A Second Look at the Second Crouch: Ambiguity in J.K. Rowling's Villains

Though I am in the habit of rereading the Harry Potter series regularly, most especially the second, third, and fifth books, I had not read the fourth book in a long time when I picked it up recently.  Personally, I consider the fourth to be the weakest book of the entire series; I find the Triwizard Tournament plot to be boring, unrelatable, and far-fetched.  As Ron says, everything happens to Harry, and this particular instance of that being true stretched the limits of my believability a bit too far, in addition to which I never quite understood why Harry was trying so hard to win anyway; he didn’t need the money, knew he had a long shot at being able to compete at all, and didn’t even want to be there in the first place.  Sure, he had strong motivation not to get eaten by the dragon in the first task, but he really should have just given up at some point before he did in the second task and just asked for the judges to return whatever was taken, especially since he thought it was an object he was looking for before he actually saw Ron under the water.  The same is true of the third task: it’s understandable that Harry would want to learn defensive spells, but once he’s actually inside the maze it would be smartest for him to just stay put in an area he can defend well and hope that someone else finds the cup quickly. 

However, all that aside, one aspect of the fourth book that I appreciated more this time around was the character of Barty Crouch Jr.  I almost entirely missed his presence the last time I read the book—mostly because though I knew he wasn’t the real Moody I couldn’t help but think of him that way—and this time around, I found him fascinating in his many-layered ambiguity, and the subtle but fascinating contradictions that J.K. Rowling creates in his character.  After closing the fourth book, having realized that this was true, I immediately went running for the internet, assuming that Junior (as he’s so nicknamed) would be just as thoroughly dissected as any of Rowling’s other delightfully ambiguous characters: there are entire websites and books devoted to the issue of Snape’s loyalties, and nearly that much material about Dumbledore; even the seemingly straightforward Peter Pettigrew is the source of much debate… And yet, there is almost nothing out there trying to figure out the problems that Junior presents for readers, problems that are never fully resolved. 

On the surface, J.K. Rowling plays one of her classic ploys in getting us to think one thing about a character only to learn another.  The first mention of Crouch Jr. comes when Sirius is talking about Azkaban; his account of hearing the boy cry for his parents before he “fell silent in the end… except when [he] screamed in his sleep,” is absolutely chilling.  In light of Sirius’s assessment about Crouch Sr., it seems pretty clear that Junior only ended up in Azkaban because his father didn’t want to be associated with anyone who had ever had anything to do with accusations of Death Eater activity, regardless of guilt or innocence.  The first time we see Crouch Jr. as himself, he is about to be handed over to the dementors by his apathetic father; he is portrayed as a pathetic and sympathetic figure, in contrast to the coldly unapologetic Lestranges.  Even as Harry is watching the almost angelic-seeming figure of the boy barely older than himself with blonde hair and childlike freckles, we are reminded that he died less than a year later.  Although Rowling never provides any proof one way or another, and in fact never has Harry reach a definitive conclusion, it is largely assumed from this sequence that Crouch Jr. is innocent, that like Sirius he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and that he died a terrible death to preserve his father’s reputation.  Crouch Sr. is unquestionably heartless at that point, and Crouch Jr. is, like Sirius, a victim of his father’s coldness.

“Moody,” like Crouch Jr., seems a pretty clear-cut character as well.  Although again nothing is ever definitively stated about his personality, we see that he is an effective teacher that uses his field experience to his advantage when giving his students instruction in how to protect themselves.  He takes personal time to get to know each of his students, as shown through his talking alone with both Neville and Harry, and he is familiar with the backgrounds and personalities of the people he teaches.  Harry stops short of calling “Moody” a better teacher than Lupin was, but he does not hesitate to heap praise on “Moody’s” teaching abilities.  One really gets the sense that the students learn a lot about defense and protection from “Moody’s” classes; even if he seems a little gruff sometimes, a lot of what he is teaching is sound principles, and plus, Dumbledore trusts him, and if you can’t trust Dumbledore you can’t trust anyone… Right? 

Then comes the end of Goblet of Fire.  All is revealed, the masks come off, and suddenly everything that happened earlier on.  It is only in rereading the fourth book that it becomes apparent that all is not quite what it seems.  Was Crouch Jr. really in the wrong place at the wrong time when he was initially convicted, and it was only after he went crazy in Azkaban that he joined Lord Voldemort?  Was he really just a victim of politics who chose to follow Voldemort to escape his abusive father?  When, exactly, did Crouch Jr. become a Death Eater—before what happened to the Longbottoms, or only after when he was confronted with the choice of joining or refusing the Dark Lord himself?  Why did “Moody” teach the students so well, going so far as to teach Harry an ability (throwing off the Imperius) that later helped him escape Voldemort, and comforting Neville after class though he is the reason Neville is so disturbed by the Cruciartus Curse in the first place?  Wouldn’t it have been easier just to play to everyone’s expectations and pass himself off as slightly insane?  How does Crouch Sr. really feel about his son?  Most importantly, perhaps, what does J.K. Rowling want us to think about the character?

Interestingly, no one I’ve ever encountered has ever made all that much attempt to resolve these problems with the enigma that is Crouch Jr.  Most people just go the route of assuming that he is absolutely evil and that is the end of the story.  Though there are a small handful of people that pay more attention to Crouch Sr., even he gets ignored a lot, despite the fascinating mystery presented by both Barty Crouches. 

Now, understand that this is the place where I enter the land of speculation and half-baked theory and I may just be farting out cheese cauldrons or whatever Dumbledore’s saying is, BUT… I don’t necessarily think that Crouch Jr. is supposed to be a villain, so much as a victim of circumstance. 

The rather convenient device of veritaserum allows us to take everything that Jr. says in his final confession as absolute truth.  Therefore, I wanted to comment on a few things he did say rather than the things that he did not.  For instance, Jr. starts his story by explaining how he got out of Azkaban—not how he got in there.  He does not confess to the torturing of Alice and Frank Longbottom, even though he has no reason not to, and he does not say that he was actually a Death Eater before he was put in prison.  Could it be that Harry’s (and Sirirus’s) and our initial impressions were correct, and Jr. really was only handed over to the dementors to keep Daddy’s reputation intact?  After getting out of prison, of course Jr. did several things that were thoroughly evil, including setting up Cedric Diggory to be killed and using unforgivable curses on the Triwizard champions, but all of that was only after he had spent almost a year in a place that, by all accounts of anyone worth listening to, makes even the nicest people crazy.  So, in my opinion, that leaves us open to the possibility that Jr. wasn’t an evil person until he spent all that time sitting around reliving his absolute worst memories while being driven slowly insane, on top of being told by everyone up to and including his own parents that he was worth less than dirt… Well, it’d be enough to turn anyone into a Death Eater, to say the least.  (Except Sirius Black, of course, but even he is hardly a paradigm of rational sanity by the time he escapes.)

Even so, Jr. never says that he was a Death Eater.  He never says he was evil at all, and he never confesses to doing anything more than being a little nutty (again, we wonder why)… until Voldemort himself popped up at the Crouches’ front door.  Now, it is one thing to be a part of the yay-Voldy parade from the distance, as Peter Pettigrew proves, and it is another thing entirely to be willing to kill or die for his cause.  The choice between one and the other is pretty much taken away when an admittedly casual follower is suddenly confronted by the man himself, in the not-quite flesh.  What might very well have been teenage rebellion up until that point (again, speculation here) was rapidly forced into the land of with-us-or-against-us.  All of a sudden Jr. was being asked to give up his identity and possibly his life to serve Voldemort.  Quite a different kettle of fish for a man who was (unlike the Lestranges) not willing to do to prison for the cause a decade before.  And yet he goes along, whether out of fear for his life or desire to escape his father.

And then there is the issue of Crouch Sr.  Again, the strong initial impression is negative: we see him punishing Winky for what is apparently a tiny infraction with excessive force, and then learn from Sirius that he is a ruthless self-serving bureaucrat that doesn’t let minutiae like family bonds or human emotions to get in the way of his career.  Later after his death we start to feel some pity for him, and realize that there was (of course) more going on in the scene with Winky than there initially seemed to be… And yet, several troubling details remain.  Most specifically, there is the fact that not only is this man responsible for the destruction of Sirius Black’s entire life while Peter Pettigrew walked free and was eventually able to bring back Voldemort, but this man kept his own son locked inside under the Imperious Curse for almost a decade.  Maybe Crouch Sr. risked everything (and gave up his wife) to get Crouch Jr. out of prison, but what was waiting for Jr. on the other side doesn’t sound as though it was much better.  Again, it appears that, ironically, the apparently false initial impression of the character might not have been so false after all: Crouch Jr. was entirely the victim of Crouch Sr.’s ruthlessness and lack of feeling, just not in the way that many people thought.

