Why the Molly hate?

[wook77]

I was reading a craptacular story written by an author that I adore mocking.

That being said... a theme that runs throughout this author's stories is - Molly bashing/hating. I thought it was just further proof as to the craptacularness of this author but it turns out I was wrong.

It seems that there is more than one person out there that dislikes Molly for whatever reasons...

My questions to you -

Does anyone else hate on Molly and, if so, why the Molly hate?

No wank and please to be providing reasons.

Comments

[inmyth.livejournal.com]

To me Molly is uber-mollycuddles-mum-love! She can get a tad bit annoying I admit but I heart her!

Oh and did you get the fic I emailed you? Still stuck *sob*.

[yaycoffee.livejournal.com]

I often find weird Weasley hate around, too. I don't get it. They are ALL love... well except Percy. I love Molly. I'd imagine that the Molly hate just points out Mommy issues or something... it's probably written by someone fairly young who doesn't quite understand Molly yet. I'm not a mom, but I totally understand where she's coming from... she's a fretter (and with good reason). She's the closest thing to a mom that Harry's known, and Harry is lucky to have two mothers who would (or did) give their lives for him.

*loves on the Weasleys*

[lusiology.livejournal.com]

I have noticed a tendancy for her character to be written as an interfering busy body. I have read a lovely short fic about young Molly coping without Arthur. Would you like the link? Actually, I think I'll post it & mention your post.

[mordyn4]

It could stem from Ginny-hate, or anger over Molly's assumed pro-Ginny:Harry attitude. I can appreciate her for the role she plays, and I adore the performance of the actress, but I personally find having so many children - er, don't hate me, I'm trained as a demographer - irresponsible. Blame my inner Malfoy if you must.

M.

[best-of-five.livejournal.com]

you already know my reasons and my feelings :) but yes, count me in the camp that doesn't like molly. i dunno that i'll go far as to say hate but definitely dislike.

too overbearing and interfering for my tastes. and i am fairly sure i don't have mommy issues. *huggles my mommy*

[chocolatepot.livejournal.com]

I love Molly, esp. now that I've started knitting. All the time. I've always liked her for being such a mum, in general and to Harry. I tend to like characters when Harry does, and he obviously likes the Weasleys a lot.

I think a lot of people dislike her because a) they dislike all of the Weasleys or all of the good guys (you can probably guess which groups) or b) they've had bad experiences with overprotective mothers who are nicer to other people's kids than their own, to a point. And she represents stability, ordinariness, and a warm home, which seems to annoy some people who want glamour out of the HP books (which is too bad, because Harry kind of hates glamour and attention). And then there are the people who are contemptuous of her and Arthur for "having more children than they can afford".

[chocolatepot.livejournal.com]

Eeeeeee! The Poky Little Puppy!

[best-of-five.livejournal.com]

:) :) :)

Visiting via Daily Snitch

[scatteredlogic.livejournal.com]

I don't hate Molly, but she is one of my least favorite characters. I don't fall into any of the categories suggested by the other people commenting: I get along fine with my mother. My childhood was good. I don't prefer the Death Eaters over the heroes, and I'm over the age of 30. ;)

I'd never cared one way or the other for the character of Molly, but what finally tipped it over into the dislike category was the incident in GoF in which Molly sends Hermione a decidedly smaller Easter egg than she sends to Harry and Ron, and all because Molly read Rita Skeeter's article in Witch Weekly.

That Molly would believe the tripe written by Rita Skeeter made Molly seem petty and not particularly bright. Since Rita Skeeter had vilified Hagrid in an earlier news article, I'd wondered if Molly believed that story as well, although there's nothing in OotP to indicate that she snubbed Hagrid over it.

At any rate, that one incident pretty much soured me on Molly.

Re: Visiting via Daily Snitch

[scatteredlogic.livejournal.com]

Erm, sorry - nothing in *GoF* to indicate that she snubbed Hagrid. ~sigh~ Wrong book. ;)

Here from the Daily Snitch

[lanjelin.livejournal.com]

Though I don't hate Molly, I don't exactly like her either. I'm not fond of the way she tries to mold her children into what she thinks they should be rather than what they want themselves.

