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Minerva McGonagall is the head of Gryffindor (Harry's dormitory house), and fills in as headmistress on occasion throughout the series. She is both strict and caring. She also has a great sense of humor. I especially love the scenes between her and Dolores Umbridge, who is a quite awful person.
McGonagall, however, does not put up with Umbridge's crap the way some teachers do. She is not afraid of Umbridge in the least either.
Other than putting down Umbridge, she is watchful of harry and is always concerned about his well-being. She has a soft spot for him, which many people, real and fictional, do.
McGonagall can also transform her physical appearance (I noted in Tonks entry that she can as well). However, McGonagall cannot alter her human physical attributes; she can turn into a cat though. She is an animagus. This helps her to disguise herself as it does Tonks. We first meet McGonagall early in Sorcerer's Stone as a cat sitting outside the Dursley's house before Harry even shows up.
My favorite scenes with McGonagall are the ones where she interacts with Umbridge, so instead of one McGonagall quote, I'm going to add a few that I like.
Probably my favorite, when McGonagall tells Harry he could work for his ambition of becoming an Auror.
McGonagall: "False hope? He has achieved high marks in all his Defence Against the Dark Arts tests -" Umbridge: "I'm terribly sorry to have to contradict you, Minerva, but as you will see from my note, Harry has been achieving very poor results in his classes with me -" McGonagall: "I should have made my meaning plainer. He has achieved high marks in all Defence Against the Dark Arts tests set by a competent teacher.
When Trelawny says that the first to rise will die (only in a wierder, more mystical way)
"I doubt it will make much of a difference," said Professor McGonagall coldly, "unless a mad axe-man is waiting outside the doors to slaughter the first into the entrance hall."
When Umbridge insists Marietta Edgecomb told her something and Marietta begins to deny it...
"Well, usually when a person shakes their head," said McGonagall coldly, "they mean 'no.' So unless Miss Edgecombe is using a form of sign language as yet unknown to humans --"
Petunia Dursley is Harry Potter's aunt. She is described in the books as "horse-faced" and bony. Obviously, she sounds like a gorgeous woman....and her attitude and personality match her looks. She has been treating Harry like crap since the day he appeared on her doorstep. He has not been fed properly, had to live in a cupboard, and never been treated like a child should. By this I mean he was certainly not loved, and he did not exactly receive presents on Christmas or his birthday, or have many of the luxuries children should have. On the other hand, her own son, Dudley, was spoiled more than anyone I have ever heard of, with the exception of those little brats on the MTV show "My Super Sweet 16."
However, she isn't all bad...She does convince her husband to let Harry stay at their house when he is on the verge of throwing Harry out. She knows that, through a spell, he is safe while he is at their home. She protected him here by keeping him at the house. Also, when she and Harry say goodbye for the final time, she seems as though she wants to say something. J.K. Rowling said the following about what Petunia wanted to say in a webchat with fans:
"I think that for one moment she trembled on the verge of wishing Harry luck; that she almost acknowledged that her loathing of his world, and of him, was born out of jealousy. But she couldn’t do it; years of pretending that ‘normal’ was best had hardened her too much."Petunia's not all bad, but she is pretty horrible to Harry. She is the opposite of motherly, caring Mrs. Weasley.
My Petunia quote comes from Sorcerer's Stone after Harry being a wizard is out in the open:
'You knew,' said Harry. 'You knew I'm a ... a wizard?'
'Knew!' shrieked Aunt Petunia suddenly. 'Knew! Of course we knew! How could you not be, my dratted sister being what she was? Oh, she got a letter just like that and disappeared off to that ... that school - and came home every holiday with her pockets full of frog-spawn, turning tea-cups into rats. I was the only one who saw her for what she was ... a freak! But for my mother and father, oh no, it was Lily this and Lily that, they were proud of having a witch in the family!'
She stopped to draw a deep breath and then went ranting on. It seemed like she had been wanting to say all this for years.
'Then she met that Potter at school and they left and got married and had you, and of course I knew you'd be just the same, just as strange, just as ... as ... abnormal ... and then, if you please, she went and got herself blown up and we got landed with you!'
Molly Weasley is Harry's stand-in mother. Of course, with seven kids of her own she has her hands full.
