Nasty Characters Masquerading As Good - Willow Rosenberg

[Anwar]

Sources?

If that's aimed at me, the evidence was right there in GOF: Rowling needed Hermione (her admitted self-insert character) to explain to Harry why Ron was acting in a way that was totally contrary to the way he acted in the first half of the series. That she needed to do so made it clear that Rowling herself knew that she couldn't sell Ron's character change with his actions alone and needed to spoonfeed the explanation from "Ms Exposition" right to the audience.

And Hermione's explanation was basically loaded with "Well, he always kept these feelings hidden but now he can't." which is another way of saying "Yes, I know he never acted like this before but this is how I've changed his character, deal with it."

As for Harry being undeserving of Ron and Hermione's loyalties, that's evident throughout the series once you do two things:

1) Stop seeing things solely through Harry's POV.
2) Stop thinking Harry and his not-so-Epic Destiny are the centre of the Universe.

 

[DonIago]

It was aimed at you. You claim Rowling admitted to running out of ideas, and I'd like to know where you got that information. Based on your above post however, it's not so much that Rowling admitted anything as that you're speculating.

Unfortunately, this isn't the first time you've made claims about behind-the-scenes intentions while not providing evidence to support your claims, which makes it difficult for me to take you seriously.

 

[Anwar]

It actually didn't come from me, this was from a friend's own theory:

From the COS forums:

"I think the reason JKR started using Ron as a punching bag was because she wrote herself in to a corner with him. In the first three books Ron was kind of perfect. He rescued Harry from his prison of a home, sacrificed himself twice for Harry, never questioned Harry and would blindly follow him in to danger out of pure loyalty. And in the most striking contrast to the last 4 books, was never jealous. Seriously, if you look at the first 3 books and the first 3 alone, jealous is not a characteristic you would assign to Ron. Ron watches as rules are disregarded for Harry. Ron, who doesn't have two sickles to rub together, watches Harry receive a very rare and expensive invisibility cloak and two state of the art, top of the line brooms; not once showing the slightest bit of jealousy towards Harry.

Then, in the fourth book Ron does a complete 180 and JKR takes everything you come to love about Ron away. That loyalty is gone and he all of a sudden has this raging jealousy. JKR knows this isn't the Ron she had been writing for 3 books and makes a point to acknowledge it and uses Hermione (her mouth piece) to explain why it has come out nowhere.

Now, I'm not saying Ron's jealousy was completely nonexistent until that part. We know it was always there because, from my understanding from some interviews, the locket scene was always going to happen. I'm saying she began to exaggerate Ron's faults because A)the character that had been developing in the first three books wouldn't fall down that path 2) was far to perfect and C) could have easily become a "Mary Sue" too Harry. (is 2 and c considered the same thing? oh, well moving on)

You can kind of see where she injected this, I'm not sure how to describe it but i'll go with "less perfect Ron" for arguments sake in to the character she had already developed.

She makes him prefect, then uses the twins to take the honor out of it. In the two years Ron is on the quidditch team (5th and 6th year) He's seen as the big quidditch hero but before that she makes him out to be a really bad player. In the 4th book after the ball Ron doesn't freeze Hermione out over Krum he's not ok with it but as the books go on Ron's reaction to Krum becomes more exaggerated which I always found as odd. Krum is more of a threat to Ron in the 4th book then any other being physically around rather then an abstract thought. (But as I wrote that I remembered the words of Madam Pomfrey "Thoughts could leave deeper scarring than almost anything else." So that argument is invalid. An abstract Krum and Hermione is far worse then one seen with his own eyes. )"

Of course, if Rowling had just used her creativity and given Ron more to do than simply be Harry's unappreciated friend, then this would all be different. But all she seemed to care about was using Ron as Harry's meat-shield and a punching bag to make other characters look better.

 

[Apple Goblin]

Never liked Harry or his 'frenemies'.

Anyone else noticing the trend of a self-righteous protagonist being surrounded by fickle, fair-weathered friends?

