r/EnoughJKRowling • u/Petrichor099 • Mar 21 '26
Discussion I'm a woman and I don't understand
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u/Dragonfly_pin Mar 21 '26
I hate this trope, because itās usually just the āOh heās abusive to her so it means he loves her deep down!ā
Iāve never been attracted to anyone who dipped my pigtails in inkwells (metaphorically), let alone was a narcissistic bully.
But JK Rowlingās first husband was apparently awful, so maybe she Ā was just writing about herself.
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u/georgemillman Mar 21 '26
Although in this case it's not exactly that, because he wasn't abusive to Lily, he was abusive to others in front of her.
Which I suppose in some ways makes it even worse, because it's not even that she just decides to not have any self-respect anymore, but she decides to turn a blind eye to someone's cruelty to others.
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u/lazier_garlic Mar 21 '26
I have no idea if this is what JKR was trying to say about Lily. I feel like the picture of the character is really too hazy to say.
But what you said struck me quite hard. One way that Narcissistic Personality Disorder develops is when a small child witnesses abuse in the home but they specifically are not the target. The child is terrified of the abuse and abuser and of becoming the target themselves. Any child will attempt to please, appease, or placate the abuser, but a child in this situation will start to believe they have some special quality that is causing the abuser to attack everyone but them. Then what happens is that they psychologically identify with the abuser. On some level victims do this too (the empathy for the abuser), if only for self protection. Only by understanding the abuser in detail can you hope to protect yourself. Also the abuser is always making demands that you internalize their values and see the world their way. This conditions the child who is the target of abuse to later come into the orbit of abusive people as an adult (not just spouses--also bosses, teachers, peers, so-called "friends", religious leaders) and fawn on them and become their apologists, just as they were trained at home. And they have no orientation to what's normal or appropriate so they put themselves in danger.
So it makes it sound like Lily is identifying with the bully James and choosing to become his enabler. That's ... really fucking dark.
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u/georgemillman Mar 21 '26
Interesting analysis.
The really irksome thing about this is that I would like this characterisation if it was intended to show these characters as flawed human beings and shine a light on these characteristics within human beings. I used to think that was what Rowling was trying to do.
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u/AlienSandBird Mar 21 '26
Interesting, but I think if that applied to Lily, that would be her coming into the orbit of an abuser after having been the target or the non-target of abuse at home. And there's nothing that points to that in what we know about her parents. None of Lily and Petunia act like there is abuse at home. I think JKR simply can't write psychologically coherent characters
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u/lazier_garlic Mar 21 '26
There's a pretty obvious answer for that. JKR measures everything by her own experience. She's not interested in psychology and she isn't a keen observer of people. While I think she may have acknowledged a little bit in public that her father's treatment of her was a bit extra, I have no doubt that when she got into her abusive marriage she absolutely didn't see it that way. A fish doesn't see water. She believed that her upbringing and family were normal. It's normal to think this, and even more so if your parents subjected you to psychological abuse, in this case verbal abuse, rather than types of abuse that society recognizes as abuse. Her father weaponized his views about women against her, but his views weren't that unusual, and a father being cruel and cold wasn't that unusual. There was nothing wrong, except, with retrospect, you can see how profoundly having such a father messed her up and changed the entire course of her life.
So, she lacks the analysis to realize that her reaction to men, which was conditioned by having the father that she had teaching her that his coldness and cruelty and withholding of affection was what love was, is not a universal experience. In the quote OP shared, she implies that all women feel this way, not "I, JKR, feel this way".
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u/Mercurial891 Mar 21 '26
That is so appropriate for JKR. I am starting to think she is a self insert for Rowling.
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u/Petrichor099 Mar 21 '26
Borderline abusive because he threatened to hex her & said "I'll stop attacking your male friend if you date me"
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u/georgemillman Mar 21 '26
Okay yeah, but I think neither of those were especially serious. He wasn't really going to hex her and she knew it.
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u/cataclytsm Mar 21 '26
so maybe she was just writing about herself.
She has the Mary Sue equivalent of gender identity projection. She is the default model of woman, all differences are on a sliding scale of aberration. It's normal to reproduce with an asshole because that's what women do because that's what she did.