It casts a new light on the only murder that Jr. ever admits to.  Perhaps Crouch Jr. wasn’t just exercising ruthlessness to get an unneeded person out of the way (seems to run in the family) when he killed his father.  Perhaps Crouch Sr.’s killing was an act of justice by his most damaged victim.  After all, if it had been, say, Sirius who had killed Crouch Sr., the reader might not have automatically exonerated him from all blame, but at least would have been sympathetic and admitted that the man had it coming.  All things considered, Jr. had a lot more justifiable reason to off Daddy Dearest than even Sirius did.  So why should that be considered a sign of his being evil?  Isn’t that a sign that he is, terrifyingly, human? 

So, when offered the chance to escape his abusive home life, and given the alternative of being killed instead, Jr. chose to follow Voldemort and get him back into power.  Not much of a choice at all, as a matter of fact.  Jr. went with Pettigrew, captured Moody, impersonated him… And then went on to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts to a whole bunch of young future aurors.  If Crouch Jr. really was the soul of evil that everyone makes him out to be, then why go through the trouble of creating effective lesson plans and impressing on everyone so well the ideas that later helped them?  Jr. could easily play up Moody’s apparent madness or even the fact that an ex-auror has probably never taught a thing in his life before, used any number of excuses to get away with teaching the students the bare minimum, or even nothing at all, or even misdirection.  After all, Lockhart and Quirrell already got away with doing that exact thing, and for some reason no mid-semester review ever looked too hard at either of them.  So why on earth would he bother to teach his students so many spells and techniques that they later used to defend themselves—against Death Eaters?  Voldemort’s plan might have succeeded if not for the fact that Harry had been trained in how to throw off the Imperious Curse by Crouch Jr. himself. 

Significantly, this is the only lesson that we ever see in detail: the one where Jr. demonstrates that he has no problems casting the Unforgivable Curses—on spiders.  And that, even if he feigns compassion for the child of his victims (or were they?) he nonetheless succeeds in cheering up and even befriending Neville Longbottom.  Another place where a half-hearted effort or even no effort at all would have slid under the radar without commentary from anyone, and yet he went the extra mile to be a good teacher.  Why?  Could it be that he actually feels bad for what happened to the Longbottoms?  Could that have to do with the fact that he was a bystander and not a perpetrator?  However, it is the Imperious Curse that Jr. uses on his students, and the Imperious Curse that he teaches at least Harry to throw off.  The exact same curse that was used on Jr. himself for all those years.  It could very well be that his motivation here is not any grand plan for Voldemort’s rise or Harry’s downfall, but rather a simple, very human, desire not to see anyone else used the way that he was. 

The rest of Jr.’s story remains something of a mystery, because he never gets the chance to make any further confessions.  Very literally, the government comes swooping in to suck out his soul.  This is the final act of destruction from the alleged “good guys” that brings about the end of a boy caught in the middle of an intensely personal war.  Anything further that Jr. might have been able to tell readers is lost to the ages, because he has nothing more that can be said.  Thus this respected family comes to the same ugly end as many of the other respected families in the novels: all its members either dead or worse than. 

Crouch Jr.’s eventual fate supports the idea that our ultimate feelings about the character are supposed to be somewhat ambiguous.  Though the idea of the dementor’s kiss is referenced repeatedly in the last five books, and is generally agreed on by characters and readers alike to be one of the most terrifying fates imaginable, Crouch Jr. is, significantly, the only character that we ever actually see receive this punishment.  Harry has been questioning the policies of the Ministry of Magic more or less since the second book, and this presents one of the biggest and stickiest conundrums of the whole series: does anyone actually, really deserve what the dementors do to a person?  The first mention of the dementor’s kiss is in the third book, when Professor Lupin explains to Harry what is under a dementor’s hood; when he points out that this is what will happen to Sirius if he is caught, Harry’s immediate response is that he deserves it.  Lupin questions whether this is so, and as it turns out he is right to do so, because of course Sirius has never done anything to merit having his soul sucked out, and yet no one would have ever known this if Sirius had been apprehended and punished as the law dictated.  Even when it is revealed that the true perpetrator is Peter Pettigrew, the question of the dementor’s kiss is not resolved, because Pettigrew is a weak, pitiful villain to Black’s menacing mastermind figure, and Harry considers it to be “not worth it” to kill Pettigrew. 

Peter Pettigrew even dies saving the life of the boy he twice set up to be killed, in the seventh book.  That would not have been possible if he had been punished as he allegedly deserved, with insanity in Azkaban or soullessness after the kiss; he would have had no chance at redemption.  So if the man who killed two of his closest friends and twelve bystanders and condemned another friend to a lifetime in Hell doesn’t deserve the dementor’s kiss or a life sentence in Azkaban…  Who does?  Bellatrix Lestrange would seem to be the obvious candidate for this; Dante would probably appreciate the idea of punishing a the people who tortured Aurors into insanity with a lifetime of being tortured into insanity, and yet Harry’s initial reaction upon seeing Bellatrix in person for the first time is that she is almost as “ravaged” by Azkaban as Sirius is.  It is interesting to note the use of the word “ravaged;” it is used in the fifth book to describe the effects of dementors on both Sirius and Bellatrix and in the seventh book to describe Lucius Malfoy after only a few months in Azkaban; the word suggests that a violation, some sort of desecrating act, has occurred, and the victims of this still bear the damages.  Characters in the whole series—at least, sympathetic characters—all seem to have the same reaction to dementors, one of disgust.   

I surprised myself with the number of times that I mentioned Sirius Black when writing this little blurt, and I think that that fact deserves mentioning.  Maybe it’s just more wild conjecture on my part, but I now wonder whether Jr. is intended to be a parallel for Sirius.  Both are victims of Crouch Sr.’s ruthlessness, both are admittedly imbalanced by their time in Azkaban, and before the fifth book they were the only two people ever known to have escaped the dementors once sentenced there.  All that, taken in light of the fact that Sirius didn’t commit the crime he was imprisoned for, but was rather in the wrong place at the wrong time and was never given a change to explain himself… I’d say it lends some weight to the theory that the Lestranges acted alone in what they did to the Longbottoms, and Jr. was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The other person that I think Jr. may parallel is Harry himself.  There are no shortage of characters that come from less-than-loving homes in the novels; one need only look at the parallels between Harry and Sirius to find this (sometime I’ll have to create another blog post about the extent to which Harry is more Sirius’s heir, and to a lesser extent Remus’s, than he ever will be James’s…).  Nonetheless, the specific language used in the books reinforces his parallel.  When Harry witnesses Jr.’s trial, he describes Jr. as “a boy a few years older than himself,” showing that Harry feels a connection to this boy.  Later, in the fifth book, Harry thinks back to Jr.’s trial during his own hearing for misuse of magic.  Jr., like Voldemort, is a sort of warning tale for Harry: he was raised in an unloving home, and he responded by becoming every bit as bad as the people who raised him, whereas Harry overcomes his upbringing to become a loving person. 

I can’t say for sure whether J.K. Rowling intended Crouch Jr. to be a sadistically evil murderer or an innocent victim of circumstance.  One aspect of her novels that is so fascinating is the fact that they are filled with riddles and ambiguities that will leave scholars (and bloggers) scratching their heads for years to come.  That said, I want to be the first one to throw this idea out there because to my surprise no one else has done it yet: I do think that this particular ambiguity is entirely deliberate, and that the possibility, no matter how slim, that Jr. was innocent is intended to reinforce the theme that runs throughout the books: that the innocent are always the first victims of war.  Harry has to find the balance within his character between his desire to prove himself to the world and seek revenge against the man who destroyed his life and his desire to be a good kid who just wants to get by in the world.  I propose that both Barty Crouches lost their innocence to the war, but that though their crimes are heinous, they were victims before they were ever perpetrators.  Crouch Jr. especially is supposed to be a sacrifice of war: first his sanity, then his innocence, and finally his soul were stripped away by the government that in some regards became no better than that which it was fighting. 

Bug

Harry Potter: What's Up With the Ending?

