Gender Issues (Another HPDH Rant)

Here's a quick quiz on the issues of gender in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. In answering all these questions, please consider the books alone - not your speculation, fannish theories or likely extrapolations. And while I realise that interpretation is an essential part of reading, for the purposes of this quiz answers should be limited to your best guess of what the author's intent is. For example, while you may consider Minerva McGonagall to be "obviously a lesbian", there is no textual basis for it and the authorial intent in such matters clearly boils down to Normal = Heterosexual Petit-Bourgeois. So the correct answer to the question "How many gay characters do you see in the books?" is ZERO.

Caveat: yes, this quiz is biased; yes, it's really a vehicle for my opinions; no, it's not meant to be an honest-to-goodness, check-the-key-to-find-your-personality-type sorta quiz. I'm venting. When seven years of happy, devoted fannishness meets the sort of train wreck that HPDH was, venting happens.

Ready?

1. Which main character does NOT have a major conflict to contend with, internal or external, that drives the story forward?
a. Harry Potter
b. Lord Voldemort
c. Ron Weasley
d. Hermione Granger
e. Severus Snape
f. Draco Malfoy



2. Which main character's family and background do we know the least about?
a. Harry Potter
b. Lord Voldemort
c. Ron Weasley
d. Hermione Granger
e. Severus Snape
f. Draco Malfoy

3. Which main character does NOT have a character arc to speak of in the series (coming-of-age, redemption, comeuppance, conquering inner demons, etc.)?
a. Harry Potter
b. Lord Voldemort
c. Ron Weasley
d. Hermione Granger
e. Severus Snape
f. Draco Malfoy

4A. True/False: We find out more about Lily Potter in HPDH.
a. True
b. False

4B. True/False: We find out more Lily Potter herself - her life, her motivations, her personality, and the reasons for her choices.
a. True
b. False

5. Which of the following issues is apparently NOT essential to the exploration of the Lupin-Tonks marriage?
a. Remus's insecurities about lycanthropy, poverty and age.
b. Remus's ambivalence about fatherhood.
c. Remus chickening out on his family.
d. Harry's thoughts on Remus chickening out on his family.
e. Voldemort, Bellatrix and the Death Eaters' thoughts on the happy union.
f. How Tonks feels about it all.

6. Molly Weasley is able to kill Bellatrix Lestrange because:
a. of her superb DADA skills in evidence throughout the series (especially that Boggart scene in OotP)
b. Raising seven children prepares you for combat duelling action
c. The lone female (and childless) Death Eater needed killing via a Mother's Wrath(TM)

7. True/False: The only female Death Eater is described as the famously friendless Voldemort's "lover".
a. True
b. False

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Now, I honestly see that Jo Rowling is trying her level best in this series to keep men and women on an equal footing, but she still (a) fails dismally and (b) is so transparent in her efforts that she renders them mostly ineffective.

For example, I'm not blind to kickass characters like Hermione and McGonagall, but even with these characters, Jo's inner sexism seeps through and corrupts. Hermione is a member of the Golden Trio, the bedrock of the series, and yet we don't so much as know her parents' names. Both Harry's and Ron's families are the main driving forces in the books, but Jo Rowling decided that Hermione with her inconvenient Muggle heritage was best treated like a bespectacled, buck-toothed Venus arising fully formed from her scalloped shell at the age of eleven.

In her effort to make Hermione admirable, Rowling forgets to give Hermione any faults at all. It's almost as if she built up this character so she could point and say, look, I have strong female characters in my books! No, Jo. The essence of a real character is one who overcomes obstacles, not one who effortlessly glides through tricky situations with no story arc, emotional or plotwise. Perfect!Hermione was irritating, unrealistic and unpalatable - best left to the movies, thx.

And McGonagall? I have just one thing to say: here is a witch who needs a 17 year old boy to "chivalrous"ly rise to her defence risking his own life to protect her from a single, common, oft-used verbal insult. And apparantly, this is grounds enough for him to use unforgiveable curses. 'Nuff said.

Tonks shows up to flash a ring, get pregnant, and run after her man in the final battle. Finito. She didn't even do pig noses in this book, so what's the point? [/sarcasm]

Ginny: Disqualified from the final battle because she's a few months shy of a birthday. Disappeared for the whole book except when hero needs a birthday snog.

And Lily Potter, Queen Mother of the series with a Big Revelation coming in the seventh book, LOOK OUT! Aaaaaand....she's the object of a man's affections - two men's affections. !!!!!. OMG *dies*.

I think about the only major female character rendered largely without sexist overtones in the series is Umbridge. God, I loved her - I mean, I hated her so thoroughly that I loved the character. Finally, a smart, loathesome, truly evil woman who isn't some man's pawn.

Oops, gotta go - work calls. That's today's lecture, then, boys and girls. Moral of the story is that I hate Jo Rowling.

Tra la.