Everybody is chattering, apparently, about the maybe proposed Potter-verse tv series

[conuly]

Or, at least in the places I read, about how they probably shouldn't do it because JKR is super transphobic and doesn't need more money anyway.

You know, there's a lot I could theoretically say about that, but somehow, the convo in the comments I actually had was on the subject of Why Molly and Arthur Are Bad Parents, Canon Backs Me Up.

"But don't you think you're putting too much emphasis on the roast beef sandwiches?"

Nope, not at all. What I think is that Molly Weasley, if there's any justice in that world, is going to end up alone, wondering why all her kids won't talk to her. She's like one of the parents at Issendai's site. Literally, she's this woman at the end here, the one with the corn chips. She's not going to see her son for another ten months, and she makes him a lunch she knows he doesn't like?

I will stand by this statement.

Comments

[cactuswatcher]

Well, I was just reading Book four where everyone except Molly was about to head out to the Quidditch Cup and she suddenly realizes Fred and George have their pockets stuffed with Ton-Tongue Toffees. Now, there was a big flare up in the Weasley house the day before over them. They'd seriously embarrassed Arthur in front of Harry's aunt and uncle by "accidently" dropping one in front of Dudley who's been on a starvation diet all summer. Molly and Arthur had told the twins they had to destroy them all. Instead the next day they tried to sneak all of them out of the house. When Molly is throwing the toffees in the dust bin, Fred blurts out that they spent six months inventing them. Molly puts two and two together and realizes they spent a lot of time they should have spent studying for O.W.L.s, the most important tests of their lives, making trick candy.

What punishment do the twins get? Well, nobody says boo about them not going to the Quiddditch Cup. Molly is staying home anyway. Wouldn't be a problem having someone to stay with them. But no. Off they go. They get to the campsite and very soon ignore their father again and bet on the match. It's no wonder the twins are a problem at school. They don't listen to the yelling, and no one at home cares to punish them any other way.

All the Weasley kids are reasonably well mannered. But I still think Molly and Arthur failed miserably with the twins and got lucky with the rest.

[conuly]

They hadn't simply embarrassed Arthur - they caused Dudley and his parents a whole lot of unneeded psychological trauma, and could've seriously harmed Dudley.

It's not often one is made to feel sympathy for the Dursleys, but this'll do it.

And of course they never listen to the yelling - it's always the same! Bill was perfect, Charlie was perfect, Percy (whom the twins are allowed to bully mercilessly) is perfect, why aren't you perfect like all your perfect older brothers?

(And then we see the effect of all this on Ron right from the start, and straight through to the end of the series - he's convinced he can never live up to any of his brothers, and by extension, that he's never quite good enough in any situation. So why try at school? Just to fail? Better to not try and then failing doesn't count.)

[brokenallbroken]

Dudley of any of them has the most reason to hate magic. That tail Hagrid gave him (in reaction to something Vernon said) had to be surgically removed.


And then we see the effect of all this on Ron right from the start, and straight through to the end of the series - he's convinced he can never live up to any of his brothers, and by extension, that he's never quite good enough in any situation. So why try at school? Just to fail? Better to not try and then failing doesn't count.

Yep yep yep

[conuly]

What really gets me is that I'm convinced that this is another area where JKR has no idea what the hell she even wrote. I don't think she realizes that the Weasley parents' on-page behavior is so close to emotional abuse, I don't think she realizes that the entire family is seriously dysfunctional, and I don't think she realizes that the most reasonable explanation for how the kids act is rooted in this interpretation of the text.

[brokenallbroken]

She certainly doesn't. Part of it is leaning into tropes and part of it is...well, she's clearly not an entirely healthy person herself. I think she doesn't know what a functional family looks like. I feel sorry for her kids.

[dine]

I pretty much stand with you on this - I can totally see Molly writing one of those letters, bemoaning her awful children who have cut her off, an she has no idea why (she knows)

[conuly]

Man, I don't know why fic doesn't address any of this more often. Unless the Weasleys are being portrayed as comically abusive in a way that canon doesn't support, then they're either just The Perfect Family like Harry Imagines, or at worst, loud and lovably hectic, with Molly always ready to dispense parenting advice to our main characters.

Maybe I'm reading the wrong fic or something, or all the writers read the wrong series.

