Nerd Church - Dude, Siblings Are a Pain

Siblings, can't live with 'em, can't live witho- ...actually, no, sometimes it'd be easier to live without 'em. Not to say we don't love 'em - we. love. them. But they do tend to complicate things - just ask Katniss Everdeen, Thor and Loki, the Weasleys (ahem, Percy,) and the Pevensies (Chronicles of Narnia.)


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Let's face it, it's not a new theme to literature - King Lear has the warring sisters, Pride and Prejudice is made infinitely more boring complicated by the ins-and-outs of the Bennett sisters (I'm not an Austen fan unless there's zombies or ninjas - sorry,) and myths/religious stories from Cain and Abel to Horus and Set are constantly describing the warring of brothers and the duality of man (etc. etc.)

Being a little sister myself, I often wonder about the only-children of literature. Sure, Harry Potter has Dudley - but he's a cousin, and not a very nice one; if he'd had a sibling, would his life pre-Hogwarts have sucked quite so badly? And does anyone else find it odd that Hermione and Draco also have no siblings? You don't find all that many only-child families. To have three such important characters with no siblings, while Ron has siblings falling from the ever-loving rafters, is quite interesting... can you imagine Draco with a brother, or Hermione with a sister? And of course, there's Lily and Petunia - without whom Harry would never have been sent to the Dursley family in the first place. We're given very little glimpse into the Evans sister's lives pre-Harry, but that familial link is still important, isn't it?

I might come back to this topic and try to straighten out my thoughts a bit more, but I hope that's given you something to moral/thematic/phisololphical (philosophical) to chew over this week in Nerd Church (cue cheesy grin and sweeping thumbs up motion.)