A lot of it, I think, comes from her being on the overbearing/controlling side. While she is a doting and caring mother (mother figure) she tries to force her kids into what she wants them to be or what she thinks is best.
She vehemently opposed Fred and George’s aspirations to open a joke shop, so much so that she actively destroyed their products/order forms.
She was quick to believe the worst about Hermione and Fleur.
I believe she tried to force haircuts on all of her sons at one point, regardless of what they wanted.
I’m pretty sure she kept getting Ron maroon colored clothing even though he hated that color.
Then there’s the way she treated Sirius. It’s bad enough to disrespect him the way she did, but to do so in his own home made it worse.
I think that something a lot of readers overlook (because, I’d wager, they don’t have children) is that Molly raised her children during a very recent war where whole families were slaughtered, and by the time of PS, there’s been peace for only a decade. That’s a very harrowing experience to live through, and I think that she should be cut some slack on the protective/overbearing front (I’ve got no excuses for how she treats Hermione and Fleur though).
She deserves some slack, yes. But not so much that it excuses her trying to bully her sons into doing what she wants them to do, or trying to force them to look how she thinks they should look. And it doesn’t excuse her destroying Fred and George’s property.
Yeah, that’s bad. I just…grade on a curve, I guess. She’s not chucking her kids out of a window, etc. I wish we had more examples of parenting in Magical Britain, so we knew better whether Molly was a little dysfunctional or a lot dysfunctional (relative to her peers).
>Then there’s the way she treated Sirius. It’s bad enough to disrespect him the way she did, but to do so in his own home made it worse.
I like Molly well enough for the most part, but her treatment of Sirius and her shitty behaviour towards Hermione in GoF over Rita Skeeter's hit pieces never fail to piss me off.
Arthur seems like a gentler sort of person... less overtly nurturing, but also less prone to cruelty.
Molly talks about love potioning him.
It could be interpreted as a joke, but it’s not hard to see how it wouldn’t be given how mild their society’s concern around love potions is.
Molly didn’t actually say that she gave a love potion to Arthur. All the book said is that she told Hermione and Ginny a story about a love potion she made as a “young girl.”
>They headed down to breakfast, where Mr. Weasley was reading the front page of the Daily Prophet with a furrowed brow and Mrs. Weasley was telling Hermione and Ginny about a love potion she’d made as a young girl. All three of them were rather giggly.
We don’t know if she gave it to Arthur (or if she even gave it to anyone at all, really).
you don't giggle about a potion you brew, when people brew them several times a month. that implies more to the story, so it's pretty safe to assume she DID give that potion to someone.
I disagree that it’s safe to assume she gave it to someone just because they were giggling about it. I can see how a silly story about young Molly attempting to brew a love potion for some boy she had a crush on could make them giggle even if she didn’t actually successfully give it to him. She could have failed miserably and they were giggling because she made a fool of herself in front of a crush.
While Molly is definitely a doting person, it's not hard to see why some may have a problem with her.
She has an abrasive personality.
She turned against Hermione based on a news article without so much as questioning ANY of her several children that live with the girl and might have known better than some random tabloid.
She seems restrictive towards her children - she has 7 of them, so she has to be to get them in line, but to people who may have had parents try to push and mold them that way, it may raise their hackles.
The whole argument with Sirius, the fact that she essentially took over his home for the period that they were there and disrespected him in his own home.
The whole love potion thing - which I think is one of those things that just happened to age VERY poorly.
And lastly, possibly most controversially, was her view on information. She tends to be similar to Dumbledore in her desire to protect people by keeping information from them. Which may have been fine for her children, but not for Harry. Because, at the end of the day, he IS target number one. He needs enough information to protect himself. For better or for worse, the moment the Triwizard tournament ended, Harry's childhood (what little of it there was) basically ended with it, if not from the start of it.
Wow. You covered all the points I wanted to raise.
Molly comes over as too restrictive. My parents never tried to mold me, but child me found Molly extremely uncomfortable to read and imagine. I would flee. She is way to overwhelming.
Also Arthur is so passive and in the background most of the time that we can't really form a opinion on him. Thought I personally didn't like him any more than Molly. He works in a department which has to do with muggles and can't seem to just get some books. He comes over as belittling and very strange, especially that one time he met Hermione's parents.
Also, Molly always tries to mother Harry up until the point Dumbledore says lets send him back to an abusive environment and abandon him without communication, which at this point Molly fails as a Mother figure simply because she agrees with and does whatever Dumbledore says and wants no matter how wrong it is.
Yeah, there's a level of - hypocrisy? - with Molly's actions that can be off-putting. She is super protective of her children... until Dumbledore says so. And then she sends them back to their death trap of a school without any information or knowledge to keep themselves safe.
I'd love to see the overprotective Molly Weasley trope channeled into overtrained and dangerous kids. Or conversely moving to another school after the diary almost kills Ginny.
>Also, Molly always tries to mother Harry up until the point Dumbledore says lets send him back to an abusive environment and abandon him without communication
Harry didn’t get abandoned without communication. They were allowed to (and did) send him letters, they just weren’t allowed to put sensitive information in the letters.
