they say a girl must travel far to find her superman: A response to HPMOR's rant on anti-feminism

[metaphasia]

My bad habit One of my bad habits Amongst my bad habits is that sometimes when I see my side of an argument so clearly I have a hard time understanding how anyone could disagree, and, instead of debating intellligently, dissolve into a fit of acoherent rage. Quite aside from the fact that I am not always right, this is a problem because it means that when I become emotionally invested in an argument, I have a hard time conveying my opinion in a convincing manner. This means that I am sure that the following could be explained by someone else much more eloquently, but please bear with me.

 

I was a fan of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality when I first heard of it. It has a clever premise, and is well written, both grammatically and stylistically. However, I have had some issues with the way the most recent story arc was written and handled, and these boiled to a head when I found the author's response to someone else's complaints regarding the same issues; that response can be found here; I will not be quoting it directly within this response, so please read it first before continuing.

 

First, right from the start, I take issue with the Mr. Yudkowsky's position in the opening sentence. I believe that feminism is and should be the concern of everyone, not just those who have heard of it, and that hiding the response away to complaints about being anti-feminist is not a good position to take.

 

Mr. Yudkowsky focuses on directly responding to the accusations from a particular tumblr comment (which he does not link to, so I'm not sure if his following assertion is true, since the text he quotes does not specify which female character, only makes general statements) that Professor McGonagall has significantly less agency than Professor Snape. And while I agree that that assertion is true, and I will return to it later, I feel that the anti-feminism present in the text is much more pervasive and insidious.

 

Mr. Yudkowsky states that he believes a text should stand on its own and that an author's opinion or notes regarding the text afterwards are a failure on the author's part. This is a perfectly valid viewpoint, and one that I personally agree with; it is one of the reasons that I have issues with the original Harry Potter novels in fact, since JK Rowling only ever revealed or discussed Dumbledore's sexuality in a memo after the final book had been published, and not within the text itself.

 

However, the text that Mr. Yudkowsky has written does not support his position that it is feminist (or even feminist - neutral as opposed to actively feminist or anti-feminist (okay, I'm going to stop using the term "anti-feminism" here, which Mr. Yudkowsky uses in his rant and refer to this as sexism, because let's face it, it is)). A central theme in MoR is the concept of "heroic responsibility" to which the readers are treated to multiple lectures. As part of this discussion, a quote that is attributed to Godric Gryffindor's autobiography is introduced:

 

No rescuer hath the rescuer,

No lord hath the champion,

no mother and no father,

only nothingness above.

(Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, chapter 75)

 

However, as the deuteragonist of the story, and ostensibly a heroine in her own right, Hermione Granger consistently fails to live up to this standard. In the course of the extracurricular battles that Professor Quirrell arranges, Hermione is repeatedly shown as an inferior participant to both Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy; for instance, in the battle that takes place in chapter 67, Harry is able to defeat Hermione with only two soldiers, and in the post battle discussion in chapter 68, Professor Quirrell specifically calls her out as not thinking of alternative strategies as Draco did, which is an example of lack of agency on her part. Other examples include her needing to be rescued from the Wizengamot after being accused of attempted murder, and the other battles that take place; in which Professor Quirrell secretly plots to assist her in the first battle, in the Christmas battle (in which of all the plots that take place, she does not create a single one and is merely a pawn in the ultimate outcome of the fight, which is orchestrated through the efforts of Harry, Draco, Blaise Zabini, Professor Quirrell and Headmaster Dumbledore), the battle in which her and Draco's armies combined are unable to defeat Harry, who provides the means for them to chase him onto the roof whereupon she falls off, leaving the final confrontation between Harry and Draco.

 

Indeed, throughout the story, Hermione is consistently shown to lack agency and need a rescuer of her own. The events of the Self-Actualization story arc revolve around her creation an organization called the Society for the Promotion of Heroic Equality for Witches, which as Mr. Yudkowsky specifically states in his rant referenced earlier was intended to be feminist.

However, Hermione and her heroic witches fail to prove themselves heroes and need rescue; first from Nymphadora Tonks, a seventh year student in disguise as one of their own, and then later by Harry, Professor Quirrell, and Professor Snape all.

Professor Quirrell/Voldemort is portrayed similarly to Ollivander's description of him in the original Philosopher’s Stone novel; a terrible person, lacking in empathy and understanding of humans, but capable of great actions, and a force to be reckoned with. Indeed, he is portrayed as a very rational individual, who is a great judge of character, yet he repeatedly shows a lack of respect for Hermione; while he believes that she is intelligent, he repeatedly calls her out on a lack of dedication and heroic qualities, the most notable of which I believe is during chapter 70, when he speaks at a protest she has organized and he states that heroes are not those of high position, but rather those who show great ability and power, and then refuses to support her, since he believes she lacks ambition.

 

Mr. Yudkowsky's defense for the lack of agency that Professor McGonagall shows throughout the story is that such examples were before her character development in the most recent arc, and that such development was planned all along. However, despite referencing "fridging" in the opening sentence to his rant, he never addresses the concept again.

If you are unfamiliar with the term, it stems from the trope of "women in refrigerators", which originated with Hal Jordan's wife being killed and placed in a refrigerator for him to later find in the Green Lantern comics. The trope references female characters who have been killed, seemingly for the sole purpose of angst or character development, and is about the objectification of women. Literally; stuffing a woman in the refrigerator states that she has less value to the story for the narrative that she can provide as a female character, a subject capable of action, than the emotional value of her death, an object which is acted upon and inspires others to action.

This is problematic for me, because the most blatant example of sexism is no the lack of agency on Professor McGonagall's part, but rather the action that causes her to undergo character development; the fridging of Hermione Granger (actually, painfully literally, since her body is later placed in a storeroom for chapters 90-93). Hermione is killed by the troll, which, in the original canon JK Rowling provides, was defeated in time by Harry and Ron. Although the story has not progressed far beyond her death, it certainly seems as if she was killed for the sole purpose of character development for others, and, even if not, that is not an essential aspect of the woman in refrigerators trope.

 

In fact, Mr. Yudkowsky's assertion in his original rant is even more troubling in light of this. Professor Snape's competency can be directly attributed to his grief over, and desire for revenge for, the death of Lily Potter at Voldemort's hands. Which, while only somewhat problematic in the original narrative, since James Potter died at the same time, now becomes part of a disturbing trend in which a female character needs to die for another main character to develop into competency.

 

Mr. Yudkowsky chooses to end his rant with the position that it is unfair to attack an author of an incomplete story, since the section that has not been completed could redeem the sections which have, that the future plot points could shed new light on those that have been revealed so far.

 

I disagree. I believe that Mr. Yudkowsky could have defended himself rather easily against my complaints by the simple expedient of not having Hermione stuffed into the refrigerator because Lily was lonely there. By having Professor McGongall develop competency without the death of the only other strong female character in the entire story. By allowing Hermione to be capable of rescuing herself at some point without needing Harry to be her savior.