What Makes Myrtle Moan?

[sistermagpie]

I found myself thinking about Moaning Myrtle today and wondering why the girl doesn't get more porn written about her, at least where I can see it. Because you know, Myrtle is probably the most blatantly sexual--that is to say, lascivious--character in canon.

In that Mugglenet interview JKR revealed that yes, the houses correspond to the four elements, and Slytherin, of course, was water. I'd actually say that Slytherin is the house most closely associated with its element. I instinctively get that Ravenclaw is air and Hufflepuff is earth, but the two Slytherin books are so waterlogged it's funny (or liquid-logged: the Slytherin bathrooms spew forth not only water but tears, urine and blood while sherry, fire whisky and mead abound). I believe when asked why Slytherin wasn't just destroyed since they're the "evil" house JKR said something about how it's important to accept all parts of yourself or all parts of the school, and that's certainly a healthy sentiment, but it also makes me think how interesting it is that the "water" part of yourself is the "bad" house that has to be accepted in spite of itself. From everything I've ever read about the elements water is the element of emotion, dreams, imagination, prophesy and depth. HBP, being the book of ships, deals with romantic love more than any other book. It also deals most frankly with the vague but we-get-it idea of "snogging." Not just the nervous mistletoe kiss of OotP (which Harry found unappealingly "wet") or the embarrassing PDA at the next table in the same book. This is just plain sensuality all over the place--one wonders how JKR could have introduced Blaise earlier, actually. He fits so well with Draco draped over Pansy, who's stroking his hair, it's hard to imagine Blaise at 11. I remember getting into an interesting conversation on black_dog's lj about the fanon-becoming-canon connection between Slytherin and sex, with references to the Fanon Gryffindor sex manual "Quidditch in Bed."

Which brings me back to Myrtle. I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but these are some things I've noticed about her in three books so far. I've often been a little disturbed by the attitude the books take with regards to female characters and I admit Myrtle doesn't make me feel much better about it--she is rather a grotesque of a very specific kind. She is, along with Hepzibah Smith and possibly Merope Gaunt, a letch. She, like those women (I am not including Romilda Vane, because I think Romilda's supposed to be more interested in Harry's name and status than his body, tattoos aside--a slightly different kind of bad woman), is openly interested in the male body while being physically unattractive herself. Tom Jr. allows himself to be fawned over to get his hands on Hepzibah's ample...cup. Tom Sr. is potion-ed into sex with Merope and then seems to come to his senses. anna_milton really has a point when she notes that the Tom/Merope story is an old one, only usually it's the handsome, wealthy gentleman, not the poor but noble-blooded wretch who's the villain. Tom sleeps with her and then leaves her, pregnant. Obviously there must be a love potion at work. Surely a gentleman would never have taken advantage of a young woman's love otherwise, just for the sex. Never happen. Nyuh-uh.

So, Myrtle. She appears in three books. Although, being dead, Myrtle is hardly able to grow, she actually does seem to grow in each book. Or at least, her lines reflect Harry's own maturity level back at him. In CoS it's Hermione who first tells us about Myrtle, explaining how she haunts the girl's bathroom and makes it go out of order. "I never went in there anyway if I could avoid it; it's awful trying to have a pee with her wailing at you -" she says. Hermione, as a girl, is annoyed by Myrtle when she's trying to have a pee, but her discomfort is manageable. It's not *that* different from having a girl at the next toilet talking to her. In general girls don't seem to have much to do with Myrtle, besides being annoyed by her. Myrtle is angered by Ginny throwing the diary through her, and laughs at Hermione's polyjuice predicament, but it's Harry who really draws her interest:

"Oh, well ... I'd just been thinking ... if you had died, you'd
have been welcome to share my toilet," said Myrtle, blushing silver.

"Urgh!" said Ron as they left the bathroom for the dark,
deserted corridor outside. "Harry! I think Myrtle's grown fond of
you! You've got competition, Ginny!"

Myrtle has begun to develop a crush on Harry, though it's not like Ginny's, since Ginny presumably likes Harry and wants what's best for him while Myrtle just wants him for herself (even if he has to be dead). Myrtle in this book is often prim about boys coming into the girl's bathroom, though it's more of a territorial thing. She opened the door to the stall before her death to tell Tom to "use his own toilet."

Jump ahead two books to GoF and Myrtle appears again, showing for the first time that she can visit all the bathrooms of the school:

"I'd try putting it in the water, if I were you."

Harry had swallowed a considerable amount of bubbles in shock. He
stood up, sputtering, and saw the ghost of a very glum-looking girl
sitting cross-legged on top of one of the taps. It was Moaning
Myrtle, who was usually to be heard sobbing in the S-bend of a
toilet three floors below.

