(no subject)

[brimtoast.livejournal.com]

Happy Christmas holidays! I'm excited to see the characters go home and to learn a little more about their home lives.

*What do you think is the Strettons' motivation for fostering Sally-Anne? It doesn't really sound like they want to welcome her as a family member.

*Also, Penelope and Percy finally getting along was really adorable. It seems like the one thing they have in common is that they don't really have any friends (that might be too much of a leap, but I'm basing it on Percy's general snotty attitude plus Penelope's statement that she couldn't get anybody to come to Hogsmeade with her). I wonder what they found to talk about over their butterbeer.

*Poor Bellatrix, having her Lord forget her birthday. She named her entry "V" which is interesting because it seems like she still thinks of him as Voldemort rather than Lord Protector, although I suspect she wouldn't use that name publicly anymore.

And what could Voldemort be working on? He's already achieved immortality and conquered Britain. What else does he want?

*from longstrider: Pansy freaking breaks my heart. I know she's a little bit of a brat, but who wasn't at 11? She's been tortured, crucio and otherwise, multiple times in the last four months. (I don't want to know what Lucius did in the line of that resulted in her needing to freshen ... up before going on to our next appointment. I just don't. I know it could have just been a stern talking to, but Lucius, Pansy this universe? No I just don't want to know.)

*from travelintheways: So many of these characters are fascinating, but I think I look forward to Pansy's entries and comments the most. I'm never entirely sure when she's being serious about the LP and when she's being subversive. Pretty crafty for an 11 year old, though it's heart-breaking that she's had to learn that so early.

Share other thoughts/observations/hellos in the comments. It's been quiet here this week. How is everyone?

EDIT: I've just had an idea for how alt_fen posts like this could work. Can everybody who has been reading lately and who has a few minutes link to one or two threads that struck them as interesting, and then add a comment or question about that thread? Then I'll copy everything up into the main post, and it'll be a way for us to touch base and share our thoughts in between the times when we have a big topic of discussion.

Comments

[queenbookwench.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you guys are still reading us!

[gwendolyngrace.livejournal.com]

She named her entry "V" which is interesting

I thought that at first, too, but it's actually just a coincidence. Bellatrix numbers her entries in order with Roman numerals. This just happened to be #5.

[brimtoast.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow, you're right. I'd totally forgotten that!

Hey, I want to make this link-based discussion thing a workable type of alt_fen post. If you have a chance, can you link to a thread or two that you've found interesting lately, and maybe write a comment about why it's interesting, and then I'll copy/paste it up into the main post? That way we can pool random observations from multiple different people, and it'll be a kind of nice way to see each other's smaller thoughts even when there's no big issue to discuss.

Only if you have time and want to, of course :)

[longstrider.livejournal.com]

Pansy (http://alt-pansy.livejournal.com/11529.html) freaking breaks my heart. I know she's a little bit of a brat, but who wasn't at 11? She's been tortured, crucio and otherwise, multiple times in the last four months. (I don't want to know what Lucius did in the line of that resulted in her needing to freshen ... up before going on to our next appointment. (http://alt-lucius.livejournal.com/8668.html) I just don't. I know it could have just been a stern talking to, but Lucius, Pansy this universe? No I just don't want to know.)

This is more general but I really hope that somewhere down the line (even years from now) we get an explanation of what the heck actually happened with things no one is willing to talk about in the journals. The cauldron incident just recently and the code talking Pansy and Ron were doing, though it looks like her affections are pointed somewhere else now so who knows how much more of that we'll see.

Even for stuff I don't comment on the awesomeness just makes me bounce Narcissa dodging journalists, Arthur soliciting sedition and nearly everything else.

[travelintheways.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on Pansy. So many of these characters are fascinating, but I think I look forward to Pansy's entries and comments the most. I'm never entirely sure when she's being serious about the LP (http://alt-pansy.livejournal.com/11278.html?thread=195086#t195086) and when she's being subversive. Pretty crafty for an 11 year old, though it's heart-breaking that she's had to learn that so early.

[aedifica]

Years late, but: I just thought she'd been crying because of an emotional discussion!

