I am very fortunate to have two amazing people in my
life. They are the most beautiful,
talented, understanding, intelligent, and enthusiastic individuals that I have
ever met. They are wonderful. They are my sisters. And they are identical twins.
Yes, my little sisters, Molly and Megan, share all of those
wonderful personality traits. In so many
ways they are like Fred and George:
people love them for their sense of humor, their unique approach to
problem solving, and their dedication to those they care about. But here is where the comparison ends. Because Molly and Megan are more than just
charming and funny twins– they are individuals.
This has always been the problem with Fred and George. They are interchangeable. While they are universally loved, they are
not fully developed, separate characters.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Fred and George, but it really bothers me
that they are so one dimensional. It’s
like their entire character is that they are twins and that they are
funny. And yes, I said “character”
instead of “characters” on purpose because they are essentially the same
character. They often complete each
other’s sentences– something that people love
about twins and expect from twins for some reason. I think it’s cute too when they say things at
the same time, but it also contributes to the idiotic stereotype that twins
“share brainwaves” and are actually “the same person.”
Lots of people will tell you that they have a favorite Weasley
twin, but I’m sure that none of them can give you a valid reason. Usually, it’s Fred and their reasoning behind
it is because he’s dead. That’s just
stupid to me. And whenever I point out
that it’s stupid, people are always like, “Oh no, I’ve just always liked Fred
more…he talks more…there’s something about him…” And of course, none of that makes any
sense. Fred and George have an equal
amount of lines. Usually after one
speaks the other chimes in right afterwards.
J.K. Rowling obviously did this on purpose because she wanted them to be
equally loved…which is annoying. The
Fred Weasley page on the Harry Potter wiki claims, “Fred Weasley was the more
outgoing, daring, and sarcastic of the twins” and provides a few examples, but
they are such slight differences that I hardly think they are significant. It seems like the person (or people) who
wrote this page probably just didn't want it to seem like they were the same
character because they’re one of those really defensive HP fans who freaks out
whenever someone tries to have a debate about something and bursts out into a “LEAVE
J.K. ALONE!” kind of rant.
Another annoying thing about Fred’s death is that it seems
to me that she only killed Fred because
he had a twin. Because she knew there
would still be one left over once he had died– so that character, in a way,
would still live on. She even goes so
far as to say that George eventually marries Angelina Johnson…with whom FRED attended
the Yule Ball. THAT is maddeningly
infuriating to me and actually makes me a little sick. Rowling probably thought it was cute when she
decided that, but I think it’s a cruel and miserable situation for both George
and Angelina. Considering they attended
the Yule Ball together, I assume that Fred and Angelina had a somewhat romantic
relationship. And if that was indeed the
case, then it is extremely inappropriate for Angelina to even think about dating
George. Like, did she think, “Oh well,
Fred is gone, but at least I still have George as a backup! Good replacement since they’re the same exact
person.”? That’s not okay at all. Even
if they did both sincerely love each other, I think there would still be doubt
in George’s mind all the time, wondering if she was only with him to stay close
to Fred. So while I’m mad at J.K.
Rowling for killing Fred, I’m angrier at her for what she did to George. I think she saw Fred as the safest Weasley to
kill. If you think of it from George’s
perspective, losing Fred is the worst possible thing that could happen to
him. But George isn’t our main
character, he isn’t even our main Weasley character, so we don’t get that kind
of insight into the true horror that comes with Fred’s death. Instead there’s just this awful, guilty
acknowledgement that I’m sure every single person thought while they were
reading, “Well, at least we still have George…”
And that shouldn’t be what we think when a character
dies! We should be thinking how awful it
is because that character had so many unique qualities that contributed so much
to the lives of the characters around them.
When Dobby died, we were devastated because Dobby had always tried to
save Harry in his own eccentric way, wearing tea cozies and mismatching socks. When Dumbledore died, we were devastated
because he was the greatest sorcerer of the age and probably the most prominent
father figure to Harry. To me, the most
upsetting thing about Fred’s death isn’t that we lost such a unique and amazing
character, (because honestly he still existed in George) but rather that George
lost his twin brother, a bond and closeness that most of us will never fully
understand or experience.
I understand why Fred
and George are presented the way they are.
That image of twins is an image that most people find alluring. It’s an image they can understand. That’s okay, I guess, because Harry Potter
isn’t a story about the hardships of being a twin and the importance of
recognizing the differences between twins.
But it still bothers me because I’ve seen my sisters get grouped
together every single day of their lives; being called the wrong names by their
friends, having their achievements or failures combined for no reason at
all. Because I’ve witnessed this first
hand and seen how much it bothers my sisters, I hated every single time someone
messed up Fred and George in the books.
And I hated even more that they never resented it. They were just okay with being the same
person.
J.K. Rowling tries to makes up for Fred and George’s similarities
in her characterization of Parvati and Padma Patil. In fact, I think that Padma’s whole existence
in the books might be so that J.K. Rowling could feel okay about the way she
portrayed Fred and George. This way,
every time someone brings up this argument she can be like, “Oh no, I
completely understand how twins can be different. See how I put Parvati and Padma in separate Houses?” That is kind of a good argument too…except
that we never really see enough of Padma to know that she really is any
different than Parvati. They’re in
different Houses, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t just as similar as
Fred and George in personality. It’s
possible that Padma is just as silly and gossip obsessed as Parvati. Trust me, I know plenty of clever people who
love to gossip…how do you think they get all of their information? My roommate and I are almost exactly alike in
personality, but Pottermore sorted me into Slytherin and her into
Gryffindor. I probably sound like a
broken record by now, but Houses are stupid.
They don’t define who you are or really even what your values are, which
is annoying because that is their whole purpose and they fail at it. Hermione is clever, but she’s in Gryffindor,
not Ravenclaw. So putting Parvati and
Padma in Gryffindor and Ravenclaw respectively proves nothing about them as
twins.
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