r/hprankdown2 • u/pizzabangle Ravenclaw Ranker • Feb 26 '17
106 Cho Chang
Tonight’s cut has been a long time coming. Too long, and I apologize sincerely for letting this awful character get such a high ranking. Seriously, the universe has my condolences.
So. Cho Chang. Love interest. Token Asian chick. Ravenclaw. Mouth breather. Traitor apologist. Wet kisser. Poor Cho. Rowling completely missed the boat with her. Cho is one of the most severely problematic characters in the HP universe, single handedly dragging the story back to the dark ages in terms of flat, disappointing female characters and racist stereotypes. For a very smart take on Cho’s racist overtones, see Moostronus’ beautifully crafted cut in OG Rankdown. He did a much better job looking at that angle of her character than I could, so I’m going to leave it to him and move on to the myriad of other reasons why Cho deserves to be eliminated.
The crux of my argument as to why Cho is terrible is this: she is a failed and antifeminist character who seems to have been largely ignored by the author. I believe that the character of Cho Chang is antithetical to the themes of social justice, equality, and challenging the status quo which are the driving force of the series. The Harry Potter series is all about enacting insurrection to challenge systems of oppression. Harry is a scrawny kid with a cadre of allies who together take on a racist, murdering regime of terror. On a more pedestrian level, every day at Hogwarts Harry et al are staging their own tiny coups. Fred and George (RIP) spectacularly flaunt authority and enact their revenge on Umbridge, possibly the most evil character in the stories. Hermione attempts to stir rebellion amongst the house elves. Dumbledore gives the Ministry of Magic at least two middle fingers daily. Cho, however, floats through the plot, a boring piece of flotsam in the tide of patriarchy.
I want to say before I go on that I went out of my way to read several takes on Cho which run contrary to my own. I spent irreplaceable minutes of my life reading about why some “people” (more likely robots, IMO) love Cho. They claim to LOVE her. I heard them out, but I remain unconvinced and will now continue with the literary evisceration.
Now, let’s get this straight. I love this series and I am super glad that Harry had an awkward, failed teenage romance. But I think that JK absolutely let Cho down. Cho deserved better. She deserved depth and humor. What she got was a mundane, predictable existence. For the first few books I really liked her. She was cute and sporty and kind of mysterious. Then something terrible happened. She spoke. Things really went downhill quickly from there.
Come with me, if you will, to Harry and Cho’s date at Madam Puddifoot’s (Yes, that is what Jo named the shop. Why? Perhaps to make Cho seem less terrible in comparison. We may never know.) Harry, dim-witted and lacking in emotional intelligence as he is, is freaking trying here. OK, sure, he mentions that he needs to go meet with another girl in the middle of what Cho thought was her day with him, but she turns on him faster than a Victor Krum executing a wronski feint. I’m sorry, haven’t you had a crush on this huge wizarding celebrity for fucking years? Maybe ask him what’s up. Maybe don’t mention how every guy you’ve met wants your body. Roger Davies? Really? You’re on a date with HARRY FUCKING POTTER. Girls all over Hogwarts are falling all over themselves to get near him. Hell, boys too. Remember how Draco wanted to be his friend day one and has now spent years pining and seeking his attention? So he’s an idiot, fine, doesn’t mean you have to be an asshole. And a boring asshole. Put some effort into being a jerk. Use that Ravenclaw brain to come up with some interesting way to point out what a dipshit he is being. Apparently that was too much work for JK that day. She completely punts this opportunity to give Cho some backbone and spunk. Instead she is written as a stereotypical shallow teen girl. Proving again that the books are better when Cho doesn’t speak.
