If they had kept Ginny in Book 5ff as the same girl that was in Books 1-4 (the ones that told her brother and her crush to stop laughing at the thought that Neville had a date, and turned her crush down to go out with the guy she had promised a date to), I would have been happy to see her with anyone - Harry, Neville,…

Maybe, he did in another universe. *shifty eyes*

I would suggest going back and reading the books.

But they weren't just giggling over crushes. They were giggling over the use of Love Potions. See the effects on Ron in HBP. The real-world equivalent would be a bunch of girls giggling with their mother over the way Mom used a Date Rape drug when she was a kid. Which still doesn't come across as too harmful until…

I actually have a lot of issues with the way race is portrayed in the Harry Potter books: both the race of the actual individual players and the parallels with race in terms of magical bloodlines.

The books actually say that Muggle-born/Pure-blood marriages are all well and good but Wizard/Muggle marriages never end up well: between Snape's abusive upbringing, the rape-abandonment story that leads to Voldemort being born, the examples of Wizard/Muggle couplings are actually quite horrifying.

The narrator has been known to call out Harry when he is wrong or mistaken about something or someone e.g. his behavior in Half-Blood Prince to a large extent. But in this case, there is no 'external' acknowledgment that Harry's perspective on this is wrong. And this leads to unfortunate implications of Cho's apparent…

And Keanu Reeves* is not exactly a young White male either, so that nullifies even that!

I always find myself trying to stuff my fist in my mouth when the topic of Harry Potter feminism (or racism, for that matter) comes up. It’s a bit like when I look from a distance at a picture of a beautiful plantation-style mansion in 17th century America painted with very bright and lovely broad strokes and I am…

Hermione is never called out for disfiguring Marietta. In fact, she's lauded for it and the narrator emphasizes in Books 5 & 6 that Marietta's disfigurement is well-deserved and that Cho was a bad girlfriend for siding with Marietta against Harry.

Also, thanks for the comment about love potions: another aspect of the Harry Potter mythology that bothered me. It pandered too much to the 'Rape is OK when it's Woman on Man' trope.

I think that despite the running theme of the Harry Potter books being the evils of blood purity, the 'Good' Wizards don't really live up to their own principles: Muggles are really treated as sub-human in many ways. Hermione's treatment of her parents is a Watsonian example. But you also have the Doylian issue that…

Love for the Golden Child! I love that movie!

I've listened to two colicky children scream for hours on end for weeks on end and I didn't deliriously imagine their sudden silence or death. I had twins, my husband was off-shore and my Mom had to take off for a month when my babies were a few weeks old. I was a first-time mom and I had to cope somehow. I was too…

I guess it happens when one of the sexual partners is completely and utterly unwilling from the very initial moment.

@BbqFume: Thank God for the rest of us.

Let's not forget the role the US Government played in the assassination of Patrice Lumumba and establishing Mobutu as dictator, either.

Colour me shocked that Congo is not topping the list. That country - arguably the richest country in the world in terms of natural resources - is the definition of Crapsack World.

@dukes_up: Hell, if I acted on all of my feelings half of my coworkers would be dead.

@Rare Affinity: *applause*