mrgawlik

What a well written and thoughtful article. I think the thing that makes The Witch particularly powerful is the way in which it shows the fear that its characters have in their situation. Thomasin is, throughout the movie, genuinely afraid of the idea that she might be a witch without even realizing it. Cast out of the colony and into the countryside, which, as you mention, was particularly feared among Puritans for representing sin and lack of restraint, she could become closer to a witch than she previously was. Witches’ covens took place in the forest, not on the street of a village; away from the watchful eyes of a community, the goat could become Satan. While the film might not be as pee-your-pants frightening as some other films to the audience, that’s only because witchcraft has, since the 19th century, become less fearful and trying an idea for American society. To Thomasin and her family, though, that fear is very much alive, and their changed circumstances make the likelihood of it affecting them greater. The film succeeds, then, as a horror piece because it conveys to the audience the fear that the characters have in their circumstances, even if that’s not a concern viewers themselves share.

This article makes a number of important points about how Gone Girl was received by audiences versus what its filmmakers’ intentions were. Chief among these is the description of how the filmmakers do not try to normalize Amy’s behavior–she IS a calculating, manipulative, and deplorable character, but the film itself never seems to suggest that being so is indicative of a greater pattern in women’s behavior.

It’s interesting to consider how Gone Girl compares against The Girl on the Train, in which [SPOILERS AHEAD] a man is the most violent and deranged person amongst a group of highly unlikable and complex characters. A particularly interesting difference between the two stories is how desexualized Amy is in Gone Girl and how hypersexual Tom is in TGOTT–in fact, it’s Tom’s lust and possessiveness/intense control issues that causes him to act violently. I would be curious to hear your thoughts on how these representations conform to or contradict assumed gender norms, and whether or not you think one depiction is more damaging than the other.

I’m not sure that I would say Draco is entirely redeemed at the end of the series–after all, he only exchanges a nod with Harry at Platform 9 3/4. There’s no other mention of the two getting along, or of Draco leading a respectable life. On top of that, Ron tells Rose that she’s to beat Scorpius on every test, indicating that there’s at least some tension still there between old enemies.

In many ways, Draco’s arc is less about becoming good than it is about being strong enough to shake off his worst traits. In the epilogue, Draco hasn’t become a beacon of tolerance or respectability–he’s likely as arrogant, privileged, and prejudiced a man as he was a boy. But what’s most important is that he’s bad, not evil. Sure, he might still think Muggle-Borns are beneath him and that Harry is a threat to proper wizarding society, but he doesn’t act on that in the way true Death Eaters did. He couldn’t bring himself to kill a man whom he and his family actively demeaned and considered a disgrace to wizards. He couldn’t bring himself to turn over turn boy whom he long hated and envied. What makes Draco an interesting character is that he’s a terrible person, but not in the same way that Voldemort is. He might be filled with terrible qualities, but he manages to stifle them. Draco falls somewhere in the middle of a morality spectrum, and this is what makes the Harry Potter books so powerful; aside from Voldemort and Bellatrix, even the worst characters have redeeming qualities and moments (and even the best characters, like Dumbledore, have foibles). Draco is arguably the best example of this in the series, and his development in the last three books in particular is worth looking at closely when reading them.