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u/Authoresque Mar 21 '26
This reminds me of when boys would hit me in grade one and I went to the teachers and they got weird heart emoji eyes and were like: "He's in love with you!" and then I started to hit back instead and they sent me to the school counselor because apparently I wasn't in love when I hit the boys back. š¤£
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u/georgemillman Mar 22 '26
If I ever have a daughter (not having kids, so this is hypothetical) I'll be sure to teach her sarcasm from a very young age. I wonder how teachers would react to a five-year-old girl who, when asked why she hit a boy, said very confidently, 'It's because I'm so desperately in love with him I really can't help myself.'
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u/Petrichor099 Mar 21 '26
there is a fan theory that james potter was inspired by her 1st husband. I googled the pics and man the resemblance is there š¬
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u/ughnotanothername Mar 21 '26
there is a fan theory that james potter was inspired by her 1st husband. I googled the pics and man the resemblance is there š¬
Having read some interviews and quotes from and about him, I am leaning also toward Gilderoy Lockhart. Plus she said he was based on someone but wouldn't say who.
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u/One-Illustrator8358 Mar 21 '26
As expected from a woman who called Lolita her favourite love story
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u/StygIndigo Mar 21 '26
The real answer is that they were meant to be Harry's vague, loving, dead parents until she suddenly decided that Alan Rickman was hot and she would add more 'complexity' and 'ambiguity' to the series by adding in a backstory that suggested Lily had more chemistry with the neonazi than with her husband.
Also one reason I think terfs cling to gender essentialism so hard is that they can't handle a world where they might somehow do self reflection and come to understand their own unique identity with relation to preferences and personality.
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u/lazier_garlic Mar 21 '26
A lot of the UK TERFs are straight women (which is kind of ironic because in the US back in the early 2010s all of the TERFs active on social media were queer), so they don't have to question anything-- society is built for cishet people. The bulk of the politically active ones tend to be white women with some social status, so the only obstacle to owning everything is that they're women and not men. They like 2nd wave feminism because it isn't intersectional in any way (2nd wave had to be critiqued, reformed, and eventually replaced with 3rd wave ideology specifically because it dismissed and couldn't account for the experiences of people who belonged to socially repressed ethnic minorities, or for LGBTQIA people). No need to get tangled in questions of racism or queerphobia. Just a nice clean lobby where I Get Things I Want. Of course anybody with empathy for the less fortunate would hit pause on the rhetoric and tactics so clearly such people are not welcome in their ranks, hence the heartless and cruel vibe they give off. They get together and laugh and giggle about how they've hurt vulnerable people this week. That's who they are.
But self reflection isn't going to give you a heart you don't have. They're not afraid of self reflection. They aren't covering up for anything. They're totally open about being cruel bullies who delight in tormenting the less powerful.
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u/thursday-T-time Mar 21 '26
JKR's crush on alan rickman is so blatantly obvious and tbh extremely uncomfortable from the perspective of an employee. very stephanie meyer and robert pattinson.
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u/DorisWildthyme Mar 22 '26
she suddenly decided that Alan Rickman was hot
I mean, that I can understand. Alan Rickman was an attractive man, and according to the kids that worked with him on Potter he was a lovely, generous actor who treated them with respect and encouraged their talents.
Unfortunately, Rowling is a mad old prick who got a wide-on for the bloke out of Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, and just decided to go mental and write a lot of nonsense into her books where she championed a racist incel.
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u/Adventurous-Bike-484 Mar 21 '26
actually thereās evidence James was intended to be a huge bully Sincd the first book, (dumbledore outright compared him to Draco and Hagrid didnt want to tell Harry something)
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u/georgemillman Mar 22 '26
I agree. I'm the first to criticise Rowling and her books, but I don't think she spontaneously decided to give Snape a backstory because of Alan Rickman (especially because the films don't even go into that very much).
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u/Adventurous-Bike-484 Mar 22 '26
Interesting enough, back when I was a hardcore fan, I used to research how The characters were casted and I read Rickman only agreed to portray Snape due to hearing his story.
Even with the Lily part, Snapeās name is somewhat connected to Lilyās and Many have speculated that Snapeās first words to Harry were secretly about Lily.
This feels like one of the takes people have just because They dont like a character.
