InsaneJournal

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shoot you in the head is my rob zombie cover band (zombiephile) wrote,
@ 2012-01-20 22:35:00

random question of the day
Why aren't wizards fat?

I mean, the HP-verse seems to tend toward a highly sedentary lifestyle. They have accio so they don't have to spend forever looking for something (and if they lose the TV remote -- if they even had tv, lol -- they could just accio it instead of having to get up and change the channels manually), and the one sport we really get to look at ... doesn't actually involve a great deal of physicality. Yes, the beaters most likely have pretty good upper body strength from using the bat to hit the bludgers around, but what about the rest of the team? The Keepers and Chasers are more on the hand-eye coordination (and throwing skillz for the Chasers), and the Seeker only has to be fast. Plus, it seems like the Quidditch players would be a relatively small portion of the population.

So ... why aren't more wizards overweight? I mean, there's the fitness nuts in any population of people, and the people who diet and work out like crazy just to be skinny, but .. what about the rest of the population? And with such a mostly-sedentary lifestyle, wouldn't the public opinion of "healthy weight" be something higher than what Hollywood shoves down our muggle throats? At the very least, I think it'd tend more toward wanting to be rounder, simply because that was historically a sign of wealth and prosperity and power and such: it's indicative of having enough food. And, with all the magic around and the seeming lack of muggle illnesses and such striking the wizards (and if they do get sick with muggle illnesses like the cold, it seems to be rather easily taken care of with magic), I have to wonder if they would have the same health problems associated with being overweight: heart problems, diabeetus, etc. I think the only real cross-over would be the extra strain on your joints from carrying around extra weight, but ... magic could easily help with that.

So why aren't wizards fat?

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diadem
2012-01-21 04:51 am UTC (link)

Good question! The only real answer, which isn't really an answer is that it's not something people think about? Which isn't entirely true because every now and then, I think of questions like that.

As for playing games, I try my best to think of realistic looks but I admit I never played anyone overweight. Not that I got for incredibly skinny either. The main problem with that I think is the fact that when it comes to finding a PB you're very limited when it comes to body shape.

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mightydrea
2012-01-21 05:07 am UTC (link)

To add onto what Chele said; I think that a lot of people, not just RPers, have a preconceived notion of what is "beautiful", and I think that not only are there a limited number of options when you start looking at curvier or larger PBs, not everyone finds them "beautiful" and either don't icon them OR they don't want to use them because they aren't a size 2. Honestly a shame.

BUT I think it's getting a little better as far as more people having open minds? I made a set of Garcia icons and they seem to be going over really well, which surprised me AND made me happy all at the same time.

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	chthonian 2012-01-21 09:27 am UTC (link)
	Not to mention, those goddamn Hogwarts feasts. (Reply to this)

morgielefae
2012-01-21 11:53 am UTC (link)

Have you ever seen or heard of an Anime called Slayers? The main character, a sorceress named Lina, eats like a horse. It's a running gag, how much food she eats, and any time she gets money from an adventure she spends it on huge feasts and the nearest inn. She's also this tiny stick thing with no curves to speak of.

The prevailing theory in Slayers fandom, which I'm thinking possibly applies to the HP universe, is that magic takes huge amounts of energy to power, and so they're constantly burning calories that way. There are a few overweight characters in the wizarding world. Crabbe, Goyle, the Carrows.... All characters that are supposed to be not exactly bright. And the less intelligence a character has in most OTHER fandoms (like Slayers), generally the worse they're supposed to be at magic.

It's just easiest to apply that logic to HP.

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eyeball_tree
2012-01-21 05:25 pm UTC (link)

The magic requiring energy thing is interesting and might make a good bit of sense in the pseudo-science of RP justifications!

But I don't think it can be an intellect thing entirely though. Slughorn's described as fat and he's not dumb. But that may be more a hedonism thing. And Molly's described as "dumpy" but she's 50 and has had 10000 children. Figures go. And Cornelius Fudge is "portly" but again, I guess all of those are older characters too. I'd guess part of it is Rowling's going to default to a more average body type unless making the character fat serves to explicitly illustrate some other character niche. Fat as dumb or fat as lazy or fat as jolly or what have you.

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	ginge 2012-01-21 03:21 pm UTC (link)
	THEY CAN MAKE VEGETABLES TASTE LIKE CANDY (Reply to this)

bajah
2012-01-21 04:02 pm UTC (link)

The Slayers theory is a good one (I haven't watched that in a long time, actually).

