Something that seems to have come up quite often (To me anyway I love because I have no life!) among Potterheads when discussing some of the minor characters in Harry Potter is, why did the hilariously sad Moaning Myrtle decide to stay at Hogwarts as a ghost if she seemingly hated it so much? Was it because of the severe bullying she put up with? Were Hogwarts bullies so powerful that they caused a lonely, terrorized girl to make a decision to choose haunting the school halls for an eternity during the afterlife? It would be easy to blame her grief about her own death, but maybe there was something in the backstory we never got that can really explain this.
Did she have no one to mourn her? It seems that way. I vaguely remember her saying that she also stayed at Hogwarts during the holidays. So perhaps that means that either there was no one to go home to or no one she wanted to go home to.
Perhaps she wanted to stay someplace that was at the very least familiar. This is a thought they gives me some small amount of comfort… Until I start to think about what kind of home life she must have had in this hypothetical situation that would make Hogwarts her best option to live at. Though it is not explored during the Harry Potter series, I am really starting to wonder if ghosts do exist outside of Hogwarts. As far as I can remember, there was no rule written in the book that said that the ghosts had to be contained to the school. I mean, they let the Dementors out. Dragons roamed the countrysides. Giants lived in the mountains. So how could they really contain the ghosts who have no bodies as these other magical creatures do? which might not mean very much because even a ghost was petrified during the excitement of Chamber of Secrets.
It could be possible that she wanted to give herself a chance to find some sort of happiness on earth after such an unfulfilling life filled with so much sadness, sorrow, and loneliness. This is the answer that I like the most even though it is still sad as all fuck, there is a sense of something hopeful in her future and a chance for her to maybe find her place in a Land of Magic as one of the undead. Look at nearly headless Nick. He was still celebrating his death day hundreds of years later with friends he might not have known during his life. This offers up the possibility that there really is something to look forward to after death. Nothing as religious or daunting is going to heaven or hell, but truly a whole new life. Peeves is also a ghost who seems to have found a full-time hobby of causing mischief and Mayhem, not only to the witches and wizards of Hogwarts in the midst of getting their education, but also, sometimes to the professors.
One thing that does seem certain is that Moaning Myrtle clearly did not turn into a great detective after her death since as any self-respecting Potterhead knows, we find out in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets how she actually died. Now, I am no great expert, but I really do believe that if she was trying to solve the mystery of her own murder, she would have done so before Harry Potter and his trouble-seeking friends came along. I mean, she only had–give or take–50 fucking years and, it’s not like she had a life or anything to attend to that was distracting her investigating her death, if that’s what she wanted to do. It does seem like a much more productive way to spend her time than peeping at naked students while they bathe.
These were just a few of the thoughts that I’ve had about the unfortunate Moaning Myrtle and her very uninteresting looking, undead ghost-life. With the long list of characters in the Harry Potter series there are so many things and storylines they can still be explored. Maybe one day I will stumble across a fanfiction story that breathes new life into the comedic relief that potterheads know as Moaning Myrtle.
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