(I started fairly recently with the summary posts, but now I'm going back and reading everything.)

[travelintheways.livejournal.com]

This is coming a bit late, but I think the answer to What do you think is the Strettons' motivation for fostering Sally-Anne? It doesn't really sound like they want to welcome her as a family member. is becoming clear. Poor Sally-Anne. Looks like she's been roped into involuntary au pair servitude. It's a telling sign of how bleak this world looks in many ways that my first is thought is, "Hey, she should be glad. It could be a LOT worse."

[brimtoast.livejournal.com]

Not late at all! I think you're right, though it also seems like, since there's a surplus of mudblood servants available (and presumably of halfbloods for hire), they could find an au pair in a more direct way than a foster child. So they could just be being incredibly cheap (not wanting to actually hire a halfblood) and elitist (not wanting a mudblood around their children).
But my thinking is that their main motivation might be civic duty. The regime needs foster parents for halfbloods, and so it is patriotic for a family with means to take on that job. They have the best of intentions. But then maybe once the halfblood gets there, their prejudices stop them from treating her like a real family member, since she is a halfblood after all, and so they fall into their comfort zone of treating her as a servant. Same eventual result, but less premeditated, and it explains why they didn't find a less convoluted way to get labor, in this society where unskilled labor is probably the one thing that there is *not* a shortage of.
What do you think?

[travelintheways.livejournal.com]

Let me first "Ooooooh" at your analysis.

I suspect it's some of both. A fine upstanding pureblood family like the Strettons (did I get that right?) would probably tell themselves that they were taking in poor halfblood Sally-Anne to elevate her, but I wonder if they would have been so keen on the idea if they didn't have screaming infants to take care of. If they thought they would treat her as family, it would be the "poor unwashed cousin whose stripper mother died in the gutter" kind of family - condescendingly generous, sort of "we're glad she's here, but she should really be grateful that we took her in at all, so it's not unreasonable to ask her to carry her own weight," way.

I further suspect that shiny young Hogwarts halfbloods are the perfect source of au pair labor for a wholesome pureblood family. As you say, they're cheap and if their foster family can keep up with their journal postings, they can be sure that they're properly loyal. It's a good way to get work and feel good about oneself!

I think I'll have to hear more about these folks before deciding whether they lean more toward the premeditated or good intentioned side. In either case, I'm looking forward to it! And it'll be very interesting to see if having her around shapes the attitudes of the kids anyway toward halfbloods.

[brimtoast.livejournal.com]

And it'll be very interesting to see if having her around shapes the attitudes of the kids anyway toward halfbloods.

I know this is a slightly different issue, but it's actually been surprising to me at Hogwarts how much being around mudbloods *hasn't* improved attitudes towards them. If anything, it seems like it has confirmed what a lot of people already expected to believe about them: weird, dirty, inhuman.

In a way it makes sense, because of confirmation bias: we tend to notice the things we are looking for, and tend to look for things that agree with our pre-existing theories. Still, it's weird seeing it in action in this case. A few kids, like Neville and the younger Weasleys, seem to try to point to Terry and Hermione as evidence that Muggleborns are people with intelligence and feelings Just Like Us, but really those seem to only be the kids who grew up being subtly pointed towards that view by their parents/grandparent. Even with Pansy, it's hinted that her father dropped clues to her about secret Muggle sympathies and that's what opened her mind to being a little less closed-minded.

But with Millicent, Harry, Draco, Teddy, and others (Sally-Anne? I can never tell how much of what she says matches her actual beliefs), their exposure to Hogwarts Muggleborns seems to do nothing to change their prejudices, and in many cases they actually seem to strengthen them. Because of confirmation bias.

I used to think that once Voldemort's original followers aged a bit, and the new generation took over, the irrational prejudices of the parents wouldn't be sustainable. But now... well, I suppose there are many societies where prejudice has been passed from generation to generation without change.

The one big hope is that when this generation becomes teenagers, their tendency for teen rebellion might be enough to shake up their attitudes. Because so far, just being exposed to Mudbloods doesn't seem to have done much.