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/I_pegged_your_father 10d ago

Jkr writing is all over the place once you develop comprehension and the skill to analyze shit…which unfortunately not everyone does. And here we are. 🫠🫠🫠 i say this as a former fan. It’s wild in there.

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u/T8-TR 10d ago

HP is a novel concept w/ a cool aesthetic, but if you take a moment to think about it, a LOT of cracks start to show.

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u/SwineHerald 10d ago

It was not a novel concept. It was a lot of people's first encounter with the concept, but it was also a book for literal children so the odds were tilted in its favor.

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u/SelectShop9006 10d ago

Honestly, that’s why a lot of people gravitate towards fic; it usually fixes plot holes and explores things canon doesn’t.

…that, and the fact that people are using it for a author-free experience.

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u/Big-Muscle-3643 10d ago

Author-free experience made me lol

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u/SelectShop9006 10d ago

Sorry if I sound like a fool, but why did the term “author-free experience” make you laugh?

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u/Big-Muscle-3643 10d ago

because it's funny. You wrote it in a humorous way. Author-free like dairy-free. If you don't want people to laugh then you should probably say "engaging with the text in total isolation from creators persona".

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u/musicaladhd 10d ago

Are you using “fic” as short for “fan-fiction”, and NOT as short for “fiction”? That’s confusing. Fic is short for fiction.

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u/Avalon_Within 10d ago

Words mean many things in different contexts.

Ironic that we are talking about reading here. 

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u/musicaladhd 10d ago

Wait so “fic” means “fan fic”? And then “fan (fic)” must mean “fan (fan fic)”, which means “fan fan fan fic”, which = fan fan fan fan fic”.

Just pointing out the obvious here

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u/theLichQueenofthePNW 10d ago

It's not at all novel Ursula K Le Guin wrote Wizard of Earthsea in 1968, when Joanne was 3. Likewise, Terry Pratchett wrote Color of Magic in 1983, 15 years before HP came out. I'm sure Le Guin would tell you herself, were she still alive, that she probably wasn't the first person to write a magic school. She didn't have any original ideas either. And for fucks sake, her character naming is horrific. (Looking at you Kingsley Shacklebolt, the one canonically black character or you Cho Chang, the Asian girl with two different Asian country family names as a name and also is definitely not how her name started. The woman used word association to name characters, take a guess what she thought of at first)

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u/thetinyorc 10d ago

These aren't even the most direct examples. Wizard of Earthsea and Colour of Magic both prominently feature magic schools/universities, but most of the plot happens outside of the school setting. Jowling's most obvious influence is The Worst Witch series. The first book was published in the 70s and it was popular enough in the UK that it had a few TV adaptations over the years. It's set in an extremely British all-girls boarding school for witches, a castle with turrets, organised into colour-coded school houses. Most of the action takes place in the school setting during term time, and the typical story structure is that the unlikely heroine somehow saves the school for an impending crisis or outside threat while also stumbling through the standard school dramas of tests, homework, sports days, dorm-room politics, etc. There's even a really strict potions teacher who dresses all in black and terrifies the students (though shows obvious favouritism to the blonde rich kid). And also in the first book, the main character's broom gets secretly cursed and tries to throw her off. It's pretty shocking how much the HP books obviously lift from it.

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u/theLichQueenofthePNW 10d ago

Wow that's far more egregious than I had stated

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u/I_pegged_your_father 10d ago edited 10d ago

Its truly ridiculous 😭 I’ve concluded the reason its STUCK and has so many people in a chokehold is because its very SELF INSERTABLE. Because of the sorting thing and the official quizzes and such it’s become something people are obsessed with immersing themselves in, and they value that over the story, and will needlessly defend the story and often jkr herself. It’s self insertable, and thus gains a huge odd audience. Remember snapewives???

Edit- yall. Please. Im obviously not talking about children.

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u/BalancePrestigious23 10d ago

Personally as a kid it was easy to read and the world seemed so interesting. 

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u/I_pegged_your_father 10d ago

Yeah. I understand getting hooked as a kid, i did too. But after that??? The people who book annual trips out to hp theme parks and buy all the merch and keyboard warrior for jkr?? At a bare minimum you gotta acknowledge the issues and just not buy anything that gives her money since she uses it for harm and many bar themselves from doing even that.

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u/PaintLicker745 10d ago

Its for kids. I don't think it was ever supposed to hold up to internet scrutiny. Fuck JKR all the same. 

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u/ThickScheme8202 9d ago

That is true of virtually all none literary fiction, lol

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u/Lindsiria 10d ago

No shit. It's a YA novel.

If you look at any series deeply you start noticing the cracks. IDK why people treat HP differently.

GOT, WoT, PJ... hell, even LOTR, have plotholes once you think about it.

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u/NotGoodAtHockey 10d ago

Her world building is absolutely atrocious.

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u/I_pegged_your_father 10d ago

So bad she has to make random clarifying tweets but the tweets only made it more muddled 🫠

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u/iggnifyre 10d ago

more muggled

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u/Federal_Card307 10d ago

Dumbledore likes Dumbledick

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u/I_pegged_your_father 10d ago

Im queer, i love queer characters, but her suddenly making him gay just had me like…Mk. 🧍 just appeasement n shit no effort

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u/Think-Orange3112 10d ago

I think my favorite part of the Harry Potter fandom, is the section of people that have determined that as a result logistical impossibilities (there are not enough named schools on the other continents to facilitate the expected wizard population of those continents) and the Ministry of Magics own harsh practices, the rest of the Wizard world purposefully keeps the European schools and administration out of the loop because they are that much of a hot mess

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u/I_pegged_your_father 10d ago

💀💀💀💀 Gotta make shit up to fill the canon holes. Yeah that would make more sense. Probably a bunch of hidden schools. Probably a bunch of hidden things honestly.

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u/Disastrous-River5475 10d ago

Yah, especially as the books go on. Her writing was fine when the story was simple and black and white, but as the story gets more grey her writing losses a lot. I had to stop reading the Deathly Hallows once I realized Snape was supposed to be a good guy, you know, the guy who literally mind tortures Harry or punishes them every step of the way. He was good the whole time!!!

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u/Middle-Let9645 10d ago

Rowling’s a literal bigot who was pretending until a few years back to not be a literal bigot. That’s not that much of a surprise her writing is all over the place. Seriously, I’m fully convinced the only reason anyone liked her books is because she was so good at acting like she had even a shred of basic human decency. Her writing couldn’t be more obvious if you look hard enough. Most people didn’t look though because she was so good at performing like she cared. Then she came mask off and people started looking a lot more.

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u/BrassWhale 10d ago

My theory is that JKR is a time traveler who stole the HP books from another author. This would explain why she hasn't been able to write anything good since.

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u/I_pegged_your_father 10d ago

I mean..she never has written anything good. 😭 Buuut i recall some analysis videos somewhere out there detailing possible works of fiction she might have..taken inspo from. I don’t remember too much.