Dolores Umbridge, Who Was A Quiet, Insecure And Unpleasant Child In Her First Years, Was One Day In Her

My logical brain agrees, but my heart can't help but support unethical haterism. To some degree it will always slip, unfortunately...

On ethical haterism in fandom & how to be an ethical hater 

Being a hater (sharing negative opinions about tropes, ships, characters, and trends in fandom) is fun and often tempting. Being a skilled and ethical hater is even more fun, though difficult to achieve. 

(This is pretty HP focused. While all fandoms have an unethical hater problem, HP fandom has a particular dynamic where people are quick to feel guilty about fandom participation due to jkr being awful and then project that guilt onto others by trying to identify other people in fandom as being ‘bad’ so they can feel ‘good’ in comparison.) 

Number one question: Are you enjoying yourself? If you’re not, then stop. You cannot be an ethical fandom hater if you yourself are not having fun and are instead making yourself miserable by being a hater. None of these other factors are relevant if you’re not having fun. Take a break from fandom and go outside instead.  

The next consideration is space - public vs private and the specifics of social media platforms. 

You’re almost always being an ethical hater if you’re bitching and laughing in your friend’s DMs. You’re never being an ethical hater if you’re on Tiktok or another algorithm based platform where people cannot avoid your content showing up on their pages. Discord servers and tumblr posts are where it gets complicated. Make a good faith effort to make sure anyone who wants to avoid your hater content is able to do so via appropriate tagging or sticking to approved channels within the discord server. 

Next: humor

If you’re being mean, you better be very funny. If you’re not funny, you probably can’t get away with being mean. Be less mean. 

The best of ethical haterism is creative and funny and active. It is about creating and enjoying yourself with friends more than it is about tearing others down – even if you are mocking people and ships and characters! 

A useful question to ask: could a reasonable person with a different opinion from you find what you’re doing funny? (This is different from: can the absolute worst, whiniest, most sensitive person in fandom find what you’re doing funny?)

Things that are never ethical haterism: 

Making accusations about individual people’s politics, values, and identities based on their preferences for ships and characters. General rule: if you (or the people you surround yourself with) are throwing out the words ‘nazi,’ ‘pedophile,’ ‘freak’ or ‘bigot,’ you’re not being an ethical hater. 

Things I have seen that are not ethical haterism and are simply asshole behavior: accusing anyone who doesn’t like femme Sirius of being homophobic or transphobic, accusing anyone who ships any Death Eater/order member ship of being a nazi, accusing Snape stans of being incels, accusing anyone who ships Snarry or any student/teacher ship of being a pedophile etc.

Note: Ethical haterism is separate from critiquing fandom trends and the influence of broader politics on how we engage with fandom. It is asshole behavior to make specific accusations of individual people based on their ships, headcanons, and art, but it is reasonable (and I’d say good!) to examine how white supremacy/patriarchy/capitalism show up in trends in fandom. 

Things that are asshole behavior and never ethical haterism: commenting rudely on fics, talking publicly about specific fics you hate, deliberately going into ship tags to start fights, making accusations, generally being unpleasant. 

The two fundamental questions of being an ethical hater: 

Is what you’re doing making fandom more fun, more creative, more engaging, more lively, more connected? 

Are you sensitive to the idea that some people might not enjoy seeing this content and want to make sure it’s possible for them to avoid it? 

That’s my theory. Thoughts?

Dumbledore was clever, cunning, and magically powerful. If he wanted real power, he could have quite quickly brought the wizarding world to its knees. Actually, he feared power and deliberately limited himself from it and tried not to get involved in the most political decisions because he knew he had a visionary side that could make him start deciding people's fates "for the greater good." He knew he could make mistakes. That's why all his positions were not really about power but were more like representative and guarantor roles, where there were many other decision-makers, and his power could be limited by others — from headmaster (from which he was disgracefully kicked out) to the position in the useless magical version of the UN.