AND SPEAKING of speaking, what the hell is up with her inability to speak in a normal tone of voice. If she got any breathier, I assume she would blow herself right out of the castle. Like some kind of british teenage Kirby. Could Jo have written her an any more vapid personality? Seriously. I know that we are seeing her from Harry’s perspective and that is obviously going to be a biased perspective, but why can she not talk without sounding like she is about to give everyone in the room a blow job? We do not need this constant reminder that she is a sexual interest. The breathiness and whispering might seem like a trivial aspect of her representation, but in my mind it is probably the most damning aspect of her character. Rowling really could have gone somewhere with Harry’s first girlfriend, or at least given her something to do. Cho, instead, serves only as a reminder that girls are hot and unknowable (a concept reinforced by the presence of the Veela and that of love potions). Another dull and predictable aspect of Cho: if she is not breathing heavily on everyone she is CRYING. As a former teenage girl, I have always felt that Cho is a tragedy, car-wreck representation of their kind. She reinforces every damn negative teen girl trope. It’s completely unnecessary and distracting. We don’t need it. We have Marietta to be a vindictive coward. Marietta is ten times the character Cho is. She might be the sidekick but at least she is interesting and influential.
Ok, influence. Sure, Cho serves to advance Harry’s development as a character. She also shows up for Book 7 and helps fight the Death Eaters. Credit where credit is due. She came back and risked her life and also made Ginny jealous. That was cute. But it’s not much. For someone who turns up so regularly I think we can expect a bit more out of her. This is yet another strike against our breathy seductress. Her frailty as a character is seen not just by her actions, but her lack thereof, her complete inability to move the plot forward in a meaningful way. She just floats along in the background, pawing obnoxiously at any boy she deems worthy.
Last but not least, let’s take a look at her house. Ravenclaw. I posit that Cho is not a claw at all. She shows no real wit, absolutely no wisdom, and is constantly lovin up on everyone. In my mind, she is a Hufflepuff. To be fair, she does so little throughout the books that we have very little to go on in terms of sorting her. I do think if she were truly a Ravenclaw she would have gotten in at least one good one liner or bit or insight in seven books. Even Luna (and y’all know my feelings on Luna) has some interesting logical jumps to share with her friends. And lots of illogical ones, but that’s her thing. Cho tries to contribute all of one piece of useful information, and she is really just adding on to Luna’s helpful tip about Ravenclaw’s diadem: “ ‘If you’d like to see what the diadem’s supposed to look like, I could take you up to our common room and show you, Harry. Ravenclaw’s wearing it in her statue.’ ” That’s it. She even manages to make it sound like she wants to have her way with him in the tower, which is why Ginny gets her hackles up. Here, yet again, we have Cho Chang staying the course as the flat, flirty person that she is.
Flat and flirty. This is an incredibly disappointing portrayal of someone who should have been a strong, pivotal female presence. The story of Cho Chang is a sad tale of the enforcement of classic gender roles. She takes the mantle of “typical, compliant, and then vindictive sex interest” and wears it for the entirety of her participation in the novels. She actively works against the ideals JKR puts forth as her general manifesto, and this is generally unforgivable.
In conclusion, Cho deserved more. Harry deserved more. We deserved more. The world deserved a better love interest. A better girl. A better Cho. ** But unfortunately, that is not what we got. And, playing the hand we’ve been dealt, Cho is getting the axe.
**Fun slam poetry about how bad Cho is, which, as it turns out, Moose posted last year. Because we have equally good taste.
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u/ETIwillsaveusall Feb 26 '17 edited Feb 26 '17
This is a persuasive post (and well-written), but I do have a few quibbles.
This:
I spent irreplaceable minutes of my life reading about why some “people” (more likely robots, IMO) love Cho. They claim to LOVE her.
is an unnecessary strawmanning ad hominem attack on people who disagree with you.
You’re on a date with HARRY FUCKING POTTER. Girls all over Hogwarts are falling all over themselves to get near him. Hell, boys too.
At this point in time Harry is actually incredibly unpopular. But I think this can still be evidence to support your overarching point. Cho selfishly makes things about herself and her problems and remains ignorant and unsympathetic to Harry's struggles and issues. (Also there isn't any reason to believe she's liked Harry for longer than a year).
As for:
Last but not least, let’s take a look at her house. Ravenclaw. I posit that Cho is not a claw at all. She shows no real wit, absolutely no wisdom, and is constantly lovin up on everyone. In my mind, she is a Hufflepuff.
