labellementeuse | fuck me sideways

Entry tags:

fuck me sideways

OK now. Of all the characters in fiction everywhere, Hermione Granger is the least likely in practically the entire WORLD to change her name upon marriage. She is career-motivated, widely-read, self-sufficient, politically aware and ACTIVE, and for fuck's sake, if that wasn't enough, she's marrying someone with FIVE LIVING MALE SIBLINGS.

Why is my fiction reading life so difficult, people.

Second question: do I get to count novel-length fics as 'books read'? I just read an epic Draco/Neville fic that I'm seriously considering counting even though I've never done that before. Thoughts? It was solidly novel-length, though I'm not sure how many words (averaging out a few chapters I would say it's about 150k, which is nearly four nebula novels; HP&tDH is apparently just under 200k and HP&tPS apparently 80k.) So it's the same amount of words as a novel. And they were pretty decent words, I guess. So... well, I don't know, you tell me.

PS I really mean it about Hermione.

Threaded | Flat

you don't think it's possible to be all of those things and still change your name after marriage? i do agree that of all the fictional characters, hermione's one who is much more likely to keep her name, but i don't think it's ridiculous to think that she might decide not to.

I don't know how similar feminism in Britain is to feminism in America, but I do still spend quite a suprising amount of time explaining to strangers that, no, there is no Mrs. Zhou, because my mother kept her "maiden name"; and it takes all my self-control sometimes not to explain that, actually, "maiden name" isn't even entirely appropriate in this case, because women of Chinese decent generally don't do the whole changing-one's-family-name-upon-marriage thing. People sometimes have a lot of trouble understanding why my mother and I don't share a last name, and don't even seem to have the analogue of feminist practices for comparison.

(Which is, incidentally, the other reason I don't feel comfortable with "Miss" and "Mrs." as hypothetically applied to myself, feminist sensibilities in regards to that whole argument aside--I always thought that "Miss" implies "this is my 'maiden name,' which I intend to abandon upon marriage" while "Mrs." implies "This is not the name under which I was born," neither of which is appropriate for me personally.)

Anyway, I... think it's still too pervasively normative for Western women to change their surnames when they marry to be certain either way in regards to Hermione, although, personally--not having thought about it much before, given that HP isn't one of my primary fandoms--I do agree that it's quite likely she wouldn't.

Apropos of nothing--I think Dairine and Nita are less likely to change their surnames than Hermione, especially considering the differences between DD and JKR ;)

But her becoming Hermione Weasley is soooooooo romaaaaaantic! *runs away*

Hermione is the sort of character who would insist her children have her surname, or at least that it gets shared out evenly between herself and Ron.

I don't understand the automatic response in fanfiction for all characters to change their names, regardless of personality and circumstance.

Never thought about that, but TRUE. I think I just sort of discounted the Crapilogue, though, so that accounts for my lack of rage. It's weird, because I was brought up with it, since my last name is my mother's and she's been married twice and didn't change it either time; and it always shocks me that some people just cannot wrap their heads around where my surname came from.

I really hate to bring up the spectre of different cultures, etc, but I would argue that all those things you said about Hermione, while true, may not necessarily indicate that she WOULDN'T change her name upon marriage. I don't know. I feel a little offended because when you're describing a character as "career-motivated, widely-read, self-sufficient, politically aware and ACTIVE" and then insist she wouldn't change her name, I feel like you are saying that women who do [choose to change their name] cannot be all those things.

Straight up, I am all those things and more, and I would change my name upon marriage if it were all that important to my fiance. Changing my name doesn't change me. Of course, I wouldn't do that for just anyone.

Furthermore, I feel like you're speaking from a community where a woman not changing her name is normal. I think that's great! However, in the community I come from (which, admittedly, is pretty much the middle of bumfuck nowhere farm country), it's almost strictly not acceptable for a woman to keep her own name. I don't know how it is in Britain. But here, there are many "career-motivated, widely-read, self-sufficient, politically aware and ACTIVE" women who change their name upon marriage. Canada is a progressive country; for example, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court here along with half the Supreme Court is female. The Chief Justice changed her name upon marriage. The only place I've seen where women generally keep their names is academia.

I think whether Hermione keeps her name has more to do with outside environmental influences than her personality. I also want to emphasize that whether a woman changes her name is a personal choice, and I don't think a woman should be condemned or congratulated on that choice.

i would totes count novel-length fic, but that's just me.
also: valid points on the name-change there. i think if it's going to be important for anyone in the Weasleys it would be Molly, but it's not like she's hasn't just adopted everyone anyway.
it would, however, be awesome, if Harry had changed his name to Weasley. admittedly, he wouldn't as blahblah fathers name blahblah family line, but still. or Ginny stayed a Weasley. actually, i can see her being more stubborn about staying a Weasley than Hermione a Granger, for some reason. hmmm.

Threaded | Flat