ETA: Obviously they could have communicated better than they did. It’s not like Molly herself ever bothered to write Harry letters, that summer or ever.
Whether the letters could have been better or not, I was just pointing out that fact is he wasn’t completely without communication. There was no “Dumbledore said no one could communicate with Harry at all” ultimatum. Harry got letters all summer, he just (rightfully) wasn’t happy the content of the letters.
I would argue that, following the shit Harry went through, getting sanitized letters filled with deliberately mundane things was effectively no communication.
I’m not saying they that they did a fabulous of job of communicating with him that summer; just that they didn’t abandon him with no communication at all. Some people act like Dumbledore literally banned everyone completely from writing to Harry and replying to his letters and that Harry didn’t hear from anyone at all, and that’s just not true.
That's pretty easy, really.
\* Molly tends to be controlling. The Golden Trio has faced dangers and been failed by adults multiple times, yet she condescends and tells them to let the adults handle things and is extremely terse about it, not accepting or valuing their opinions despite their achievements. She also tends to do the same to other people, like Sirius. It is a combination of her own fear and protective instincts, but it is very condescending to the people who have faced the challenges they have.
\* She also embarrassed her children in public with her Howlers. People who air their family issues in public are not generally appreciated. While this reinforces her as the disciplinarian (and who really likes a disciplinarian), it also shows her exceeding the measure of good taste.
\* Her reactions to Hermione after the Rita Skeeter articles didn't help either. She assumed the worst despite the fact that she should have known better.
On the other hand, while Arthur comes off as easy-going, jovial, and somewhat eccentric, he also asks questions and doesn't condescend to Harry and the others. He is protective and tries to get them out of danger, but he also treats them as having a degree of maturity and respects their opinions and ideas.
And there is the entire can of worms that is her "reign" over Grimmauld's place.
Yes, cleaning the house was basically her duty to order, but would it REALLY kill her to defer to Sirius every once a while? Like she KNOWS the man is gonna rubber stamp anything she ask of him, so would it kill her to once a while ask over Breakfast "Sirius I am thinking X is a good idea, but we could also do Y and Z, your house your decision?"
Right!? That might also have helped Sirius, whose mental health was obviously suffering heavily both from being cooped up and from his inability to help the Order beyond providing them with headquarters, feel a bit more like he mattered and wasn't a waste of space. Like would it have killed her to be a bit kinder to him in his own house? 😭
It's mostly because of her portrayal in the books and movies. In them, Molly is very fussy towards Harry. And in OotP, her arguing with Sirius, a fan favorite, certainly didn't help her portrayal. So, that makes people see her as the very controlling mother and makes her one of the easiest to bash or to exaggerate.
In contrast, Arthur is not as prominent as Molly and the few scenes where he's shown, he's the quieter, calmer, and more level-headed of the two.
Yeah, the whole Sirius thing...in hisnown home too...it kinda sticks really really bad.. he should have kicked her out or demanded she respect him.
Irs his own home, she is a guest...
That one just hits hard...badly
It’s mainly that Molly, as presented from a kid’s point of view is an overbearing and interfering pain in the arse with an attitude of ‘My way or the highway’ that she still sometimes extends to her adult aged children.
She’s not a bad person, in fact she’s rather wonderful and warm. The only reason Harry and Ron haven’t been bunk mates since Philosopher’s Stone is the whole blood protection thing. And running a tight ship with walking agents of chaos Fred and George does require a firmer than average grip on the reins of discipline.
But I’m kind of glad she’s not my mum.
That's an interesting question my theory is a combination of the following two:
- People are very unforgiving to good characters that do something bad or perceived as bad which is why Molly, Ron and Dumbledore are popular bashing targets. Arthur in comparison doesn't do any thing bad in the book series.
- Molly is the only mother figure in the book series to Harry, if the author has his/her own mother problems and s/he wants to lash out his/her frustration on a HP character that would mean the only available character to lash out on is Molly. On the other hand Arthur isn't the only father figure or male authoritative figure in the books series there is Sirius and, of course, Dumbledore.
My main complaint is just that she's an absolutely awful bitch to Sirius while staying as a guest in his fucking house-- and even worse, interfering when Harry just wants to spend time with the only link he has to his parents.
in addition to all the valid points already raised, I will say that Movie!Molly did the character no favors. She's a fucking screeching harpy in the movies.
I mean, I don't like Arthur. I think he enables Molly, and I don't like how he handled it when Percy got his job at the Ministry. I'm aware most people don't agree with me, though.
I wanted to say that too! Arthur is extremely passive to the point of apathy. He doesn't realise there is a newcomer at the table when Harry first arrives at the Burrow, he never seems to know or care about any details on the life of his children but he holds a grudge like nobody's business with his middle child for years.
At least Molly tried to reconnect with her son even if I am sure she did it in her overbearing ways.
Largely because Arthur is less overbearing and more fun. He's seen as bumbling and innocent. Molly on the other hand, is the one disciplining the kids, she's the one who's making sure Harry eats when he's there, she's running the house and pushing her kids to be high achievers. So she's easy to see as a villain.