Dumbledore didn't seek power, he feared it. That's why he avoided making some decisions and increasing his power even when he could and should have done so (like taking the post of Minister).

At first Harry thinks Dumbledore is almost like a god, but then he realizes that Dumbledore actually has no real power, makes mistakes, and is just an ordinary person with his own flaws, who has been fighting his inner demons all his life and can't forgive himself for a mistake he made in his youth.

Dumbledore is actually a deeply traumatised character who is often afraid to make decisions and avoids doing things because he believes his actions sometimes don't lead to good outcomes. He avoids action even when it's really needed, doing the bare minimum.

He is very distant, closed off, and I think quite an unhappy person. I can almost see the pain Dumbledore went through with the whole Harry situation, but it was a difficult decision that only he could make, and he actually hates himself for it, which is why he distances himself from Harry as much as possible (I don't think it's the right decision. I see it as Dumbledore's weakness.) Dumbledore's death isn't a sad event for him, it's the release he had been waiting for a long time.

This is such a simple idea that I really don't understand how people see him as a character who fought Voldemort just to keep his kinda pathetic power.

These two are both nerds, yes, but in all other aspects they are incompatible.

THE AUDIENCE CLAMOURS FOR YOUR VOLMIONE TAKE!!!!!!!!! In all seriousness the curiously is piqued tenfold by the fact that you go hard to bat for the other two voldemort/golden trio ships

i've definitely been putting this one off, anon, but it's hermione's birthday, and since the requests have kept coming...

maybe i have to grit my teeth and get through it.

i am, like my good pal @yorickofyore, broadly a tomione/volmione disliker - which is a spoiler for what follows. there are - obviously - huge numbers of people who are not, and they may sit happily in their ecosystem while i flop around photosynthesising in mine.

and the reason why i don't like tomione/volmione is right there in the last three screenshots: it relies - like several other hermione pairings, snamione and sirimione chief among them - on a portrayal of hermione's intellectual expression which bears absolutely no relation to how this is written in canon.

across all seven books in the series, hermione's intellect primarily manifests itself in a sincerely impressive ability to retain and repeat information [very usually verbatim from the source she got it from]. she is able to use this ability to retain information to understand the theoretical components of magic in a way neither harry nor ron ever manage, and she is then able to apply this retention - that is, to repeat the information she has acquired - of knowledge to the performance of magic which is [often considerably] ahead of her expected level both in terms of the hogwarts curriculum and in terms of what would be seen as the median ability of an adult witch or wizard.

but hermione is never shown - at any point in canon - to be a particularly radical, creative, or experimental thinker.

she places an enormous amount of intellectual trust in disciplinary authority - not only in the respect she has for following textbooks and teachers to the letter [hence why she won't attempt any of the modifications in the half-blood prince's textbook, she thinks it's offensive that they contradict the "official" peer-reviewed and sanctioned instructions] but also in her agreement with the gatekeeping imposed by the state and/or its authorities on academic inquiry.

[hence her disliking the invented spells in the half-blood prince's textbook because they're not ministry approved, or her easing her discomfort at having read the books from which voldemort learned to make a horcrux by insisting - undoubtedly correctly - that dumbledore wanted her to do it and she therefore has the permission of an intellectual authority].

she's immediately mistrustful of anything she can't find [something she regards as] an empirical source for - which is why harry's mental connection with voldemort frightens her so much, or why she thinks that harry's lost his mind when he begins to insist the deathly hallows are real and important, or, most famously, why she thinks divination is bullshit.

she's never shown to be able to synthesise her knowledge [she never answers questions in class in her own words, she always goes massively over word limits], or to use it in ways which are considerably removed from its typical application.

