This isn’t even an attack on JK Rowling. It’s just looking back on it, there are a lot of deeply flawed characters in HP. And I’m mainly thinking of the adults.
Snape is the obvious one, even if he’s technically on the good side. But James Potter was also an arrogant bully, just a charismatic and intelligent one.
Lupin was my favorite DADA teacher and top 5 characters overall, but his struggles in the later books leading him to almost abandon his wife and child due to his insecurity really rubbed me the wrong way. Of course Harry knocked some sense into him, and he did go back and tend to his family, but it permanently left a bad taste in my mouth.
Sirius was cool as hell, and was a very loving uncle/godfather to Harry. But he also mistreated Kreacher which partly led to his demise. I guess the “norm” in the wizard world was that house elves were practically slaves so it was considered “normal behavior”, but his brother Regulus was able to overcome that pretty well.
Dumbledore’s the obvious big target. He knew that Harry was a Horcrux, but still led him on the whole way through. And the whole sending Harry back to the Dursleys thing, even if Lily’s charm only worked then, he still visited the Weasley’s just fine. And of course his past with his family and Grindewald and all. A LOT has been discussed around the big D, I won’t bring up everything else.
There are others, like the two wizard presidents, flawed in different ways.
I’ll look past the main trio’s flaws, because a) they’re kids/teenagers, and b) it’s their story to come of age and mature after trials and tribulations, so they’re better flawed than to be Mary Sue and Gary Stu’s.
On the flip side, some of the supposed “evil” characters also have redeeming qualities. Narcissus Malfoy saved the plot due to her motherly love. Harry’s aunt, despite hating his guts due to her resentment towards Lily, still took him in. I already mentioned Regulus and Snape (the latter I still consider creepy, and he only worked for his personal motivations until the very end, never out of good or evil).
Wormtail is an interesting one, because it’s less that he has a redeeming quality, more that his main character trait ended up becoming his character resolution, similar to the climax of Lord of The Rings which I will consider peak fiction (pun somewhat intended).
There’s the stable characters with no significant divergence: McGonagall was always cool, the Weasley parents were always loving and kind despite their quirks/somewhat overprotectiveness, Moody was the badass paranoid war vet. And the obvious bad guys like Lucius, Umbridge, and Bellatrix made it easy to hate them as villains.
I guess this post developed from “huh, some of the good guys were kinda assholes” into “People are not always black and white, the good have bads and the bads have good”, and I suppose that’s the takeaway.
Turning this around to JK Rowling, I guess this applies to her as well. Despite her views, she still managed to write a sensational series that’s forever ingrained into our culture, and that’s not an easy feat.
What do you guys think? This might have been a fairly basic observation and a topic for middle school essays, but I’m just coming to terms with it, and I wanted to share with a community of readers.
Imperfection is a major theme throughout all of the books. The ones that seem perfect on the surface like Lockhart and …Umbridge… are nearly always the worst. Even Quirrell seemed friendly.
I personally view Lupin as an allegory for alcoholism, being kind by day and cruel at night. Needing a special serum to maintain himself, and the full moon being a relapse.
As a whole, I think the story is about learning you cannot rely on the heros or adults above you. You need to grow yourself.
I think that’s the whole point. Flawed people are real people, and therefore more interesting. That’s also why the books are so successful with young, growing and adult readers because you gain a different perspective each stage you read them at.
I have the same experience but it makes me love these books even more. When I grew and re-read it, and notice how actually realistically non-ideal characters, how often Potter pisses you off with his teenager behavior, I start to enjoy it even more, and like those nuances and double-morale in a lot of cases.
Also, Snape arc about Lilly Potter hurts you way more when you read it as adult, and experienced already a feeling of deep love.
Yeah. They’re supposed to be. That’s how humans are. Most of us are neither entirely good nor entirely evil. The series would be a lot more boring if everyone was one-sided.
So you’ve literally described every human being on the planet - some with horrible flaws, some awful people who have redeeming qualities; some good people with horrible flaws.
The author is a shitty person, why would you expect her characters to be anything else? You write what you know.
This is one of my favorite things about Harry Potter and I think is the biggest theme throughout!
There is no “good” or “evil” that you can just classify someone as. People are super complicated. The circumstances of your birth and even your past choices and reputation do not dictate who you are. What matters is how you choose to act and how you keep choosing to act.
To be fair, authors can really only write what they know.
Creating good human characters requires them to be flawed as we all have many flaws.
One of my most impactful realizations as a young adult was that talent, intelligence and even good maners are not related to decency, kindness or good intentions. There are people you perceive as assholes that with time you’ll realize had great intentions and, in fact, helped you a ton, as well as extremely nice people that screwed you all along, fully intending to, and you almost didn’t even noticed.
This just showed me this wasn’t a world of good and bad guys. Everyone had faults. It made the universe more realistic for me and I appreciated it for doing that.
Counter point- James actually grew up (unlike snape)
See also- the majority of wizarding world are actually wizard supremacists, it’s apparently just a line of where it’s okay to stop subjectating different races of beings.
Interesting take. I admired the fact that all characters are so close to real life humans that they have flaws we can relate to. For me that makes the series and writing excellent and exceptionally well done. Noone is a 100% perfect human, and very little of us are evil AF. JKR did very well.
The whole series is a “coming of age” story. The world seems like an exciting magical place, but as we mature we see that what is on the surface doesn’t always run deep. A big theme in the books is how naive and unrealistic our perceptions of people actually are.
People are conflicted creatures with baggage. We should love each other anyway, and help each other the best we can. The tiny bit of good that shows up in shitty people (Wormtail, Dursleys, Malfoy) can make all the difference. Shitty behavior from “good” people (James Potter, Snape, Lupin, Dumbledore, and so on…) can also make all the difference in someone else’s story.
Good author. I think we should remember that she is just as complicated (or more, because she is a real person), than any of the characters she created.
To be honest, I think Harry Potter (a series that I grew up loving, don’t get me wrong) is one of those series that people put a lot more on than it deserves or that it needs. It’s a very face value book. On the face of it, if you don’t look at the characters and story as more than they are told to be, is a fun good Vs bad saga. The moment you start reading between the lines you have a lot of issues ranging from classism to transphobia to the books essentially being New Labour propaganda.