SPOILERS. OBVIOUSLY.

By the time I reached the epilogue of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I was so emotionally wrung out that Harry and the gang could have joined Monty Python's Flying Circus and I wouldn't have noticed. The only part that caught my attention was the last line, because JKR had announced years ago that the last word of the last book would be 'scar,' but later modified that statement and said that the last sentence would contain the word 'scar.' Sure enough, it did (Okay, it was the second to last line, but still), and I liked the last line. I thought it was a subtle way of informing the readers that the darkness was more or less gone from Harry's life, and that the great pain/weight that had dogged him for his entire childhood had finally dissipated.

Upon rereading, however, the ending made me vaguely uneasy, and it wasn't until I heard other peoples' responses that I figured out why. This is my attempt to dissect the ending and understand my own and others' feelings about the final chapter in the Harry Potter Saga.

I think it's important to start out this dissection by acknowledging that JKR is the lord, master, and yes, god of the Harry Potter world, and therefore she can do whatever the heck she wants. While I don't always agree with authors' decisions (Ron and Hermione being a good example...no offense to them or their fans, I just can't see them as a couple) I do acknowledge that it is their world, and therefore they get to call the shots, while I should just consider myself privileged to read their stories. So, JKR was perfectly within her right to end the Harry Potter series the way she did, and I trust that she wrote the ending that felt right to her.

To understand why I felt uneasy with the ending, I thought about some of my favorite endings to series/books and tried to find the common threads. The three I picked were Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, K.A Applegate's Animorphs, and Avi's The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle. (SPOILERS! OBVIOUSLY!)


His Dark Materials ends with Lyra and Will returning to their own worlds, with the assumption that they won't see each other again until they die. They're making a great sacrifice in order to repair the universe and save humanity's souls, and while they know it's the right thing to do, it doesn't mean that their hearts are any less broken. Still, they understand that this is the only option, and so they both resolve to live their lives, visiting the same bench in the Botanical Gardens in Oxford at the same time, so they stay connected. As expressed in The Amber Spyglass, they must both "build their own Republic of Heaven." The ending is sad, but it's also hopeful, because it implies that they are both going to design their own fates.


Animorphs ends with Jake, Marco, and Tobias on a likely suicidal mission to rescue Ax. Rachel is dead, and Cassie is living out her life on Earth. A lot of people dislike this ending, both because it's a cliffhanger and because many people see it as an implication that the Animorphs would rather go out fighting than try to live normal lives. However--which of the Animorphs' missions wasn't suicidal? As Marco was so fond of pointing out, everything they did was "insane." I don't think that K.A Applegate was killing her characters, I think she was sending them off on their next grand adventure. And as for Cassie not coming along, another sticking point for many fans, I think it was because Cassie was already involved in another adventure--saving the planet. Again. The Animorphs ending worked for me, because  to me anyways it implied that the Animorphs would carry on forever doing the same thing they'd always done--be heroes

Finally, The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle ends with Charlotte running away from her family and rejoining the crew of the Seahawk before they set sail. It doesn't say if she actually sailed off with them, or if her family caught up with her--it just ends with her climbing on deck. And this more than anything epitomizes the two main reasons why I didn't care for (There. I said it. I didn't like the end, okay?) the end of the Harry Potter series.


All three of those endings I picked have three things in common, three things that I think were missing from the end of Deathly Hallows. First, in all three endings the characters are neither entirely happy nor entirely sad. Second, in all three endings the characters are doing what they love, or at least what they believe to be the right thing. Third, and perhaps most important of all, all three stories end ambiguously.

My first issue with the ending of Deathly Hallows is that everyone seems so ridiculously happy. This is only a moment in their lives, lives that logically are varied and complex, but especially coming right after the Battle for Hogwarts, it was too much sugar too soon. Everyone, from Harry to Malfoy to Teddy Lupin to Ron and Hermione, seems content and happy. It's as if all their problems ended with Voldemort's death, after which point they all lived peaceful, normal lives. Again, obviously this isn't entirely the case, but we don't get anything but that one scene, and that scene makes it seem like their lives are all butterflies and daisies.

My second issue was closely tied to my first issue, and it was that all the main characters seemed to have cookie-cutter lives. A lot of this was confirmed in JKR's post-Potter interviews, but even in those few pages it seemed that all the main characters were happily married, with relatively stable, normal lives. Ginny as a mom seemed particularly weird to me, although quite frankly all of them as parents was just odd. Again, not blaming JKR--it just didn't work for me. It's a logical progression of their lives, but up until those last 2,000-odd words the only way I'd seen those characters was struggling to defeat evil, going on grand adventures, and fighting awesome battles against the mystical creatures and the powers of darkness. The image of them all as parents sending their 2.5 kids off to school was jarring and bizarre for me. And even knowing that they were all doing things they enjoyed, it all seemed a little too...nice, for lack of a better word. Didn't they ever get the urge to battle a dragon? To sneak into a secret government building? To solve a magical riddle? And again, maybe they did, but we don't get to see it.

If I could change just one thing about the ending, it would have been to leave the kids out. If we'd jumped five years into the future and seen them all chatting, or doing laundry, or juggling fireballs, and Hermione and/or Ginny was pregnant, that would have been fine. But seeing them as parents, with school-aged children, didn't work for me in the least. I recently read a Robert B. Parker book (he's a phenomenal mystery writer whom I can't recommend strongly enough) where two characters have a long discussion about how people change over time, despite what we want to believe. And one of the greatest catalysts for change in a person's life is becoming a parent. The children's presence took me away from the tightly woven world of Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived, and his school mates, friends and enemies alike, whom I'd been following for the past decade, and dragged me out into the wider but more mundane adult world.

Like it or not, the Harry, Ron, and Hermione we see at the end of Deathly Hallows are not the same people we've been following for the whole series. Among other things, their having children fundamentally changed who they are, and that's the crux of my discomfort with the epilogue: I felt like the series didn't end with the characters I'd grown to know and love, but with a bunch of charming strangers.

Minutiae (Or other little random thoughts that didn't fit in the body of this post):

*Part of me wonders if JKR called it an epilogue specifically because she didn't want it to be thought of as part of the HP series, but as a charming add-on to satisfy readers' curiosity and give her a chance to make her characters happy. I wonder if she wanted readers to consider the denouement following the battle the final scene of the HP series.

*I don't know how I feel about Harry calling his son Albus Severus. Others have mocked the nuttiness of that name, but what bothered me was the Severus part. To me, it was very clear in "The Prince's Tale" that Snape was entirely motivated out of his love for Lily Evans--not Lily Potter. Snape felt no affection for Harry, and any protectiveness towards him was born out of guilt over Lily's death. Snape was not a saint--far from it, in fact--and his love was tainted with possessiveness and bitterness. It's telling that Snape is unable to see Dumbledore's point, that Harry is far more like Lily than like James, when it was fairly obvious to the reader from midway through the fifth book that Harry was his mother's son. The fact that Snape never saw, never even tried to see, beyond the surface shows that he's just as petty and prejudiced as we've believed him to be throughout the whole series...and Harry knows all of that. I get that he comes to see Snape as a person instead of the enemy, but giving his son Snape's name seems a bit much to me. I don't care what else Snape did--as Sirius says, the true measure of a man is how he treats those he holds power over, and as evidenced again and again throughout the books, Snape fails that test miserably. Just look at his treatment of Neville if you don't believe me.

*Speaking of naming issues, Rose and...Hugo? Sorry. It's a little thing, and not important, but those names so don't work for me. I was also sort of disappointed that Ron and Hermione's son wasn't named Fred, but I guess I'll just assume that they left that name to George and Angelina.

*Another naming issue: (And I can already hear Bug yelling at me for my obsession with names...what can I say? I find them fascinating.) I didn't like that James Potter (grandson) seemed just like James Potter (grandfather). I hate it in stories when a character carries another (usually dead) character's name, and then they end up bearing a strong resemblance to the person whose name they carry. (For instance, Anakin Solo to Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars Extended Universe, and Thom, Alanna and George's son, to Thom, Alanna's brother, in Tamora Pierce's Trickster series.) I thought a big part of the Harry Potter series was the message that we make our own choices and design our own fate, regardless of who or what others assume we're going to be/do. Having little James Potter strongly resemble older James Potter seemed to undermine that message, and even little Lily Potter resembled older Lily Potter. Again, it's just a snippet, but I didn't like the implication.

