Dementors on the dole...

I read an article recently about the derogative way disabled characters are represented in books. It explained that even if they are the good guy their disability is still their defining characteristic rather than their personality. Of the top of my head, I couldn’t think of any books that had disabled people in them, good or bad. Reading on, it soon became apparent that this was perhaps because as a child I did not think off sick people in books as being “disabled” or “different”. They were just another character too me. But maybes that’s just how I was raised or whatever. Anyway, to the good stuff! Overall the article uses a hoard of what I found to be highly irrelevant examples of books in which such people existed. The most ridiculous of which was the following:

“Disability is either almost entirely ignored or negatively portrayed, as with the rapatious blind Dementors, in J. K. Rowling’s hugely successful Harry Potter series.”

For one thing, its rapacious, and for another, like OMG seriously? That’s how you read into her story? The evilest, most terrifying creature in the whole book that sucks people souls out and destroys their happiness is trying to kill the hero and you turn the whole thing around into her being discriminating because they are blind?! Jesus Christ that is so god damn ridiculous! They are blind but can still sense you through your positive emotions, that’s what they feed of. Heightened senses hello! They are perfectly capable of seeking out and killing people despite their blindness and it is most certainly not the main focus of their personality.

But maybe this writer is right, perhaps we should get Ms Rowling to go back and re-write her story, depicting the Dementors as the unsung heroes of the book fighting the evil boy whose thick rimmed glasses suggest only mild visual disruption. Or perhaps we could see them going down the job centre and filling in a DLA form only to be told that their just not quite blind enough to qualify so they will need to apply for Job Seekers Allowance. Dementors on the dole. Somehow I don’t think that book would have gone down quite so well.