Not Everything Is A Clue – Ch 117-120

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1. 

   FeepingCreature

   December 1, 2021 at 12:24 am

   Hot take on fridging: I think HPMOR was definitely an instance, and so was Kill Bill. The “thing” that makes HPMOR fridging for me is that, if I put on my uncharitable hat, the story has been talking up Hermione all narrative, and then she does the plot where something something women can be heroes too but not really? And she still needs Harry’s help? And it’s mostly a comedic beat while Harry gets all the serious development to the extent that it’s *noticeable* to the characters in the story. And then after all that hype, the only thing Eliezer can think of to do with her is kill her off to make Harry go on a roaring rampage of revenge against Death itself. Like, that’s a fridging. (Or, I guess, trolling?) And, I mean, we know she comes back but it sure is convenient that she comes back and then the story ends before she can actually do anything personally awesome. I think a lot of this is due to Eliezer not really knowing how to write women well (cf Sequences My Way), which is fair enough, but it’s still hard not to notice that all of Hermione’s good properties are innate and don’t really get all that much *development.* Like, she’s Good to start, she doesn’t acquire goodness through experience, because she doesn’t have experience, because she doesn’t actively participate in the plot. And I think an associated part of the problem is that Hermione is *too* good, because if she was present in the final chapters she’d kind of ruin everything? Like, Harry would talk to her about all the crazy things going on and she’d figure out that Q=V approximately instantly. But that’s a problem in itself, because the shape of the male-writer pattern is that women are beautiful, virtuous and static. And like, Hermione’s entire subplot is about how she’d like some agency of her own please and thank you, and she *still* doesn’t get any until the end!

   Anyway, Kill Bill is actually a great demonstration that fridging transcends gender. The Bride is on a roaring rampage of revenge after the murder of her groom and loss of her child, and her husband is so unimportant that I think we don’t even learn his name outside the credits? Though I think KB does also show that Tropes Are Not Bad because, I mean, the groom just clearly doesn’t matter to the story, it’s being economical in that he’s sketched in the most tangential of ways. He’s relevant to the Bride, but not to the viewer. I think that’s why I take HPMOR’s problems with Hermione more seriously – it seems Eliezer knows he should be doing something with her, but can’t quite get there, whereas the Groom is clearly doing exactly what Tarantino wants him to.

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