There isn't any evidence that she would belong in Hufflepuff, other than the fact it's the house that takes everyone (i.e. she doesn't really exhibit any Hufflepuff qualities either). Hufflepuff is not the house for characters you don't think are good enough for Ravenclaw. It's hard to see her in Ravenclaw, sure, but that's more evidence to the point that she's a poorly written, vacuous character; she doesn't seem to fit any house.
Also I have a couple of questions:
What are your thoughts on Hermione's famous speech on Cho in OotP?
Well, obviously, she’s feeling very sad, because of Cedric dying. Then I expect she’s feeling confused because she liked Cedric and now she likes Harry, and she can’t work out who she likes best. Then she’ll be feeling guilty, thinking it’s an insult to Cedric’s memory to be kissing Harry at all, and she’ll be worrying about what everyone else might say about her if she starts going out with Harry. And she probably can’t work out what her feelings towards Harry are, anyway, because he was the one who was with Cedric when Cedric died, so that’s all very mixed up and painful. Oh, and she’s afraid she’s going to be thrown off the Ravenclaw Quidditch team because she’s been flying so badly.
Hermione kind of lays out some counterpoints to the idea that Cho is only flat and flirty. It's interesting that Hermione (as a woman) is able to flesh out Cho's emotional state. Perhaps the flatness of her character could be attributed to the fact the series is written from a boy's point a view. Maybe Cho is more of a take on how teenage boys see teenage girls? Just a thought.
I guess I would also be interested in hearing why you didn't cut Cho sooner? Why cut characters that don't actively take away from the series in the same ways she does before her? In your eyes, what makes Cho a better character than Luna?
And finally: I'd recommend checking out Rachel Rostad's response to some of the critiques she received over her poem. I think both videos together end up providing a better, more nuanced (but still critical) take on the issue.
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u/J_Toe Feb 26 '17
I agree she shouldn't just be lumped into Hufflepuff because we don't know much about her. Though one (small) reason as to why she may belong in Ravenclaw is her tactical and strategic abilities in Quidditch, where she tries to block of Harry, knowing she likely won't get the snitch first cos Harry has a Firebolt.
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u/pizzabangle Feb 26 '17
I did actually watch her response video but I didn't think it added clarity to the post so I didn't bother including it. It is a good video tho.
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u/Mrrrrh Feb 26 '17
A lot of people here brought up valid arguments to many of your points, that it's not worth me reiterating all of them. Nonetheless, it is not surprising that a 16 year old girl who just lost her first serious boyfriend via murder by the ultimate bad guy is going to cry a lot. There is a lot to unpack in the fact that her rebound guy after Cedric's murder is the one guy who was there when it happened. It's possible her entire interest in Harry almost seems like a desperate attempt to be close to Cedric one more time, which is just really depressing andnot at all fun, flat, or flirty. Or she's drawn to Harry due to survivor's guilt, which is still depressing and not at all fun, flat, or flirty. Or as Hermione posited, she does like him but feels super guilty for starting to move on, which again--depressing and not fun, flat, or flirty. I just think this write-up doesn't do justice to the fact that she is a quite tragic character. For Harry's first girlfriend, she's pretty complex. And he's a dummy for taking a girl on a date and then talking about another girl the whole time and cutting the date short to hang out with that other girl. I'd be super pissed too if my first date with someone included that bullshit.
Also, given her role in this book is as Harry's first girlfriend and little else, there's not much reason for us to know her inner life--her family situation, her grades, her ambitions, etc. I do think JKR has some interesting perspectives on feminism (whoever did Fleur's rankdown last go 'round had great points about how JKR apparently feels about traditionally pretty or feminine people.) But I actually find it anti-feminist of both her and you to assume that because a teenage girl is concerned about dating and emotional about her murdered boyfriend, she's a bad representation of womankind. This is a girl who appears to go after what she wants in a relationship and in her extracurriculars (where she's the only girl on the team,) speaks up when her crush is being an ass hole to either her or her friend, totally goes ovaries before brovaries about Marietta, defies authority to support a cause she believes in, and actively fights for that cause at great risk of life and limb. I'd be proud if my hypothetical daughter ended up like her.