"Myrtle!" Harry said in outrage, "I'm - I'm not wearing
anything!"

The foam was so dense that this hardly mattered, but he had a
nasty feeling that Myrtle had been spying on him from out of one
of the taps ever since he had arrived.

GoF contains the first hints of romance for the characters, but Harry himself is still at the stage of just not wanting to be seen by any girl naked, thank you. It's a nasty feeling to think a girl's ogling him. He's not at the age when the potential sex of such a situation is a perk. He's quite shocked at what he sees of Myrtle's hobbies, but he doesn't seem mistaken:

"Have you been spying on him too?" said Harry indignantly. "What
d'you do, sneak up here in the evenings to watch the prefects
take baths?"

"Sometimes," said Myrtle, rather slyly, "but I've never come
out to speak to anyone before."

We don't know what kind of sex drive Myrtle had before she died, but she honestly does seem to enjoy spying on fit young Prefects in the bath. Harry notices in this scene that Myrtle seems to enjoy "bossing him around" in showing him how to make his egg sing (not a euphemism for orgasm, but sure sounds like one). Myrtle has the upper hand here more than she ever did since Harry is naked, and, I think, because Myrtle's rather comfortable about her ogling-she's, dare I say, experienced. I can't help but read something a little naughty into this line, too:

"Well, that’s what Diggory thought," she said. "He lay there
talking to himself for ages about it. Ages and ages . . . nearly
all the bubbles had gone. ..."

Nearly all the bubbles had gone, huh? So Cedric was pretty much on display. And Myrtle was annoyed the pretty mermaid was "flashing her fins." This prefects bath is beginning to seem like Castle Anthrax. This is also the scene where we learn that Myrtle was confined to Hogwarts for the offense of stalking someone--Olive Hornby, whom she was tormenting. (I don't think I can read anything sexual into her hatred of Olive, but "stalking" is still something Myrtle seems to do in general.)

Harry leaves the bathroom promising to try to visit Myrtle, without meaning it. Whereas in CoS Myrtle was more like a drippy girl who wanted a friend and someone to whine to, GoF absolutely adds a sexual element to it--as sexual as a ghost can be.

Flash ahead again two books and Myrtle is not only shipping along with the main characters, she appears to feel she's got herself a boyfriend. Many people mistakenly think of Myrtle's scenes in HBP as taking place in her toilet, but of course really Myrtle has just begun haunting the boy's toilet, hoping to meet Draco there again. When she meets Harry she makes sure to remind him of their previous encounter, quite bluntly: "I came and saw you in your bath once, remember?" She even speaks of Harry's neglect in romantic terms: "I've learned not to expect much from boys."

Myrtle's talk about Draco is a romantic cliché: "I thought he liked me...Maybe if you two left he'd come back again...we had lots in common...I'm sure he felt it..." (it being the connection between them). Now, there's a lot of funny things about Myrtle focusing on Malfoy. He laughed at her death in CoS, he's helping the guy who killed her. But the other thing is, and this is hard to explain, but Myrtle's interest doesn't really work for me without the sexual component. That is, I can't imagine Myrtle crooning to 12-year-old Malfoy, offering to help, or telling people he's "sensitive" and not afraid to "show his feelings and cry." But now Malfoy has grown and caught up with Myrtle. It works because she's the parody of a swooning teenager--and Myrtle's definitely got a thing for hurt/comfort. She yells at the boys to stop dueling but enjoys her wails after Draco's taken away (her own interest outweighs the boy she's focused on, still, though at least she doesn't say she hopes Draco's dead). I just don't think their relationship works the way it does if you don't factor in Myrtle wanting a boyfriend, and putting a romantic spin on Malfoy to do it. I know drop-dead gorgeous Draco is fanon, but I think it's enough that he's sixteen and probably not bad looking.

Myrtle gets away with being letch, either in spite of or because of her own repulsiveness. She snivels. She wears glasses (apparently not as well as Harry). Most importantly, in every single book she's picking a spot on her chin. Pimples, those things that signal sexual maturation even as they are sexual turn-offs. Myrtle is also squat, with lank hair. I think, sadly, that she really joins Merope and Hepzibah in being a rather cruel caricature: the sexually aggressive but physically repulsive woman. Makes you wonder which comes first, the physical or the sexual. Whatever it is, there is something repulsive in the sexual aggression of these women. Harry is sure it must be in Hepzibah's house elf's contract to lie when asked how her mistress looks, because she is "a long way from lovely" in his opinion. When Tom appears on the scene Harry thinks he looks more handsome than ever (Seriously. His hair's a bit longer and his cheeks are hollowed, but it suits him--he's so handsome clearly he can't be interested in this monster). Hepzibah bats her eyelashes and "simpers" and pouts and giggles. Unbelievably, she almost comes out more of a villain in the scene than Tom Riddle, though his "greedy" expression when looking at the cup matches her greedy expression looking at Tom "handsome features." (One wonders what Harry looks like when he's staring at those features.)

