Quick Charlie Question

[author_by_night]

(Sorry, non-HP people, another public Harry Potter post.)

So I was reading some Charlie Weasley fanfic, and I realized that a lot of the time, Charlie is portrayed as either:

- An Adonis.

- A sexaholic.

- Both.

Am I the only one who sort of sees Charlie as a bit like a younger Hagrid with more common sense and less alcoholism?  I mean, I do see his job as being in a very rugged, busy atmosphere where there was more time for lust than actual love, so I'm sure he's not Mr. Committment, but I'm not sure where people get Sexy Dragon-Lovin' Adonis Player from. Bill, I can see, but not Charlie.

How do you see Charlie Weasley?

Comments

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

I see him as being a lot like one of my friends, who, to be honest, is a bit of rough, but who half my girlfriends would cheerfully shag.

He works as an engineer and has huge, callused hands and sunburned skin and drinks too much and you could never imagine introducing him to your relatives, but by the same token, you just know he would be an awful lot of fun. And, at the same time, he's a genuinely good friend who is thoughtful and smart and really there for you in a pinch.

So that's Charlie for me, someone who does not really want a wife, but who would be a great roll in the hay and a damn fine friend. (I am surmising that my friend would be a great roll in the hay, he assures me that he is godlike, but not in the context of suggesting I should ever find out ;-)

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

Is there anything about Charlie that gives you that impression, or is it just how he popped up in your head?

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

His easy teasing ways with Tonks, his strength and physicality, his ability to detach himself from his family even though he loves them, but his dependability in a crisis. He seems to like people more than Hagrid does, but have a Hagrid-like sense that many animals are people, too.

[vegablack62.livejournal.com]

When does he tease Tonks? I can't remember that. He last appears in book four and I thought she didn't appear till book five. Was it at the wedding?

It makes sense that he'd be muscular handling dragons.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

I could be hallucinating (and someone is asleep in the room where my book 6 is, so I can't check) but I thought that there was a comment along those lines in the sections where Molly thinks Tonks is pining for Bill in book 6. I could be wrong, though!

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

To be honest, I think with those things you're thinking of fanfic. (Happens to the best of us - so many things I could've sworn were canon!) I could be wrong though... I'll take a peek at the wedding chapter of TDH later.

[chocolatepot.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know where it came from. The Draco Trilogy, like 80% of all the other bizarre fanon. Charlie's the one who lent Draco his leather trousers.

I see him as being incidentally sexy because of a) being a Weasley and b) having reasonable muscle tone from dragon wrangling. Also he is good with his hands (I mean in the sense of fixing things).

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

Charlie's the one who lent Draco his leather trousers.

...


Good point about the whole muscle tone thing. :)

[midnitemaraud-r.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know where it came from. The Draco Trilogy...

Did it really? I never read the thing, never wanted to read it, and never will. (Well, except for the bits quoted in the plagiarism wank way back. I wasn't impressed.)

I agree with you, plus I'd add that he was a very good quidditch player (star seeker who could have played for England - though I should add the whole 'quidditch toned muscles' cliche makes me giggle a lot), when we first meet him he and Bill are good-naturedly bashing tables together in mid-air (and annoying Percy), and he just strikes me as a very easy-going personality - confident, good sense of humor, loyal, sensible yet adventurous. Independent, too. Bill went to Eqypt, and he went to Romania.

None of the Weasleys are introverts, really. Ron and Percy probably come closest, and Ron's really the only one with low self-esteem issues.

I wouldn't quite call him an Adonis myself, but he's not ever described as ugly or unattractive. He's shorter and stockier than Bill (and Percy and Ron - he's built like the twins) but he's young and male and single, and if you factor in all the bits we do know, and extrapolate a bit, as we all do for fictional characters, well, Draco Trilogy notwithstanding, that's like fandom codeword for "will have sex with anyone". Plus, the "never married" tidbit from JKR (plus the fact that he's romantically unattached all throughout canon as well) - to slashers, that just screams "gay". (Look at how Sirius ignoring that girl during OWLs in Snape's Worst Memory was interpreted!) Or at least bi at any rate.

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

I don't really mind gay!Charlie, though some of the people I've seen him paired with don't strike me as particularly plausible. But you know how I am! :P Still, I don't think the fact that he never married means he's not gay - JKR said it was because he liked dragons.