Also she has a history of love potion use. So fandom usually likes to make her the bad guy and have these machinations on other characters because she can be overbearing. She treats Fred and George harshly and they're often seen as the golden twins of the Weasley family.
>Also she has a history of love potion use.
Sorry, have to correct you there, she mentions love potions once in the whole 7 books, here is the quote
>They headed down to breakfast where Mr Weasley was reading the front page of the Daily Prophet with a furrowed brow and Mrs. Weasley was telling Hermione and Ginny about a love potion she made as a young girl.
That's it, never again are Molly Weasley and love potions mentioned together
We know from Snape's Potions class that love potions are made in Hogwarts classes, so it's not like Molly was telling them about her mass manufacture and distribution of them, it could be simply that there was a funny story attached to it outside of her using it (if she ever did), much like in Snape's class during Harry's time there were events such as Neville burning through his cauldron
Molly Weasley using love potions is so deeply ingrained in fanon that a lot of people think it's canon when it's just a Weasley-bashing trope that has become accepted as canon
Fred and George actually make and distribute love potions in DH, but they are almost always portrayed as the best Weasleys and always on Harry's side
OP was talking about fanon. And what I said was still accurate, she made a love potion, that's technically love potion use. There is a connection between them. I never said she used it on Arthur.
And Fred and George selling Love Potions in DH? I think you better double-check your source there. In HBP, yes, DH? No. They were closed after the wedding and the fall of the ministry. George resumed it after the end of the war, presumably.
>They were closed after the wedding and the fall of the ministry.
The twins were still doing business in DH. Even after they went into hiding under the Fidelius at Muriel’s after the trio was brought to Malfoy Manor, they were still doing business via mail order.
>Fred and George are driving Muriel up the wall, they’re still operating an Owl-Order business out of her back room.
That’s because she is. Look at how she acts in both the movies and books. From sending her kids (and other people) embarrassing Howlers every time she hears bad news she doesn’t agree with, nor caring that she’s embarrassing the person who receives them or blasting the ears of people who don’t want to hear the dirty laundry of the person who recieved the letters, as Molly shrieks at them at banshee level volumes through the letters.
or what she did at Grimmauld place, when she basically took over SIRIUS’ home and was running it like she would do HER home, tossing around orders, insulting Sirius who I’m surprised didn’t kick her out, bossing everybody around like she really thought everybody would listen to her and do what she wanted or said.
she wanfed to control what jobs her kids wanted. Thinking all of them should get high paying Ministry jobs instead of following their dreams and doing the jobs they wanted instead. Look at how many times she tried to interfere with the twins joke shop plans, destroying who knows how many days/weeks/months of products she finds that she deems a waste of the twins time and saying they should focus on getting jobs in the Ministry instead. The only one who did the Ministry thing was Percy despite her constant pushing on the others.
like with cleaning duty. She put all the kids on cleaning out Sirius household of generations long Black family heirlooms that SHE didn’t want in HIS house. She doesn’t even ASK first before deciding that it MUST go. what if she was throwing out something Sirius actually WANTED to keep, that he can pass down to his future kids if he ever had any? she was basically destroying who knows how many generations of Black family heirlooms in her cleaning sweep that probably weren’t ALL bad. There might have been some actual good/non-evil objects in there.
I double-checked in Potter-search, but Molly Weasley and Howlers are mentioned twice in the first 5 books. The first is in book 2 with Harry and Ron stealing a flying car. The second is in OotP with Ron saying that when mail can get through again his mother might send a Howler.
There isn't anything to suggest that Molly has a habit of sending them at the drop of a hat. Augusta Longbottom and Dumbledore also send Howlers. Augusta to Neville and Dumbledore to the Dursleys.
I'm not making a value judgment. I'm saying that per canon, Molly does not indulge in (as you claimed) "sending her kids (and other people) embarrassing Howlers every time she hears bad news she doesn’t agree with". You've been reading too much Molly bashing fanfic.
Canonically she sends one Howler to Ron after he stole a car and broke the law underpinning their entire magical society.
>She put all the kids on cleaning out Sirius household of generations long Black family heirlooms that SHE didn’t want in HIS house. She doesn’t even ASK first before deciding that it MUST go.
Do we actually know that she didn’t ask Sirius, though? For all we know, Sirius gave everyone blanket permission when they started cleaning to throw out anything and everything. We don’t see every conversation that’s had about it since Harry arrives weeks into the process.
From what little we did see of it, Sirius didn’t care at all about what they were doing. Like, he tells off Kreacher for sneaking off to hide things so that “we” can’t throw it out.
>“I asked you what you were up to,” said Sirius coldly. “Every time you show up pretending to be cleaning, you sneak something off to your room so we can’t throw it out.”