[dine]

there's actually a lot of fic that is critical of the Weasley parents (especially Molly) - there's a tag for Molly Weasley bashing; granted, some of it isn't about her parenting and of course a lot isn't *good* writing, but there are some believable stories which look at the way she is with the family, and by extension Harry

[conuly]

What I've seen tends to... well, overstate it. What's in canon and can be reasonably extrapolated from there is bad enough, there's no need to make it so much worse. That's even more annoying to me than just ignoring it or accepting Harry's viewpoint - which, I suspect, is JKR's viewpoint - totally uncritically.

But there's just so much potterfic, it's easy enough to miss out on a story or a theme or two. Do you have any recs?

[dine]

oh yeah, lots of authors go completely OTT, to the point of stupidity. unfortunately at this point I can't recall much of anything that fits the bill (my superpower is forgetting author/title of most fics/novels) but if I o come across something, I'll try to remember to t you know

[conuly]

oh hey i just realized your icon is not "a cute little potato resting on a sofa" but a couch potato.

[dine]

hee! it's my spirit animal :)

[brokenallbroken]

I haven't seen much of Molly being outright abusive, though some authors make her more of a harridan than others. What I have seen is enough stories to suggest a trope that Remus and Tonks' out of the blue non-romance and weird marriage was the result of Molly getting ideas with Amortentia.

[conuly]

I have never seen that.

That's even weirder as a premise than "Dumbledore, in between grooming Harry as a child soldier and managing the Ministry, loves to play matchmaker between his students".

[brokenallbroken]

Molly is a control freak busybody, and it's as good an explanation as any why two people a generation apart who don't seem to love each other (or even know each other well) would suddenly get hitched. Remus' reaction to finding out he's going to be a father is to run away. He's not happy. I can easily imagine Molly watching Tonks pine a bit in her crush, see Remus' "shyness" and low self-esteem (but not his grief for Sirius or very real anxiety about being a werewolf with a family), and think "I want the people around me to have the kind of happy domesticity I think I have because that's the only real way to be happy" and "he just needs a bit of a nudge".

[cloudsinvenice]

I could see that happening. And of course Molly's concept of "happy domesticity" is actually "a life like mine" which comes freighted with everything described in this thread...

[brokenallbroken]

100% agree, and it's clearly not just Ron. Notice the elder 2 GTFO of not just the house but the country at the earliest opportunity, and never visit home until recruited to the war effort. Never mind the low-key racism, contempt for her husband, and attempting to squash the twins' creativity and entrepreneurial spirit.

the twins had to learn their bullying and disregard for customers' consent from somewhere

[conuly]

And Percy, of course, is estranged for doing nothing more than not toeing the family line - nevermind that all his mother ever wanted him to do is take a Ministry job - and then he had to practically beg forgiveness before they would talk to him.

He'd had no way of knowing the Ministry would end up the wrong side, and when push came to shove he chose the right side. He should've stayed estranged.

(Also notice that the twins, despite technically staying in the country and literally being able to teleport, somehow "never have time to come home for dinner". Uh-huh. That's the issue, time.)

[brokenallbroken]

I see a lot of Percy's support for the Ministry being less about ideology and more doubling down as a way to assert his independence within the confines of having done what his mother wants and turning into the person she wanted him to be his entire life. "Dumbledore is not GOD" is a perfectly reasonable line to take, and Molly certainly shows the same level of credulousness wrt sources she sees as authoritative (c.f. sending Hermione a tiny Easter egg in GoF).

[conuly]

(c.f. sending Hermione a tiny Easter egg in GoF).

Which, by the way, who does that!? Hermione is a teenager. It is perfectly normal for teenagers to go in and out of relationships. Not only that, but Hermione is her children's friend - and a close friend, at that, who has stayed with their family by that time!

Who treats anybody this way, least of all a child who is a family friend?

[brokenallbroken]

RIGHT?! And it isn't as though she had another source than fricking RITA SKEETER to find out what's going on over there before passing judgement. Given her opinions of Arthur's hobbies, one does wonder if she would have treated a pure or halfblood witch the same way....

[conuly]

You think that's why she's such a bitch to Fleur? I thought it fell into the much simpler answer of "She's never going to like anybody her sons date or marry".

And when Bill goes back to international cursebreaking, and continues to see his mother rarely, if ever, Molly is never going to say "Well, he's been doing this since he left school". Now that he's married it's going to be "His wife has her parents over all the time and not us, his wife has her parents watch the grandkids and not us, his wife is selfish, I just don't know why she doesn't like me".