I understand her reasons; it's because she cares about them. I just usually don't care for characters that act like they always knows whats best for someone and can't be reasoned with, when they should know better (which is why this almost never applies to characters not yet out of their teens, heh).

I also don't like how she snubbed Hermione because of an article. After four years she should know better.

She has a purpose in the books; she provides a large part of the normality Harry longs for, but that he never really can achieve. She and her family were a safe haven for him at the beginning; now he can't really rely on them anymore, and I wonder if part of growing up for him won't be realising that happiness doesn't necessarily equal normality.

[grrliz.livejournal.com]

The standard reasons I hear given for why people dislike Molly are either a) Weasley hate and b) the hater having grown up with a mother just like Molly. I love the Weasleys and my mother is nothing like Molly but she's still my least favourite character anyway. I don't doubt that she's good, I don't think she's evil on any level, and I certainly don't hate her irrationally the way people seem to with Ginny but I just plain don't like her for a variety of reasons.

donnaimmaculata wrote a pretty good essay last year on "Molly, and why I dislike her (http://donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com/56391.html)" that pretty much sums up my feelings on the subject. The one thing she didn't mention in the essay that was one of the chief reasons I dislike Molly is her similarity to Umbridge. Technically, both of them want what's best for their children (biological or otherwise) but they are at a complete loss to understand what is best for those kids. No more obvious is this made when Molly refuses to let Ron participate in the DA because he doesn't need to learn to protect himself, which harkens back to Umbridge's first DADA class when she laughs off the students' desires to actual learn pratical defense spells. Both of their attitudes consist of keeping kids in the dark and unprepared, as if this will be better in the long run. If there's one thing we know of the kids in this series it's that if you keep information from them, they're going to come to their own (often dangerous) conclusions anyway. Keeping them in the dark about stuff compounds the problem exponentially.

[grrliz.livejournal.com]

And then there are the people who are contemptuous of her and Arthur for "having more children than they can afford".

Oh god, I hate that argument. Money is tight, but they're not deeply impoverished. Buying things second hand doesn't mean they'll be carted off to the wizarding world poor house in Book 7. And as we saw in HBP, if a student really and truly cannot afford to attend Hogwarts they receive assistance from a fund specifically for cases like that. The Weasleys never dip into this fund because they always find a way to manage. Maybe they can't afford new brooms for entire Quidditch teams, but then again few people can.

[wearethestars.livejournal.com]

I hate when Molly's written horribly. :D But, I don't hate Molly. I'm beta'ing a fic for Elle right now and she writes the best Molly.

No Molly hating here.

[chocolatepot.livejournal.com]

I hate that argument because, yeah, they aren't THAT poor, they just have to reuse a lot of things, but it's so Victorian, Social-Darwinistic. "The poor are too ignorant to stop breeding." GAH.

Re: Visiting via Daily Snitch

[chocolatepot.livejournal.com]

Well, does she ever come into contact with Hagrid in GoF to snub him?

[grrliz.livejournal.com]

they aren't THAT poor, they just have to reuse a lot of things

I totally read that as them having to RESCUE a lot of things, and thought "Well, yes, I suppose they rescue Harry quite often and I suppose that does put a strain on their finances, having this extra kid hanging around for months at a time..." :D

hopping over from the daily snitch

[3goodtimes.livejournal.com]

Well, I think the Molly-hating stems from a few different issues:

One reason is the amount of reader sympathy for Sirius, who Molly often berated out of concern for Harry. Some felt she was too harsh on a man who had just come out a 12 year prison sentence and had risked life and limb for his Godson, while those who sided with Molly believed she made a good point about Sirius not fulfilling his duties as surrogate father. Of course, there are a good number of extremly devoted Sirius fans who were highly offended by Molly's remarks in book five.

Another is Molly's role as nagging mum. I think many of us can relate to the exhasperation one feels when a mother's over-protectiveness kicks in. Molly is a prime example of this and can strike some people (teenagers, especially) as annoying.

And the third, and perhaps most obscure reason readers may not like Mrs. Weasley is her role as a woman. Weepy, over-emotional, nagging, domineering adult woman. Female fans might be sensing (perhaps without even realizing it) Molly's tendancy to embrace the stereotype stay-at-home mother: affection and protection, but also, unfortunately, that other girly trait--the ability to overeact.