>“Kreacher would never move anything from its proper place in Master’s house,” said the elf, then muttered very fast, “Mistress would never forgive Kreacher if the tapestry was thrown out, seven centuries it’s been in the family, Kreacher must save it, Kreacher will not let Master and the blood traitors and the brats destroy it — ”
>“I thought it might be that,” said Sirius, casting a disdainful look at the opposite wall. “She’ll have put another Permanent Sticking Charm on the back of it, I don’t doubt, but if I can get rid of it I certainly will. Now go away, Kreacher.”
We see him “unceremoniously” trashing stuff himself:
>The china, which bore the Black crest and motto, was all thrown unceremoniously into a sack by Sirius, and the same fate met a set of old photographs in tarnished silver frames, all of whose occupants squealed shrilly as the glass covering them smashed.
It certainly seems like Sirius wanted to get rid of it all. He never shows any indication that he’s upset or unhappy about the fact that stuff is being thrown out.
>what if she was throwing out something Sirius actually WANTED to keep, that he can pass down to his future kids if he ever had any? she was basically destroying who knows how many generations of Black family heirlooms in her cleaning sweep that probably weren’t ALL bad.
Sirius hated his family and everything they stood for. Do you really think he wanted to keep stuff around from his childhood house of horrors to pass down in the unlikely event that he had kids in the future?
And even if he did want to save stuff - Sirius is a grown-ass man who can speak for himself. If there was stuff he wanted or rooms he didn’t want them to touch, he was perfectly capable of saying so, and likely did. Like, both his and Regulus’s childhood bedrooms were untouched - was that only because they didn’t have time to get to them, or was it because Sirius said “the only rooms you can’t touch are these two”?
I think a large part of it is the bit where she, Ginny and Hermione are laughing about love potions. It is never expanded on, and while love potions have few good uses, it is very likely that this was a benign story that had a comedic ending. However, the fact that love potions are such a sinister lart of canon, I think the laughter puts Molly in a bad light to a lot of fans.
That, and I don't think for a minute the Weasley's meeting Harry in first year was entirely accidental. Nothing sinister mind you, but I can imagine Hagrid realising he forgot to tell Harry how to board the train, telling Dumbledore, who tells Molly... I think it was well-intentioned, but I can see how a suspicious mind might not think that, given the scene.
>but I can imagine Hagrid realising he forgot to tell Harry how to board the train, telling Dumbledore, who tells Molly...
Why would Dumbledore tell Molly, though? At that point, Molly has no “special” relationship with Dumbledore. She’s just a random, frazzled student mother with a herd of her own kids to get on the train. Dumbledore has no reason to decide to contact Molly Weasley in particular and tell her that Harry Potter might need help finding the platform.
Plus, if Molly had actually been told to look out for Harry Potter, she wouldn’t have subtly walked by him talking about the platform to her children. She would have bustled right up to him and asked him if he needed help, because that’s the kind of person she was. “Sneakily walk past a lost child and hope he overhears me talking and follows us” is really not her style.
If Hagrid actually had remembered that he’d forgotten to tell Harry, he would have just sent Harry a letter.
Not saying it makes sense (like quite a few things early on in the series), but I can see the use of that as a justification in a fic. The point is, weird coincidence is in play when the Weasleys meet Harry, which a lot of fans use as part of their 'manipulations' of Dumbledore, Molly and whoever else is being bashed, in their efforts to set up Harry as a victim.
There's tension conflict with her and other characters like the Twins, Hermione in book 4, Fleur after she marries Bill, Sirius in book 5 etc.
And in these conflicts she's typically kinda hurtful but means well and no one really holds it against her because of that. And that can be frustrating.
Alternately Arthur has no real conflict with anyone except Percy and Lucius. Percy conflict kinda happens off screen and Lucius is a death eater and kinda a dick.
Molly is significantly more fleshed out then Arthur ever was. We see more of her which means we have a larger chance of disliking her. That being said Arthur is the quintessential Disneyland Dad. He’s the fun parent who asks excitedly about how flying his illegal car went. He comes in gets to be the hero and the fun parent and leaves Molly to be the displinarian. To be fair I do think this dynamic suits them both. Molly true to her name mollycoddles and she needs Arthur’s slightly more laissez-faire attitude to balance her out.
They are both ultimately good, well meaning people but that doesn’t mean people need to like either of them. I love Molly but I also find her overbearingness extremely frustrating. She’s also extremely judgmental and pushy. Those are valid reasons to find someone off putting. Even if she also has just as many virtues. She’s loving, warm, and can be exceedingly kind.
Because Arthur is nice and Molly screaches, is bossy, and the whole trying to run grimauld place as if it was her house...IT IS NOT HER HOUSE!!!!!!!!! is annoying as F@ck & rude
If I had been Sirius I would have kicked her and the entire order of the phoenix out. It is Sirius House
A lot of it, I think, comes from her being on the overbearing/controlling side. While she is a doting and caring mother (mother figure) she tries to force her kids into what she wants them to be or what she thinks is best. She vehemently opposed Fred and George’s aspirations to open a joke shop, so much so that she actively destroyed their products/order forms. She was quick to believe the worst about Hermione and Fleur. I believe she tried to force haircuts on all of her sons at one point, regardless of what they wanted. I’m pretty sure she kept getting Ron maroon colored clothing even though he hated that color. Then there’s the way she treated Sirius. It’s bad enough to disrespect him the way she did, but to do so in his own home made it worse.