Molly is a stay at home mom, who is an excellent cook (according to Harry), and we also know that her family is very poor. Ron is always complaining about all his hand me downs. We also see their bank vault, which Molly takes all the money out of on that occasion as there is very little.
She is your stereotypical mom. She is worried about the family and the children all the time. She has a clock that indicates every family members positioning, and takes to carrying it around with her in the later books. She has been described as being foul-tempered as she rushes about the house looking for spare socks early in the mornings as the children leave for school. She is always trying to make Harry eat extra helpings of food and worrying about the state of his socks.
She is the stricter disciplinarian in the family. When we first meet her for a substantial period of time, she has been yelling at her sons for taking out the car in the middle of the night. Their father reacts to this by asking how it went. She probably has to be strict with six boys, especially the twins who are the class-clown types that are always in trouble. She might be slightly softer to her youngest, and only daughter, Ginny. As I noted in Ginny's blog entry, Molly desperately wanted a daughter.
Of course, she is also a very talented witch. She fights in Hogwart's final battle and is the one to kill Bellatrix Lestrange (which is quite an accomplishment) when Bellatrix is battling with her precious Ginny.
She has been a real comfort to Harry, who does not have any other caring adult females in his life. She is what I would consider the ultimate mom.
My Molly Weasley quote:
"I don't know where you learned about right and wrong, but you seem to have missed a few crucial lessons."
I know it sounds like I am repeating myself, but Tonks is another girl that I like so much because she has so much personality. She is fun and outgoing, and is a very interesting character.
From the moment we first meet Nymphadora, who hates her first name and prefers to go by her last name of Tonks, she is witty and charming. Whats really fascinating about her is that she is a Metamorphmagus, which means that she can change her physical appearance at will. That is why we see her here with purple hair; I suppose she happens to like purple hair and when she wants a change she just changes instantly. This is particularly good for her because she is a Auror, a dark-wizard catcher. She can easily disguise herself.
Tonks is very brave, her job calls for it, but she is extremely accident prone. However, she is always wanting to help, and her friends are usually hesitant to take her up on her offer:
"And if you want dinner before midnight, I'll need a hand," Mrs. Weasley said to the room at large. "No, you can stay where you are, Harry dear, you've had a long journey."
"What can I do, Molly?" said Tonks enthusiastically, bounding forwards.
Mrs. Weasley hesitated, looking apprehensive. "Er - no, it's alright Tonks, you have a rest too, you've done enough today."
No, no, I want to help!" said Tonks brightly, knocking over a chair as she hurried towards the dresser, from which Ginny was collecting cutlery.
If you have read book 7, you know that Tonks gets married to Remus Lupin and they have a son named Teddy. J.K Rowling said in a webchat that their son was also a metamorphmagus. I can just picture a baby with hair that changes color every ten seconds! What a handful that would be!
My Tonks quote demonstrates how she feels about her name:
"Don't call me Nymphadora, Remus," said the young witch with a shudder, "it's Tonks."
"Nymphadora Tonks, who prefers to be known by her surname only," finished Lupin.
"So would you if your fool of a mother had called you Nymphadora," muttered Tonks.
Luna Lovegood!
I think the other posts were too long, so I'm gonna try to make them shorter and, hopefully, easier to read.
Luna is a really interesting character. She is known as "Loony Lovegood" because people find her so strange. She does have some strange ideas at times ( such as: "A Wrackspurt - they're invisible, they float in through your ears and make your brain go fuzzy," she said. "I thought I felt one zooming around in here." ), but she is really a loyal friend and a caring person. She is always willing to help Harry and his friends, and plays a very important role in book 5 in particular. She is also an important character in the two books following that.
She gives the reader a lot of comic relief, but she also helps Harry when he needs it, In book five, she is very comforting to him after Sirius' death, and helps him examine the Ravenclaw common room in book seven which is very important to the plot of the seventh book. It was also her idea to take the thestrals in Order of the Phoenix to reach the Ministry.
I particularly like her character ( I know, I have said that in every post so far!), but she is so quirky and fun. She is obviously also very intelligent as she was put in the Ravenclaw house. I really admire her sense of loyalty, trust, kindness, and fairness that she shows.
My Luna quote is her response to the D.A. meetings in book 5:
"I enjoyed the meetings, too. It was like having friends."
Talk about girl power! Check out that picture! It is definitely radiating girl power!