[the protean charm on the da coins, for example - the magic she's using is sophisticated, and is being applied in a way which wouldn't necessarily be classroom-sanctioned, since she's using it to defy umbridge, but the evidence of canon is that it's not magic which is being used in a way which is removed from the spell's original purpose. terry boot is impressed because he's looking at a flawless execution of newt-level magic by a sixteen-year-old, rather than because hermione is using that magic in an unusual way. the same is true of the polyjuice potion - it's impressive because she brews it flawlessly aged thirteen.]

this is a very logical, rational, and scientific approach to learning - and one which the series, which tends to take a dim view of anything which deviates too far from the status quo, views extremely positively - and it is intelligence. i know some people think that when i say this about hermione i'm saying that she isn't clever - or that i'm saying she's less clever than the characters [all of whom are male] that the series permits to be "brilliant" - but that's not the case. hermione is clearly extremely clever - and her logical, empirical, careful approach comes in clutch for the trio throughout the series, right from philosopher's stone. her intellectual expression just isn't the only way intelligence can manifest itself - and it isn't an intellectual expression which will automatically mesh with another very clever person's approach.

which is to say... lord voldemort, both as a teen and an adult, is - intellectually - the complete opposite of hermione.

he is someone - as he tells us - who thinks of magic as a creative force he has every right to shape as he sees fit, something whose boundaries he has the inherent right to smash through. he rejects disciplinary authority [his loathing of dumbledore - as an adult, at least - is because he thinks that dumbledore is a petty-minded gatekeeper who attempts to repress the dark arts - magic, snape tells us, which is inherently ever-changing, unfixed, mutating - because he's afraid of them and their refusal to be neatly contained in disciplinary boxes; his appeal to slughorn's authority is purely a manipulation technique]. he is an adaptor and inventor, and he uses magic in ways which radically deviate from its intended purpose.

and so the common "teen tom riddle and hermione are at school together" trope that they'd both get off on being academic rivals is, in my view, impossible to justify while keeping either of them remotely canon-coherent. she's going to think he's a cunt. he's going to think she's irrelevant.

indeed, i genuinely think the most likely scenario if the two are at school together is that the teen voldemort wouldn't be able to pick hermione out of a line-up - not least because she has very little to offer him when it comes to his plans for world domination.

when it comes to those he's "nice" to, the teenage tom riddle targets the socially prominent, rich, and influential, whom he can use parasitically to his own ends.

he's happy, undoubtedly, to have minions who are less useful to him from a social-advancement perspective, but who come in handy as pawns in his schemes - as dumbledore puts it, "the weak seeking protection, the ambitious seeking some shared glory, and the thuggish gravitating toward a leader who could show them more refined forms of cruelty" - but this is the only thing he sees them as. hermione has a capacity for cruelty he would undoubtedly see potential in [even if he would probably be wary of her "run and tell teacher" vibe], but as someone who does his bidding only, rather than anyone for whom he's willing to fake [or, indeed, to actually feel] any degree of mutual affection.

and i do think this - in and of itself - is interesting. hermione is someone - as i've said elsewhere - who has a tendency towards blind loyalty, which often causes her to accept people she likes and/or respects treating her cruelly [something we see in canon particularly in how she reacts to snape's behaviour towards her]. she's also someone who is incredibly deferential to authority, fairly naive, convinced she's always right, convinced she's not irrational, superstitious, or emotionally-driven, and capable of pretty egregious cruelty in pursuit of being rational and correct.

or, in other words, she's very easy for a flesh-and-blood voldemort to manipulate.

[she's not at risk from a horcrux because she's possessed of the empirical fact that they can't hurt you if you don't let them get emotionally close to you, which impacts how she behaves around the locket.]

on the rare occasions when i've enjoyed fics with this pairing, then, they've tended to be ones which actually acknowledge this - and which have hermione completely destroyed by a voldemort [usually in adult form] who has never cared one iota about her, all because she was convinced she'd be far too clever to fall for his tricks.