*I wanted to know more about Harry's role in Teddy Lupin's life. Aside from Dumbledore, Sirius was the most important and most influential adult in Harry's life, and even that's arguable, because Harry felt a more personal connection to Sirius, who was the closest thing Harry ever had to a loving parent. I thought it was an important and well-crafted piece of parallelism to have Harry willingly accept the role of godfather, since his godfather had such an impact on his life, and he would see it as a big and serious (pun intended!) responsibility. It makes sense to have Andromeda and Ted raise their grandson, but I wished we'd had a little more follow through on the exact nature of Harry's relationship with his godson. (UPDATE--I re-re-read the last chapter, and there's one line where someone comments that Teddy comes over for dinner three or four times a week. Works for me.)

*I have a theory that most authors are either good at beginnings or endings, but not both. There are exceptions in both directions--some are good at both, some are good at neither. But in general, most excel at one but not the other, and JKR's strength definitely lies with beginnings, not endings. Thinking about it, I realized that the endings were some of the weakest parts of all the books, with the possible exception of Half Blood Prince. Sure, the scenes leading up to the endings were generally quite good, but a lot of the endings themselves were a bit flat compared to the rest of the stories. The beginnings, on the other hand, grabbed the readers' attention and dragged them into the story, and were for the most part well done.

*Regardless of what I said above, I did not and do not totally loath the ending. In fact, there are a lot of things I like about it. Again, I think the last line works very well, and I wish the rest of the epilogue had the same subtlety as that last line. And if it had to contain children, then I like that the epilogue took place at Platform 9 and 3/4, because it did symbolize a continuing journey, and more importantly, it was the start of Harry's journey towards love and family, the entire point of the story, and now he's back in the same spot, surrounding by his loving family (including Ron, Hermione, Teddy, etc.) It did have a nice roundness to it. Finally, just a little thing, but I liked Harry and Ginny telling James to watch out for Albus. I saw it as a subtle nod to the influence the Weaselys (a caring, protecting family) had on both Harry and Ginny. It might have driven her nuts at times, but in the end Ginny was glad that she grew up with six older brothers watching her back, and she's passing the message on to her son. Similarly, Harry saw that by sticking together, the Weasleys managed to stay strong and healthy (by which I mean they came out of the entire tragedy more or less as loving and caring as they'd been at the beginning) and he's passing that message on to his own children.

--Cates

Movie Review: Lilo and Stitch; Or, Don't Judge a Movie By Your Cynical Twelve-Year-Old Self's Opinion Of It

I...I think I have something in my eye. (*Sniffles*)

Okay, now say it with me: "This is my family. I found it on my own. It is little, and broken. But still good. Yeah, still good."

D'AAAWWWWWWWWW.

I'm not the sort of person who cries at books or movies--over the years, only three books (Stone Fox, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and East of Eden) and two movies (The Princess and the Frog and Midnight Cowboy...yeah, talk about opposite ends of the spectrum) have ever brought me to tears, and in just about every case there were extenuating circumstances which meant those movies/books hit me particularly hard. That was not, however, the case with Lilo and Stitch (okay, I'm across the world from my family, but still...) which was why I completely surprised myself by tearing up at the end.

Part of the reason Lilo and Stitch resonated so much (and, in case it wasn't obvious, spoilers from here on out) was because the first time I saw this movie, I didn't care for it. I was twelve at the time, and I remember thinking that it was sort of cute and funny but not that interesting or amusing and definitely not worth all the hype it had been getting. The problem, I think, lay not with the movie, but with me. I was at the age when little kid humor and stories no longer amused me (I know...I cringe when I think about my adolescent self) but I was still too young to get the adult humor or understand the deeper themes.

But enough about angsty twelve-year-old me. Point is, I recently saw several sites and articles (Cracked.com, TV Tropes, Movies w/o Pity) raving about how good Lilo and Stitch was, and so, despite my memories, I decided to give it another chance.

Thank god I did.

Now, this movie isn't perfect, and it's not even on par with my top picks for Disney movies (Lion King, Princess and the Frog, Mulan, and The Little Mermaid) but it was sweet, heartfelt, amusing, and fun, all while having realistically written characters and delivering a good message without getting preachy. And yes, the ending was a punch in the gut, in a good way. So, without further ado, here we go.

The Bad:

I decided to do the bad first, because there really isn't much, so I thought I'd get it over with.

The Fight Scenes, Especially the Air Battle: Really, Bug should be the one writing this bit, because she's the one who appreciates a good air fight, but even I, uneducated, ignorant peon that I am, could tell that the chase scene/fight between the two spaceships at the end was not well done. For much of the time it was impossible to tell where they were going and what they were doing, which is the death knell of any fight scene. If it descends into chaos, with people or objects flying pell-mell with no clear goal or objective (see: The Last Airbender) then the scene will be a mess and no one will be able to follow it. Such is what unfortunately happened with both the spaceship scene and the fight at Lilo's house. The house is literally torn to shreds, and while I get that these are super-strong aliens, much of the destruction seemed to be nonsensical. Similarly, the whole air battle seemed to consist of them chasing each other and shooting for no apparent reason. Sigh. Whatever. Action is not this movie's strong point, but luckily there's very little of it.

The Degree To Which Lilo Is 'Different': I know I'm treading on dangerous ground with this one, because many people love Lilo precisely because she's so different, but while I like her and her uniqueness over all, I felt the writers went too far trying to make her seem different. The problem is, small children (the intended audience of this movie) just aren't going to get it when Lilo says certain things, like when she explains that she has to feed Pudge the fish a sandwich because he controls the weather. To a certain point that'll make sense (keeping a promise to a friend by bringing him food) but the added bit about the weather just drags it into 'huh' territory and makes it seem like the writers are handing a giant sign over Lilo's head which reads, 'See? She's Different! She's Unique! See?'

Now, don't get me wrong. I was both a fairy 'different' child myself and the older sister of a very 'different' child, one who would talk the photographer into taking her picture with her tongue out and eyes crossed on school picture day by convincing him it was what her parents wanted. (Cough *Bug* Cough) I get (and like) kookiness, twisted logic, and individualism. But at some point it becomes unrealistic for a kid to think and act that way, and this movie did such a good job of creating realistic characters that some of Lilo's comments stick out like a sore thumb.

The Good: 

The Characters: I could do a separate section on each one, but suffice to say they were all brilliant because they were all multi-faceted and realistic. No one was perfect--even Lilo's brattiness gets to be a bit much at times--and even the villains weren't evil for the sake of being evil, but because they were trying to protect people. Again, they're all great, but I think particular mention has to go to David and Agent Bubbles. David has very few scenes, and even within those scenes he has few lines, but the writers still managed to make a well-rounded character who obviously genuinely cares for both Lilo and Nani. He's way more than the love interest, which is would have been easy to make him. As for Agent Bubbles, although he seems like a hard case, he really does have Lilo's best interests at heart, and he rushes out to help her at a moment's notice. He genuinely feels bad for Nani and recognizes that she's trying, and at the end he goes out of his way to help everyone. Again, few scenes but a complete character. Nicely done, Disney.

The Setting: Disney fully embraced several aspects of Hawaiian life and culture (hula dancing, tacky tourist spots, beaches with tacky tourists, the ocean, the gorgeous scenery, the islands' Polynesian heritage, especially the music) without making its characters racial cliches. (I'm looking at you, Pocahantos!) Yay Disney! They also did a nice job of contrasting the ultra-modern, industrial, spartan life of the aliens to the laid-back, warm, natural life of the Hawaiians.

The Rule of Cool Stuff: Specifically, the surfing scene. At that point in the movie, Nani and Lilo have about a million and one problems that need solving--Nani's lack of a job, Lilo's custody, Lilo's behavioral problems, and, of course, Stitch--but the movie manages to make it seem realistic that they would set aside everything for a relaxing afternoon of surfing. The surfing sequence is fun, beautifully drawn, and an excellent example of how to show character without dialogue.

The Excellent:

The Music: So much win. Lilo and Stitch is that rare Disney movie which contains a fair amount of songs that exist only as background music instead of performances by the characters themselves (and yep, there's one exception, but I'll get there) and it works. Disney used a good amount of Hawaiian music, so from the first moment we see Lilo swimming under the sea (sorry...bad pun) we know where we are. The music also does a beautiful job of setting and capturing the mood. "Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride" fits the surfing scene perfectly, and the use of Elvis throughout was amusing and well done.