I think we're supposed to know Tom Sr. could never have loved Merope, him being so handsome and her being so plain. The love potion really does seem to be felt to be needed to explain why he'd even look in her direction. It's hard to tell whether DD's idea that Merope probably used a love potion because it "seemed more romantic" makes her more ugly or less so. It's almost like she gets a little sympathy for hankering after actual love, rather than just wanting to have her way with Tom.

It's interesting, because I don't think you could say these girls are aggressive where others aren't, since on the contrary all the girls in canon seem very aggressive romantically. They just don't usually throw themselves at guys. Rather they plot, wait, strategize, trap, either for themselves or for others. The men are surprisingly passive in their way, even if eventually they must make the first move (I wouldn't be so sure Lily didn't fancy James before he fancied her, for instance. We know that while it might look like Harry grabbed Ginny for himself in fact Ginny had been working on him for years.) Sirius, the "sexiest" of the Marauders, doesn't notice all the girls trying to get his attention. Harry and Remus both nobly break off from their girlfriends for their own good. It takes Cho and Hermione together to squeeze what little romance that can be squeezed out of that encounter. Hermione's been working on Ron for what, 3 years now? Molly and Tonks plot to get Remus back with Tonks throughout HBP.

Comments

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

So what about Tonks's mousy, sad appearance and her public throwing herself at Remus, which seems to parallel Merope Gaunt's decline after Tom leaves her?

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I think pining in itself can be okay. My own understanding of R/T is that Tonks is attractive--even when she's mousy. Much like Hermione when not dolled up. She doesn't seem to throw herself at Remus until she's already got him--that is, it's not that he's uninterested and she's forcing him, she's just coaxing him to act on the feelings he actually does have.

[tesseract-5.livejournal.com]

Great essay. This prefects bath is beginning to seem like Castle Anthrax. *snerk*

It's rather standard to attribute the water element with dark scary evil things I suppose, the River Styx, the creepy lake in the cave in HBP, the merfolk and water demons...

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

True--I admit water seems like the coolest element to me. I liked that JKR said that she felt the Slytherin common room, under the lake, had a "spooky beauty."

[go-back-chief.livejournal.com]

Very interesting (and a perfect explanation on why my new ship is D/M! ;D) I agree with you that Myrtle seems, in her own way, quite sexual, she has always struck me as such, actually. That's why I didn't mind her being casted with an adult actress -first of all, i don't think a child/teenager could have pulled a part like that off, and secondly, I've always seen her as maybe sixteen, because she seems sexually mature. Your descriptions of Slytherin as the sexual house also makes me wonder if she was a Slytherin. Yes, I know, Muggle-born, but I don't think we have canon for muggle-born never being Slytherins (the hat only says "whose blood are purest, but what if it's a year when the pure-blood first-years are too few to fill the house up? Not to mention the other qualities, cunning, ambitious, it could actually suit her.)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I thought that same thing writing this--I wonder if she's Slytherin. She's repulsive, which unfortunately seems to be a Slytherin thing. Not that she'd have to be. I kind of want to know, anyway, what with her having the stubborness to continue haunting people and complaining for so many years.

I totally agree on her always seeming adolescent. In CoS it's more that the kids relate to her like an older girl who's immature for her age. As they get older she still seems the same way, only it comes out differently because they're older themselves.

[violaswamp.livejournal.com]

Whereas in GoF Myrtle was more like a drippy girl who wanted a friend and someone to whine to, GoF absolutely adds a sexual element to it--as sexual as a ghost can be.

I think you meant "CoS" in the first part of the sentence. /minor nitpick

This is an interesting essay, and I agree that it shows a rather disturbing pattern--especially when you remember that Ginny becomes attractive to Harry after she stops pursuing him and makes him pursue her instead, by going out with other guys and making Harry jealous. It seems that attractive women with normal sex drives in the Potterverse covertly scheme and manipulate men into asking them out, whereas unattractive nymphos are the ones who make the first move themselves.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Whoops--yes, will fix.