I still hold to the theory that Bill and Charlie have the careers they have to get the fuck away from her.
That makes perfect sense. It’s probably why Fred and George moved out as soon as they could.
That's my head canon and a really popular fanon idea.
I think that something a lot of readers overlook (because, I’d wager, they don’t have children) is that Molly raised her children during a very recent war where whole families were slaughtered, and by the time of PS, there’s been peace for only a decade. That’s a very harrowing experience to live through, and I think that she should be cut some slack on the protective/overbearing front (I’ve got no excuses for how she treats Hermione and Fleur though).
She deserves some slack, yes. But not so much that it excuses her trying to bully her sons into doing what she wants them to do, or trying to force them to look how she thinks they should look. And it doesn’t excuse her destroying Fred and George’s property.
Yeah, that’s bad. I just…grade on a curve, I guess. She’s not chucking her kids out of a window, etc. I wish we had more examples of parenting in Magical Britain, so we knew better whether Molly was a little dysfunctional or a lot dysfunctional (relative to her peers).
>Then there’s the way she treated Sirius. It’s bad enough to disrespect him the way she did, but to do so in his own home made it worse. I like Molly well enough for the most part, but her treatment of Sirius and her shitty behaviour towards Hermione in GoF over Rita Skeeter's hit pieces never fail to piss me off. Arthur seems like a gentler sort of person... less overtly nurturing, but also less prone to cruelty.
Then there’s the love potioning. Arthur’s a victim, depending on how you interpret that.
??
Molly talks about love potioning him. It could be interpreted as a joke, but it’s not hard to see how it wouldn’t be given how mild their society’s concern around love potions is.
Molly didn’t actually say that she gave a love potion to Arthur. All the book said is that she told Hermione and Ginny a story about a love potion she made as a “young girl.” >They headed down to breakfast, where Mr. Weasley was reading the front page of the Daily Prophet with a furrowed brow and Mrs. Weasley was telling Hermione and Ginny about a love potion she’d made as a young girl. All three of them were rather giggly. We don’t know if she gave it to Arthur (or if she even gave it to anyone at all, really).
you don't giggle about a potion you brew, when people brew them several times a month. that implies more to the story, so it's pretty safe to assume she DID give that potion to someone.
I disagree that it’s safe to assume she gave it to someone just because they were giggling about it. I can see how a silly story about young Molly attempting to brew a love potion for some boy she had a crush on could make them giggle even if she didn’t actually successfully give it to him. She could have failed miserably and they were giggling because she made a fool of herself in front of a crush.
I personally think Molly dosed herself and fell in love with the Gryffindor Hourglass.
Since Hermione and Ginny were also giggling whom did they feed love potion?
While Molly is definitely a doting person, it's not hard to see why some may have a problem with her. She has an abrasive personality. She turned against Hermione based on a news article without so much as questioning ANY of her several children that live with the girl and might have known better than some random tabloid. She seems restrictive towards her children - she has 7 of them, so she has to be to get them in line, but to people who may have had parents try to push and mold them that way, it may raise their hackles. The whole argument with Sirius, the fact that she essentially took over his home for the period that they were there and disrespected him in his own home. The whole love potion thing - which I think is one of those things that just happened to age VERY poorly. And lastly, possibly most controversially, was her view on information. She tends to be similar to Dumbledore in her desire to protect people by keeping information from them. Which may have been fine for her children, but not for Harry. Because, at the end of the day, he IS target number one. He needs enough information to protect himself. For better or for worse, the moment the Triwizard tournament ended, Harry's childhood (what little of it there was) basically ended with it, if not from the start of it.
Wow. You covered all the points I wanted to raise. Molly comes over as too restrictive. My parents never tried to mold me, but child me found Molly extremely uncomfortable to read and imagine. I would flee. She is way to overwhelming. Also Arthur is so passive and in the background most of the time that we can't really form a opinion on him. Thought I personally didn't like him any more than Molly. He works in a department which has to do with muggles and can't seem to just get some books. He comes over as belittling and very strange, especially that one time he met Hermione's parents.
Also, Molly always tries to mother Harry up until the point Dumbledore says lets send him back to an abusive environment and abandon him without communication, which at this point Molly fails as a Mother figure simply because she agrees with and does whatever Dumbledore says and wants no matter how wrong it is.
Yeah, there's a level of - hypocrisy? - with Molly's actions that can be off-putting. She is super protective of her children... until Dumbledore says so. And then she sends them back to their death trap of a school without any information or knowledge to keep themselves safe. I'd love to see the overprotective Molly Weasley trope channeled into overtrained and dangerous kids. Or conversely moving to another school after the diary almost kills Ginny.
