Giants in medieval England were seen as
violent, feminine, masculine, sexual, and excessive in all ways. Books,
stories, and different mascots throughout history have both followed this view
of giants (Jack and the Beanstalk) and strayed away from it (the Green Giant).
Rarely do stories use both violent and gentle giants, opting instead to make
giants either one or the other. One exception to this is the giants in the hit
young adult series about wizards and adolescents, Harry Potter. There
are the classically violent, animalistic giants that live in the mountains, but
there are also Grawp and Hagrid, the child-like, gentle giants who are not
quite humans but not quite giants.
Hagrid, as reiterated again and again, is trustworthy, kind and always trying
to do his best. He’s dangerous, but in an adorable, goofy way. He brings
violent animals into the school (dragons, giant spiders, three-headed dogs)
that could end up killing hundreds of children, but it’s okay because he just
thinks all monsters are lovable and misunderstood. Grawp, Hagrid’s half
brother, is the gentle giant who can’t figure out how to be gentle. He can’t
talk, he pulls up trees and he bruises Hagrid on the daily, but deep down, he’s
not violent at all, he just “doesn’t understand his own strength.”
Both
Grawp and Hagrid are different from the giants in the medieval England in a
myriad of ways. They’re the opposite of excessively sexual; in fact, they’re
desexualized to the point where it would be revolting to think of either of
them in a sexual way.
They’re
both masculine, but that masculinity is overshadowed by how child-like they’re
portrayed. They seem to always need to be looked after; Grawp, because he might
tear down the forest if left alone, Hagrid, because he might buy a new, deadly
animal to bring into the school. They’re vocabulary is sparse (Grawp is
unbelievably bare) and Hagrid is constantly making reckless decisions that he
never thinks through. Hagrid seems to never know the right social cues or
emotional responses; he cries at uncomfortable times, he talks too loudly, he’s
too trustful and naïve. Grawp has no hold over his emotions either, but those
emotions seem to be mainly confusion and fear whenever he can’t find Hagrid
(his parent figure). Hagrid is like an eight year old boy who makes decisions
without thinking and says things without understanding how uncomfortable he’s
making everything, while Grawp is like an infant, who can’t stay alive without
being taken care of. Grawp and Hagrid are incredibly different from the giants
in medieval period, where the giants, while more violent, vicious and
animalistic, are still fully capable of taking care of themselves.
Even
the violent giants in Harry Potter are different from the giants in the
medieval period. While they are violent, and they seem to be constantly turning
on each other and killing each other, they’re also portrayed in a more humane
light than the medieval giants ever were. They’re seen as treated unjustly by
humans, who pushed them into small spaces, which was what lead to them
constantly attacking each other. Although they are written as violent
creatures, they aren’t written as evil creatures; they’re just trying to
survive and do what’s in their nature. And while Hagrid and Grawp are seen as less
violent than these giants, when ever they do anything slightly violent or
giant-like (like pull up a tree or buy a dragon) it’s still seen as just part
of their nature (although they’re actions are portrayed in a way that’s more
comical than violent). These giants are also desexualized in comparison to the
medieval giants (although that may just be because they’re characters in a
children’s book) and there are both male giants and female giants; Hagrid’s
mother, for instance, is a giantess, but is seen as just as ruthless as any
male giant.
The
model of a giant may have come from medieval England, but JK Rowling shaped
them to match her own views on human nature. While the medieval authors wrote
about theirs fears and longings for a hyper-sexualized, hyper-violent being, JK
Rowling focused on how humans persecute those who are seen as violent and
animalistic, and how those beings are not so different from humans after all.
The way giants are depicted in literature such as Harry Potter may seem like a trivial
concept, but it shows how people's views of what a human is or should/should
not be has changed (and not changed) since the medieval period.