[midnitemaraud-r.livejournal.com]

Plausibility is in the eye of the beholder. I mean, seriously - I wrote Lucius Malfoy/Stan Shunpike, and Teddy Lupin/Cedric Diggory, and neither of those seem even remotely plausible on the surface or even if you dig 12 feet underneath. :-P

Yet, I think I did make them work within the contexts of the two stories. Not everyone will agree, but that's okay - that's the way of things. If the die-hard Harmonians believed that Ron/Hermione was plausible we wouldn't have had all the delicious crazy wank over the years, and that goes for any anti-ship group, including the Ron/Hermione shippers who strongly believe that Harry/Hermione is ridiculous and utter crack.

All the crazy ship wank and ship wars has never really been about the ships themselves so much as the strong tunnel-vision opinions of the participants. I mean, it's one thing to say "I just don't see that pairing/believe that pairing would work" or "I really don't like that pairing" (or substitute character or characterization for pairing) and quite another to say, "OMG! You are completely and utterly delusional for liking that pairing/character/characterization and you are WRONG and I am RIGHT!" Or similar.

Granted some people can't handle any kind of dissent, but it's generally the righteous indignation of the arguments themselves, pro or con - you know, "Someone is wrong on the internet!" that really stokes the flames. :-P

As for whether Charlie is really gay or straight, it doesn't matter to me at all. What does matter is, when I read a story about him, whether the author can convince me that their characterization of him worked; that I can believe it.

We like what we like. Doesn't make it wrong when we disagree - or I should say that it doesn't make either of us wrong. It just means we have a different perspective. Of course sometimes there are people who have really diverging perspectives...*cough* and you can't help wonder what they've been smoking, and even mock it when it's really out there. But again, it's usually not so much that people believe something that seems outlandish, it's how they try to justify it and tell everyone how wrong they are when they can't see it their way. :)

[ladyaelfwynn.livejournal.com]

From what I remember from the last couple of books Charlie didn't strike me as being the brains of the family. Not dim by any means just not nearly as creative or savvy as the rest of the family.

Otherwise, I just sort forgot about him. I was worried for a bit that since he was the Weasley we least knew, he was the one that would be killed off. (The Weasleys were a large enough family that they couldn't get out of the fray without at least one death.)

I never even thought of him as particularly sexy. He was "The Weasley boy we don't know all that well".

[sheryden.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I see him as sort of a younger and more sensible Hagrid. I think that's a good analogy. I think he's probably rough and tumble, good natured, and dedicated to his chosen career. I see him as the kind of guy who would pick up someone in a bar if the need arose, but I don't see him as a player or a sexaholic.

[kit-the-brave.livejournal.com]

I can't imagne any character being a sexaholic in canon! Definitely not a Weasley. What would Molly say?

My first impression of Charlie in book 1, when he comes to get Norbert off the tower, was a good one and hasn't changed much: Ron seems to know he can count on Charlie to do this weird errand and not ask too many questions, and ever since then I've thought of Charlie as the reliable stand-up guy, kind of the BJ to Bill's Hawkeye.

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

My first impression of Charlie in book 1, when he comes to get Norbert off the tower, was a good one and hasn't changed much: Ron seems to know he can count on Charlie to do this weird errand and not ask too many questions, and ever since then I've thought of Charlie as the reliable stand-up guy, kind of the BJ to Bill's Hawkeye.

You have a very good point there. I think a lot of people overlook that. You get fics where he's detached from his family, and yet, Ron trusted not only Charlie, but Charlie's friends who he may not even have known that well given the age difference, to keep a pretty big secret. Of course, it's no surprise that Charlie would be on Hagrid's side anyway, but I still think that says a lot. I really wish we'd seen more of Charlie.

[kit-the-brave.livejournal.com]

That's a really good point about his friends, because Charlie must be the kind of guy who can convince his friends to go help his little first-year brother who they don't know. So he probably has nice friends, too. (Either that, or they just really owe him.)

[maureen.livejournal.com]

Truthfully, I never gave Charlie THAT much thought, but always sort of pictured him as the rugged outdoor type. Not super smart, no... but with an earthy wisdom that comes from working with animals and outside. Like a rancher or a farmer or something. I never really thought of him as a sex machine, but that said... who wouldn't take a turn with a well-muscled guy who knows his way around a dragon?

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

who wouldn't take a turn with a well-muscled guy who knows his way around a dragon?

Very true.

[lyras.livejournal.com]

To me, Charlie's the Little Black Dress of the Weasley family: we get so little of him in canon that you can kind of dress him up the way you want. Plus, I think the dragons thing is attractive to a lot of people who wouldn't necessarily go for the rugged type in real life, but who like daydreaming about it once in a while. :) And (while there could easily be plenty of women hanging around the dragon enclosures) it's an easy cliche to have him as sex-starved whenever he's on leave.