Really wish Buffy killed her friends in Normal Again.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b13hMc27OoY[/yt]

 

[Ethros]

This. Oh this.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzmxUXvE3m4[/yt]

 

[Ganja Tea]

Nice thread. Been watching Buffy with my daughter on Netflix and your observations on Willow made me laugh. I never gave her much thought but I've always found her annoying and its kind of funny now that you point out her slut shaming of Cordelia to read some of the responses to this thread. The people calling you a misogynist are humorless assholes. I have no way of knowing whether you are or not but I enjoy colorful language. Call a guy a dick and no one accuses you of hating men, but use twat or cunt and people act like you backhanded your girlfriend and told the bitch to make you sandwich. (I'm not calling women bitches, that's just obviously the word the guy who slaps his girlfriend before asking for a sandwich would use.)

 

[BigJake]

Sour lemonade? Clearly, this character is worse than Hitler! Next you'll tell me she talked at the theater.

Yep, pretty much this.

Call a guy a dick and no one accuses you of hating men, but use twat or cunt and people act like you backhanded your girlfriend and told the bitch to make you sandwich.

Yeah! It's like how you can call a white guy a redneck and nobody flinches, but bust out the N-bomb and all of a sudden people act like you threw a noose over a tree limb at a Klan rally! What a "double standard"! (And women call each other bitches all the time, right? So why don't we get to? It's so "unfair"!! )

I wonder what Don Yelton's up to these days. I bet he'd have some fascinating thoughts to share with us about this.

 

[DonIago]

It actually didn't come from me, this was from a friend's own theory:

From the COS forums...

In other words, Rowling never "more or less admitted" anything.

Thank you for the clarification.

 

[Anwar]

Using her self-insert to explain why someone is suddenly totally OOC? Yes, that's more-or-less admitting to it.

Course, because we're seeing everything through Harry's POV and Harry has no self-awareness, folks miss out on this. And everyone's too hung up on Harry's silly sob story with Voldemort and the Dursleys.

Which is probably why Rowling didn't make the series a multi-POV thing, if she did it'd make it more obvious what an unappreciative ingrate Harry is and how his life was never really that bad to begin with.

Sad, seeing how other characters who get shafted (Ron, Neville are the two most prominent ones) are far more 3-Dimensional than Harry (who is more just an archetype than a real character).

 

[Kemaiku]

She wrote book 7 first then went back to write them from book 1 onwards before publication.

She knew how all the characters would turn out, including Hermione and Ron's eventual relationship, there was no sudden change mid-series.

 

[DonIago]

No. That's called your interpretation.

 

[MacLeod]

Little piece of advice Apple Goblin: If you want people to take you seriously on an open forum (whether online or in real life) perhaps you should cut down on the language. There are other ways to say you don't like someone than calling them a cunt, or a twat.

Yea, I know there's Countries where Twat doesn't carry the same connotations as it does here in the States, but, I don't recall ever hearing that the same is true for Vile "C" word. Sure, there will be neighborhoods or close knit groups where words like that are "No Big Deal", but, I'm pretty sure I've never heard/read that it is acceptable decorum in any Country at large.

Can anyone enlighten what Countries it might be acceptable to the population at large?

I think there might be some slight differences in the use of the word between the UK and the US. But just because the UK might be more accepting of the usage of the word, the context in which it is used does matter, because it is no doubt still considered to be the worst profanity that one can use (at least on TV).

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/static/archive/itc/uploads/Delete_Expletives.pdf

And in the instance it was used here, I would say was unacceptable. Surely we shouldn't have to resort to using profanities to get our point across.

 

[Anwar]

She wrote book 7 first then went back to write them from book 1 onwards before publication.

She knew how all the characters would turn out, including Hermione and Ron's eventual relationship, there was no sudden change mid-series.

The epilogue in book seven was what she wrote first, and there are plenty of examples of things she basically made up on the fly with each passing book that didn't make sense in prior books too (the Marauder's Map, Slide-Along Apparition, etc).