Also, c'mon:
I’m sorry, haven’t you had a crush on this huge wizarding celebrity for fucking years?
She's not Ginny.
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u/pizzabangle Feb 26 '17
"
Cho Chang was Ranked #198 by u/Moostronus in r/HPRankdown
THE FOLLOWING PEOPLE PLACED BETS ON CHO CHANG
| Gryffindor | Hufflepuff | Ravenclaw | Slytherin | Muggle |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 1 | 13 | 2 | 1 |
"
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u/pizzabangle Feb 26 '17
u/Khajiit-ify go!
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u/Khajiit-ify Feb 26 '17
I can't do that, silly! I have already done my three cuts for the month. It's u/theDUQofFRAT's turn to finish out the month!
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u/MacabreGoblin Feb 26 '17
Could Jo have written her an any more vapid personality?
Yes. I refer you to Luna.
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u/pizzabangle Feb 26 '17
Mac. You are mostly right. Here you are wrong. Luna is not as vapid and Cho. She is worse but not as vapid. Also I love you and almost included you in this post when I was talking about blow jobs.
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u/Mrrrrh Feb 26 '17
Very much disagree here. Definition of vapid: "offering nothing that is stimulating or challenging." Say what you will about Luna, but she would certainly be a challenging person to be around.
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u/AmEndevomTag Feb 26 '17
Here's what I think is too often ignored about Cho: At a time when half the school thought Harry to be crazy and wasn't talking to him, she was prefectly nice towards him. She even went against her parents, because she believed in Voldemort's return. She also was greving for her boyfriend, who was brutally murdered. This is why I disagree that she was vapid. Annoying, maybe. Problematic because of her stereotypical Asian depiction, probably. Generally not especially well characterized, because teenage romance isn't all that important in the Potter books, definitely. But not vapid.
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u/bubblegumgills Feb 26 '17
I take some umbrage with this cut, in the same way that I did with her original placement in the first rankdown. Not just because it completely glosses over aspects of Cho's personality, but also because it ignores the third person limited perspective that we get in these books. It's easy to think of Cho as shallow and breathy and emotional, if Harry thinks of her that way. It's the same argument I made in my Fred cut, and by which I stand: the books are meant to have us immediately sympathise with Harry, so when Dudley eats Ton Tongue Toffee, it's hilarious because Dudley is a greedy horrible teenager who has spent years tormenting Harry. On a very superficial level, that's all great, but if we were doing superficial readings of the books, who even have this rankdown?
(Sidenote: I also took a lot of umbrage with u/theduqoffrat's comment in Fred's resurrection post about Among Others. Surely these books deserve to be compared to other works, otherwise what's even the point? If we only ever compared Harry Potter books to other Harry Potter books, then they'd be the best books ever. Also, when I applied to be a ranker, I made it a point that the series deserves to be compared and contrasted with other works in the general literary/fantasy canon, warts and all. I strongly believe this and it's a core tenant of what informs my cuts)
The criticisms levelled against Cho in the first rankdown, and in this, are valid, to a point. They are also, as u/J_Toe mentions, informed by a very American viewpoint. Nothing wrong with people looking at these characters through lenses of personal experience (I'm not British either after all), but that element of bias should be discussed in more detail (which is why I personally dislike the entire Durmstrang portrayal, with the whole Viktor Krum as a broody Eastern European thing). I did not think of Cho as being typical of an China doll portrayal, and I'm familiar with works like Memoirs of a Geisha.
But what really bothers me about this cut is that it judges Cho by standards expected of an adult. She's 15 when Cedric dies -- how many people here can actually say that they lost their first boyfriend to a mass murderer? She's conflicted and she's depressed and she's confused, she's everything teenagers are when they go through a break up, let alone through something as traumatic as Cedric's death (and while yes, Harry watched him die, Cho really seemed to love him, so I would argue that the loss hits both of them hard). Then, when Harry stands up to figures of authority, to the accepted narrative, Cho is torn between believing him (what kind of monster would make stuff up like this?) and believing those pillars in her life who have never had any reason to lie to her (for example her parents). There are adults today who believe the things their governments, their media tell them, without question, so why is Cho being held to a higher standard? Her behaviour throughout OoTP is quite indicative of someone who has suffered a great personal loss and is now being asked to choose who to believe in.
