This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
To be fair to Rowling, Hermione being an obnoxious girlboss is mostly a product of the films. Book Hermione is written as book smart, but also as incapable of dealing with high pressure situations, dogmatic and uncreative in solving problems, and a clueless activist who prioritizes her own sense of moral outrage over the people she's ostensibly trying to help. She's constantly getting up-staged by her slacker male friends in every arena outside of pure academics (and even there, Harry mogs her in Defense Against the Dark Arts, clearly the most important and practical subject, and the only one he really cares about doing well in).
And remember, the hero of the story is an aristocratic white man jock who solves all his problems with violence and blind rebellion against authority, who faces his own death with manly courage and ends the story by marrying his best friend's hot younger sister and raising a big family.
Between that and a cast of secondary villains that includes a catty and deceitful female journalist (Rita Skeeter), the ultimate toxically feminine HR lady (Umbridge), and really the wizarding world's entire bureaucratic state (capitalist free enterprise, as exemplified by the Weasley twins, receives an almost exclusively glowing treatment, by contrast), Harry Potter is actually pretty based.
This is just the British hatred of the tabloids (who've given people across the spectrum reason to loathe them). It's not really a partisan or based opinion.
More options
Context Copy link
Don't forget that the whole school is open-carry and it's mostly the bad guys are in favor of "Common Sense Wand Control".
I wrote about it at length before, but it's interesting that Rowling wrote a fictional universe that made sense to her, a liberated late-boomer/early gen X feminist, and it ended up enshrining values that are diametrically opposed to her stated world view.
It's as if writing a universe from scratch requires thinking about the values in it from first principles, and that this can lead you to very different conclusions than those you would get if you just stuck to the values that were imprinted on you by your environment.
It's very British and difficult to understand outside of that context. JK Rowling, like many of her generation, "knew her place", and wanted to look up to her social betters - that is, to have "betters" actually worth looking up to. So, the high drama is replacing the unworthy aristocrats with worthy ones, the long-lost prince returning to high society and mogging the bureaucrats. Ron and Hermione are the good servants of the prince, the stolid man (it's not a coincidence that Ron is red-headed and has a big family, that's saying he's the wizard equivalent of a Celtic Catholic) and the brainy woman, who represents the fantasy of a nerdy girl wishing she had a worthy man to serve, with the Platonic nature of the friendship making the service more pure. It goes back to to the middle ages - think about Robin Hood's relationship to the Good King Richard and the Bad Usurper John.
More options
Context Copy link
Or her stated worldview just isn't as radical as younger wokes, which is one of the reasons she got herself into a lot of trouble.
She just didn't write in the hyper-doctrinaire way people do today. This is a woke more correct situation since they pointed out that JKR is the moderate white: for things like equality but not for revolution. Hermione is shown to be silly, but the end result of that entire SPEW episode is that house-elves being paid instead of indentured servants becomes a policy supported and instituted by Dumbledore, who is also pro-magical creature rights, just not an obnoxious child about it.
IIRC, that wasn't the result of the SPEW episode; Dumbledore had already been paying Dobby (and presumably would have been willing to pay the rest if they'd actually wanted to be paid) before Hermione even learned about Hogwarts having house-elves.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Sure, Hermione is not such a girboss in books - although that is arguably a little bit more grating to be honest at least in the beginning. However she shows quite a lot of growth, by the end of the series she is a monster who can cast every spell silently, she can best deatheaters in duels under high-pressure situation, she is genius in potions and transfigurations that she uses constantly to great effect etc. Harry on the other hand remains stagnant, from spellcraft he is one-trick pony using expeliarmus and patronus. Other than that he just utilizes pure gimmicks such as hic connection to Voldemort and psychic visions or pulling Gryffindor sword literally out of the hat just because. He is the series version of McGuffin, he is imbued asset managed and operated by Hermione according to Dumbledore's strategy. It is Hermione who does the heavy lifting such as actually researching on how to destroy horcruxes or painstaking training in spellcasting.
She's Basil Exposition, there to conduct the background research and dripfeed the reader useful information that's too tedious for the protagonist to bother with. She provides Harry with some of his cool gadgets. Harry is the one putting his body on the line. Harry is the one who has to systematically lose his parent figures in the process of growing into the leader his people need him to be. Harry is the one who figures out the last pieces of puzzles at the last second when it really counts, and then actually defeats the bad guy.