Heck, she even admitted she was thinking of killing Ron off halfway through the series (which just adds to her running out of ideas for his character at the same time).

There were sudden changes in character, Ron, Ginny and even Hermione had some. Which would've been avoided if she hadn't made the entire universe revolve around Harry and his not-so-important destiny.

 

[Apple Goblin]

Little piece of advice Apple Goblin: If you want people to take you seriously on an open forum (whether online or in real life) perhaps you should cut down on the language. There are other ways to say you don't like someone than calling them a cunt, or a twat.

Yea, I know there's Countries where Twat doesn't carry the same connotations as it does here in the States, but, I don't recall ever hearing that the same is true for Vile "C" word. Sure, there will be neighborhoods or close knit groups where words like that are "No Big Deal", but, I'm pretty sure I've never heard/read that it is acceptable decorum in any Country at large.

Can anyone enlighten what Countries it might be acceptable to the population at large?

I think there might be some slight differences in the use of the word between the UK and the US. But just because the UK might be more accepting of the usage of the word, the context in which it is used does matter, because it is no doubt still considered to be the worst profanity that one can use (at least on TV).

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/static/archive/itc/uploads/Delete_Expletives.pdf

And in the instance it was used here, I would say was unacceptable. Surely we shouldn't have to resort to using profanities to get our point across.

The word 'twat' is on par with the word 'fool' in the UK..not even as bad as the word 'bitch'. as for the 'c' word, are you making an official ofcom complaint? This isn't televsion, it's a public forum, if you don't like my colorful language you can leave (which by the lack of censorship, i'm sure nothing i did was against any forum rules).

Was not expecting so many babies.

 

[Manticore]

In my experience, the ones who defend "colorful language" the most have the least valid point.

Just because you can do something does not make it a good idea.

 

[Aldo]

This isn't televsion, it's a public forum, if you don't like my colorful language you can leave (which by the lack of censorship, i'm sure nothing i did was against any forum rules).

Was not expecting so many babies.

You're right, it is a public forum, and language is not censored here. It's just that if you refrained from using the more colorful language and tried to get your point across without it, more people would take you seriously.

You're wrong on one thing though, we're adults here, and we expect to engage other adults. If you still can't understand why people (not all, but most) are not taking you seriously, you still have some growing up to do.

 

[Apple Goblin]

This isn't televsion, it's a public forum, if you don't like my colorful language you can leave (which by the lack of censorship, i'm sure nothing i did was against any forum rules).

Was not expecting so many babies.

You're right, it is a public forum, and language is not censored here. It's just that if you refrained from using the more colorful language and tried to get your point across without it, more people would take you seriously.

You're wrong on one thing though, we're adults here, and we expect to engage other adults. If you still can't understand why people (not all, but most) are not taking you seriously, you still have some growing up to do.

If 'colorful' language prevents you from reading a clearly articulated thread, and you feel the need to repeat what's already been said by others umpteen times, then I can't really help you.

Don't feel the need to excuse my language or my register, and I'm surprised by the babyishness. On re-reading my original thread, it's actually not even as bad as I thought. People think two-faced bitch sounds misogynist? What is this, Christian camp?

And fyi, I don't even think I directly called Willow the c word. I just added the word on to the saying 'takes the cake'. Are you sure the real issue isn't pressed fans of Willow taking umbrage?

 

[DonIago]

The real issue is you sounding like a pre-teen who likes throwing around swear words to show that they can.

Since you asked.

If you want a serious argument, use serious language.

 

[Apple Goblin]

The real issue is you sounding like a pre-teen who likes throwing around swear words to show that they can.

Since you asked.

If you want a serious argument, use serious language.

Wow, and it says a lot about your immaturity that you disengage from a set topic because you don't like the speakers language, but have no problems making numerous posts giving sanctimonious lectures? I think Willow Rosenberg is a cunt, ample reasons why. I like this word, I like my language, I like my way of speaking. Deal.

 

[DonIago]

Bored now.