I thought the same thing about Ginny. And even when she is crushing on him she's not actively pursuing him as if he's "hers." It's more just that she gets embarassed when he's around (we're told she stops talking, thus becomes more passive). She sends him a Valentine, but it's more of an "I think you're great!" thing than her claiming him for herself or chasing him.

[duchess-of-dill.livejournal.com]

Glancing at your previous posts it looks like you've got a lot of insightful stuff to say about HP. I think I need you on my flist! Would you mind if I friend you?

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Not at all! I have had HP meta coming out of my ears lately--don't know how insightful it is, but there's a lot!:-)

[t0ra-chan.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Makes me wonder if Myrtle spied on Draco in the prefect bathroom too, he is one after all. Maybe that's why she wants to be with him and has started to haunt the boys toilet.

I wouldn't be so sure Lily didn't fancy James before he fancied her, for instance. We know that while it might look like Harry grabbed Ginny for himself in fact Ginny had been working on him for years.

Wouldn't surprise me at all. After what JKR said in the interview:

MA: How did they get together? She hated James, from what we’ve seen.

JKR: Did she really? You're a woman, you know what I'm saying. [Laughter.]

Sounds like Lily never really disliked James.

[cleverthylacine]

That just makes me want to throw up every time I see it.

[mondegreen.livejournal.com]

I wonder how Fleur "pursued" her relationship with Bill. She is certainly attractive. You could consider her taking a position at Gringotts as a strategy to be near Bill and "seduce" him.

But I wonder if Fleur made the first move, or if she just fluttered her eyelashes at Bill from afar?

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I figure with Fleur she's got this biological thing so in some ways she's always going after guys. So I suspect she only had to flutter her eyelashes.

[biichan.livejournal.com]

The more I think about this stuff in Harry Potter, the more it starts to creep me out.

Have you seen zerl's post on motherhood in HP? It's similarly creepy.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, I definitely saw that. Verrry interesting.

Meanwhile, another creep in another fandom...

[kaiz.livejournal.com]

Excellent essay, as usual. :-)

Myrtle has always reminded me a lot of Kenny (the Lamb) the 800 year old prepubescent (10 yr old) immortal from Highlander: the Series. A person eternally caught in that uncomfortable state between having adult sexual feelings and yet never being able to truly act upon them--in Myrtle's case becaues she's a ghost (and is reduced to voyeurism and stalking) and in Kenny's because no adult woman would ever take him seriously as a sexual being. Like Myrtle, Kenny was a creepy little schmuck too. ;-)

Re: Meanwhile, another creep in another fandom...

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Hee-I admit I love that whole idea. It's just so creepy no matter what you do.

[(Anonymous)]

Brilliant essay. I love Myrtle and am rather sad that it seems she won't be the Heroine of the story. I thought there was a good chance Harry would recruit her as a spy, since she does it so often anyway. You know, give her the chance at avenging herself on Tom, who killed her in her 'prime.' It would be exciting, too, because there would always be the risk Myrtle would decide she'd rather have Harry be dead, so he could share her toilet.

I do have one question, though, about Molly's plan for Tonks and Bill: don't you think she was actually trying to help Tonks with Lupin the whole time, and Ginny just misinterpreted that? She kept asking Tonks around, and Ginny thought that was to show her off to Bill, but she was also asking Lupin around at the same time, and Molly seemed annoyed at Lupin when Tonks didn't come to Christmas-at-the-Weasleys. At the time, Harry didn't get how that could be Lupin's fault, but I figured retrospectively that behind the scenes, Molly is trying to help Tonks out by getting her and Lupin together. I do think she didn't like Fleur being paired with Bill, but I think that the Tonks scenario was Ginny (for once) being wrong. I thought it was funny how the whole time Ginny was actually oblivious to the tangled lovelives of the adult generation, while acting like she knew more than everyone else did. That her mum had some secrets, as did Tonks and Remus, and that for all her brilliant guesswork, she was way off.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

You'd think, honestly, that as Tom's very first victim Myrtle would be very important!

I can't believe I never even thought about that with Molly, but I think you're right! She totally was probably just getting it wrong. It's nice to think that Molly wouldn't do that to Bill, actually. It kind of shows that Ginny is clueless about what love is to think that her mother would try to get rid of somebody her son loved (not that some mothers would do that, but it's a pretty awful thing to do). Thanks!

[mirabella]

I am madly in love with Myrtle's blatant voyeurism. I'm so going to write that one of these days.

