Thursday, January 9, 2014

Intervention Time

Guys, don't worry, I haven't betrayed you. I'm not saying it's time to have an intervention on your obsession with the fandoms. It's about the characters. And I'm not saying you're not allowed to obsess over the characters. I'm saying let's be honest with ourselves: Our favorite characters, no matter how completely awesome they are, do have some flaws.
(Spoilers for The Last Olympian and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. And I guess Mockingjay a little)
Let's start with something we can all agree on: Harry. We love Harry. But let's admit it: in the fifth book Harry is having some serious moody teenager problems. That kid has anger issues like nobody's business.
And the way that Katniss is treating Gale and Peeta in Mockingjay, as I have heard from myself and other readers, is not our favorite. Someone said she was starting to dislike Katniss. Now I love Katniss, and it has taken me a while to get to that point. But she doesn't always think before she acts.
They say Percy's flaw is his love for his friends and how he'll do anything to help them. Us, the readers, of course, know that that is absolutely stupid. We love the fact that Percy is willing to help his friends. We just keep saying to the book, "Come on! Don't you know anything? Love is not a fatal flaw! Just because it gets him in a lot of trouble doesn't mean it isn't the right thing to do!" But Percy also could learn to control his temper. He gets too angry too fast, before he can think, and it tends to get him into a LOT of trouble. (Teenage boy? Black hair? Green eyes? Has a prophecy about him? Anger issues? Will do anything for his friends? Dang, the similarities between Harry and Percy are endless!)
Then there are the flaws that are so dang arguable that they pretty much aren't even flaws at all. Like Snape was working for Voldemort and did so much to help him. But he was really on the good side and did it all to protect Harry and save the wizarding universe. And the fact that Katniss and Peeta have killed people. But they were thrust into the Hunger Games, it's not like they went on a murderous rampage. The Stoll brothers are thieves. But they're the sons of Hermes. There isn't much you can do about that one.
Then there are the ones you could debate about all day long. The Malfoys worked so hard for Voldemort and never even said that they regretted it or did anything about it after he died, and didn't go to Azkaban for it. But you can tell by the end of the story they were just doing what it took to survive. But plenty of people had survived by being on the good side. But they had gotten too close and it was too late to go back. See? You could debate about that all day. (Personally, I think the point was that they were only doing what was best for survival, and Draco especially was thrust into that life. That's my view on it.)
Then Cato? Cato's a horrible kid, training his whole life for the moment he could kill people left and right. But he was trained to be that way since he was a kid by his district, so it isn't really his fault. But he still chose to live that lifestyle. But what would have happened to him if he didn't? (And I think that Cato is relatively innocent too. You're supposed to pity him. It's not his fault that he was taught that the Hunger Games were the best things that could ever happen to him and that was what his whole life was throughout his entire childhood. It's supposed to show how the Capitol uses the citizens.)
And Silena Beauregard. (Excuse me if that isn't spelled right.) Silena was a traitor. How could she just give all her friends to Kronos like that? But Luke used her into thinking it was right. But she's the daughter of Aphrodite! She should be able to resist stuff like that! She should be using him to help them! But even daughters of Aphrodite fall sometimes, and once she was in there was no way out. (I know all the fans feel the same way about Silena. There's no need to say that she was a really great person.)
And then there's Luke. He did so much against the camp. He led a battle against them, used many of them, told them his way was right even when he himself thought he was wrong. But in the end he made himself a hero, and we all kind of respect Luke for that one. So that one's just confusing.

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