Then, of course, there's the one exception to the songs all being in the background, and oh man is it heart-wrenching. The entire scene is less than a minute, but it's one of the saddest scenes in Disney history, and no one's even close to dying. Agent Bubbles has told Nani that he's going to take Lilo away in the morning, and as Nani tries to tell her sister, she finds herself unable to explain and instead sings her  a song. (Aloha O'e) What makes the scene even more impacting is that it's one of the few moments in the film when there's no background music playing, so it's just Nani's voice. Add in Stitch sitting on the ground, watching the sisters as he struggles to understand what he's witnessing and what he's feeling, and, oh man...(*Kleenex moment.*)

P.S. Tangled, take a lesson. Please. K Thnx.

The Relationship Between the Sisters: Here we have a film where two siblings...act like siblings! Furthermore, we have a story that gives equal attention to the older sister and younger sister without making the older sister seem perfect or a total bossy-know-it-all and without making the younger sister seem like a brat or a helpless cutie in need of saving. STOP THE PRESSES! IT'S A MIRACLE!

Ehm. Right. This may or may not be a personal pet peeve of mine. Just saying.

Anyways, Lilo's the one with her name in the title, so of course we see more of her, but the story is balanced because Nani's problems are bigger and have worse consequences if she fails, so, depending how you see it, Nani is the hero who's story is being told from the POV of her younger sister, or Lilo is the hero who has to stay true to herself in the face of very adult problems. Either way, it works wonderfully. Lilo and Nani are very loving and supportive, but they also bicker and fight and upset each other. It's so realistic, and it tugs on the viewer's heartstrings, to see Nani trying to balancing being a sister with being a parent, and to see Lilo struggling to define her sister's role in her life as Nani inadvertently gives Lilo mixed signals.

The best scene between the two (best in the sense that it's something that could absolutely happen between sisters; the scene mentioned in the music section may be the best of the whole movie) is when Nani comes up to give Lilo pizza after they fight. The fight was a familiar one to anyone who's ever had a sibling, brother or sister, younger or older, and the way they make up without really making up is familiar too. Lilo's fear that her sister really does wish Lilo was a rabbit is played perfectly--it's funny, but it's also realistic (I keep using that word a lot, but it just shows what a good job Disney did of building a complete, well-rounded story) for a young child, especially a young child who recently lost her parents, to be afraid that her sister really doesn't want her.

Yeah. Lilo and Nani rock. It's especially impressive that the sister-sister thing feels real because of the huge age gap between the girls--it would have been easy to make Nani a mature parent figure and Lilo a child who really sees her sister as her mom, but Disney didn't go that way, and the movie's stronger for it.

The Movie's Message: Ooh boy, this is going to be long...One thing that struck me watching this movie again was that this may be the first time I've seen a book or movie draw a clear difference between the idea of family (ohana) and nakama. Nakama, the idea of a group of people who bond together to protect and care for each other even if they don't always like each other, is what we see in the ending sequence between Nani, Lilo, Stitch, Bubbles, David, Jumba, and Pleakley. Ohana, on the other hand, is what Lilo and Nani share from the start of the film, and what Stitch is part of by the end. Ohana, as Lilo says, means family, and family means no one gets left behind or forgotten. This is in no way meant to diminish the power of nakama, which in certain circumstances can be just as powerful as ohana, but there is a difference, and this movie drew it up quite nicely.

Under the conditions of Ohana, Lilo and Nani would literally do anything for each other, which we see them demonstrate throughout the film. They may occasionally fight, but all the fights occur because they care about each other. Whenever an outsider, even a benevolent outsider like David, intrudes upon their relationship, they immediately draw closer together (which the film often shows them quite literally doing) and cease all fighting so they can face the intrusion head on. Ohana is even harder to break than Nakama, which is pretty darn near indestructable, and it would take something of cataclysmic proportions to turns the members of an established family against each other.

Anyways, this movie portrays the message that family is the most important thing in the world, worth fighting for and protecting at all costs, on a whole number of brilliant levels. From Nani getting Lilo a dog because she knows Lilo wants a friend, to Lilo trying her best to cheer Nani up whenever things don't go her way (quite often...Lilo might be the little girl, but I think Nani is The Woobie) to Nani begging Bubbles not to take Lilo away, to Lilo's adorable attempts to set Nani up with David...yeah. And that's not even talking about the big moments, like Lilo running away so she can stay with Nani, to Nani's despair/Angry Mother Bear when Lilo gets kidnapped. Then there's the whole parallel with the Ugly Duckling, and Stitch's realization that not only does he want ohana, but in order to achieve ohana he has to work for it...yeah. Great message delivered in a whole number of ways, culminating in the moment that made me cry, when the Grand Councilwoman asks who Nani and Lilo are, and Stitch answers, "This is my family...." Yeah. Epic, epic win.

So, I liked this movie. An awful lot. I do think it's the sort of movie that's going to resonate more with adults than kids, because there isn't much action and a lot of the themes and ideas are pretty heavy, but it's also sweet and funny, so I feel like there's something for everyone, and, like I said, I'm so glad I watched it again.

Standards of Effective Feminine Royalty, As Created by Walt Disney and Critiqued By Us

A while back, my siblings and I decided to try and rate the Disney princesses (and pseudo-princesses, like Mulan) based on whether or not they were good heroines. I’m trying to recreate our list, modified slightly. Here’s how I’m going to do it: each princess starts out with 5 points. She loses points, all the way down to 0, for weakness of character, complacency, having others solve problems that she could have dealt with herself, and just generally being a negative role model (for anyone, but girls in particular.) She gains points, up to 10, for the opposite things: for being proactive, for having a personality, for taking control of her own destiny, for earning the respect of those around her, and for being a positive role model.

(This is Bug.  I will be inserting my commentary on everything Cates says, and utterly interrupting the flow of her writing any time I feel like it, because she offered me the chance to give my own two cents on everything.  Partially because I helped to come up with a lot of what she says here, and partially because I delight in criticizing everything she says, I will probably have a lot to comment on.) 

To be perfectly, absolutely clear: this post isn’t meant to bash the Disney boys. In fact, maybe I’ll go back and address the same thing with the princes/heroes at another time. This is simply meant to be an analysis of the princesses as heroines. I’ll also make (some) allowances for time period: Snow White came out in the 1930s, and thinking (about women, among other things) was simply different back then than it is now. Anyways, enough disclaimers. Here we go.

Snow White: 4 Snow White loses a point for not running away from her stepmother, or at least seeking better circumstances, and she gets a point for teaching the dwarves about hard work. As will soon become apparent, I’m a sucker for any story, Disney or otherwise, in which the characters don’t just get handed things, but are taught the value of earning what they want. She also loses a point for being an idiot and accepting an apple from a random creepy old lady. At least in the original story she refuses the first two gifts. I’d like to take away an additional point for having the prince fall in love at first sight, but that’s not Snow White’s fault, so she finishes with a four. Not bad for a film made in 1937.

Snow White actually suffers adaptation decay in the translation to the Disney movie, because in the original legend she refuses to eat the apple offered by the random old lady until the random old lady eats a bite of it herself (unbeknownst to the princess the witch has charmed it so only the green spot is safe for this exact reason), and rather than waiting for the huntsman to tell her to run away, Snow White actually talks him out of killing her and helps him cook up the scheme to fool her stepmother.  But she’s also not a total loss; much like Cinderella she takes lemons and makes them into lemon-scented Clorox when it comes to having an evil stepmother that makes her actually (heaven forbid!) do her own laundry and clean her own house.  However, I’ll agree that the heroine of this one does pretty well for herself for all that she’s in a 1930s movie based on a 1230s legend, and though she doesn’t live up to modern standards she still does okay. 

Cinderella: 2 Oh dear, where to begin…? It sucks because in many ways this movie rocks—adorable animals, good songs, the nutty godmother, the terrifying stepmother—but Cinderella herself is an epic fail, which isn’t so much Disney’s fault as the original source material, but it doesn’t change the fact that Cinderella is just an absolute failure of a role model. Point off for not defying her stepmother and sisters. Point off for having to rely entirely on others to solve her problems. Point off for falling in love at first sight with absolutely no conversation whatsoever. Ugh. The lesson of this movie, as shown by Cinderella, is literally sit on your a**, don’t try to better your circumstances, and some day, through no hard work or effort on your part, someone will step in and solve your problems. I’m not even sure she deserves a two.  