But yeah, the stereotype is kind of icky. I don't think "Girls are totally allowed to go full-bore after guys, but only as long as they're pretty, or else it's bad and wrong" is a very palatable message.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, funny that the ugly ones are the ones who do that. Is it just that the pretty girl would have too many guys agreeing before she had a chance to ogle them? Are better looking people naturally blessed with less of a sex drive? Myrtle is hilarious. If you're going to get stuck haunting a bathroom for your whole life it's probably good to develop an interest in voyeurism.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Not much meta in here -- you've just got the song "Alison Gross" (I know it as performed by Steeleye Span) stuck in my head now.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Then my work here is done!:-)

[arclevel.livejournal.com]

You know, until recently, I never bought into the idea that Rowling was anti-female or had largely negative portrayals of women, but I was starting to come into that a little bit not long before this latest book. My first read of this one, I didn't pick up any anti-female sentiment, but the more I think about it, the stronger it seems. There are some very *interesting* female characters in these books, but most of them fit some stereotype or another, and the portrayal of many of them is disturbing.

Of course, "ugly or fat people are bad" has long been an important theme in these books, and it got still worse in HPB. We met two *more* really, really fat people, used still more unpleasant ways to describe them (I think at one point, Slughorn's stomach preceded him into a room), and saw them as being generally unpleasant in personality as well, usually being rather slick or creepy. The fat and ugly people in these books aren't necessarily evil, but there's definitely something to be avoided about them. Which is just what we need to make sure adolescents who hadn't "learned" that yet got drummed into their heads. Thanks, Jo.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I really don't like to make some sweeping statement about the books being anti-feminist, and I honestly don't read the books looking for "strong" female characters. I can see what all these women are doing in canon, and it's not like there's something I think female characters need to do to pass the test of being feminist. It's just that after 6 books there's clear patterns in everything, and there's a lot things there in the way the women interact. And then, in case you're worried you're reading it wrong, the author is usually saying those exact same things in interviews.

[galaxianomiko.livejournal.com]

Brilliant essay. :) I'm in love with GoF Myrtle; to me the way she kept perving on everyone made her even more likeable than she was in CoS. If you can't have a little fun once you're dead...

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Hee-I know! It totally makes me love her!

[kryptyd.livejournal.com]

I also don't like that stereotype of the unattractive, letchy woman. There are an awful lot of personality stereotypes (bully boys/girls are attractive and popular - yeah right) which are emerging more and more strongly in every book that I dissaprove of but hey, those people who agree with every word JKR says are no fun!

I think the fact that Myrtle is so sexualised is that she died before she ever had a chance to experience normal teenage sexuality. I think that scene where Harry's modesty-protecting bubbles are quickly disappearing and Myrtle is trying to take a peek is a little more innocent because of this. It's just natural curiosity! it makes her a character I can feel a lot of sympathy for to think of it that way. Than again, if she makes a habit of spying on boys in the bath I suppose my argument falls down!

I'd like if more people wrote about Myrtle and made her a bit more complex than just a needy, horny dead girl. I'd imagine people don't do Myrtle smut bacause of the erm...technical difficulties of ghost sex.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yes, ITA. Myrtle's like a cross between someone who is sexual and just a kid who's curious. And maybe the fact that she possibly can't feel anything helps to make her more blatant about the whole thing, like she doesn't really know why it's a big deal. Plus, she's bored. She's most interested in the most interesting things that happen in bathrooms at school: people having crises and people getting undressed.

I hope somebody does rise to the challenge of ghost sex. Draco's just a sitting duck once somebody does.;-)

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

Can I just say, BEST ESSAY TITLE EVER. Also, with my breath duly bated, Sister M, are you going to write a character analysis of every HP character? Because if so... I will do nice things for you. (Can I FedEx chocolate from across the seas?)

It's true that JKR does show women as very predatory (the epitome of this being the Veela) but you know, she's not as bad as David Eddings (in any sense of the word) who always, but always, had women coolly manipulating their reluctant and often protesting men to the altar. Like you said, one sees why the females are the way they are, and I personally adored the trope of Aristocratic Cad Abandoning Peasant Girl being turned on its head with poor, raped Tom Senior, who I personally have been patting on the head since HBP. (What happened to Cecilia, Tom, my pet? You must have been so frightened!) Because, subversion always rocks the casbah.

That said, I always did like Lily/James in much the same way I like Ron/Hermione (though hopefully Lily and James were going to last - though who knows, maybe not, they were awfully young to get married and clearly had a tempestuous relationship) because the boy is clearly crushing too. Sure, the girl's better at it, in Hermione's case, but Ron is also wandering about yelping that he's tall and breaking Krum's action figure. Lily may be attracted, but she totally condemns his actions and has written him off as a romance at the time, but James is very clear about what he wants. No love spells, snarling monsters or general air of bemused indifference for these boys. (Praise the Lord.)