[my rec: enigma by devdevlin.]

and this is the main way my view of tomione/volmione deviates from my view of tomarrymort or ronmort - i don't think there's any circumstance where it can ever work as something mutual, whereas the entire point of tomarrymort is that the relationship is something voldemort perceives as equal, and ronmort sees the dark lord running headfirst into ron's ability to disarm and confuse him by possessing a crumb of emotional intelligence. i don't think voldemort would hate hermione - or even be particularly irritated by her - but nor do i think he'd find anything about her interesting enough to make him want to keep her around for any longer than she was useful.

but - like so many hermione pairings - the default in tomione/volmione tends to be "omg, hermione is so hot, brilliant, and fascinating that [insert man here] becomes completely obsessed with her". whether the story leads to voldemort becoming a better person or hermione going over to the dark side, the way the pairing is written always assumes that hermione is someone voldemort would consider [often very quickly] important to him [even in circumstances where she is a prisoner]. only very rarely do fics ever explore the much more canon-justifiable - and, in my view, much more interesting - idea that voldemort is somebody hermione could and would consider important, while he wouldn't give a single fuck about her.

[neither of them give a shit about dead rabbits though. it's the only thing they have in common.]

You can't not be 'obsessed' with someone who frequently ruins your life yk

Isn’t that funny that Snape stans are obsessed w James as much as Snape himself was obsessed with him

Would you say that calling groping sexual assault is disrespectful to rape victims? Because if so, I'd say the real disrespect lies in downplaying assault rather than calling it what it is.

Also, in the grand scheme of things, yes, Snape has committed worse actions than James. However, in an isolated Snape vs. James scenario, James was worse. When Snape fans discuss this, they primarily focus on how James treated Snape and the consequences of that - how James alienated and abused Severus, how Snape’s poverty, neglect, and lack of social advantages led him to seek power in terrible places because they were the only spaces that accepted him (but also groomed him), how the incident with Sirius likely caused Snape to resent authority figures, and how that resentment pushed him further into the Death Eater circle. The discussion isn’t necessarily about who became the worse person in the end, but rather about James’s actions towards Snape and how it probably affected Snape’s trajectory.

And didn’t Minerva send kids into the Forbidden Forest and leave Neville to sleep outside the common room? That’s more than just being strict.

can snape stans for the love of god please shut the fuck up

here are some things i’ve GENUINELY seen snape stan’s say today and i have receipts:

1. that lily only fell in love with james because he gave her a love potion. i…i don’t even know what to say other than that this is obscene.

2. that james’ actions could be compared to what death eaters do. i’m sorry, has james ever killed or tortured anybody purely due to their race/ethnicity? does james think that all minorities deserve to die or be controlled? and do i need to remind people that snape literally WAS an avid blood supremacist and death eater?? jesus fucking christ…

3. like 3000 people saying over and over that james sexually assaulted snape. first of all, comparing pantsing to sexual assault is extremely disrespectful to anybody who’s been s/a’d, myself included. second of all, that only happened in the movies, dipshits. clearly you didn’t read the books if you obsess over that argument.

4. that lily, sirius, remus, james, and peter are all worse people than snape. i’m sorry, did any of them grow up to torment innocent children? did any of them grow up to find pleasure in the pain and suffering and fear of little kids, using their position as a TEACHER to express prejudice? did any of them grow up to use a child’s DEAD DAD’s actions from DECADES AGO to justify cruelty? peter grows up to be awful, but the other four make childhood mistakes that they learn and grow from in adulthood. snape never learns and grows. he just gets worse, and that’s nobody’s fault but his own.

5. that minerva and hagrid are just as bad as snape. first of all, hagrid never discriminated against students for their race or identity and neither does minerva. hagrid and minerva are tough but fair. they don’t enact cruelty. when they see bullies or cruel students get what’s coming to them, then they turn away because they’re witnessing natural consequences. i won’t deny that minerva and hagrid have favorites but they aren’t blatantly cruel to people who aren’t favorites and their only acts of cruelty are ones in which the students ACTUALLY INSTIGATE something worth punishing. snape punishes neville for existing. he punishes hermione for daring to participate in class. and malfoy goes off scott free because he’s a pure blood.

moral of the story, snape stans are delusional. if y’all weren’t so INSANE, then maybe i’d actually like snape. but you are. so i don’t, and i doubt i ever will!