Actually, to give credit where it’s due, many of the aspects of Cinderella that are so objectionable are not, in fact, just the original source material; many of them were made much worse in the Disney movie.  In the original legend Cinderella goes out and gets her dress and shoes for herself from her mother’s grave instead of sitting around crying about it and waiting for first the Helpful Animal Friends and then later her fairy godmother to get that stuff for her.  Cinderella also gets to know the prince a lot better in the original legend than in the movie—in the legend there are three balls instead of just one, and each one lasts the entire night, so they have a lot more time to get to know each other before deciding to marry.  For that matter, in the legend she’s entirely financially dependent on her father, who is forcing her into her circumstances, whereas in the film her father is dead and she apparently does have at least a few real-world skills; she just never uses them.  So, in my opinion, this one is all adaptation decay. 

Sleeping Beauty (Aurora): 3 This movie is a good example of the fact that just because the main female character is a wash-out, that doesn’t mean that all the girls in that movie are failures. The fairies, quite simply, kick butt. They’re smart, sassy, and they defeat a dragon! (Okay, the prince does. But he couldn’t have done it without them.) But I’m not here to rate the fairies, I’m here to rate Aurora, who unfortunately doesn’t stand up quite as well. She loses a point for falling in love at first sight, and another for having no personality, but honestly, I can’t take anything else away, because she literally does nothing for the entire film. I can’t even fault her for touching the one frickin spinning wheel left in the entire kingdom, because as far as we know no one told her about that. Meh. Let’s call it a three and just focus on the fairies. (On an unrelated side note: Aurora’s parents are named Stefan and Leah, and Philip’s father is Hubert. Could they have picked worse names if they tried?)

See, I may just be biased because this has to be my all-time favorite Disney animated classic, regardless of who the heroine is, but I still don’t think that Briar Rose deserves as much of a bad rap as all that.  Yes, she is a pretty passive character as a whole, and stuff happens to her most of the time, but she does, in fact, get to know her prince for a little while before falling in love with him, and her decision to run away is motivated by more than just a pretty face.  She may not be a Hun-killing force of nature like Mulan, but she does make the decision to leave home in lieu of going “oh, yay, I’m a princess,” and in her defense she’s kept in the dark about a lot of things.  Plus, I feel like she should win back a few points for having the awesomest supporting female roles—and male roles, for that matter—of any Disney princess.  Oh, and she really can’t help it if her in-laws have unfortunate names. 

The Little Mermaid (Ariel): 7 I love this movie. So so so much. And I love Ariel. Yay for a relief from frickin Aurora, who’s so dull that the title of her movie refers to a state of unconsciousness. Ariel loses an initial point for her outfit (or lack thereof) but immediately gains points back for challenging her destiny, not accepting circumstances that make her unhappy (are you listening, Snow White and Cinderella?), and making proactive decisions to change her life. This is also one of the only Disney movies where the princess saves the prince first. She loses a point for making a deal with the devil, and another for falling in love at first sight, but she also gains two back for rushing off to save Eric when she discovers the truth and helping him fight off Ursula. Whew. So Ariel finishes with a solid seven.

Although I agree that Cinderella especially could learn a thing or two from Ariel, I don’t think she’s as great as all that.  The whole sequence where she basically decides to give up on the guy she’s been working so hard to get just because he saw another pretty face rubs me the wrong way, and there is the unavoidable fact that Eric is so very much not worth the trouble she goes through to save his sorry little butt; he falls in love with a girl he’s never seen, falls in love with another girl after two days of knowing her, dumps that girl in favor of someone who is apparently this girl he’s never seen, and then changes his mind back again at the drop of a hat.  It’s cool that she’s so dedicated and all, but think about the message this movie sends: Girls, if you want a guy, you should sell your soul to the devil, give up all your family and friends, completely change who you are, suffer through pain and humiliation without a word, and pretend not to notice how fickle he is while remaining undyingly loyal to him to the end.  Great movie, but not so much in the way of role models. 

Beauty and the Beast (Belle): 8 This movie presents some difficulties, because while at the end Belle is in what is clearly an emotionally abusive relationship, there’s only so much Disney could do because it’s in the source material. So we’ll take off a point but not address that one in too much detail. Belle quickly earns back the point for having a personality, which goes along with her determination to be herself and not let others’ opinions influence her. She also gains a point for setting off after her father and sacrificing herself for him. Further point for not immediately giving in to the Beast and standing up to him. And then a final point for saving the Beast at the end—and going after a mob of 50 Frenchmen all by herself. Belle gets an eight, which I totally think she earned.

I absolutely agree on all points.  Belle herself as Disney does her is very cool—she’s a nerd with spunk, which is refreshing in a girl, and she sacrifices herself to save her father, which is very cool—but there really isn’t a lot to work with in this original legend, which basically boils down to the fact that it doesn’t matter how nasty-seeming (or even animalistic) your husband is, you should do what your father tells you and hope that there’s a prince deep down inside the beast you’re confronted with.  That said, Disney does a good job with it anyway.  I would almost give Belle another point for a total of nine for turning down Gaston as well, when there are clear advantages to be had from marrying him.  Either that, or for actually remaining fully clothed throughout the entire movie, and in reasonably modest dresses as well. 

Aladdin (Jasmine): 7 Again, initial point off for the outfit. But she gets points back for, like Ariel, not accepting her destiny and trying to change things for herself. Jasmine also gets a major, major point from me for not falling in love with either Aladdin or Prince Ali on first sight, but getting to know them first. She’s got snark, and she’s not afraid to use it. I thought about giving her a point for helping fight off Jaffar in the last scene, but her part consists entirely of trying to seduce him, when she totally could have pulled a Princess Leia and strangled him with the chain, so I’ll just avoid the issue and not give or take any points for that one. Jasmine gets a seven, with a bonus star for snark.

What always confused me about Jasmine was what exactly she thought of Aladdin.  She bumps into him in the market, gets her butt saved by him, and then goes back to where he lives, where he admits to having to steal to make a living, and talks about daydreaming about being rich enough to live in a palace, with apparently no awareness of the drawbacks of such a life… But then she totally believes him when he claims that he was a prince all along and was just lying to her about living on the street, and acts all surprised when she finds out that he was telling the truth the first time around.  Either she gives him way too much credit for being a really good actor, or she is more gullible than she first appears.  Plus, she utterly fails to notice that everyone in the entire freaking palace, including her own father, is frequently hypnotized by the not-so-subtly-evil grand vizier, so I’m going to go with her being gullible to the point of idiocy rather than her having an unusual amount of faith in Aladdin’s acting ability.  Then there is the fact that she does end up just being the sex object for the male characters throughout the movie, and that she weakly facilitates her own rescue but ultimately just plays the damsel in distress and sits around waiting to be rescued.  I wouldn’t rate her nearly as high as Cates, but I won’t deny her the bonus point for snark, nor yet for creative use of a strangely intelligent tiger. 

Pocahontas: 6 Pocahontas gets an initial point for being able to dive over a waterfall and survive. Seriously, that’s major skills, y’all. She also gets a point for trying to get to know John Smith instead of trying to shoot him, although I have to say, I’m getting really tired of the stereotype in television and film that women are always the ones who are accepting and open to new ideas, while the (generally white) men are the racist, violent ones. But that’s not Pocahontas’s fault, so I won’t take away points. Pocahontas loses a point for being a screaming stereotype, and another for basically getting poor Kokoum (sp?) killed, but gets one point back for being willing to sacrifice herself to not only save John Smith, but to prevent a war. Props, girl. Props. Maybe she deserves more than a six, but I’m going to stick with that for now.

Although I am inclined to agree that there are serious issues with this movie as a whole (can anyone say “noble savage syndrome”?), I also think that Pocahontas gets props as a whole for subverting the original story, because in that she was twelve (12!) and John Smith was thirty-four, and she married him on the spot after saving his life, and actually historical scholars have gone over John Smith’s journals (which are the only source of this story), and now they think that there’s a significant chance that he made the whole thing up, or if he didn’t he was just misinterpreting a ritual of the Powhatan tribe and that wasn’t actually what went down at all… However, in the movie Pocahontas is shown as being genuinely conflicted when it comes to caring about her family, caring about her beau, and actually wanting to try and do what is right, instead of rebelling for the sake of doing so and damning the consequences.   One place where she does win points over Kayley. 