Moaning Myrtle as a feature of this world is just as you might expect: allowed to be more predatory because she can't follow through. Just like Romilda Vane's allowed secretly administer Love Potions, but authorial intent will never let her away with getting her target. Myrtle can be sexually blatant (as she is) because she's the Ultimate Voyeur. Ultimately, she's innocent about both sex and death - not knowing any death but her own, she wistfully wishes Harry would keep her company through dying, but when faced with actual harm she loses her shit completely and sounds the alarm. (I have imitated, in cafes, this yell of 'MURDER IN THE BATHROOM.' I shall never live it down.)

The predatory women in HP can sometimes be very sinister (Bellatrix and Umbridge) but Myrtle as an innocent is funny, and generally I find the whole range of JKR's romantic concepts a wee bit funny. I mean, I loved that it was Blaise's *mom* who was a black widow - of course! There are no male seducers in HP! The only man who would prey on women is Voldemort! Sirius barely notices the ladies, Cedric is immune to Veela charms, it goes on and on.

Personal favourite HBP examples of this attitude, of course: Hermione's outrage that her date for the party tried to get busy with her (a 17 year old boy! after she asked him out! MY GOD, CORMAC!) and Ron's eminently sensible suggestion (for the real world) that maybe Draco was showing off for Pansy. Harry's bewilderment is tangible. 'What? Why would a boy want to impress a girl? Anyway, what possible need would there be for that? He hadn't done anything at all and she was all over him, stroking his hair, wanting to hold his hand - I'm sure he didn't like it at all, not at all! Not like anyone else wants to stroke his hair, is it?!!!' No wonder the girls have to make the running, these boys are denser than average.

Ahem: in summary, agree with everything, as usual. :) *hearts Moaning Myrtle and you.*

[slinkhard.livejournal.com]

Harry's bewilderment is tangible.

Heh, as well as 'Wow. Malfoy's going into this room which can become anything you want, with a variety of different girls. In times when the rest of the school is deserted. WHAT COULD THIS MEAN?' I think he even phrases them as 'girlfriends', like, why would someone want to be alone with their girlfriend(s! ;)? It's a complete mystery!
Aw, Harry. You're as smart as a box of hair.

What happened to Cecilia, Tom, my pet?

That was my question, too!
Although I can't really rule out that in the JKRverse she hadn't just been with him for his money/looks/etc., anyway.

but when faced with actual harm she loses her shit completely

Peeves does something similiar in CoS, doesn't he? I know he's not an actual ghost, but there does seem to be these hysteria surrounding death for the spirits, I guess because they were all 'afraid' to go on.

[anehan]

This is so totally on a tangent, but isn't it funny that one of the worst insults for men is "queer" (or some equivalent) and for women, "slut"? Both imply that the insulted person does something against the norm of sexual behaviour. Men aren't "supposed" to have sex with other men, and women aren't "supposed" to have sex at all, or at least not to enjoy it.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah--what a good point!

[kylandra.livejournal.com]

See, this is why I need to find time to read through these books more, because I miss a lot of this stuff. *hides*

Anyway, awesome essay. I always did rather enjoy Myrtle's perviness, though it's sad how negatively it (and all agressive female sexuality, apparently) is portrayed.

Okay, now I totally want voyeur smut. Wonder what other things Myrtle sees in that delightfully decadent Prefects bath? *grins*

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Myrtle's perviness is really subversive, isn't it? Especially when you consider how non-pervy our heroes are. Any porn in the Gryff dorm escapes Harry's attention!

That Prefect's bath seems almost designed for romantic trysts, doesn't it? I'm loving mike_smith's HBP readthrough and he's just heard about the fabulous bathroom and is intrigued. Too bad Harry is never seen using it in HBP (I guess Draco was avoiding the mermaid, or didn't want to bring the emo!vibes to the happy bathroom).

[ackonrad.livejournal.com]

I found myself thinking about Moaning Myrtle today and wondering why the girl doesn't get more porn written about her, at least where I can see it.

Am I allowed to reply for myself with, 'Um, because I don't like her much?' :) I wish I knew why I don't, because I love your essay and I loved Myrtle's words about Draco in HBP, but I still can't bring myself to really like her, even though I wouldn't say I dislike her.

I'm not making any sense, I know. Ignore me.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

LOL--Not liking her much is definitely a good reason.:-)

[arclevel.livejournal.com]

This does bring interesting thoughts to mind, the more I think about it. We seem to be assuming that Myrtle can't feel, and thus that voyeurism is her *only* outlet for her permanently budding sexual feelings. But do we know that? We know that ghosts can't physically interact with humans (unlike poltergeists), so physical Myrtle/Draco is likely out. But do we have any indication they can't feel sensations from their own "plane"? Could a ghost masturbate? (We know Spike can't when he's ghostly, but that's a different fandom, so different rules.)

