On the one hand I was thrilled at Parvati Patil and her twin sister being the most gorgeous girls in their year, you know? Because Indian girls are hardly ever portrayed as attractive and popular. They're usually not portrayed at all, but the stereotype was that Indians were weird and boring nerds.

But on the other hand, you're quite right that Parvati is a foil for Hermione, and the contrast is all to Herm's advantage. *sigh* The character by itself doesn't strike me as racist because it doesn't play into any stereotypes about Indians, but it does suck that Harry's schoolmates of color are (1) minor side-characters, and (2) there to be annoying and silly.

To etrangere: thanks for giving us a run-down of all this. None of these people are on my flist and I have neither time nor energy to do the extensive reading clearly required to keep up and be intelligently informed about this debacle. The only thing I have to say is that this latest "outing" nonsense is both about racism and at the same time transcends it. What the "outers" are telling us is that anyone who sharply criticizes an author with fans capable of tracking down their RL identity is fair game to be outed. This has clear implications for anyone in the SF/F community who provokes the ire of an author or author's fans by criticizing a work for racism (and these critics are often minorities). And the implications go even beyond that to any kind of criticism. This is a very disturbing power play on the part of the outers.