I think you misunderstood. I wasn’t claiming to be offended myself, I was trying to get at the cause of people’s emotional reactions. Whether or not you believe those emotions are justified, they are almost always triggered by something.
I also specified that HPMOR values wit and scheming on its surface—that is, the scheming is what provides almost all the entertainment value and keeps people in their chairs long enough to hear the deeper ideology. What do we want from characters in a story at their most basic level? We want to have fun watching them. That’s why most people read stories, and it’s why most people read HPMOR. And the ones who are the most fun to watch are the male characters.
I didn’t claim this was intentional, nor that it was wrong, just that it was probably the cause of feminist complaints. It was in part an answer to “But the female characters are good people”. Being a good person is not always the same as being good in the story. In Disney movies, you have to be a wide-eyed dreamer. In Tarantino movies you have to be a stone-cold killing machine. In HPMOR (and Death Note) you have to be a hyperintelligent byzantine plotter. And then comes the ideology.
I think you misunderstood. I wasn’t claiming to be offended myself, I was trying to get at the cause of people’s emotional reactions. Whether or not you believe those emotions are justified, they are almost always triggered by something.
I also specified that HPMOR values wit and scheming on its surface—that is, the scheming is what provides almost all the entertainment value and keeps people in their chairs long enough to hear the deeper ideology. What do we want from characters in a story at their most basic level? We want to have fun watching them. That’s why most people read stories, and it’s why most people read HPMOR. And the ones who are the most fun to watch are the male characters.
I didn’t claim this was intentional, nor that it was wrong, just that it was probably the cause of feminist complaints. It was in part an answer to “But the female characters are good people”. Being a good person is not always the same as being good in the story. In Disney movies, you have to be a wide-eyed dreamer. In Tarantino movies you have to be a stone-cold killing machine. In HPMOR (and Death Note) you have to be a hyperintelligent byzantine plotter. And then comes the ideology.