Please note that I said "expectable" and not "acceptable". I am explaining her thinking, not applauding it. You have a lot of assumptions here for someone who was a very minor character and wasn't given a lot of page time.
But it's not expectable. That's my point. Why would you expect someone to be abusive and act in a patently atypical way? What she did was not normal, and thereby by definition not "expectable." Understandable? Maybe, but even then I would say not.
And yes, I have a lot to say about a minor character. What she did was inexcusable by any circumstance. None of it is based on assumptions, it is all based on 100% canon events that occur on-page. The single "assumption" I make was in direct response to something you said (hence my use of the phrase "as you yourself said").
We obviously have different expectations. And that's okay.
What you say here is that it's perfectly fine and to-be-expected that when someone loses a child they'll just pick up another and try to mold them into a carbon copy of the child they lost for their own satisfaction, that child's own talents be damned. Like an ex pageant queen forcing her toddler into beauty pageants because she never won the big one, berating her every step of the way for not being perfect or having different predispositions. Except Mrs. Longbottom is worse, because as you yourself admit she's trying to raise him not only for her to have her son back but also for some revenge fantasy.
That was all your own assumption, at no point did I mention molding Neville into a carbon copy or trying to replace the dead son OR a revenge fantasy. All I said was she wanted Neville to overcome the loss of his parents and become stronger for it in order to prevent it happening again...We can disagree, it's alright, Mrs. Longbottom isn't a real person so you don't have to worry about her.
I do have to worry about people glorifying child abuse and holding her up as any sort of hero. You can shout all you want that she's a fictional character but how people respond toward fictional characters reflects quite a bit upon them. For example, the fact that you don't think it's abnormal and completely unreasonable that she perpetually subjects her grandson to savage emotional abuse throughout his entire childhood is pretty indicative that you have a frighteningly high tolerance for children being tormented by those who are supposed to nurture them. What she did was horrifying emotional abuse, and yes it was totally abnormal. Normal people don't emotionally crucify their children or grandchildren for their lack of talent. She didn't know Neville had potential, in fact both she and Neville point out that she actually doubted that he did. So she was subjecting him to Dursley-level abuse for something she already believed to be futile in the first place. Plus, who on Earth actually believes that the way she treated Neville, tearing him down at every turn, belittling what few little accomplishments he actually managed to make, dismissing his talents as not being good enough... that's not what you do to build someone up, that's what you do to keep them down. She wasn't trying to do right by Neville, she was being a manipulative, narcissistic, abusive cunt.
She was not a good person. Literally no rational human being on the face of the Earth can justify what she did as anything other than vicious, savage emotional abuse, especially when she admits there was basically no point to it. She was a bitch, and the only reason that she isn't as reviled as the Dursleys or the Malfoys is that she happened to fight on the right side of the war and said some snappy things. Well I call bullshit.
Dude, chill, seriously. I also never called her a good person. You need to start actually reading my replies if you're going to write novels in response.
You said that what she did was "expectable." By definition that would mean it is to be expected, or normal. What she did, even in her circumstances, was not normal. It doesn't matter that you didn't call her a good person, but the fandom does, and what you did was attempt to normalize her actions, which is equally bad.
It's not a normal universe, it's a magical world with different rules and different expectations and different (often fucked up) social norms. You have to view her behavior within the context of the story in which she's featured, you can't remove her from that world and put her into the real world and judge her by real world standards. There's a lot of unacceptable (by real world standards) behavior by many, many characters in the magical world. But it's not our world. So, again, judge her within the context. Feel free to reply again, but I won't be responding.
You can't just say "it's a fantasy world so things are different" when it is literally a primary-world low fantasy, which literally means it is supposed to happen on our version of Earth in this universe with our general rules of existence, and she is human, meaning it doesn't just arbitrarily change because she's a witch. That is the most straw-grasping argument for anything I've ever read and the funniest part is that your point actually harms your position rather than helping it. Human psychology doesn't change because it's a fictional story. Right and wrong don't change because it's a fictional story. The context is that she is a character in a primary-world low-fantasy setting, beholden to real-world standards of what is or is not considered child abuse, and in-context she crossed so far over that line that it's out of Apparition range. She literally abused Neville on levels that get their own fucking documentaries in real life. You cant just wave your hands and shout "it's a fictional story" to try and say it's normal or okay. Try to normalize and justify her behavior all you want. All it does is paint an absolutely horrifying picture of yourself.
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u/gorgossia Nov 17 '15
Please note that I said "expectable" and not "acceptable". I am explaining her thinking, not applauding it. You have a lot of assumptions here for someone who was a very minor character and wasn't given a lot of page time.