In a Charlie/Petunia story I wrote, Charlie turned out to be very down to earth, but also quite self-contained. I developed quite a crush on (my version of) him while writing!

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

Um, I may have thought about this a bit before (http://girlyswot.livejournal.com/33371.html). :)

These are probably the most relevant sections of my essay:


Strong and brave - obviously. The dragons tell us that. Plus he has a tattoo, which means he's not only brave enough to face a Hungarian Horntail, but Molly Weasley on the warpath. Stocky and muscular. Freckled. Red hair. What's not to like about that? Plus he likes animals. And he gave up on the chance of a Quidditch career, which shows more sense than 999 men out of 1000.

...

The fact that we know so little about the second of the Weasley brothers provides fertile ground for the writerly imagination. The details we have are tantalising: He played Seeker, he lives in Romania and works with dragons. Dragons! Who wouldn't want to write a story about a man who deals with ten-ton, firebreathing, flying mammals on a daily basis? He has no canon pairing, so the author is entirely free to create a Mary-Sue original character for his love-interest. And, let's face it, what woman wouldn't want to be the love interest of so intriguing and appealing a character as Charlie Weasley? And let's not forget those biceps. Phwoar!

[parsimonia.livejournal.com]

Am I the only one who sort of sees Charlie as a bit like a younger Hagrid with more common sense and less alcoholism?

Yeah, with a healthy dose of being raised in the Weasley family, that is pretty much how I see him.

[sea_thoughts]

An Adonis? No, I don't see him as an Adonis, one of those easy-going guys who would be great for non-committal sex or just a chat. Very dedicated to his career, but more practical than Hagrid. I also see him as a great uncle, all the nephews and nieces would love his visits and want to go see him in Romania.

[westwardlee.livejournal.com]

Here through the daily_snitch.

I've written quite a few Charlie fics - I like writing about minor characters and Charlie fits the bill perfectly as far as the Weasleys are concerned.

I don't think I've ever written him as an Adonis. Good looking, definitely, because I just happen to think that red-haired, freckled, stocky men are good-looking. It's my personal taste, so, of course, I transfer that to the character he's with.

And I do think he's sexy, but not a sexaholic. Since I basically write him in a pairing where he either cares or ends up by caring for his partner, sex is naturally part of it, but I don't see him as a character who only thinks about sex.

[shocolate.livejournal.com]

Completely asexual.

I do not understand where muscles and burns and heavy drinking with Hagrid turned sexy... I like skinny, anyway, so Ron and Bill (and Arthur) are the sexy Weasleys.

I always thought it was because we never see him, so we can write him doing anything we like - and we like sexing.

I just don't see it.

*clings to your leg*

[ceirdwenfc.livejournal.com]

Here through the daily snitch -

I see Charlie as an outdoors type, rugged, handsome, single, so he's interested in sex, but not a sexaholic - just a natural young man with no attachments. Most of my Charlie comes from fanfiction including his friendship with Tonks. I usually pair him with an OC or with Katie Bell.

I do see him as a younger Hagrid as far as the animals go, but with much more common sense. I think he's very smart, on the level with Percy, he just doesn't show it, but I don't think he's big and stupid.

I think he's good looking, handsome, but not an Adonis. I do think he has a nice body, but he works outdoors (so he's also usually tanned, and his hair is lighter than his siblings), so he's muscled in my world because wrangling dragons is hard work.

I do subscribe to the fanfic idea that he has tattoos. I think he puts off Molly (as in book 7 with the haircut), but I think that he loves his family and secretly loves that kind of attention knowing that he lives so far away and can always leave, so he puts up with it easier than the others.

[teshara.livejournal.com]

Stocky. Like a rugby player. Hair that's a darker red and uneven, maybe even a little singed in places. Dark freckles on tanned skin. He's strong and his hands are rough.

[princessdot.livejournal.com]

~gasps~
wait, what? Hagrid was an ¡alcoholic?!

[greedyskunk.livejournal.com]

Charlie in my mind's eye is rugged. One of those guys who is of average height with muscles, almost like a boxer. He's tan and scarred, has large calloused hands. Personality wise, I'd say he's quick to laugh, but has a no-nonsense side that comes from working with dangerous animals.

I've not thought much about his sex life before. I'd say he'd enjoy having good sex, but for all I know he could be into unusual fetishes or perhaps be completely celibate. JKR gave so little information about him that it's easy to make him do whatever one's writerly heart desires.

Hmm, maybe that explains it. Every other Weasley has a prominent role in the story. Using Charlie as a character is a way to have a "pet Weasley" that won't be seen as acting in a non-canonical way.