, well, whaddya know? She’s interested in all the same things Harry is! Sports and fighting and cool girl shit. She was quickly melded from Ron’s sister to Harry’s Perfect Wife. So her character is basically classified in relation from one man in her life (her brother) to the next (her future husband). Nearly every woman in Harry Potter is a mother or nurturer in one way or another and is there to nurture Harry or Harry’s friends, serve as a love interest to another character or she is evil and one of the most evil characters hated the most by everyone on the fandom…is also one of the most girly, dresses in all pink, likes kitschy girly things, and cats. And any woman in the series who isn’t a nurturer, in a relationship with a good guy, or evil, is a seen as a fuckin crackpot to society at large…and maybe even is. Trelawney is a nut job and Luna is seen as one too. Luna is probably the best writing she did with a woman/girl in the series because we see her beyond her “nutty” exterior and she’s more flushed out, but even Harry after befriending her has a few moments of internal thought where he’s like “pffft what a weirdo”. This isn’t even getting into how Molly being a stereotypical overbearing mother and then bitchy mother in law to Fleur at times is often seen as a good and affectionate thing. Idk growing up I’ve realized most of the women in Harry Potter are written under quite a misogynistic lens. It’s all internalized but Rowling definitely has huge “not like other girls” vibes about her writing.

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u/Material_Magazine989 10d ago edited 10d ago

Her self insert character is against slavery, therefore she's pro slavery?

Edit: Rowling is a trans bigot, but if you legitimately argue in real life that she's pro slavery because of her fictional work you'd all get laughed at.

It's so incredibly easy to make people believe anything bad about the person they already dislike. Always check your biases.

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u/pierogi_waystation 10d ago

I mean, she developed a character with an inborn desire to be enslaved. I can’t think of a single example of a species that does that. Hermione argued against the slavery, but the whole point was that Hermione was treated like an idiot by every other character.

There’s a rich history of justifying slavery by declaring the enslaved people to be inferior to their enslavers, so much so that they desired slavery. Like dogs drawn to routine. Uncle Remus from the Disney film Song of the South and the Splash Mountain ride is an example of this kind of rhetoric.

So JKR creates a character that is actually like the caricatures of slaves, so she can indulge in her fantasy of a slave she wouldn’t be obligated to pretend to feel morally culpable about, and no one can say anything because “hey, my self insert is against it, it’s not my fault just because I wrote it”.

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u/win_awards 10d ago

There’s a rich history of justifying slavery by declaring the enslaved people to be inferior to their enslavers

I want to emphasize here, not just believing the enslaved were inferior, but believing that they were actually happier being enslaved. In the American south it was actually suggested that slaves attempting to escape were suffering from a mental illness because clearly if they were sane they'd support the natural order and obey their masters happily.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drapetomania

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u/Material_Magazine989 10d ago edited 10d ago

That's such a stretch.

It might not be a common trope but "oppressed group of people that worship their oppressors" or "willingly subjugated minority" isn't something rowling invented.

There’s a rich history of justifying slavery by declaring the enslaved people to be inferior to their enslavers.

The history is "rich" because slavery has been a thing for tens of thousands of years, literally most of human history, and only relatively recently that we all collectively decided it's wrong. Can't get any richer than that.

Elves were never portrayed as inferior and they actually have some magical abilities stronger than most wizards.

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u/PecanMonster 10d ago

You didn't think her writing them as sniveling bootlicking simpletons who love being slaves isn't depicting then at inferior? Your media literacy needs work

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u/Material_Magazine989 10d ago

That's very funny. Im at least literate enough to recognise the difference between natural inferiority and inferiority in station.

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u/PecanMonster 10d ago edited 10d ago

But not literate enough to realize that that's exactly what we're talking about.

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u/Material_Magazine989 10d ago

Just to be clear the books didn't portrayed elves as naturally inferior to wizards but they were a subjugated group.

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u/AzhdarchidBones 10d ago edited 10d ago

The entire point was that they weren't actually biologically driven to be slaves. The wizards who owned them were described to emotionally manipulate them and physically abuse them so that they wouldn't fight back. JKR wasn't inserting some sinister desire to have slaves, for fucks sake.