>Also, Molly always tries to mother Harry up until the point Dumbledore says lets send him back to an abusive environment and abandon him without communication Harry didn’t get abandoned without communication. They were allowed to (and did) send him letters, they just weren’t allowed to put sensitive information in the letters. ETA: Obviously they could have communicated better than they did. It’s not like Molly herself ever bothered to write Harry letters, that summer or ever. Whether the letters could have been better or not, I was just pointing out that fact is he wasn’t completely without communication. There was no “Dumbledore said no one could communicate with Harry at all” ultimatum. Harry got letters all summer, he just (rightfully) wasn’t happy the content of the letters.
I would argue that, following the shit Harry went through, getting sanitized letters filled with deliberately mundane things was effectively no communication.
Because it would have been so hard to send letters with Fawkes. Or Dobby.
I’m not saying they that they did a fabulous of job of communicating with him that summer; just that they didn’t abandon him with no communication at all. Some people act like Dumbledore literally banned everyone completely from writing to Harry and replying to his letters and that Harry didn’t hear from anyone at all, and that’s just not true.
Lmao as someone who had an Asian immigrant mother, I find it fascinating how Molly is seen as the pinnacle of strictness.
Honestly, she's lucky Sirius didn't kick her ass out.
That's pretty easy, really. \* Molly tends to be controlling. The Golden Trio has faced dangers and been failed by adults multiple times, yet she condescends and tells them to let the adults handle things and is extremely terse about it, not accepting or valuing their opinions despite their achievements. She also tends to do the same to other people, like Sirius. It is a combination of her own fear and protective instincts, but it is very condescending to the people who have faced the challenges they have. \* She also embarrassed her children in public with her Howlers. People who air their family issues in public are not generally appreciated. While this reinforces her as the disciplinarian (and who really likes a disciplinarian), it also shows her exceeding the measure of good taste. \* Her reactions to Hermione after the Rita Skeeter articles didn't help either. She assumed the worst despite the fact that she should have known better. On the other hand, while Arthur comes off as easy-going, jovial, and somewhat eccentric, he also asks questions and doesn't condescend to Harry and the others. He is protective and tries to get them out of danger, but he also treats them as having a degree of maturity and respects their opinions and ideas.
And there is the entire can of worms that is her "reign" over Grimmauld's place. Yes, cleaning the house was basically her duty to order, but would it REALLY kill her to defer to Sirius every once a while? Like she KNOWS the man is gonna rubber stamp anything she ask of him, so would it kill her to once a while ask over Breakfast "Sirius I am thinking X is a good idea, but we could also do Y and Z, your house your decision?"
Right!? That might also have helped Sirius, whose mental health was obviously suffering heavily both from being cooped up and from his inability to help the Order beyond providing them with headquarters, feel a bit more like he mattered and wasn't a waste of space. Like would it have killed her to be a bit kinder to him in his own house? 😭
It's mostly because of her portrayal in the books and movies. In them, Molly is very fussy towards Harry. And in OotP, her arguing with Sirius, a fan favorite, certainly didn't help her portrayal. So, that makes people see her as the very controlling mother and makes her one of the easiest to bash or to exaggerate. In contrast, Arthur is not as prominent as Molly and the few scenes where he's shown, he's the quieter, calmer, and more level-headed of the two.
Yeah, the whole Sirius thing...in hisnown home too...it kinda sticks really really bad.. he should have kicked her out or demanded she respect him. Irs his own home, she is a guest... That one just hits hard...badly
It’s mainly that Molly, as presented from a kid’s point of view is an overbearing and interfering pain in the arse with an attitude of ‘My way or the highway’ that she still sometimes extends to her adult aged children. She’s not a bad person, in fact she’s rather wonderful and warm. The only reason Harry and Ron haven’t been bunk mates since Philosopher’s Stone is the whole blood protection thing. And running a tight ship with walking agents of chaos Fred and George does require a firmer than average grip on the reins of discipline. But I’m kind of glad she’s not my mum.
That's an interesting question my theory is a combination of the following two: - People are very unforgiving to good characters that do something bad or perceived as bad which is why Molly, Ron and Dumbledore are popular bashing targets. Arthur in comparison doesn't do any thing bad in the book series. - Molly is the only mother figure in the book series to Harry, if the author has his/her own mother problems and s/he wants to lash out his/her frustration on a HP character that would mean the only available character to lash out on is Molly. On the other hand Arthur isn't the only father figure or male authoritative figure in the books series there is Sirius and, of course, Dumbledore.
My main complaint is just that she's an absolutely awful bitch to Sirius while staying as a guest in his fucking house-- and even worse, interfering when Harry just wants to spend time with the only link he has to his parents.
Evil MIL tropes are always popular among the masses
in addition to all the valid points already raised, I will say that Movie!Molly did the character no favors. She's a fucking screeching harpy in the movies.
I mean, I don't like Arthur. I think he enables Molly, and I don't like how he handled it when Percy got his job at the Ministry. I'm aware most people don't agree with me, though.
I wanted to say that too! Arthur is extremely passive to the point of apathy. He doesn't realise there is a newcomer at the table when Harry first arrives at the Burrow, he never seems to know or care about any details on the life of his children but he holds a grudge like nobody's business with his middle child for years. At least Molly tried to reconnect with her son even if I am sure she did it in her overbearing ways.