Yes, Hermione is a valuable asset and a character who grows throughout the course of the story. She is a technically more proficient magic practitioner than Harry is, and uses this to save him on numerous occasions. She is more organized and more responsible, as girls tend to be at that age.
But Harry isn't just some buffoon protected by main character energy. Set his special chosen one status aside for a second. He may not be a star student, but the books are pretty explicit that this is because he prioritizes the battle against Voldemort over academics. Yes, sometimes he's just slacking off with Ron instead of studying, but more often than not, he struggles because he spends his nights snooping around the castle and is constantly battling extra work and detention as a result of this (and vindictive teachers actively out to harass him). In the areas he is able/willing to apply himself, he consistently outshines Hermione. Harry is also much more well-rounded than Hermione (in the model of the classic English gentleman. Being a broadly successful dilletant is good; being a single-minded striver is gauche). He's exceptionally brave, loyal, and strong-willed in the face of institutional opposition. What he lacks in technical acumen, he more than makes up for in grit, determination, and leadership.
Hermione is a very capable (though flawed) character, but she's not heroic in the same way Harry is.
This is just matter of perspective. In practice, it is Harry who is Basil Exposition for Hermione, especially given the gimmicky nature of how he receives his knowledge. If the story was written from Hermione's perspective, it would be much more interesting. She is out there in the library researching Nicolas Flamel, creating plans and plots only for Harry to casually drop stuff like randomly waking up screaming, speaking to snakes, and seeing visions of Voldemort torturing people - only to obsess about quidditch the next day as if nothing happens, leaving all the work to main protagonist Hermione.
The story would shift toward Hermione managing this Harry moron, who refuses to communicate (e.g. when he refused to talk to Hermione about seeing Grim in Prisoner of Azkaban), who endlessly whines about how bad he has it and, who has some inferiority complex trying to hard to be a hero only to be rescued like damsel in distress by Hermione. You would get your standard YA story where the main protagonist manages his team of moronic sidekicks who more than villains are there to foil his plans. Just think about all the time when Harry talking to Hermione would solve the plot in couple of days instead of whole year.
No, he does not prioritize that. Like I said before, he wallows in his trauma and refuses to communicate. He constantly switches priorities to stupid stuff like quidditch instead of the issue at hand or even communicating with the group. Other than Hermione, it is his chosen plot armor is his main quality.
He never is more well rounded. He is myopic, lack any planning or true talent except of dumb luck. And it even gets worse as Hermione shores up her academic/theoretic leanings by raw experience. If anything, managing Harry in earlier yeas is her training wheels - much as in some story the main hero takes care of his younger sibling or ailing mother.
Also Hermione is much better leader and even possesses better character. Just compare these two scenes: Harry is tortured in Goblet of Fire and he decides to stand and face Voldemort by pure grit and defiance. He casts his stupid expeliarmus - there is nothing else in his bag of tricks - and the nature of predcicament makes it so that he resists Voldemorts curse by pure cosmic coincidence. Second scene: Harry is threatened by crucio torture in Umbridge office. Harrys instinct is stubborn denial. However Hermione keeps her cool, pretends to fold, invents complex story about Dumbledore's secret weapon in the forest thus leading Umbridge into a trap. This was the umpteenth time where Hermione bailed out that moron from deadly situation so that the Voldemort could actually be defeated.
Hermione is as brave as Harry, but she goes about it more intelligently. She is proactive, strategic, she can rely on backup plans. In terms of leadership she is communicative, competent, mature, she has high moral integrity and by the end of the book she is very versatile monster of a witch, true enlightened gentlewoman. Harry is isolated self pitying whiner, inept, prone to distractions like quidditch. His redeeming qualities are his stubbornness - the other side of the coin of introversion and refusal to communicate. He is for sure brave, even stupidly so and his main redeeming qualities are plot armor in form of being the chosen one.
If I wanted to select who would be my colleague or coworker or even friend or role model after the whole ordeal, I would take Hermione over Harry every time.
Have you read Leaders of Men? I think it gestures at some of what you're eliding as "gimmicks".
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link