But I think there's probably a lot more overweight witches and wizards in JKR's written universe than there are in the movies and PB'd by people like us.

And that all boils down to identification issues. People don't want to go see a movie about a bunch of hefty wizards, so producers and casting directors don't go casting a bunch of large people for the roles. Likewise, people generally prefer to RP characters they like to look at, or find pictures of and post, or wish they themselves could be more like, so...

My guesses, at least <3

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alsoknownas
2012-01-21 06:35 pm UTC (link)

^^^^But I think there's probably a lot more overweight witches and wizards in JKR's written universe than there are in the movies and PB'd by people like us.

This. I can count on my left hand how many times I've seen Carrows that weren't model-thin, not to mention how rarely people pick up Millicent Bulstrode. Slughorn, too. Even Ron and Charlie are described as stocky, and it's hard to find PBs that reflect this (while still getting the red hair right, the personality of the face right, etc etc).

So really, I'd say that overweight witches and wizards exist in HP-verses. They just don't get played as such.

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katling
2012-01-21 07:17 pm UTC (link)

I think you're right when you say there's more overweight witches and wizards than in the movies and RP.

Movies, especially the ones where Hollywood is involved, do tend to be somewhat... overly beautified. Take a look at Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - British movie (Scandinavian director) and geez but there's some craggy, rough old faces there. No plastic fantastic Hollywood stars to be seen. Even Colin Firth is getting a bit 'lived in' these days. I suspect the prettifying that Hollywood does is one of the reasons why JK specified English actors for the movies.

In regards to RP, it's a source of frustration for me. I like playing less than beautiful characters or fat ones but it can be damn hard to find PBs. Though the Brits don't mind putting a craggy face and a saggy body on display or having fat characters. Unfortunately they're not often PBed which is a crying shame IMO.

Back OT - I think there's more in the way of body size differentiation in the books. Apart from Crabbe and Goyle, there's Millicent who comes across as being pretty big and solid and Umbridge who I recall is described an squat and toadlike. Vernon and Dudley are both fat, so is Aunt Marge. Hagrid's large but that probably got more to do with his giant blood. Madam Malkin is described as squat and smiling. Molly's described as plump.

Just doing a quick scan of Philosopher's Stone, there actually aren't a lot of descriptions given of the kids. It's mostly of the adults. Neville is described as having a round face, which in older British children's stories would generally imply he's a little pudgy, and there's the occasional mention of hair colour and style but generally we're allowed to make up our own mind about what they look like. (Which is undoubtedly why there was so much confusion about Blaise Zabini until JK specified what he looked like!) So I'd say a lot of the preponderance of thin wizards is either movie prejudice that all people must be skinny or RPers 'prejudice' probably influenced by Hollywood aided by the lack of RP choice if you want to go larger or uglier than the Hollywood 'norm'.

I feel like I haven't articulated my thoughts very well so please forgive any confusion. My brain has decided it wants to be awake and up at 6am on a Sunday so I suspect it of having gone mad.

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xanthophiliac
2012-01-23 11:29 am UTC (link)

I'm randomly coming into this discussion while cruising through CDJ flists, but in addition to what everyone else already said in reply to this, I think a lot of people also miss body cues in addition to deliberately trying to explain away chubby characters as skinny -- the ones I'm thinking in particular right now are Alice Longbottom, who is described as having a round and chubby face at two points in OotP and looking like Neville (who is also supposed to be chubby, but gets skinnified quite a bit in RP, from what I've seen), but I see her being PBed as thin and bony a lot; and it's one thing if the player couldn't find a round-faced PB, but she's usually described as being thin-faced and skinny in the appearance section. And Amelia Bones is described as broad, which I took to mean heavier, but she's also played as model-thin in a lot of RP. I think it's a mix of missing cues, lack of bigger PBs, and thin being the beauty norm.

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starsgoblue
2012-01-21 06:45 pm UTC (link)

Or, alternatively, why are ANY wizards fat? JKR describes some as rotund, but...Why not just vanish the fat? Why not magically glamourize yourself to look like whatever you want? If you can turn a chair into a dog, surely you can volumize your hair and trim your waist. Is JKR actually making a statement for body acceptance here, by showing that even with all this magic, some people choose to be fat?

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