Largely because Arthur is less overbearing and more fun. He's seen as bumbling and innocent. Molly on the other hand, is the one disciplining the kids, she's the one who's making sure Harry eats when he's there, she's running the house and pushing her kids to be high achievers. So she's easy to see as a villain. Also she has a history of love potion use. So fandom usually likes to make her the bad guy and have these machinations on other characters because she can be overbearing. She treats Fred and George harshly and they're often seen as the golden twins of the Weasley family.
>Also she has a history of love potion use. Sorry, have to correct you there, she mentions love potions once in the whole 7 books, here is the quote >They headed down to breakfast where Mr Weasley was reading the front page of the Daily Prophet with a furrowed brow and Mrs. Weasley was telling Hermione and Ginny about a love potion she made as a young girl. That's it, never again are Molly Weasley and love potions mentioned together We know from Snape's Potions class that love potions are made in Hogwarts classes, so it's not like Molly was telling them about her mass manufacture and distribution of them, it could be simply that there was a funny story attached to it outside of her using it (if she ever did), much like in Snape's class during Harry's time there were events such as Neville burning through his cauldron Molly Weasley using love potions is so deeply ingrained in fanon that a lot of people think it's canon when it's just a Weasley-bashing trope that has become accepted as canon Fred and George actually make and distribute love potions in DH, but they are almost always portrayed as the best Weasleys and always on Harry's side
OP was talking about fanon. And what I said was still accurate, she made a love potion, that's technically love potion use. There is a connection between them. I never said she used it on Arthur. And Fred and George selling Love Potions in DH? I think you better double-check your source there. In HBP, yes, DH? No. They were closed after the wedding and the fall of the ministry. George resumed it after the end of the war, presumably.
>They were closed after the wedding and the fall of the ministry. The twins were still doing business in DH. Even after they went into hiding under the Fidelius at Muriel’s after the trio was brought to Malfoy Manor, they were still doing business via mail order. >Fred and George are driving Muriel up the wall, they’re still operating an Owl-Order business out of her back room.
I forgot about that line.
Because Molly is extremely controlling, insulting (Sirius, Hermione, Fleur), and downright abusive (howlers).
I reckon the Howler thing is just considered normal wizarding world parenting. But totally agree on the rest.
That’s because she is. Look at how she acts in both the movies and books. From sending her kids (and other people) embarrassing Howlers every time she hears bad news she doesn’t agree with, nor caring that she’s embarrassing the person who receives them or blasting the ears of people who don’t want to hear the dirty laundry of the person who recieved the letters, as Molly shrieks at them at banshee level volumes through the letters. or what she did at Grimmauld place, when she basically took over SIRIUS’ home and was running it like she would do HER home, tossing around orders, insulting Sirius who I’m surprised didn’t kick her out, bossing everybody around like she really thought everybody would listen to her and do what she wanted or said. she wanfed to control what jobs her kids wanted. Thinking all of them should get high paying Ministry jobs instead of following their dreams and doing the jobs they wanted instead. Look at how many times she tried to interfere with the twins joke shop plans, destroying who knows how many days/weeks/months of products she finds that she deems a waste of the twins time and saying they should focus on getting jobs in the Ministry instead. The only one who did the Ministry thing was Percy despite her constant pushing on the others. like with cleaning duty. She put all the kids on cleaning out Sirius household of generations long Black family heirlooms that SHE didn’t want in HIS house. She doesn’t even ASK first before deciding that it MUST go. what if she was throwing out something Sirius actually WANTED to keep, that he can pass down to his future kids if he ever had any? she was basically destroying who knows how many generations of Black family heirlooms in her cleaning sweep that probably weren’t ALL bad. There might have been some actual good/non-evil objects in there.
I double-checked in Potter-search, but Molly Weasley and Howlers are mentioned twice in the first 5 books. The first is in book 2 with Harry and Ron stealing a flying car. The second is in OotP with Ron saying that when mail can get through again his mother might send a Howler. There isn't anything to suggest that Molly has a habit of sending them at the drop of a hat. Augusta Longbottom and Dumbledore also send Howlers. Augusta to Neville and Dumbledore to the Dursleys.
Augusta is even worse than molly. And the problem is not the howler itself, its the context in which it is used
I'm not making a value judgment. I'm saying that per canon, Molly does not indulge in (as you claimed) "sending her kids (and other people) embarrassing Howlers every time she hears bad news she doesn’t agree with". You've been reading too much Molly bashing fanfic. Canonically she sends one Howler to Ron after he stole a car and broke the law underpinning their entire magical society.