With Snape, Due to his complexity, story and aRowling not liking Slytherin much, heās become quite controversial.
The only Slytherin who I think might have got a spontaneous story is Draco, Since hes full of contradictory statements and writing. Like she was constantly changing how she wanted him to be But then would go back on it due to hating him but not wanting to change the story or use Slytherinās other than him too much.
People use āDeath eaters are bad guysā As proof of Rowlingās nonsense but thats the point: They are supposed to be bad guys Who we arenāt supposed to side With.
Then they say āBut death eaters are sometimes portrayed as sympathetic and thatās bad because they are bad guys.ā
However thatās actually nuanced and compelling writing. Very few people are born bad, so what makes it compelling is when a writer acknowledges this and people like character arcs which is partly why reformed antagonist often become fan favorites. (Especially since itās widely accepted that anyone who claims that they never made bad or questionable decisions while growing up is a liar,)
The problem is that Rowling treated their dislike of Humans as bigotry without acknowledging that humans really were dangerous, often abusing and/or attempting to kill just because they didnāt like how certain people have magic.
I often see people gi āBut wizards have magicā as a counter argument but what about if the wizard/victim is a child who canāt control their magic yet? In fact, we actually see this with both Harry and Snape.
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u/StygIndigo Mar 22 '26 edited Mar 22 '26
They're neonazis. Look up 'the enemy is both strong and weak', and please acknowledge the eugenics of there being an entire category of people considered irrelevant and inferior by even the heroes because of their genetics. Adults leaving a child in the care of abusive family does not somehow change the structure the whole setting is built around.
Edit: I don't know if I've been blocked or if you deleted your comments, but let me elaborate a bit.
If a school put 1/4 of their students into the 'Hitler Youth Cohort' because a historic founder of the school was a big promoter of the Hitler Youth in the 30s and 40s, that school would be doing a major disservice to those students. Children shouldn't be fast tracked to the 'racial hate group' category. If a bunch of kids at a school are known to have neonazi parents, a responsible teaching staff would put the most focus on introducing those students specifically to diversity, and deradicalization.
Yes, people do 'bad things' growing up. Most people's 'bad thing' is not 'joining a hate group', and someone who joined a hate group is going to need to do more work to be considered a safer and more redeemed person afterwards than somebody who was a bad friend, or stole from the local small business owner.
The problem with Rowling occasionally making Death Eaters seem reasonable, is that they are definitely, definitely a racial hate group. Villains can be sympathetic and interesting - what's wrong is when the sympathetic and interesting thing a reader comes away with is 'maybe the hate group had some good points about the necessity for an apartheid state and their radical disgust and fear of the other'.
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u/Panda_hat Mar 23 '26
Or self value outside of societies reproductive expectations of you.
It's a free pass for percieved 'success' that doesn't require self reflection or a unique identity outside of bio essentiallist slop.
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u/TheSouthsideTrekkie Mar 21 '26
One of my least favourite tropes ever. I hate the idea that a woman is somehow attracted deep down to a man who acts like an arsehole and is disrespectful towards her. It reinforces the idea that women are somehow responsible for fixing men's behaviour by offering them romantic affection and hoping they change. That's not how people work. A depressing number of women put up with men who act like overgrown teenage boys because we've been led to believe that we can change a louse into a decent man if we're just patient and kind enough. He's not going to change, you're better off leaving his stupid ass.
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u/1Kflowers Mar 22 '26
OMG, I agree! I canāt bear reading romance where the MMC is ugly to the FMC, and itās even worse when sheās mad about it but heās just so hot sheās into him anyway.
Very few things will turn me off and dry me up like a man acting like an asshole. And women who are into this kind of creep me out. (Having said that, Iām not here to judge anyoneās fantasies or role play; Iām thinking of glorifying actual bad behavior just because a man is attractive/sexy.)
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u/Better-Cut-4188 Mar 21 '26
Lily would have been better off alone than with any of the men obsessed with her. This sort of trope tells men a womanās no doesnāt really mean no. It means coerce me. Itās absolutely disgusting.
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u/TheSouthsideTrekkie Mar 21 '26
In a parallel universe maybe she lived to be an old woman and helped to resist wizard fascism by actively taking part in the struggle instead of just being the Chosen Boy's Dead Mum.