Anyway, this post is obviously going to discuss Hermione Granger and how important she is.
The actress that plays Hermione is Emma Watson, and she has her own website which is kinda cool. She has some really good pictures up there.
Hermione is EXTREMELY important to the Harry Potter series. She is certainly a strong female role model and main character for female readers of the series to identify with. Really though, Harry probably wouldn't be alive with out her.
I like this quote of Hermione's from Sorcerer's Stone when she first meets Harry and Ron:
"Are you sure that's a real spell? Well, it's not very good is it? I've tried a few simple spells myself and they've all worked for me. Nobody in my family's magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course, it's the best school of witchcraft there is I've heard - I've learned all the course books by heart of course. I just hope it will be enough - I'm Hermione Granger, by the way, who are you?"
She is the smart one. Not only does she help Harry and Ron through school, but she is the one who figures out the puzzles and mysteries in each book that allow Harry to survive until the next one.
In Sorcerer's Stone, she is able to figure out the potion logic puzzle in the obstacles to get to the stone.
In Chamber of Secrets, she brews a very difficult potion (the Polyjuice Potion). On top of that, in this book she is the one who figures out what is in the chamber and how it is getting about, which is pretty extraordinary considering Dumbledore and a number of other talented wizards had yet to figure it out.
She really proves her book smarts in Prisoner of Azkiban as she is taking what seems to be just about every class offered and using the time turner to go back in time to make it to all of her lessons. Plus, she is the brains behind "mission rescue Sirius and Buckbeak."
Goblet of Fire doesn't have her with a huge task, but she certainly did a lot of good things in the book and helped Harry a lot as he prepared for his tasks in the Triwizard Tournament.
In my favorite book, Order of the Phoenix, Hermione does quite a bit. First, when Dumbledore's Army is made, she comes up with the idea of making coins to arrange the secret meetings. She puts a very complicated charm on the coins that allows them to change which greatly impresses the other members of the "D.A." Then, Hermione comes up with an ingenious plan to get rid of Umbridge and allow her and her friends to escape to the Ministry. Her plan was made on the spot and was so creative. Of course she also fights brilliantly along the side of Harry, Ron, Neville, and Luna once they arrive at the Ministry.
In Half-blood prince, Hermione has a difficult time dealing with Ron's new relationship with Lavender, and is distracted by that during parts of the book. Hermione, of course, watches the castle while Harry and Dumbledore are gone , and again she fights courageously in battle at the end of the book.
Deathly Hallows involves quite a bit of Hermione being heroic. As Jamie on Mugglenet's podcast says, it seems as though all through book 7 Harry is waking up with Hermione leaning over him saying, "That was a close one Harry!" after saving his life. One example of a time when she performed particularly well was at Bathilda Bagshot's house when Hermione helps them just barely escape Voldermort just when it looks like both she and Harry will die. She was very impressive in this book, in my opinion. She managed to fix the beaded purse to hold all of their belongings and was very prepared. She also did fantastic spellwork in modifying her parents memories to make them think they lived in Australia and had no children. It was also impressive that she chose to stick by Harry's side and help him when Ron told her she had to chose between them and left her. Lastly, she again fought in a long and hard battle at the end of the book.
It is pretty apparent that Hermione is a very important character to the series, and she may be considered the epitome of "Harry Potter girl power."
One last good Hermione quote, also from Sorcerer's Stone, right after they have met Fluffy, the three-headed dog.
"I hope you're pleased with yourselves. We could all have been killed - or worse, expelled. Now if you don't mind, I'm going to bed."
Ginny Weasley is the first girl born in her family for several generations (on the Weasley side anyway). Molly Weasley (her mother) desperately wanted a daughter and had six boys before Ginny, who is the youngest child.
Harry Potter fans already know this information, of course. I'm just going to be talking about Ginny in general, and about her love life. I'm going to write in orange in honor of Ginny's red hair. :o)
Interestingly, Ginevra is the Italian form of Guinevere who is King Arthur's wife. Fittingly, Ginny becomes the leading lady in this series.
Obviously she is a pretty important female character in the HP series. She is also probably my favorite character. She has had feelings for Harry for as long as readers can remember. In the second book readers will recall her coming into the kitchen for breakfast, not knowing Harry was there, seeing him, and running out after squealing.