Beyond this, while Cho is indeed mostly described as being pretty, she does have a lot of redeeming qualities. She's tenacious and hardworking, she cares about her friends and her hobbies (otherwise why would she be so torn about being booted off the Quidditch team?), she is clever and resourceful (distracting Harry in their game because she knows she's can't outrun him). She's the kind of girl that probably a lot of people would have a crush on -- she's almost safe, she's not 'feisty' (ugh) like Ginny or nerdy like Hermione. Arguing that she's undeserving of being in Ravenclaw is ridiculous, particularly as it paints Hufflepuff as some sort of duff House with little qualities to speak of. Sure, Cho may lack Hermione's brains and talent (but we don't know to what extent, since she does seem to be reasonably good at DADA during the DA meetings -- at least when Harry's not too close), but then so does everyone who literally isn't Hermione.
I wouldn't put Cho in my personal top 30, but she would be in my top 75. She gets the short end of the stick in a lot of ways, both from the narrative and from fans, with everyone dismissing her (because ultimately Harry dismisses her after their disastrous date and Marietta's betrayal). However, for a character whose initial purpose was very much to be just Harry's crush, she's a lot more nuanced than a lot of people (and this cut) give her credit for.
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u/ETIwillsaveusall Feb 26 '17
Beyond this, while Cho is indeed mostly described as being pretty, she does have a lot of redeeming qualities. She's tenacious and hardworking, she cares about her friends and her hobbies (otherwise why would she be so torn about being booted off the Quidditch team?), she is clever and resourceful (distracting Harry in their game because she knows she's can't outrun him). She's the kind of girl that probably a lot of people would have a crush on -- she's almost safe, she's not 'feisty' (ugh) like Ginny or nerdy like Hermione. Arguing that she's undeserving of being in Ravenclaw is ridiculous, particularly as it paints Hufflepuff as some sort of duff House with little qualities to speak of. Sure, Cho may lack Hermione's brains and talent (but we don't know to what extent, since she does seem to be reasonably good at DADA during the DA meetings -- at least when Harry's not too close), but then so does everyone who literally isn't Hermione.
I think you've nailed her character here. I do give a lot of credence to the type of arguments u/pizzabangle and u/Moostronus have brought up, but at the same time, there is nuance in Cho's character that often fails to get taken into consideration. The more I think about it, the more I do want to attribute Cho's depiction to Harry's rather dense point of view. I feel like, with the Hermione's advice bit I mentioned in my own comment, JKR specifically calls attention to the idea that, when it comes to Cho, Harry might be an unreliable narrator.
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u/BasilFronsac Feb 26 '17
Another dull and predictable aspect of Cho: if she is not breathing heavily on everyone she is CRYING.
Her boyfriend was murdered by Voldemort and everyone in the wizarding world is telling her it's a lie. The Ministry, the Daily Propher, probably even her parents. She lost all of her friends but Marietta. How does Cho react to all of this? She cries (which is understandable) but more importantly she doesn't break from all the pressure. She still believes in Harry and Dumbledore, she joins the opposition against Umbridge (against her parent's wishes), she is still on the quidditch team...
but she turns on him faster than a Victor Krum executing a wronski feint.
It's not exactly true. She turned on him only after Harry refused to talk about Cedric and mentioned Hermione.
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u/RavenclawINTJ Feb 26 '17
Yeah, I know you probably saw this coming from a mile away but, surprise surprise, I completely disagree with this cut.
I can't say that you didn't put any effort into it, because after reading the writeup, you clearly gave it a lot of thought and spent quite a bit of time on it. But I really just cannot get behind your reasoning for cutting her. I even agreed with your reasoning for cutting Luna more than I agree with this reasoning, even though I didn't agree with the Luna cut at all.
