J.K Rowling said that her inspiration for Hagrid came from when she was 19 in a pub in the west country and this terrifying looking guy came in with these other biker guys and the only thing he talked to J.K about was how his cabbages were getting on
Dumbledore: I actually don't know why your parents still send you here
Dumbledore: There's like a 30% chance you'll die tragically
Dumbledore: And it just goes up every year
Dumbledore: I guess that just means all your parents hate you
Dumbledore: Great let's have some pumpkin juice
Dumbledore: 30 points go to Griffindor for Harry's breathing techniques
“The loss of Hedwig represented a loss of innocence and security. She has been almost like a cuddly toy to Harry at times. Voldemort killing her marked the end of childhood. I’m sorry… I know that death upset a LOT of people.” - J.K. Rowling
[ arty ]: Ron is racist - and that's great
Ron Weasley’s character is consciously written as somewhat racist. Not as racist as Malfoy, of course - he doesn’t scoff at mudbloods and halfbloods, and he doesn’t see himself as superior at all. Still, he unquestionably accepts the inferior position of house elves (they love serving), when he finds out that Lupin’s werewolf his reaction is not only scared but also disgusted (Don’t touch me!) and he is clearly very uncomfortable finding out that Hagrid is half-giant (giants are wild and savage).
And this is brilliant. Because it demonstrates that racism isn’t only present in clearly malicious and evil people, in the Malfoys and Blacks - it’s also there in warm, kind, funny people who just happened to learn some pretty toxic things growing up in a pretty toxic society. And they can unlearn them too, with some time and effort. Ron eventually accepts Hagrid’s parentage, lets Lupin bandage his leg and in the final battle, he worries about the safety of the house elves.
Some people are prejudiced because they are evil, and some people are prejudiced because they don’t know better yet. And those people can learn better, and become better people. And that’s an important lesson. The lesson taught about discrimination shouldn’t be “only evil people do it”, because then all readers will assume it doesn’t apply to them. Instead old JK teaches us “you too are probably doing it, and you should do stop ASAP”.
Latest assignment completed! We had one week to illustrate any scene from the first chapter of Harry Potter (I almost had a heart attack from the excitement srsly). And because I love my Silhouette Cameo to death, I did papercuts of course.
Taking an illustration class in the midst of all of this GD thesis planning and job applications is really a breath of fresh air. I had so much fun with this one although the background
I can’t do perspective for shit so I just made it warpy and whimsicalgave me a lot of grief.