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Esmerelda): 5 Like a couple of others coming up on this list, Esmerelda is neither a princess by birth nor by marriage. Esmerelda gets a point for standing up to the crowd and treating Quasimodo like a person, and another point for saving Phoebus’s life during the burning mill sequence. She loses a point for over-using her sexuality (seriously, this is the most sexually explicit Disney movie, and that’s saying something. The scene where Claude Frollo sniffs her hair? Squick!) but then I think that’s about it. She neither gains nor loses points during the second half of the movie, because she doesn’t do a whole lot. She’s either tied up or unconscious for the majority of it. She does, however, lose a final point for just falling into Phoebus’s arms. Seriously, she saw him save some family’s life, and then he helped save hers, but that’s it. They’ve barely talked, they haven’t even spent more than ten minutes in each other’s company. Sigh. Esmerelda gets a five.

It may not be the fault of the character herself, but the role that Esmerelda plays in this film is not remotely appealing.  The writers of the Disney movie didn’t keep any but a few elements of the original Victor Hugo novel when making the musical, so I have no idea why they kept around the fact that Esmerelda is basically just an unattainable sexual object that the males of the story lust after with no real care for who she is as a person—and she continues to live up to that role throughout the movie by ending it with falling madly in love with the most worthy candidate.  She does get a few moments of awesome, such as “God Help the Outcasts,” where she sings about how she doesn’t want anything for herself but she wants to make sure that the normally forgotten people of society are at least remembered by God, but she is basically just shown as the thing that everyone wants and can’t have, and doesn’t develop sufficient personality to show to viewers that she isn’t just an exotic face and a pretty body.  Therefore, I would give the character herself a pretty decent rating, but her role in the story a very low one. 

Hercules (Meg): 7 Meg gets a point for character development. We know she originally sacrificed herself for love, and while she learns why that may not have been the best decision, she doesn’t hesitate to make it a second time. She’s matured as a person without losing the essence of who she is. She also gets a point for trying to resist Hades, although she loses a point for going along with him for so long and helping betray Hercules. Additional point for not just blurting her feelings out, but taking time to consider them. Yeah, all things considered Meg’s pretty awesome. Solid seven.

Meg is totally awesome.  She may have sold her soul to the devil, but she did it to save some guy that she loved.  Disney gets points for that little detail right there: acknowledging that sometimes people are in love with more than one person over the course of a lifetime.  And Meg may sell out the guy that she loves, but she’s doing it to save herself, not because she’s a weak passive little female, so she is not short on personality, even if her personality isn’t strictly appealing.  Plus, if Jasmine gets a nod or two for snark, Meg totally deserves at least a special star:

“Are you always this articulate?”
“Aww, how cute.  A couple of rodents in search of a theme park.”
“Don’t worry.  The sea of raging hormones has ebbed.”

And there’s even the fact that she outsmarts Hades in the end by allowing an unfortunate accident of fate (massive internal bleeding caused by badly-timed falling pillar caused by rampaging Cyclops) to create a loophole in Hercules’s agreement with Hades and save the day.  Also, she deserves some credit for contrast to the original source material: in the myth, Megaera is passively conflicted about what to do but ends up poisoning Hercules to keep Hades happy.  Not so in the Disney film. 

Mulan: Gets a 12. No ifs, ands, or buts. Recapping her sheer levels of awesomeness and badassery isn’t possible in a single paragraph, but I’ll try. She doesn’t accept her prescribed fate. She challenges the norm. She argues with a cruel government official. She goes to war—war!—in her father’s place, knowing she has a high chance of dying either in battle, or from discovery. She refuses to give up during her training, despite being physically weaker, and makes it to the top of that pole. (Tell me you weren’t cheering during that scene.) She takes out an entire army in one move. Once she’s discovered, she doesn’t try to apologize or even beg for her life, she just says yeah, I did it for my dad. Sucks for you if you don’t accept it. Once she’s left on the mountain she sits there moping for maybe ten seconds, then gets off her butt and goes right back into battle, knowing she’s even more likely to be killed, because now people know her secret. She concocts a plan to get her band of soldiers into the palace, and then she saves the emperor’s life, and bests Shan Yu in a duel. With a fan. And then she stands in front of the emperor of China, still refusing to beg for her life or apologize for who she is. God, forget the ten. She gets a twelve.

I am entirely inclined to agree with this, and if I ever have a daughter this will be the Disney movie that I will force her to watch until she has it memorized.  Not only does Mulan kick butt and take names, but she does so for really good reasons.  She’s not just rebelling because she doesn’t like make-up and kimono, and she’s not just running off on her family because she met a nice guy; she’s risking her own life to save her father’s.  That’s so much cooler than doing what she wants for a boy or because she’s trying to leave the abusive parents she’s been hanging around with for the past couple years or because she needs to get her dream job.  Not only is she saving her father, but she’s saving her country.  And she succeeds at doing so to practically excessive levels: she brings massive honor home to her parents by making a name for herself and getting blessed by the emperor, and she pretty much single-handedly beats the Huns back to Mongolia.  And she mostly does it by being creative and quick-thinking and resourceful, rather than being physically strong or fast or agile.  Plus, this one also has a good lesson on the value of hard work: there is a realistic portrayal of her being less physically developed than all the men in the army camp, and her managing to get by anyway through working twice as hard as any of them. 

Quest for Camelot (Kayley): 8 This is one of the less-remembered Disney movies, but I’m a sucker for anything Arthurian. Kayley gains a point for wanting to be a knight, but she loses a point for all the whining and moping. She gains back three points for all the generally awesome things she does with Garrett—fighting the rock monster, pursuing the sword, saving Arthur—and an additional point for not falling in love at first sight, but getting to know Garrett first. It wasn’t the best Disney movie ever, but it was funny and sweet and entertaining, and I would have had a giant crush on Garrett if he would have gotten a frickin hair cut. Kayley gets an 8.

To tell the truth, I had almost completely forgotten about this movie as well until I read this, and then it all came rushing back to me.  Well, at least the one moment…

“’Garrett, what are you doing?!’

‘I’m driving!’”

Best moment ever.  Other than that, a pretty decent film, and a pretty decent semi-princess.  For all that she is technically British, Kayley is probably the most all-American of all the Disney girls: she’s spunky and independent but wants to live up to her father and her country, a dreamer with a practical streak, and an independent woman that fights for what she believes in but still wants a man.  And I agree that in the beginning she is very Luke Skywalker: if she wants to be a knight like her father, she should just go out and be one, not sit around and whine about how she’s not being appreciated for who she is.  She loses points in my book for being too much of a whiny teenager, because she’s clearly rebelling for the sake of it, and doesn’t really have much in the way of motivation outside of “I don’t like dresses!”  Well, that’s great and all, but it’s not really a deep and feeling source of initial motivation.  But then she goes on to save her country and her boyfriend, so she wins some of that back.  Oh, and speaking of her boyfriend, how exactly is Garrett supposed to get a haircut?  He’s a blind hermit that scorns all human interaction!  It’s probably wisest of him just to let it grow rather than risk scalping himself or accidentally turning himself into Sid Vicious or something.  Although there is the fact that he loses that one fight with Sir Rubber specifically because his hair is too long...  

The Princess and the Frog (Tiana): 10 I love Tiana to pieces, because she’s just awesome on a lot of levels, but she also shows it’s possible to be the hero without swinging a sword or even fighting. Other than a few brief skirmishes, her battles are all internal, not external, and it’s done beautifully. Tiana gets two points for having massive amounts of self respect and determination to pursue her dream. She gets another point for getting to know Naveen before falling for him, and yet another point for recognizes her failings and working to change them, while still keeping the essence of who she is. This is something I wish we’d see more of in stories in general, not just Disney. And, yep, I can’t resist giving her the final point for not just accepting Dr. Facilier’s easy solution, but recognizing that she has to earn this for herself. Tiana definitely earns a ten.

I don’t even know if I have anything to add to this one—Cates is exactly right.  Tiana has win.  No question. 

