History Headscratchers / HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallowsMollyVsBellatrix

*** As for why would Molly be good at dueling, we have no information at all on this point. She could have spent her time in the Order in combat training to guard the Burrow as a safehouse. She could have spent much of the *first* wizarding war practicing to defend her home. For all we know, she could have been in training as an Auror before getting pregnant and deciding to be a housewife. Maybe "righteous anger" isn't much good for powering the Cruciatus curse, but it is wonderful for putting the beat-down on the woman who just tried to kill your daughter.\\

** Mundungus served a very explicit purpose, which I believe was even mentioned: "He knows all the crooks", and thus, is useful. And counterintelligence was pretty easily resolved; the Order knew, possibly hours later, that Pius Thicknesse had been Imperiused, for example, due to their spies in the Ministry. Also, it is possible that they relied on Dumbledore for counterintelligence, which he took care of through Snape. He might have informed them they have a spy, but not told them who it was exactly, for security purposes. Someone gave ''Film/TheDeparted'' as an example earlier, and I'll reference it again: the cops trusted Martin Sheen to take care of counterintelligence, making the exposure of [[LeonardoDiCaprio DiCaprio]] to everyone unnecessary. Point being: The Order of Phoenix knows what it's doing, and it's very likely, with two highly skilled brothers, that she received training. Just because she never really exposed her magical ability by basically devoting her life to her kids, does not mean she lacks it. Not to sound like an ass here, but it's an awfully Death Eater-ish argument some people are giving here, as if love and sacrifice weakened people, and implied they were somehow useless. Besides, I don't see anyone questioning Neville's transformation from an almost-Squib to a BAMF. It could be a mere line-of-sight thing.

** Furthermore, why was it that Mrs. Weasley insisted on fighting Bellatrix alone? Dramatics aside, tactical pragmatism dictates that you should use overwhelming force to defeat your enemy. Instead of pushing those attacking Bellatrix aside, she should have joined them and helped overwhelm the evil witch. It served no other purpose than to show that Mrs. Weasley is a Main/BadAss.

** How do you imagine that fight to go? For all his aquired badassitude Neville was still a teenager. He caught V off-guard, but he was no match for Bella, and Harry's sacrifice wouldn't have helped him against her.

*** Okay, trying to apply Occram's Razor: Bellatrix let her guard down. Molly Weasley got the element of surprise thanks to her anger and being fueled by adrenaline. Really, it doesn't take more than that.

*** [=OotP=] finale: Harry wangsts that the Prophecy means he will either be murdered or become a murderer. HbP; Harry grows a pair and wants to kill Riddle. DH: Harry is a TechnicalPacifist and bores Riddle to death with InfoDump.

*** What? Who said 'Molly shouldn't have been able to kill Bellatrix because she LOVES!'? There's nothing DE-ish about wanting Molly, if she had to have killed Bellatrix, to have had even a passing reference to have been a skilled duelist in the past. There's also nothing DE-ish about wanting Molly, if she had to have killed Bellatrix, to have a personal reason to dislike Bellatrix. Had Bellatrix killed Fred or had it been mentioned that she was one of the ones who killed Gideon and Fabian, it would have seemed a lot less like it was out of nowhere. Say Augusta Longbottom had killed Bellatrix instead. She appeared in the series maybe twice and yet not only had she been established as being formidable by getting away from the DEs sent to capture her, but given what Bellatrix did to Frank and Alice, she would have had a very good reason to want to take her out. Molly lacks both the established fighting prowess and personal motivation to make her coming out of nowhere, knocking people out of the way, and then killing Bellatrix in such a literally battle-stopping event to have been properly set up.

** A few more things to take into consideration is that powerful magic might run in the family. Look at Fred and George. Even ''Hermione'' is astonished by some of the things they create, and they only scraped three OWLs between them. Charlie raises dragons, which I doubt anyone with weak magic could do, and Bill breaks ancient Egyptian curses for his job. Ginny's also not half bad. She leads Dumbledore's Army in the seventh year, and her Bat-Bogey Hex was apparently so great that Slughorn actually invited her into the Slug Club. Also, as someone has pointed out, Harry just sacrificed himself for his loved ones, so Molly may have drawn strength from that.

* Another point that seems to not have been discussed here. I've no objection to the RAGE!MotherLove Molly Weasley shows when Bellatrix attacks Ginny - but there are a lot of problems here, too. It seems like a sloppily constructed scene just to make Molly seem a little more awesome. But I read really, really into things, and it didn't work for me. For one thing, "Molly threw off her cloak, freeing her arms to be able to fight" or something along those lines. Okay, so Mrs. Weasley was standing at the edge of the battle, not fighting until Ginny was attacked by Bella specifically?? And what are the rest of her children, next-door neighbors? Then, "OUT OF MY WAY! SHE IS MINE!" Flat. What. Molly's main aim here is to punish/kill Bella for attacking her daughter, and she consciously chooses to turn down all help and actually ''lower'' her chances of defeating Bellatrix because - why? Even if Molly really is so powerful, ''you don't turn down help while fighting a witch that could hold off four people at once and had killed Sirius and who knows who else - and is one of Voldy's most trusted Death Eaters.'' "She is mine"? If she was truly protecting her daughter, why would she be so caught up in her own glory and self-image that she would turn down all assistance and take the serious risk of losing the battle horribly? Ack. Does. Not. Work.

** Mundungus served a very explicit purpose, which I believe was even mentioned: "He knows all the crooks", and thus, is useful. And counterintelligence was pretty easily resolved; the Order knew, possibly hours later, that Pius Thicknesse had been Imperiused, for example, due to their spies in the Ministry. Also, it is possible that they relied on Dumbledore for counterintelligence, which he took care of through Snape. He might have informed them they have a spy, but not told them who it was exactly, for security purposes. Someone gave {{The Departed}} as an example earlier, and I'll reference it again: the cops trusted Martin Sheen to take care of counterintelligence, making the exposure of [[LeonardoDiCaprio DiCaprio]] to everyone unnecessary. Point being: The Order of Phoenix knows what it's doing, and it's very likely, with two highly skilled brothers, that she received training. Just because she never really exposed her magical ability by basically devoting her life to her kids, does not mean she lacks it. Not to sound like an ass here, but it's an awfully Death Eater-ish argument some people are giving here, as if love and sacrifice weakened people, and implied they were somehow useless. Besides, I don't see anyone questioning Neville's transformation from an almost-Squib to a BAMF. It could be a mere line-of-sight thing.

** Possible ActorAllusion. The scene looked very TimBurton-y to me.