Moreover, can they touch each other? The Headless Hunt play polo together, so they can interact with the "ball", which is actually the head one of their members. That would imply that they could touch each other, and thus could presumably have sex with each other. Myrtle's biggest problem then may not be that she's incorporeal, but that the other ghosts are "adults" whereas she's the only "adolescent", and unlike most of our cross-gen ships, this will always be the case. (Have I just opened a mostly new realm of shipping?)

Also, they can't be *completely* incorporeal on our plane, unless Myrtle is lying about being flushed down the loo (and *eww*! -- but then, no one ever uses "her" loo; what's she doing in ones that are being used? or hopefully she just happens to be in the pipes in between, traveling to a different toilet. Which doesn't particularly counter the "eww."). Additionally, and something I've wondered about before, is that Binns assigns his very corporeal students essays, and presumably collects and grades them. How?

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Actually, Myrtle *does* get flushed down if she's caught unawares. That's how she knows about what's in the lake--and Harry doesn't want to think about her getting flushed down with the sewage.

So really, there's no reason for us to count out physical Draco/Myrtle (particularly in a fandom that comes up with Harry/Dead!James, of course!). You just have to come up with some appropriately shivery sensation for ghost/human contact. It could feel like something, just not like skin/skin.

[romeoambiences.livejournal.com]

May I friend you?

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Sure! Welcome!:-)

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

This a wonderful essay, and I’ve come back to it a couple of times now just to enjoy every bit of it. I think your take on Myrtle is dead on, as is the way you use her to open up some nagging themes about aggressive women and the balance of the sexes in JKR.

You paint a vivid picture of Myrtle’s repulsiveness, but I also wonder if she doesn’t represent a kind of personal rebellion against the convention that has branded her as repulsive. She can’t get what she wants through guile or seduction, so she gets it through sheer brazenness and predatory behavior. In life, I mean – and of course in shadow form as a ghost.

I do see her as sexually experienced (Mistful makes a passing case for innocence based on her voyeurism, but Myrtle seems too confident for innocence – and what else can a ghost do but be a voyeur?) She seems like the sort of person who, in life, might have made herself an easy sexual object for curious and selfish boys, someone who embraced being called a slut or a skank because it got her what she wanted, in spite of her looks, and to hell with everyone, anyway. Who’s in control, really, in that sort of situation? It’s a shifting thing, and you can put all kinds of judgmental filters on it, but whether it’s humiliating or empowering is going to vary from person to person. I heard a gay guy once defend his practice of giving indiscriminate blowjobs: Sure, he was on his knees, but “I’m the one in charge, I’m making it happen, and I’m taking what I want from them.”

Not that this leaves her a balanced or attractive personality. But you have to make allowances for what losing a body does to someone so sexually obsessed. The whining and self-pity – are they signs more of narcissism than actual pain? Are they a parody of the lame-wolf technique she used, when alive, to attract the sort of game she wanted? She seems to have the resources to entertain herself, though not, of course, anymore, to take it where she wants to go. And this last bit maybe is, after all, a cruel mockery by JKR – that someone so attached to her body would be a candidate for “not passing on,” but be condemned to afterlife that was a parody of sexuality. Your suggestion about Myrtle-porn is almost frightening – somehow I see a rapid spiral of kink punctuated by Myrtle screaming “I can’t feel it!”

So, more on her technique: she obviously wants the upper hand, wants to put boys at a disadvantage but also make things really, really easy for them if they’re so inclined. Maybe even to use humiliation to provoke a reaction of sexual assertiveness. Your reading of the prefects’ bathroom scenes, and Harry’s discomposure, are hysterical. But I think a close reading of the first HBP bathroom scene has some parallels. I don’t think Harry is just standing by the mirror when he says “Hey, Myrtle, this is the boy’s bathroom!” in surprise and indignation. Give the boy points for being a bit more self-possessed after two years, though. And somehow I don’t see Myrtle as primarily “prim” or indignant when she charged out of her stall to confront Tom, but that’s um, purely speculative.

So what the hell is up with her and Draco? Let’s assume, as you say, that she just stumbles upon him while cruising the boys’ bathrooms (and avoid imagining why she would be doing that.) How in the world would they start talking? And can you imagine an answer to this question that didn’t suggest a lot more depth to both characters than we’ve been allowing them in fanon and meta? If she approached Draco at an exposed moment, either emotionally or, er, physically, wouldn’t he be furiously indignant? Or at least contemptuously mocking? So give her credit for previously unsuspected tact, which she must have shown somehow in managing his reactions. Which circles back to my point that in life, at least, she must have known what she was doing.