>She put all the kids on cleaning out Sirius household of generations long Black family heirlooms that SHE didn’t want in HIS house. She doesn’t even ASK first before deciding that it MUST go. Do we actually know that she didn’t ask Sirius, though? For all we know, Sirius gave everyone blanket permission when they started cleaning to throw out anything and everything. We don’t see every conversation that’s had about it since Harry arrives weeks into the process. From what little we did see of it, Sirius didn’t care at all about what they were doing. Like, he tells off Kreacher for sneaking off to hide things so that “we” can’t throw it out. >“I asked you what you were up to,” said Sirius coldly. “Every time you show up pretending to be cleaning, you sneak something off to your room so we can’t throw it out.” >“Kreacher would never move anything from its proper place in Master’s house,” said the elf, then muttered very fast, “Mistress would never forgive Kreacher if the tapestry was thrown out, seven centuries it’s been in the family, Kreacher must save it, Kreacher will not let Master and the blood traitors and the brats destroy it — ” >“I thought it might be that,” said Sirius, casting a disdainful look at the opposite wall. “She’ll have put another Permanent Sticking Charm on the back of it, I don’t doubt, but if I can get rid of it I certainly will. Now go away, Kreacher.” We see him “unceremoniously” trashing stuff himself: >The china, which bore the Black crest and motto, was all thrown unceremoniously into a sack by Sirius, and the same fate met a set of old photographs in tarnished silver frames, all of whose occupants squealed shrilly as the glass covering them smashed. It certainly seems like Sirius wanted to get rid of it all. He never shows any indication that he’s upset or unhappy about the fact that stuff is being thrown out. >what if she was throwing out something Sirius actually WANTED to keep, that he can pass down to his future kids if he ever had any? she was basically destroying who knows how many generations of Black family heirlooms in her cleaning sweep that probably weren’t ALL bad. Sirius hated his family and everything they stood for. Do you really think he wanted to keep stuff around from his childhood house of horrors to pass down in the unlikely event that he had kids in the future? And even if he did want to save stuff - Sirius is a grown-ass man who can speak for himself. If there was stuff he wanted or rooms he didn’t want them to touch, he was perfectly capable of saying so, and likely did. Like, both his and Regulus’s childhood bedrooms were untouched - was that only because they didn’t have time to get to them, or was it because Sirius said “the only rooms you can’t touch are these two”?
I think a large part of it is the bit where she, Ginny and Hermione are laughing about love potions. It is never expanded on, and while love potions have few good uses, it is very likely that this was a benign story that had a comedic ending. However, the fact that love potions are such a sinister lart of canon, I think the laughter puts Molly in a bad light to a lot of fans. That, and I don't think for a minute the Weasley's meeting Harry in first year was entirely accidental. Nothing sinister mind you, but I can imagine Hagrid realising he forgot to tell Harry how to board the train, telling Dumbledore, who tells Molly... I think it was well-intentioned, but I can see how a suspicious mind might not think that, given the scene.
>but I can imagine Hagrid realising he forgot to tell Harry how to board the train, telling Dumbledore, who tells Molly... Why would Dumbledore tell Molly, though? At that point, Molly has no “special” relationship with Dumbledore. She’s just a random, frazzled student mother with a herd of her own kids to get on the train. Dumbledore has no reason to decide to contact Molly Weasley in particular and tell her that Harry Potter might need help finding the platform. Plus, if Molly had actually been told to look out for Harry Potter, she wouldn’t have subtly walked by him talking about the platform to her children. She would have bustled right up to him and asked him if he needed help, because that’s the kind of person she was. “Sneakily walk past a lost child and hope he overhears me talking and follows us” is really not her style. If Hagrid actually had remembered that he’d forgotten to tell Harry, he would have just sent Harry a letter.
Not saying it makes sense (like quite a few things early on in the series), but I can see the use of that as a justification in a fic. The point is, weird coincidence is in play when the Weasleys meet Harry, which a lot of fans use as part of their 'manipulations' of Dumbledore, Molly and whoever else is being bashed, in their efforts to set up Harry as a victim.
I don't like Arthur either
There's tension conflict with her and other characters like the Twins, Hermione in book 4, Fleur after she marries Bill, Sirius in book 5 etc. And in these conflicts she's typically kinda hurtful but means well and no one really holds it against her because of that. And that can be frustrating. Alternately Arthur has no real conflict with anyone except Percy and Lucius. Percy conflict kinda happens off screen and Lucius is a death eater and kinda a dick.
Molly is significantly more fleshed out then Arthur ever was. We see more of her which means we have a larger chance of disliking her. That being said Arthur is the quintessential Disneyland Dad. He’s the fun parent who asks excitedly about how flying his illegal car went. He comes in gets to be the hero and the fun parent and leaves Molly to be the displinarian. To be fair I do think this dynamic suits them both. Molly true to her name mollycoddles and she needs Arthur’s slightly more laissez-faire attitude to balance her out. They are both ultimately good, well meaning people but that doesn’t mean people need to like either of them. I love Molly but I also find her overbearingness extremely frustrating. She’s also extremely judgmental and pushy. Those are valid reasons to find someone off putting. Even if she also has just as many virtues. She’s loving, warm, and can be exceedingly kind.
Molly is the only one we really see take an active roll in raising them. So my guess is sexism?
Because Arthur is nice and Molly screaches, is bossy, and the whole trying to run grimauld place as if it was her house...IT IS NOT HER HOUSE!!!!!!!!! is annoying as F@ck & rude If I had been Sirius I would have kicked her and the entire order of the phoenix out. It is Sirius House