Parental Abandonment/Literature: Difference between revisions

Line 64:

* ''[[Harry Potter]]''.

** Although Rowling kills parents and parental figures with merry abandon throughout the series, she also throws us an inversion: In ''[[Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows]]'', {{spoiler|To protect her muggle parents, Hermione ''makes'' them abandon her by judicious use of memory charms to change their identities and make them forget they ever had a daughter. The emotional toll on her is quite intense}}.

*** Rowling not only admits to purposely orphaning Harry right off the bat, ("Harry had to be an orphan -- so that he's a free agent, with no fear of letting down his parents, disappointing them....") but she even cites the Potters' brutal murder happening first thing in ''[[Harry Potter and ~~The~~ Philosopher's Stone]]'' to rebuff the argument by angry parents that her books betray their audience by getting progressively scarier.

*** Rowling not only admits to purposely orphaning Harry right off the bat, ("Harry had to be an orphan -- so that he's a free agent, with no fear of letting down his parents, disappointing them....") but she even cites the Potters' brutal murder happening first thing in ''[[Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (novel)|Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone]]'' to rebuff the argument by angry parents that her books betray their audience by getting progressively scarier.

** [[Butt Monkey|Neville]] [[Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass|Longbottom's]] parents didn't die either, but as one character puts it, "Better dead than what happened to them..." as they were {{spoiler|tortured into permanent insanity by Death Eaters using the Cruciatus curse, and they don't recognise their son when he comes to visit}}. This is why he's raised by his domineering grandmother, who, on her first appearance, seems disappointed that Neville didn't turn out more like his dad.

** Sirius Black was disowned by his [[Evil Matriarch]] mother when he was sixteen after he got sick of her [[Fantastic Racism]]. He promptly moved in with his best friend James and stayed until he was legally an adult.