[continued . . . ]

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

[. . . continued]

I love the way you expand the discussion to take in all of JKR’s aggressive women. I hadn’t even thought about the way Merope/Tom Sr. inverts the whole Pamela-Clarissa convention, and it’s a wonderful observation. And reading this, an odd thing occurs to me. For all that’s been said about JKR’s boys having more depth of character than the girls, it’s hard to think of a boy or male who is as aggressive a driver of events as any of JKR’s women. In fact, conventional male aggressiveness is treated as something scary and barely controlled – as in Crouch Sr., or Fudge at the tribunal or Snape in general – or parodied, as in Moody, Lockhart, etc. Even our heroes aren’t conventionally assertive: Harry reacts strongly and directly, but he doesn’t really initiate things with the same kind of straightforwardness – there’s always something sneaky and indirect about his investigations and his wanderings and his schemes. And Dumbledore, of course, is the master of the oblique attack. The contrast with Hermione’s calculating plans, or Ginny’s headlong assertiveness, or even Lavender or Cho taking the initiative romantically, is kind of startling. And clearly Petunia is setting the agenda for Vernon . . .

But if there’s a feminist agenda in JKR, it seems to be an awfully conflicted one. For every bit of evidence for girrrl-power, there’s a “women need to watch out for bad boys” or a “you’re a woman – you tell me” lurking in the background. I don’t know what to make of that. I come back to thinking that JKR is not consistent after all, but follows her hunches and leaves her contradictions on display. And maybe that’s as fascinating, after all, as any more tightly-constructed message or argument could be.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you liked this post and love where you went with it. I especially like your pointing out that Myrtle isn't really primarily "prim" in her telling Tom to leave the bathroom--see, I think that's almost an intentional misdirect in CoS. She *sounds* prim because she's suspicious of boys being in the bathroom--"This is a girl's bathroom," she tells Hermone sulkily, and Hermione claims she's just showing Harry and Ron how nice it is. But really perhaps Myrtle is simply jealous of Hermione having boyfriends. Like only Myrtle is allowed to say who comes into her bathroom.

And definitely in HBP I thought Harry and Ron were supposed to be in the middle of something when Myrtle floated up out of the toilet--I also love how a more mature Harry is able to joke back at her when she says she saw him in the bath, saying he remembers it "vividly." Ron even feels better mocking Myrtle for her alleged boyfriend. It really does seem to seem like Myrtle may have been somebody who had more experience with boys than the superficial person might think, if they assumed that only the pretty girls are attractive. I can easily see her being used/using boys, so that her brazen sexuality isn't something she developed after years of ghostly voyeurism at all, but just the continuation of her regular behavior. Perhaps Tom might have been a precursor to Draco, had he not been up to real evil.

And now I am so curious as to know what Draco/Myrtle was like because you're absolutely right--how did they begin to speak? It suggests that Myrtle is able to give someone comfort, or appear to. And it suggests Draco in a conversation there's been no hint he can have, a conversation with someone who's difficult and ridiculous. Both of them would have to have a little patience and give something to the other in order to start talking. It's hard to believe that Draco was just so vulnerable he'd talk to anyone--he flips quickly enough into attack when he sees Harry. Perhaps there was even something like Ron there, where Draco felt better comparing himself to Myrtle and that made him be okay with Myrtle herself--a bit like DD's praise of his cleverness gives him comfort and courage later on. I've seen some misguided theories that Draco had some ulterior motive speaking with Myrtle (like finding out about the CoS or Harry), but the little we hear him say nobody can help him, so she doesn't seem to be giving him anything besides comfort. (Myrtle is in the stall when Harry walks in, so Harry doesn't see any body language between them, but given it's Myrtle it's hard to believe she'd not get as close as possible once she arrived.) Plus, Myrtle is usually making fun of people, so how did she stop doing that with Draco? Did she develop a crush on him first, through watching him? Did she try to tease him and then come to see that he actually did have a good reason for crying?

Please, someone write a believable fic for these two!

[roguenebula.livejournal.com]

Wow, this is so interesting...

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Thanks!:-)

[cutecoati.livejournal.com]

Great essay (as usual), you really manage to point out the most important and essential things (as usual)!

*sighs* I so suck at comments...

Have been enjoying your essays for a long time now - hope it's okay that I friended you.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Thanks! And welcome!:-)