Regarding your last point, I think a lot of early fic had people explaining away the flaws as somehow a good thing. And a lot of those are pretty hilarious now.
One last thing though. If JKR had wanted to say Millicent was overweight, how do you think she'd have described her? There's no way Ron was going to say she was a 'fat cow'. The bit with her being "not a pixie" was that she, Crabbe, and Goyle wouldn't fit in a bathroom stall together. Then again, I think of those guys as being pretty big so it would be curious to look at their actual canon descriptions as well.
Mentally I'm OK with having her be the single overweight girl at Hogwarts, rather like Dumbledore is the one gay character in the series. :P But I do think there's a bit more room for interpretation--unlike Blaise's skin color.
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One last thing though. If JKR had wanted to say Millicent was overweight, how do you think she'd have described her? There's no way Ron was going to say she was a 'fat cow'. The bit with her being "not a pixie" was that she, Crabbe, and Goyle wouldn't fit in a bathroom stall together. Then again, I think of those guys as being pretty big so it would be curious to look at their actual canon descriptions as well.
Mentally I'm OK with having her be the single overweight girl at Hogwarts, rather like Dumbledore is the one gay character in the series. :P But I do think there's a bit more room for interpretation--unlike Blaise's skin color.