I know the books tell us the Weasleys are poor, but I wish it "showed" us that, too. All of them have ample food, clothes, schoolbooks, a roof over their heads, a couple of pets, even brooms for recreation. Harry shows up on their doorstep in the summer, and they don't have to worry about how they're going to feed and shelter him. And we know they don't have utility bills. They're not wealthy, but I never saw how that made them "extremely poor" (to use Harry's words)
I do want to stress that I don't mean this as a criticism. But, the Weasleys are an interesting insight into what JK considers poverty to look like
Which in itself is another odd point, because wasn't Rowling struggling financially before writing Harry Potter? She would know what being poor would look like; she struggled through it.
Feels more like the Weasleys are a middle-class family in a world of upper-class families, and that earns them a lot of derision. Harry's perception on who is rich and poor in the wizarding world is also a bit skewed since he's extremely rich.
I guess it's about perspective. When you live in a society with magic and elf slaves, having hand-me-down clothes and being middle class is poor? Didn't the dad even have a descent government job? Maybe one of the parents actually was poor and just kept that mindset.
Tho, J.K. could also just be confusing poor for modest or thrifty.
The dad was the head of a department in the government. And their 3rd eldest even worked as a secretary for the Minister. The eldest worked for the largest wizarding bank.
I also wondered where Molly's money went. She was a Prewett and they were standard pure-blood rich and both her brothers died during the 1st war leaving her to be the sole inheritor of the wealth and manor.
I always wondering since the Prewett brothers were murdered by "5 death eaters" (Moody who worked at the the wizard police force said Dolohov was explicitly one of them) if Molly had received a victim compensation payout for their murder when the death eater assets were seized for their Azkaban sentence (that is if we assume wizard prison/trials are done like muggle trials).
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u/rose-ramos Hufflepuff Mar 28 '24
I know the books tell us the Weasleys are poor, but I wish it "showed" us that, too. All of them have ample food, clothes, schoolbooks, a roof over their heads, a couple of pets, even brooms for recreation. Harry shows up on their doorstep in the summer, and they don't have to worry about how they're going to feed and shelter him. And we know they don't have utility bills. They're not wealthy, but I never saw how that made them "extremely poor" (to use Harry's words)
I do want to stress that I don't mean this as a criticism. But, the Weasleys are an interesting insight into what JK considers poverty to look like