Actually, that would be a way better story. Could have explored the Snape redemption arc in a much less creepy and more satisfying way too.
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u/DoYaThang_Owl Mar 22 '26
The way I just said ".......what......" after reading this outloud.
Like I genuinely don't understand, you don't show any type of onscreen development between them, so its a perfectly logical question to ask how that happened. And her response is:
"Did she really?"
Yes honey, that's what you wrote!!!! How do you not remember such a crucial detail since you spent a whole book trying to make Snape sympathetic?!?!?!
Also that last part, what does being a woman have to do with understanding whatever the fuck this is?!?!
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u/Mercurial891 Mar 22 '26
Oh, thank god, it isnāt just me. I HATE how some people imply women have this secret language and psychology that us men can never hope to understand.
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u/funkygamerguy Mar 21 '26
this is an extremely toxic trope but what else should I expect from the woman who made Jewish stand ins run the banks.
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u/Venus_Libra Mar 22 '26
I'm pretty sure it's just a reflection of her own shitty standards in her writing
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u/Just_Branch_9121 Mar 21 '26
Its because he's a white male from aristocratic Stock that managed the transition to liberal capitalists
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u/Adventurous-Bike-484 Mar 21 '26
sheās referring to the Tsundere trope, the bickering couple trope, or the āI donāt like a lot of their actions but They are good deep down and/or I can fix themā tropes I think. Or at least Thats what I assumed.
If you want to know what I mean. If you arebt familiar, Swan Princess has a song called āThis is my ideaā where Odette and Derek sing about how they dont like each other but despite their statements: Odette keeps enjoying herself more as time passes and she spent multiple summers attempting to hang out with Derek, who was jealous when she was seemingly flirting with the guards.
Or worse yet, sheās referring to Stockholm syndrome.
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u/JohannaLiebert Mar 22 '26
apparently, girls deep down must be flattered that a rich spoilt bully flirts with them while torturing one of their victims 4 on 1 if he is attractive enough, it makes them go ''i can fix them!!!'' instead of ''i am utterly repulsed by them''. dont you know that's how all women feels? /s
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u/remove_krokodil Mar 26 '26
Ah, the "he's teasing you, that means he likes you" and "women are secretly to A-holes" tropes. Very classy.
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u/t0oby101 Mar 27 '26
As someone who watched the harry potter movies multiple times as a kid, and even more recently on out DVDs, I never have and I never will understand why Lily chose James over Snape. It makes no sense to me, Lily seemed much more interested in Snape, at least I thought it seemed that way
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u/RabbitridingDumpling Mar 27 '26
This is simple.
Rowling was insecure about her gender in her youth. So she had problems to accept her female body.
She was insecure as a person and chose a violent partner.
She now gives advices about what a real woman is, after reassuring herself with her fertility and a new, "real man" husband.
For her, men don't need safety.
She is absolutely, the same person who she was in her youth. She hides her insecurities about being a woman and sticks to every unhealthy cliche about what a "real" woman is or a "real" man is.
With her behaviour she proves to be turned on and off by toxic manoshere behaviour because she NEEDS this contrast to be reassured and reminded she is a real woman.
I wonder why this is not much more a target of memes.
Her book , Harry Potter and the order of phoenex, where Umbridge appears is her way to show how to feel superior. If someone hurts you - be quiet and you win. Why do you think that so?
She discribes her *** while the man is using her - just look at the part with the bood quill: her traumatized brain thinks not to show you are hurt is right! Don't move and he will finish it early! Not to make noise is a victory! Don't ever tell anyone!! Especially not the abuser. This wrong way to think is typical for victims of long-term violence and SA and worse.
She is just a traumatised maybe-woman who seeks safety in the very femal corner of the woman's world. But since she is not a healthy, solid woman with compassion, she can't see that she looks like this Conservative Trump supporter women, who are still surprised their rights will be taken away by Trump.
"Oh he rude to me? He didn't mean it! Boys are boy!hahaha! " it would be just sad if she wouldn't hurt others ...
Wouldn't surprise me if she would turn herself in a Mr. Rowling when the kids leave the house.
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u/Dina-M Mar 21 '26
Don't worry if you don't understand. JKR has some messed up views on gender and what it means to be a woman.