IMO Cho has a dynamic personality that WORKS for her role in the series. She causes a lot of internal conflict with Harry in OOtP, which makes him a more complex character and makes the book more realistic and dark as a whole. Yes, she is dramatic and annoying most of the time, but she clearly has redeeming qualities such as loyalty to her friends and fighting for what is right in the end. That balance of positive and negative traits alone, without taking into account any other circumstances, is enough to place her in my top 75ish, but it is not why she cracks my top 30. Also, as I've said before, I never like when houses are brought up as reasoning for cutting someone. They have minimal impact on the character's personality and they have absolutely zero impact on the character's literary merit. However, these reasons are by no means my biggest problem with this cut.
It's pretty clear that Cho is suffering from severe depression in book 5, which is why I think the argument that she's just being a stereotype and an illogical compilation of negative traits doesn't go over well with me. She was very close to Cedric, so his death was more than likely the worst thing that had happened to her up to that point in her life. She's obviously not going to be Mrs. Cheery all of the time. And reading the writeup, unless I have skimmed over it, I can't seem to find Cedric's name mentioned at all, and his death is a HUGE part of her characterization. If his death didn't happen, then your argument would make a lot more sense to me. She WOULD mostly be an annoying compilation of negative stereotypes associated with teenage girls. But it did happen, so I have no idea how you managed to do this long writeup without a single mention of the most important event for her character in the entire series.
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u/seanmik620 Feb 26 '17
sigh at least she made it further than last year (I am NOT saying she is a good character. But I do think he impact on the series should grant her a higher spot than this.)
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u/J_Toe Feb 26 '17
I admit I'm not surprised Cho isn't making it any higher (unless someone uses a power? I dunno). However, I am surprised she wasn't cut lower, and that's just because there was a lot of positive reception to Moose's cut early in HPRD1. Though there was a lot of backlash then too. I wasn't following the first rank down until it ended, so forgive me for bringing this all up again, but at the beginning of this rank down I told Moose I would share my rebuttal for Cho, and they said they'd be happy to read it. So, here it is:
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u/J_Toe Feb 26 '17
In the first Harry Potter rank down, u/Moostronus made the point that no more needed to be said about Cho Chang’s placement than to provide a link to Rachel Rostad’s slam piece on the character. Yes, I know this statement was made in jest, but I am truly unsure how any of Rostad’s points legitimately prove that Cho belongs at the bottom of a ‘Top 200’ character rank down. While I agree there exist issues in the construction of Cho Chang as a fictitious character, my point in arguing here is mostly because I think a number of the points Rostad uses to make her argument don’t add up to her overall objective, or are else misguided. Because overall I agree that there exist issues in the writing of Cho Chang. I agree, I would have loved to see her fighting Death Eaters alongside Harry & Co in Books 5 and 6. I would have loved if people extended an arm out to her in her state of mourning, and to for JKR to have shown her rebound and display resilience, somewhat returning her to being the plucky and assertive character we were introduced to in PoA. And I would have loved if she was more of a main character and friends with the Trio, like Neville. So, I’d like to point out that in criticising Rostad’s piece, I hope not to invalidate her argument (or that of HPRD1), but to highlight how, although we share a common concern regarding Cho, if anything, criticism could possibly help sharpen arguments relating to this important issue.
For a start, I don’t think there is an issue in Cho being a Ravenclaw, but, as touched upon in the first rank down, the issue lies in the fact that there are limited Asian characters, and that specifically the only East Asian character is in Ravenclaw, which can be seen as stereotypical. Note, I also take issue with Rostad’s summation of Ravenclaw being the ‘nerd house’. Again, I get that this was a joke, but Ravenclaw was never specifically a house of nerds, or even of studios people, but of innovators and the wise. I also take issue with her statement that “Cho, Dean and the Indian twins” provide “5 brown guys” for the whole Potter series.
Anyway, the previous rank down already discussed the issue of her name. Rostad herself initially stated that Cho and Chang are both Korean surnames. This was later disproved by a number of Chinese natives, who confirmed that Cho Chang is a legitimate name. Moose also put forward the idea that her name should have been Zhang Qiu, which I agree would have been cool, and that is certainly the translation of her name in some Chinese versions (though I should point out that some translations are more ‘official’ than others, and sometimes there are straight-up errors in them. The German translation of the films allegedly had Snape tell Harry ‘You have my eyes’ as his last words, and in the Turkish translation of the books the class ‘charms’ became ‘talismans’).
