(no subject)

[rhiannonmr]

Thanks everyone for the comments and responses to yesterday's post. I don't usually delve into my past and what has occurred in it because I really do not want to come off as a whiner. Life happens, you just got to get on with it and if you need help you get it. I remember once when the depression was eating away at me saying to myself that I could not and would not give in to it, because to give in would ensure that the bastards who victimised me won. Well there are days and there are days.

Nuff said about that. Bluntly wallowing just makes it feel worse sometimes and I don't want to wallow. Not sure what got me started with that post other than recently I was reading the latest wave of the Dusk til Dawn FQF and the theme is, no man is an island. For some reason there was a story in it that resonated. Okay for those who have no idea, it's slash and good slash at that. But there was a story that hit me where I lived. Harry was abused by the Dursley's and experiences all the effects of PTSD in it. Also, Voldemort was involved. It was hard to read and hard to take even if it was well done. I try to avoid the really gruesome abuse stories because I know I have a hard time reading them. I also think canonically they are whack. But this was very well done in the abuse not being uber explicit and believable in the author's universe. It also was not gratuitous. It was there for a reason and it wasn't a short cut like you see in so many of the ff.net fics.

The problem I have with abuse in so many of the fanfics out there is the writer has no clue as to the impact of severe abuse on the body or the soul of the person abused. There are a multitude of stories on ff.net where Harry is routinely raped, beaten, starved and such and he comes back as normal as ever. So not gonna happen. Abuse, even verbal abuse leaves scars. Some visible. Some not. avus  who is a professional can attest to this since he deals with it in his work. My exhusband who for all his faults really does care about his clients and does work well with them can attest to that also. So can my best friend who no longer works in the child protective services. So can I as a victim and a former social worker. Make no mistake: I do believe Harry is an abused child. But not on the scale some of these writers put it at. The abuse of Harry is a much more subtle thing. The overt neglect of his emotional needs combined with the physical neglect of his subsistence needs, ie clothing that fits, proper food to eat, a room to sleep in rather than the cupboard under the stairs all add up to abuse. But not this horrific abuse I see in some fics out there. I also cannot imagine that any of the Dursley's are sexual abusers. Frankly they strike me as being more afraid his magic is contagious than anything else.

I'm no expert here but I see Harry as getting less resillient as the books go on. If he loses anyone else close to him it may well destroy him in ways that won't be so obvious. The post OotP fanfic shows the fans see it too. Harry is not a happy camper and most of the fans are wondering why if Dumbledore knew the Dursley's would not love him he was left with them. I wonder too. The manipulative!Dumbledore writers see this as a way to ensure Harry was emotionally needy and ready to latch on to the first friendly face he saw. Others see it as good!Dumbledore didn't know they would be that way at all. I am not sure where exactly I fall on this one because it could well go either way. Part of me says yes he is a manipulative SOB and then part of me says he hoped they would see him as family and treat him as such. I guess my final opinion will come when I finish the series and think about it. But, the impression remains that yes he did know, and he left him there anyways.

I wonder if Harry will ever have a good close relationship romantically. I don't know that JKR will ship him with anyone and the whole Cho fiasco was pretty realistic. Boy didn't have a clue, and it showed. He knew at the end that she wasn't for him, but no I don't think he learned much else from it. Then again maybe he did and we'll find out in book 6. Damn can July 16 come soon enough?

Comments

[zoepaleologa.livejournal.com]

Wordy McWord, and with a side order of word.

So far as I am concerned, neglect and mental cruelty (and being told that you are a nuisance, we don't want you, and your parents were freaks is about as mental cruelty as you can get) are abuse. I'm not a victim of heavy physical abuse, but it took a lot longer to gain confidence after a belittling father, a hopeless mother, and finally a mental case of an ex-partner who wanted to see the world dragged down with him all had their way with me.

So Harry's abuse is real to me. I do not much like reading fics where the writer ups the ante - avus's fic is a rare and honourable exception to that, because he never writes the abuse Harry endures at the hands of the Dursley's as cheap sensation, or dwells almost lovingly on it, as so many do. Why do they want to see Harry raped, beaten, starved? If they want to project that on Harry, what does that say about why they are reading the books.

I've seen an increasing trend for abused!Hermione. That's almost worse. I see there being a number of canonically abused characters: Harry, Severus and possibly Sirius. And probably Riddle. That's enough! I do not wish to see abuse invented where it clearly does not exist. What's the point? Half the time it reads as if the writer actually hates the characters and gets off on their suffering. SS/HG writers of raped by her father and the like Hermione are particularly offensive in this.

I find any abuse hard to read, but if it is done well, is plausible in canon, and described with a perceivable hatred on the part of the writer for such practice, I can read it. Not comfortably, though. Never that.

95% of the time it's just bloody ham fisted writing.