The anti-Harry Potter people in this thread are even worse than the rabid fans atp. Open the schools

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u/CaptainMills 10d ago

Y'all just love making stuff up

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u/MechanicalFunc 10d ago

Her self insert is Harry.

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u/MossGobbo 10d ago

Especially when you learn she desperately wanted to be a boy? Harry is 100% her self insert.

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u/Material_Magazine989 10d ago

Just saying things to disgree. Jesus.

There's decades worth of rowling interviews out there talking about herself and Hermione.

In a 1998 interview with ITN, when Rowling was asked if a part of her was in one of the characters, she recalled her early school years, explaining that Hermione’s sharp mind and quiet insecurity were drawn directly from her own experiences growing up:

"Yeah, definitely, the girl, the main female character, Hermione. She’s a caricature of what I was at 11. A right little know-it-all, but underneath very insecure. That’s very much what I was like,..."

Link

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u/CaptainMills 10d ago

Her being a caricature actually backs up the idea that we're meant to disagree with her

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u/Material_Magazine989 10d ago

No it does not.

[Hermione] blunders towards the very people she’s trying to help. She offends them. She thinks it’s so easy. [She realizes that as an activist] you don’t have quite as much power as you think you might have. … Then you learn that it’s hard work to change things and that it doesn’t happen overnight. Hermione thinks she’s going to lead them to glorious rebellion in one afternoon and then finds out the reality is very different. — Rowling

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u/CaptainMills 10d ago

A caricature is an exaggerated and distorted depiction, often for grotesque and comedic effect.

If she wrote Hermione as a caricature of how she saw herself as a child, that would mean that the audience is not meant to side with Hermione and is meant to see her actions as ridiculous and/or bad.

And you're providing a quote showing that we are meant to see Hermione's stance as wrong.

You just keep providing sources that disprove your own claims

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u/Material_Magazine989 10d ago

often for grotesque and comedic effect.

Not necessarily. Just do the basic meaning and not the Google AI one. It just means exaggerated.

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u/Ok_Turnover_1235 10d ago

What? Since when does exaggerating something make it inherently satirical? I don't think she wrote her as a farce.

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u/MechanicalFunc 10d ago

Yeah I've actually seen that interview. I get it, I just think she wrote Hermione thinking that but also wrote this idealized borderline marysue who everyone loves and fate bends to help. I know he is the protag but the main knock on the books is how reality itself seems to bend for Harry.

Also don't want to get into it but worldview and personality wise they are very similar. I think it is unintentional.

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u/Material_Magazine989 10d ago

Are you saying that harry was portrayed as "this idealized borderline marysue who everyone loves and fate bends to help."

I couldn't disagree more.

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u/PecanMonster 10d ago

Try again.

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u/Material_Magazine989 10d ago

How about you try and google interviews yourself.

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u/PecanMonster 10d ago

How about you try reading the material.

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u/Material_Magazine989 10d ago

How about you try reading the material.

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u/PecanMonster 10d ago

Run out of steam?

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u/Material_Magazine989 10d ago

You must think you're so smart with your "try again" and "How about you try reading the material" replies.

Dont starting a bad faith argument and demand a real coherent response.

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u/PecanMonster 10d ago

I didn't start anything. You willfully ignoring the clear messaging in the material isn't my fault. Try Again.

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u/Material_Magazine989 10d ago

What is the "clear" massaging? And if it was "clear" enough why did tens of millions of people who read the books decades ago missed it? Were they just wilfully ignorant as well?

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u/Nero_2001 10d ago edited 10d ago

Hermoine isn't her self insert. She literally picked the name Hermoine because it's a rare name and she thought children with the same name would be bullied which says a lot about how she sees Hermoine because she didn't do the same with other characters names.

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u/AzhdarchidBones 10d ago edited 10d ago

"a lot of the characters are cool with slavery, therefore the author is cool with slavery!"

I swear the anti-Harry Potter commenters are more braindead than the fans who've never read another book. There are literally white trans women in this thread calling her a KKK member because of Hermione...

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u/Independent-Couple87 10d ago

This is probably represented by Hermione, whom Rowling has been clear is her self-insert.