Your eyes are like sea glass, so weathered and worn
From all they’ve seen of, adolescence torn
THE MAGIC BEGINS - a harry potter challenge
9. A character you need the feel to defend » Cho Chang.
(Source: lost-diadem-of-ravenclaw)
Cho Chang always strikes me as the kind of character that we are supposed to initially like, but end up really not. Or maybe this is supposed to be intentional.
Is there anything more to her character, other than just ‘token chinese girl’ who toys with Harry’s feelings, gives away the location of Dumbledore’s army, then just lingers around the school for no real reason even after she’d already graduated. that I’m missing or?Lol, you should maybe read the books.
Lol, you should maybe not assume I haven’t read the books.
Way to avoid actually answering the question by the way. I guess that means you can’t see it either.
I’ll answer your question.
I actually think Cho’s characters a lot more complex then she first seems. She starts out as this beautiful, sweet girl who is a great seeker, is very smart (being a Ravenclaw after all), loves her friends and has a passion for her favourite Quidditch team the Tutshill Tornado’s. I don’t think she’s all that into Harry at first, I think she admires him, she thinks he’s a sweet guy, but he is a year younger than her. Something which at our age seems like nothing but to 14/15 year old’s in school seemed like a big deal. She feels bad for Harry once she realises he fancies her, but she’s already happy with Cedric by that point. She’s still kind and friendly to him afterwards and never tries to use him or manipulate his feelings for her in any way. She doesn’t even bring it up with him so he doesn’t have to feel embarrassed by it.
Of course once Cedric dies that’s where things go downhill for Cho. She’s clearly messed up about his death, as I’m sure anyone would be. She feels conflicted about liking Harry as more than a friend so soon. She also goes to Harry because he knew Cedric, he saw what happened and I think she just really wants someone she can relate to and talk about her grief with. The problem with this of course is that Harry doesn’t want to talk about Cedric at all:
1) because he’s not very good at all about talking about his grief, Harry’s way of dealing is keeping it to himself until it bursts out of him with screams of rage.
2) Harry’s far more interested in being Cho’s boyfriend then actually helping her. Harry has a army fleet of issues himself, but he really doesn’t want to deal with it. He just wants to have fun in the small moments of his life when he’s not being the ‘chosen one’
Cho also has a problem with Hermione because she doesn’t like the how close Harry is with her despite them being just friends. It makes her jealous despite the fact he tells her more than once that she has no reason to be. Which I find funny if you consider the fact that by this point in the books Harry probably spends half his day, watching Ron and Hermione bicker thinking, ‘Seriously guys just shut up and make out already so I can have some peace and quiet.’
Their relationship comes to an end when Cho’s friend betrays them and Harry is angry at her for continuing to associate with Marietta. Cho stays loyal to her best friend, acknowledges that she made a mistake but doesn’t despise her for it. I think in that moment she’s the better person, with her ability to forgive her friends rather than abandoning them.
Her joining the DA, and the final battle shows how courageous she can be, and her returning to help shows emphasises her loyalty to the school, Harry and her fellow DA members despite how badly she was treated in the end. Her ability to produce a Swan Patronus despite how miserable she’s been since Cedric’s death I think shows not only her intelligence but also her inner strength. Also on a fun side-note J.K says she went on to marry a Muggle Doctor, and became a Healer herself (which I always thought was pretty cool).
I’ve had this feeling for a while now that Cho and Harry’s relationship is less about first loves, young love or even love triangles. I think it has a lot more to do with how two people who have feelings for each other, can seem like they’re perfect. But sometimes their own personal issues, grief, anger management, jealousy etc, can just destroy everything good in a relationship when not dealt with. This is especially true when it’s romance between two people as young as Harry and Cho were. Harry remains constantly locked in his anger and Cho in her grief and it just rips apart whatever attraction they had to one another to begin with, doesn’t even really allow them to get off the ground.
I think the problem with Cho Chang and most of the side characters is that the books are entirely from Harry’s perspective, therefore we don’t get to see anyone in an unbiased way:
- We see Harry developing a crush on Cho, so we get ticked off on his behalf when she dates a boy her own age.
- We see him getting jealous and feel like she’s; ‘toying with Harry’s feelings’,
- Harry dates her but gets annoyed quickly when she remains unhappy, so we also become annoyed with Cho.
- When she stands by her friend we just see Harry’s anger at her, and we the reader get angry with her too.
I think the trick to understanding any character in this series that isn’t Harry himself is to not just take what Harry says and feels at face value but to take a step away from Harry’s perspective and actually look at what the book is saying underneath that.
And oops that was a lot more than I thought I’d write…I kinda got carried away, but I now don’t have the heart to cut any of it out. I should just start blogging/analysing HP side characters now because I could do this with all of them tbh lol.
(Source: searchingformymorticia)
who is this person and where can i hero-worship her
Pardon me for interrupting, but why would you “hero-worship her”??
I am Chinese, I grew up in Guangdong and now live in Beijing. My surname is Yang (杨/楊 in simplified/traditional Chinese characters). And allow me, a born-and-raised-and-live-in-China Chinese, not so humbly inform you: Both Cho and Chang ARE Chinese words pronounced in the Cantonese dialect (the major dialect spoken in Guangdong and Hong Kong), and they are written as 秋 (or any homophones) and 张/張 in Chinese characters. Ask any Cantonese-speaking Chinese, and they’ll tell you this. And SURPRISE: both Cho and Chang can be used as first name AND last name in Chinese.
