yes i would love to!!!! the original post was inspired by a comment i saw on tiktok, saying that there is a clear difference between regulus/barty/evan ect and petunia/bellatrix/narcissia/umbridge ect if we are talking about cannon, and i, in that moment, just thought about how hypocritical it was for the marauders fandom specifically to claim to not care about cannon when it came to characters (especially the men), and giving them more depth and character building, whereas the women are more commonly held to the characters we see in cannon, and when ever someone shares a head cannon about them [the women] that paints them as a better or more complex character than they are in cannon, it’s always followed by a slew of comments saying “but the were a bad person”.
what i meant by “this fandom gives regulus the complexity that petunia has in cannon”, im talking about the canonical points in the story at which shows how petunia became the way that she is. as an older sister who was constantly compared to her younger sister, and was left in her shadow, that built up a lot of resentment, and made her the bitter and abusive person we see in the books, however she was not always like that.
whenever regulus is portrayed in fandom, it’s always giving him the same sort of character arc where he was slowly forced into this hateful role by his family, however in the end he did the right thing by betraying voldemort. and i think it very important to note that i have nothing against this portrayal of regulus, i have loved regulus’ character since i was 8, long before joining this fandom. the problem i have is people using this portrayal as the end all be all for who regulus is, when it is in fact a headcannon.
from what we know in cannon (which admittedly is biased, because it’s from sirius, who dos not like his brother in cannon), regulus was a voldemort fanboy and always had been. the only reason he wanted to destroy the locket was because voldemort almost killed his beloved house elf kreature, he dint have a come to jesus moment where he decided to do the right thing. his actions, while indicative of being rebellious against voldemort and the death eaters was done purely out of selfish reasons, and not for the greater good.
the tag “the hypocrisy in this fandom drives me nuts”, is because of the points i listed above. in my observations i have learned that the women characters who are given complex story arcs because we see them more in cannon, but they aren’t good people, are more likely to be chalked up to their bad actions and personalities, than the male characters who the only thing we know about the is that they were death eaters are given complexity by the fandom in an attempt to “redeem them” or “justify their actions”.
i spend a lot of time thinking about regulus and petunia because i think they are both relatively similar, and have both always had a special place in my heart. this is ofc just my opinion, and if you disagree you disagree.
thank you for coming to my ted talk