[brokenallbroken]

You think that's why she's such a bitch to Fleur? I thought it fell into the much simpler answer of "She's never going to like anybody her sons date or marry".

Some of each. Remember how catty she got about whether Fleur would still love Bill after Greyback's attack. And even after Fleur's badass comeback to that. We don't have a lot to base comparisons on, except the way she treats Hermione, and that's before she and Ron get together.

[shadowkat]

Why Molly and Arthur Are Bad Parents, Canon Backs Me Up.

"But don't you think you're putting too much emphasis on the roast beef sandwiches?"

Nope, not at all. What I think is that Molly Weasley, if there's any justice in that world, is going to end up alone, wondering why all her kids won't talk to her. She's like one of the parents at Issendai's site. Literally, she's this woman at the end here, the one with the corn chips. She's not going to see her son for another ten months, and she makes him a lunch she knows he doesn't like?

LOL! You made me chuckle - thank you.

No disagreement. I didn't like the Weasley's as much as the author seemed to. And yes,why would you give your kids food they clearly don't like?

JKR reminds me more and more of Ronald Dahl (an equally problematic UK children's fantasy writer) with a snide and somewhat biting absurdist wit. Like Ronald Dahl - she has "gender" issues. Dahl did too, among other things.

From what I've read - Warner wants to buy her out much like Disney did with Lucas, Marvel and the Muppets. But JKR is unlikely to sell.

[calimac]

And yes,why would you give your kids food they clearly don't like?

Because many parents, and child psychologists, believe that children disliking food is just some kind of psychological tic that can be overcome by making them keep eating the food. Eventually they'll like it.

I'm here to say, as a former child, that this doesn't work. Kids don't dislike foods for strange psychological reasons. They dislike them because THEY TASTE BAD. As with their other senses, children's taste buds are very strong, and dislikable sensations are intense. I still dislike the same foods I disliked as a child, but my tastes have faded over the years, I can tolerate many of them now. I couldn't then.

[shadowkat]

I agree, it doesn't work. My brother and his wife took the opposite approach with my niece, who didn't like the taste of meat, fish or poultry. And did not want to eat them. Also didn't digest them well. So they found other sources of protein that she did like. They didn't force hot dogs, hamburgers, or other things on her.

It's the smarter choice.

[conuly]

Okay, but still - it's the last lunch she'll make him for the next ten months. Lighten up, Molly!

[conuly]

1. https://amultiverse.com/comic/2019/12/23/jk-rowling-and-the-league-of-disappointing-authors/

2. Honestly, she's smart if she doesn't sell. Warner would be smart if they could get her to - then they could divorce the work from the creator entirely.

[shadowkat]

1. LOL! I'd forgotten that Dahl was anti-Semitic, I knew he was misogynistic.
Ernest looks a lot like GRR Martin.

2. Agreed. She doesn't need the money, and retains control. But I can see why Warner is trying to buy all rights, so they can divorce the work from her entirely. OTOH - unless JK wants to continue playing around with it - it makes sense to sell. (shrugs).

[silveradept]

I think we get rose-colored glasses for Molly because everything is written from Harry's perspective, and what Molly is offering looks enough like what Harry really wanted as a child that he can't see what's going on.

His peer Weasleys are smart enough to know that if they can make it through Hogwarts, they won't have to deal with her ever again.

It's almost sad to recognize that Molly had seven fiercely brilliant children and managed not to raise any of them well.

[conuly]

Sure, I mean, if my models for family life were the Dursleys and the Weasleys, it's no contest.

[silveradept]

Yeah. The Potter books are really good at showcasing all the ways that Harry (and a lot of other Wizarding children) get abused by adults, and I doubt that the author intended to give us such a clear view of all of it.

[conuly]

Also: If Neville Longbottom really had been a squib, he'd be dead. He also should cut off his entire family and never contact them again. NONE OF THEM.

(Except his parents. Which is a whole different rant. The Longbottoms are suggested to come from some serious money, why are they letting Frank and Alice be warehoused like that? I don't know if they ever could improve, but they could be just as unimproved in the comforts of home, with a few paid caregivers so Augusta doesn't have to spoonfeed them herself. Or, look into the muggle world, where there are multiple paid tiers of nursing homes to suit every budget.)

[silveradept]

There's so much that didn't get thought through, or that didn't come through the way the author intended. (Or worse, did come through exactly as intended.)