To sum it up: The girl speaking in this gifset clearly has NO knowledge at all of Chinese language, and is acting very presumptuous about it. And to me, that is a case of racism.
EDIT: Quoting from wikipedia, “Chang is the pinyin romanization of the Chinese surname 常 (Cháng). It was listed 80th among the Song-era Hundred Family Surnames” and “is also the Wade-Giles romanization of two Chinese surnames written Zhang in pinyin: one extremely common and written 張 in traditional characters and 张 in simplified characters and another quite rare and written as 章 in both systems.”
Important commentary
(Source: stelmarias)
i don’t know why they make me smile ;)
Cho is so cute with Cedric, there’s no need to look at Harry :D
Cho Chang always strikes me as the kind of character that we are supposed to initially like, but end up really not. Or maybe this is supposed to be intentional.
Is there anything more to her character, other than just ‘token chinese girl’ who toys with Harry’s feelings, gives away the location of Dumbledore’s army, then just lingers around the school for no real reason even after she’d already graduated. that I’m missing or?Lol, you should maybe read the books.
Lol, you should maybe not assume I haven’t read the books.
Way to avoid actually answering the question by the way. I guess that means you can’t see it either.
I’ll answer your question.
I actually think Cho’s characters a lot more complex then she first seems. She starts out as this beautiful, sweet girl who is a great seeker, is very smart (being a Ravenclaw after all), loves her friends and has a passion for her favourite Quidditch team the Tutshill Tornado’s. I don’t think she’s all that into Harry at first, I think she admires him, she thinks he’s a sweet guy, but he is a year younger than her. Something which at our age seems like nothing but to 14/15 year old’s in school seemed like a big deal. She feels bad for Harry once she realises he fancies her, but she’s already happy with Cedric by that point. She’s still kind and friendly to him afterwards and never tries to use him or manipulate his feelings for her in any way. She doesn’t even bring it up with him so he doesn’t have to feel embarrassed by it.
Of course once Cedric dies that’s where things go downhill for Cho. She’s clearly messed up about his death, as I’m sure anyone would be. She feels conflicted about liking Harry as more than a friend so soon. She also goes to Harry because he knew Cedric, he saw what happened and I think she just really wants someone she can relate to and talk about her grief with. The problem with this of course is that Harry doesn’t want to talk about Cedric at all:
1) because he’s not very good at all about talking about his grief, Harry’s way of dealing is keeping it to himself until it bursts out of him with screams of rage.
2) Harry’s far more interested in being Cho’s boyfriend then actually helping her. Harry has a army fleet of issues himself, but he really doesn’t want to deal with it. He just wants to have fun in the small moments of his life when he’s not being the ‘chosen one’
Cho also has a problem with Hermione because she doesn’t like the how close Harry is with her despite them being just friends. It makes her jealous despite the fact he tells her more than once that she has no reason to be. Which I find funny if you consider the fact that by this point in the books Harry probably spends half his day, watching Ron and Hermione bicker thinking, ‘Seriously guys just shut up and make out already so I can have some peace and quiet.’
Their relationship comes to an end when Cho’s friend betrays them and Harry is angry at her for continuing to associate with Marietta. Cho stays loyal to her best friend, acknowledges that she made a mistake but doesn’t despise her for it. I think in that moment she’s the better person, with her ability to forgive her friends rather than abandoning them.
Her joining the DA, and the final battle shows how courageous she can be, and her returning to help shows emphasises her loyalty to the school, Harry and her fellow DA members despite how badly she was treated in the end. Her ability to produce a Swan Patronus despite how miserable she’s been since Cedric’s death I think shows not only her intelligence but also her inner strength. Also on a fun side-note J.K says she went on to marry a Muggle Doctor, and became a Healer herself (which I always thought was pretty cool).
I’ve had this feeling for a while now that Cho and Harry’s relationship is less about first loves, young love or even love triangles. I think it has a lot more to do with how two people who have feelings for each other, can seem like they’re perfect. But sometimes their own personal issues, grief, anger management, jealousy etc, can just destroy everything good in a relationship when not dealt with. This is especially true when it’s romance between two people as young as Harry and Cho were. Harry remains constantly locked in his anger and Cho in her grief and it just rips apart whatever attraction they had to one another to begin with, doesn’t even really allow them to get off the ground.
I think the problem with Cho Chang and most of the side characters is that the books are entirely from Harry’s perspective, therefore we don’t get to see anyone in an unbiased way:
- We see Harry developing a crush on Cho, so we get ticked off on his behalf when she dates a boy her own age.
- We see him getting jealous and feel like she’s; ‘toying with Harry’s feelings’,
- Harry dates her but gets annoyed quickly when she remains unhappy, so we also become annoyed with Cho.
- When she stands by her friend we just see Harry’s anger at her, and we the reader get angry with her too.
I think the trick to understanding any character in this series that isn’t Harry himself is to not just take what Harry says and feels at face value but to take a step away from Harry’s perspective and actually look at what the book is saying underneath that.
And oops that was a lot more than I thought I’d write…I kinda got carried away, but I now don’t have the heart to cut any of it out. I should just start blogging/analysing HP side characters now because I could do this with all of them tbh lol.
(Source: searchingformymorticia)
I decided to do a Ginny/Cho version of the femslash february meme!