Tangled (Rapunzel): 5 I already posted my feelings about Tangled, and Rapunzel, but I’ll try to break it down a little more. Rapunzel gets a point for trying to stand up for herself, but loses a point for beating up on Finn, who hadn’t done anything to deserve it. It is not okay for the guy to get hit just because he’s the guy and it’s a girl doing the hitting. She then loses a point for inconsistency of character—first she’s strong, spunky, and intelligent, and then she’s weeping and screaming and running around. It was supposed to be funny, but it was just bizarre. She gets a point for being willing to sacrifice herself for Finn at the end, but it’s a grudging point, and only given because she’s not as bad as Cinderella or Aurora. Honestly though, even when she saves the day she’s an idiot—I loved how she conveniently forgot she possessed a skill she’d been using her entire life until they were literally seconds from dying. Ugh. Five, but a shaky five. More like a four and a half.

Although I generally do agree that Rapunzel is not the most appealing Disney character ever and by modern standards is practically backwards, I am also not inclined to judge her as harshly as Cates.  Maybe she does take a while to do the math about using her glowing hair to get her and Finn (Eugene?) out of the cave, but the situation is panicked, complex, and it’s not like they’re sitting around going “Gosh, if only one of us could make a random body part start glowing spontaneously so that we could have enough light to see where to move those rocks away from the cave entrance, but sadly neither of us has that so we’ll just have to give up and drown…”  The jump from the realization that they can’t move the rocks away to the realization that they can with a little help from her very bizarre magical powers isn’t quite that obvious.  Plus, she may be a bit inconsistent in terms of characterization, but she goes through a lot of major life changes.  It makes sense that she’s more confident (and apparently much more willing to engage in wanton acts of violence) when she’s inside her tower that she knows well than when she’s out in the world, and that she would be somewhat conflicted about what to do.  And she may be a bit excessively talented, but at least there was a whole song where she explained that she was only excessively talented because she had nothing better to do with herself all day than sit around and accumulate talents.  However, I do agree that she loses major props for beating up on Finn so much.  What on earth does he see in her? 

-Cates

-Bug

Maybe I'm Delusional, But I Like It That Way; Or An Alternate Alternate Theory About What's Really Going On In "My Neighbor Totoro"

First things first: yay for my first post where I'm praising something instead of criticizing it! Yay! The Grinch's small heart grew three sizes this day!

Ehm. Right. Moving on.

So, for those who aren't familiar, My Neighbor Totoro is one of the earlier films by Hayao Miyazaki, the genius Japanese writer/director whose films include Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, and Kiki's Delivery Service. Totoro (*massive spoilers from here out*) tells the story of two sisters, ten-year-old Satsuki and four-year-old Mei. After moving to a haunted house, first Mei and then Satsuki meet Totoro, a giant, benevolent spirit who lives in the woods behind their house. While it's certainly possible (and maybe preferable) to see Totoro as a sweet, adorable story about a pair of sisters who make magical friends as they cope with their mother's illness, there is a darker, alternate theory about what's really going on in the film. (Hence mine being an 'alternate alternate' theory.)

The alternate theory goes something like this: at the end, the entire family is not reunited, because Mei and Satsuki are dead.

Pause. I did warn you it was a darker interpretation.

Here's where the theory comes from: right before Mei disappears, right after her argument with Satsuki, the camera pans down and shows her little pink sandals. Later, the searchers find a pink sandal floating in a pond, but Satsuki says it doesn't belong to Mei. According to the theory, the sandal does in fact belong to Mei; Satsuki is just in denial or overcome with grief and guilt and refuses to accept the truth. Satsuki then goes to Totoro and essential commits suicide, or gives herself over to death, so that she can be with her sister again. At the end, both girls are dead, and the credits are either a fantasy or a memory of a time before the film when the family was happy.

Although Satsuki does not visible kill herself in any way, there is evidence to support the alternate theory. For one, Mei's sandal. The sandal in the pond looks like hers, so it would make sense that she drowned--how else would the sandal have gotten into the pond? For another, after Satsuki finds Mei, neither girl has a shadow for the rest of the film. Then there's the cat bus. The first time it comes around, Mei and Satsuki shrink from it in fear and do not climb on when given the chance, but at the end they seem to relish the chance to ride the bus. After Satsuki climbs on, she comments that 'the trees are fading away,' and 'no one can see her anymore.' The cat bus may be a portal between the world of the living and the dead. Finally, when the cat bus takes the girls to the hospital, why do they not simply go in and see their mother if they're actually physically present? The mother thinks she sees them in the trees, but then thinks it was an illusion.

One final factor that adds credence to the death theory is that when My Neighbor Totoro was first released in cinemas, it was shown as a double feature with another children's movie, Grave of the Fireflies. Grave of the Fireflies is a semi-autobiographical story about a brother and sister struggling (and ultimately failing) to survive in a war-torn Japan during WWII. The film's writer, Isao Takahata, wrote the story as an apology to his younger sister, who died under very similar circumstances to Setsuko, the little girl in the film. Both Totoro and Fireflies are about older siblings struggling to save their younger sisters from dangers that are partially the older siblings' fault. At the end of Fireflies, Seita lays dying, believing it is what he deserves for failing his younger sister. Given that the films were released together, it seems possible that Totoro is a lighter, hidden retelling of the circumstances in Fireflies, which offers a relatively happy ending by showing the siblings reunited in the end.

Or that's all a load of crap.

One of the fantastic things about Hayao Miyazaki is that he takes Classic tropes, themes, and characters and reapplies them in modern stories, stories that often either feature children or are geared for children. Spirited Away in particular is one long lesson in Classical ideology. The central character travels far away from home and ends up lost next to a sea. She has to go through multiple trials that test her strength, determination, and intelligence, before facing a final trial which tests her discernment, which she has gained over the course of her journey.  She ultimately has to leave all of her companions behind, but she has grown to the point where she can survive on her own. In addition, there's a witch that turns greedy and gluttonous people into pigs, and a great significance is placed on names and knowing who you are. Chihiro's journey could almost be called, an, oh, I don't know, an odyssey.

Spirited Away is the most obvious example, but the Classics pop up in all Miyazaki's movies. Journeys to discover the self, battles with powers that can't be defeated, punishment for greed and hubris, discerning protagonists, and the necessity of surrendering to a higher power--Miyazaki is the modern master of the Classic journey. 

It's from that last part in particular--surrendering to a higher power--that my alternate alternate theory comes from. The way I'm looking at it, Mei did indeed die at the end, but when Satsuki goes to Totoro she's not asking to die to be with her sister--instead she's asking to surrender her life to save her sister. To be perfectly clear--I'm not saying that Satsuki is sacrificing herself to save Mei. Instead, Satsuki is taking the journey of all the great Classical heroes, the descent into hell. Like Odysseus and Aeneis, Satsuki is daring to do what no one else dares--to travel to hell and back. Earlier I said that Satsuki 'gives herself over to death.' I do think that's what happens--but I think that in surrendering herself, Satsuki ensures that both she and Mei will be able to return unscathed. If My Neighbor Totoro is meant as a parallel to Grave of the Fireflies, I think Totoro grants Satsuki and Mei the happy ending Setsuko and Sieta were denied, not because the siblings are reunited, but because Satsuki, unlike Sieta, succeeds in saving her little sister from death.

When Satsuki rides the cat bus, it is the journey between the mortal world and the underworld. Before, she was too frightened to take the journey, but now that she has a reason, she has the courage she needs to step into the unknown. Because Satsuki was willing to risk everything to save Mei, both girls can take the journey back to the mortal world, but they will only arrive once they're back at their house--the only way to regain yourself is to go home. When Satsuki and Mei's mother sees them out the window, she's seeing them as they pass from one world into the next. The sight of them does not fill her with dread, but with peace, because she knows that they'll all be together again soon.

What evidence do I have to support my theory? Not a whole lot. All I have is my knowledge of other Miyazaki works, and my inability to believe that Miyazaki would pointlessly kill two characters (two young children) who are his protagonists. Characters die in Miyazaki films, although rarely in his children's films, but their deaths always serve a purpose or make a point. Mei and Satsuki's deaths--if they do in fact die--are entirely random. I can't believe that Miyazaki would just kill them without a good reason--I can, however, believe that he would kill one character to set up an epic journey for the other.

Maybe I'm the delusional one. Maybe I'm just in love with happy endings. But if I'm delusional, then I'm happy that way. Miyazaki is a phenomenal director and writer, and the very fact that I can spend pages and pages writing about just one of his films shows the depth and power of his work. Given what I've seen and what I know about Miyazaki, I can't believe that he just allows Mei and Satsuki to die. I believe he gives Satsuki a chance to learn from her mistake by taking a life-changing journey into the unknown. Homer would be proud.

--Cates