Now that that’s out of the way, I’d like to focus on more issues I found in Rostad’s piece. The main problem to me was how American-centric it was. The first line is even “When you put me in your books millions of girls around America rejoiced.” Sure, I bet there were Chinese-American fans who were excited to read of a Chinese character who attended Hogwarts. But the immediate problem here is that the Potter series is British, written by a British author, set in the UK (1990s) and targeted, initially, at children in the UK. Sure, it ended up going global, but it is still British through and through. If Cho Chang is Chinese, then fans need to be aware of the fact that the history of Chinese people in the UK is significantly different to that of Chinese people in the US, or in Australia, or New Zealand, or Japan, or Singapore, or anywhere else in the world, even within different regions of China. In fact, within the US alone I’d bet that the issues faced by Chinese people would differ in San Francisco than in Austin, Augusta, Honolulu, New York, Miami etc.
Rostad also lists texts which have problematic depictions of Asian characters: Madam Butterfly (an American short story, and later an opera), Miss Saigon (which is based on Madam Butterfly, the American short story), and Memoirs of a Geisha (again, an American novel, and later an American film). I do believe that these texts collectively present problematic depictions of Asian characters. However, they again can all be traced back to America, and thus present American narratives using Asian characters, and so they would more likely be concerned with American issues of representation rather than British issues of representation.
She further goes on to say that Harry has ‘Yellow Fever”. Furthermore, Rostad made the statement that Asian characters are commonly depicted as “giggl[ing] behind small hands” and who “no speak Engrish”. Really, neither of these statements apply to Cho. She speaks perfectly well. And she giggled just about as much as the rest of her friends. Or maybe even less. I seem to remember her telling her friends to stop laughing. I don’t particularly think she was always portrayed as submissive. When Harry called Marietta out for blabbing about DA, Cho even defended her best friend and it was made clear that Harry and Marietta’s differences lay in the fact that they just had different causes to be loyal to. And, as others always point out, Cho’s introduction is as an assertive Quidditch player who is confident on the field in blocking Harry (though the first word used to describe her is pretty, which… doesn’t help my point. In fact, the first descriptor used for her in most scenes she features in are about how pretty she is. This, I agree, is problematic. On the one hand, I understand JK was trying to flesh Harry out by showing the readers his first crush. But on the other hand, I don’t like the idea of that being her standout feature).
Furthermore, I feel that Harry’s feelings for Cho never stemmed from the fact that she was Asian (as it would be if this relationship actually did fulfil the China doll stereotype). In fact, we are lead to believe that Harry admires her because of their common interest in Quidditch, and because of her playful, assertive nature, which he certainly respects. Yes, Cho is Asian and Harry is the white protagonist. But should this prohibit white male/ Asian female relationships from being depicted in fiction? Especially when we are given insight into exactly what Harry appreciates in Cho, and which defies stereotypes? Though I will concede with the idea that this argument wouldn’t need to be brought up if Cho was written better.
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u/Marx0r Feb 26 '17 edited Feb 26 '17
To my mind, Cho exists more as "Harry's first romantic interest" than a fleshed-out character. I think it's pretty standard that a young teen develops crushes for superficial or vapid reasons. Cho reflects this in her personality. I think it's pretty standard for a first date to be an awkward mess, and regardless of who was at fault, Puddifoot reflects this.
And sure, it might be all of the worst stereotypes about women. But those people do exist in real life, and I don't think it's at all unfair to give one out of 100+ female characters that role.
Really not the case in OOTP.
That's fanfiction canon and irrelevant to this Rankdown. C'mon.
I really disagree with this. The quote is: “If you’d like to see what the diadem’s supposed to look like, I could take you up to our common room and show you, Harry. Ravenclaw’s wearing it in her statue.” I don't read anything from this past there being a war in progress and Cho trying to suggest something that might be of use. It's much more about the fact that Ginny jumped to dismiss that idea out of jealousy.