At that point, Ginny had not really met Harry other than seeing him at the train station the year before, when she had not realized who he was. Yet, she was already so taken with him. Over the next few years, Ginny didn't talk much in front of Harry. Then, Hermione informs Harry in book 5 that Ginny gave up on him in her third year.
Later we see Harry's reaction to seeing Ginny kiss Dean Thomas:
"It was as though something large and scaly erupted into life in Harry's stomach, clawing at his insides: Hot blood seemed to flood his brain, so that all thought was extinguished, replaced by a savage urge to jinx Dean into a jelly. Wrestling with this sudden madness, he heard Ron's voice as though from a great distance away." (HBP 286)
At this point, Harry dismisses his reaction as a brotherly feeling; on page 289 he says "It's just because she's Ron's sister...", but imagines himself kissing Ginny just afterward. They finally get together after the Gryffindors win the Quidditch Cup, and Harry has an urge to kiss Ginny and does so. They later break up during Dumbledore's funeral because Harry is afraid Voldemort will come after her as he did before. She was only his best friend's sister then, so as his girlfriend she would be in much more danger. One of the most widely known Ginny quotes comes at this point.
"'I never really gave up on you,' she said. 'Not really. I always hoped...Hermione told me to get on with life, maybe go out with some other people, relax a bit around you, because I never used to be able to talk if you were in the room, remember? And she thought you might take a bit more notice if I was a bit more--myself.'" (HBP 647)
In book 7 Ginny gives Harry a birthday kiss, during which they are interrupted by Ron. They don't interact during most of the book; however, Harry thinks about her a lot. In the epilogue of book 7, we find out that Harry and Ginny were able to get back together and were married. They have three kids: James, Albus, and only daughter, Lily. At this point, James is in school and Albus is just starting, so he would be 11. Lily is still too young for school.
Ginny has had an extraordinary love life while she "waited" for Harry, but Ginny is also an extraordinary witch. Maybe living with six brothers had toughened her to more of a tom-girl. She is extremely gifted, and is especially known for her bat-bogey hex. She has fought death eaters along side the trio, Neville, and Luna, and is an excellent quidditch player. Her brothers wouldn't allow her to play with them growing up, so she snuck into the shed and took out each of their brooms since the age of six. They were quite surprised when she tried out for the team and was quite good. She played seeker for Gryffindor when Harry could not, and then got her own position as a chaser. She is determined and courageous. One of the quotes I particularly like is from my favorite book, Order of the Phoenix. Ginny is talking about growing up with her brothers:
"...you sort of start thinking anything's possible if you've got enough nerve."
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Well, this whole blogging thing is new to me, but I'm really excited about this! To make my Harry Potter blog stand out I'm going to focus on girl power! Yay! I'm going to be talking about all the Harry Potter books so if you haven't read them I'm warning you now that there will be spoilers for you. It sucks to be spoiled though! I go on yahoo answers all the time, and when book 7 came out, people were purposely trying to spoil the story for others. It made me mad, but then again what is someone doing on yahoo answers when they should be reading their book? I love answers though. I answer all the Harry Potter questions so I ended up becoming a top contributor, which is pretty cool. Check out answers though from my link above, it has a lot of good advice on pretty much everything.
About me: I'm an English major as a sophmore in college. I love Harry Potter, hanging out with my friends and boyfriend, the sims, board games, facebook, shopping, the zoo, pedicures, and animals! My favorite Harry Potter website is mugglenet, and I strongly encourage you to check them out, especially if you are interested in podcasts. Their podcast is very informative and entertaining. I listen to it every week, and look forward to their new episodes on Mondays.
Anyway, I'm going to make several blog entries for my girl power, and probably some off topic stuff too. I am going to start with talking about Ginny Weasley (well, Ginny Potter) because obviously she's pretty important figure in Harry's life. Then Hermione, who I think he would be dead without. Also, I'm thinking about doing Luna, Mrs. Weasley, Professor McGonagall, Tonks, Bellatrix Lestrange, Umbridge, Cho, or Petunia. Those aren't set in stone though. Anybody have any other female characters they can think of that I should write about?
Also, feel free to leave imput, I will start with Ginny next time! Maybe I'll put up some pics of my pets soon too..not that they have anything to do with the blog...other than being girls.
Cya!