If you are a real-life pedophile, necrophile, or zoophile, you are not welcome in the proship community. Get out and create your own.

me when a fictional woman decides not to get an abortion

No way 🤣

them in 1980 (albus thought he was a demon and sev was in the market for a father figure)

Actually both Harry and Snape had full rights to turn evil ngl

"Harry also had a shitty childhood and was bullied, but he didn’t turn out like Snape."

True, because:

Harry found refuge at Hogwarts, where he felt welcomed, supported, and protected from the very beginning. Severus did not.

Harry had adult figures who protected him, cared about him (Hagrid, the Weasleys, Dumbledore, Lupin, Sirius...), and showed him affection over the years. Severus did not.

Harry had two friends who would have torn apart anyone who dared to strip him in front of the entire school. Severus did not.

Harry and Malfoy had a rivalry because they were on equal footing. Severus was bullied by a group of guys who attacked him together and were far above him socially and economically.

Harry was rich—disgustingly rich, to be exact. Severus was disgustingly poor.

Harry felt loved from the moment Hagrid came for him just after his 11th birthday. Severus never felt loved in his entire damn life.

Harry was favored by Dumbledore and other school staff on multiple occasions. Dumbledore forced Severus to stay silent about an attempted murder against him.

Harry had choices. Severus had nothing.

Not true. If you read carefully it is not hard to correctly assume the canon personalities of our characters. Sirius, who is described to have his hair falling elegantly without seeming to try, who when he's bored wishes it were the full moon despite knowing his friend is a werewolf and saying this unprovoked—bored. Then acting like a predator sensing his prey the moment he sets eyes on Severus. He was described to be one of the best students, constantly in pair with James, hexed a student in his 7th year and many more. He also let Severus into the shack without telling him what's there, endangering his life and risking Remus's future. As an adult he doesn’t appear to be remorseful about it. Remus frowns but does nothing else to stop Sirius and James from harrassing and humiliating Severus. He can be self depricating about his condition, but it's clear there's resentment towards Sirius when he says 'you might', even if he never brings it up. Peter is cheering and loving it when he sees Severus being harrassed. He openly admires James when he's playing with the snitch. He seems stressed about exams and his performance which suggest confidence issues. He doesn’t really defend himself when Sirius mocks him. Lily appears to be an emotional person, but also non confrontational because we often see her walk away from a conflict, she merely gives a "bad look". She raises her wand at James only after many attempts at reasoning with him, so she prefers to talk rather than be physical. She was described as vivacious, smart and cheeky and we can see her being able to have fun instead of caring for rules too much. She is curious and asks questions. She has tolerance for difficult personalities. There is so much more you can deduce from the text, it isn’t that difficult. So please drop the notion that "canon is non-existent" because we do have a canon foundation, the only problem is that people are lazy to engage with it critically and instead prefer to pretend their fanon ideas have canon validity. Just admit you like au's and ooc-ness.

ppl be posting shit like "I miss canon Marauders"

Babes, there is no "canon" Marauders. Most of the shit ya'll think is canon, are just old headcanons that used to be widespread before other (usually queerer) headcanons gained popularity.

There is so little information about the "canon" Marauders - and even the info we have cannot be trusted because it's usually memories, influenced by a character's bias - that trying to make a somewhat comprehensive character out of the given material is impossible, let alone 4 characters.

Everything is fanon. Everything is headcanon. And that's the beauty of this fandom.

(Ofc my favourite part is when something actually is canon via the books or movies, and people reject it as fanon.)