[rhiannonmr.livejournal.com]

The abused child fics out there are pretty rough to read and yes some do go overboard. As I posted I really do believe the writers of most of them haven't a clue as to how abuse works on the victim. Harry is abused enough with the emotional abuse and physical neglect of the Dursleys. Personally I think a great many of these uberabuse stories are written by kids who think abuse is not getting the latest XBox game. Which sounds real crappy of me but there really doesn't seem to be any interest on their part into researching the affects of it or nature of it.

The trend of abused Hermione makes me laugh. If anyone is indulged and spoiled by the parents it is Hermione. She comes off in the books that way to me. There are plenty of characters who've been abused as shown by canon without adding to it in fanfiction and Hermione is not one of them. Hermione strikes me as the proverbial only child who gets everything she wants and knows it. She also appreciates it, at least as I see it.

Abuse is very dificult to read for me. And rapefic is damned near impossible. It squicks the hell outta me to see a rapefic where the victim falls in love with the rapist. I just can't buy it.

[avus.livejournal.com]

I am very respectful of the limitations of people reading about abuse and neglect. I try to warn folks for whom this is simply too painful. I have several dear friends who cannot read my fic, and I absolutely understand. I have also received, in comments, reviews, emails & owls, notes from people who have experienced these things and who have found that the story helped to show them that they weren't alone and to break a kind of silence.

I am highly respectful of both approaches, and always, strongly urge each person to take careful stock of themselves before reading, and respect what they find. Both reading and not reading can be a sign of healing and health. Only the individual knows which is best.

If I may say a bit about Abused!Hermione. I haven't read many of these fics. Unfortunately, given my experience, I would never write off Hermione as "no way could she have been abused", or especially, "no way could she be raped."

The best statistics in the US -- and I'm unaware of any from other countries -- state, consistently, that 1 in 3 girls, that one in every three girls has been raped or molested by the age of 18. And that statistic only goes up from there. The figure for boys is between 1 in 5 to 1 in 7, and given my background, I absolutely believe this to be an underestimate. Boys are culturally taught not tocode their experiences as rape or molest, even though their responses to rape and molest are extremely similar to girls and women, and worse, they have learned that the shame of the rape is on them, just as much, if not more than this happens with women. When, of course, but understandably not of course to victims, the shame of the rape or abuse is always on the rapist and the abuser.

Well, I don't mean to hijack the thread, but I have read one story about an abused Hermione, and, yes, there was some AU to it. But it was also genuine, thoughtful, accurate and sensitive. A "trend", however, would of course be godawful.

As sensationalism, it is nothing short of reprehensible.

Thanks for this thoughtful thread, and for your vote of confidence.

[rhiannonmr.livejournal.com]

Abuse stories seem to be becoming a trend. Nowhere is it more prevalent than on ff.net for some reason. And much of what is coming out in these stories is godawful. The problem I have with the abused Hermione fics is the same one I have with most of the abused Harry or even the abused Severus, Sirius, Draco you pick the next character they've ALL been done stories. Lack of understanding, lack of research and just plain awful writing.

Some writers use abuse as a way of installing angst in a story when there are other ways to do it and much more effectively too. It's like their lives aren't stressful enough being on the brink of wizardwar, lets ratchet up the angst here and rape him/her and have them deal with that for the next 10 chapters, oh and 10 reviews before I update again!

It's bad writing and it pisses me off. Because it is a lazy way of making the person more woeful than they really are. The abused!Hermione stories can be godawful because it always seems like the writer goes overboard with it.

[avus.livejournal.com]

You are indeed right. It seems to me that when one is writing about more serious topics that the responsibility of the writer, to do justice to that topic, is higher. It's not something to undertake without a good base both in being knowledgeable of the subject and being, at least somewhat, able to handle the craft of writing.

That may seem like censorship. It's not. It's merely a decent respect for a sensitive and important topic. There are certainly others, in addition to rape, molest, severe neglect, abuse. One other, well-included in the HP world is war.

I would, for example, strongly recommend that anybody, before writing about, say, war or rape, not only read but talk long & honestly with someone who has experienced this, perhaps not only one or two people.

I would promise these writers that it would change their views, it would mature them, and their writing would be more respectful for it.

We are very much in agreement.

[avus.livejournal.com]

I very much appreciate your comments, June. I have tried, and will continue to try, to write honestly, clearly, but not sensationally about what happens to kids who are severely abused and neglected, and, even more, about what happens inside of them because of their abuse and neglect.

It's an honor to hear that what I'm writing is taking steps to achieve that. It's a tricky balance, and I don't claim perfection. I claim only to honestly & carefully try to maintain that balance between what actually happens to these kids and what is just gore & horror for gore & horror's sake, for shock value or second hand emotional kicks.