That being said, I myself have mixed feelings about Molly, which I think is a good thing. Great characters are not great because they're prefect, but because they are complex and, ultimately, flawed.

Whew! That turned into a rant, didn't it? :)

[summerborn.livejournal.com]

I don't hate her, but I do find some of her actions rather abhorrent. Others have mentioned the snubbing of Hermione, but what really got me was the way she treated Fleur, even after Bill had become engaged to the girl. Molly acted as though Bill couldn't know who he really wanted to marry, and actively tried to break them up (at least, that's one interpretation of her actions).

Of course, the best excuse I've seen for this behavior is that maybe Molly comes from a family where marriages are usually arranged (usually the basis for that theory involves a lot of pureblood families using arranged marriages), and she just doesn't quite grasp the concept of choosing your own spouse. In any case, Molly goes a long way toward redeeming herself at the end of HBP when she seems to finally accept Fleur.

So, I like Molly more than I dislike her, but I definitely agree that she could handle her children better at times. For the record, I am over 25 and have kids of my own (and I've been in the position of not liking the person one of my kids got engaged to!).

[arclevel.livejournal.com]

No more obvious is this made when Molly refuses to let Ron participate in the DA because he doesn't need to learn to protect himself, which harkens back to Umbridge's first DADA class when she laughs off the students' desires to actual learn pratical defense spells.

This was exactly what I was going to point out. There are a wide variety of reasons I dislike Molly, but this seems to be one of the places where it seems just so painfully obvious that she should know better. The issue of Hermione and the egg in GoF is another.

It's interesting that people suggest that a reason people *dislike* Molly is because she's too much *like* their own mothers, and that they therefore have mother issues. If that's true (and it seems to be in a few cases, but rarely), then it really doesn't speak too highly of her parenting, does it?

[arclevel.livejournal.com]

Yes, taking your response in combination with the above about her treatment of Sirius, she's done and said some remarkably nasty things to the people around her. One that always makes my jaw drop is during her argument with Sirius, Harry's first night at 12 Grimmauld Place. In the midst of completely brushing aside Sirius in his role as Harry's godfather, she blames him for not being there for Harry while he was in Azkaban. As she knew perfectly well by that point that he was innocent, that's just an extraordinarily low blow.

[arclevel.livejournal.com]

Forgot to mention that I'm hardly an "extremely devoted" Sirius fan; I usually like him even less than I like Molly.

[shantari.livejournal.com]

Well, hmm, I don't hate Molly. I'm kind of between liking and disliking her. She's annoying and manipulative, but she does have a good heart.

The only fic I got with her in it, is concentrating on some of her more negative aspects, simply because they play into the plot and happenings so much. (Her ickle Ronnie-kins is a big boy going to get married, and she's about to butt her head deep into the planning of the wedding, with the bride-to-be being practically overrun by her.)

[shiv5468.livejournal.com]

I have no problems with my mother, have never liked Sirius as a character especially, and have no Ginny issues at all.

I just think she's a bad mother - she puts her feelings about things above sitting down and having a quiet think about what's the best thing to do. She puts her needs and wants abover those of her own children. She has knee jerk reactions to everything around her and seems to prefer Harry to her own children.

I'd have a lot more respect for her if, instead of berating Sirius for his behaviour, she'd had a go at Dumbledore about the way he was keeping Harry in the dark.

She's all emotion, and I think the world divides into people who like that in a character and think that Emotion = Love = Good and people like me who think Emotion may very well = Love but that isn't always Good and is frequently Bad. She's possessive of her sons, as shown by the Fleur incident, and I think it's mor than a coincidence that her oldest children have taken jobs on the other side of the world to get away from her - they want a rest from the nagging.

I dislike her because she's a bloody cliche of what a mother should be with a very nasty undercurrent.

[tree_and_leaf]

Why irresponsible? Since the tendency in the wizarding world seems to be for small families, and having people killed by Death Eaters, I'd say they need someone to have lots of kids, just to balance things out. Otherwise, who will pay our heroes pensions?