OOTP Chapter Twenty-Seven: "The Centaur and the Sneak"

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

* First of all, sorry this is so late, I'm afraid I've been a bit busy preparing to go back to university.

* This is the chapter in which Hermione officially crosses the line from “occasionally strident and self-righteous but on the whole likeable and sympathetic character” to “dangerous sociopath”.

* “‘A gorgeous centaur...’ sighed Parvati.” I must say that, given the, erm, associations of centaurs in classical mythology, this sort of thing rather creeps me out. Is JKR aware of the implications of what she’s writing? Or did she just throw it in without bothering to think it through?

* Hermione’s dropping dark hints about what Umbridge is going to do, revealing the plot like any good author avatar would.

* So Harry can remember the names of centaurs he met once four years ago, but in DH he won’t be able to remember a face from a picture from one chapter to the next. *coughplotconveniencecough*

* Wow, centaurs sure are arrogant and condescending people. No wonder Dumbledore felt enough of an affinity with Firenze to hire him as a teacher. He recognises a kindred spirit when he sees one.

* If I were JKR, I’d be hesitant to dignify the wizarding conflicts with the term “war”. They’re more like gang wars than what most people would think of as warfare. Which is why epic fantasy doesn’t really mix with a “secret magical people in this world” plot. Epic fantasy generally centres around mighty empires, big wars and bloody battles, but these things are generally quite noticeable, and any wizards fighting in large-scale conflicts would be found out pretty quickly. So the wizarding war pretty much has to be low-key to make it plausible that Muggles wouldn’t know about it, and the end result is that we get a lot of build-up and very little payoff.

* Firenze spends the whole lesson teaching them something which he doesn’t expect them to do anyway, and which is anyway a bit uncertain and useless. So he’s about as good as the average Hogwarts teacher, then.

* “Indeed, Harry sometimes wondered how Umbridge was going to react when all the members of the DA received ‘Outstanding’ in their Defence Against the Dark Arts OWLs.” Only kidding, Harry will be the only one to get an “Outstanding” mark, because he’s a Mary Sue just the most awesome DADA student ever.

* Although everybody always goes on about how smart Hermione is, and from what we see of her she doesn’t seem noticeably worse in DADA than she does in other subjects, so if she only got an “E” in her Defence OWL, that’s probably because Harry’s not a very good teacher... :p

* Seamus’ Patronus “was definitely something hairy”. *mind goes into the gutter*

* Hermione’s Patronus is an otter, even though she’s one of the least otter-like people in the series. On a Doylist level, this is probably because JKR’s favourite animal is the otter, so her author avatar will have one as her Patronus, obviously. On a Watsonian level, perhaps Patronuses don’t represent what your personality is like, but what you need to guard you and keep you out of trouble. So Hermione’s is an otter because she needs fun-loving people around her to stop her getting too serious about everything, Ron’s is a weasel because he needs smart people to compensate for his mental inadequacy, and Harry’s is a stag because he needs a proper father-figure to help him, not an abusive one like Uncle Vernon or a scheming and manipulative one like Dumbledore. Patronuses which change when somebody falls in love show that their caster needs to be loved by their intended in order to feel happy and secure again.

* Dobby appears, wearing “his usual eight woollen hats”. I quite like the suggestion that it was this sight that made Hermione drop her SPEW activities, as she saw that her hats were all going to this one elf, and that they were therefore pretty useless from a freeing people standpoint. (Can anybody remember if SPEW is brought up again in this book?)

* Umbridge is here! I bet it’s times like this that the DA wish they had a second, secret entrance from the ROR. That way they could slip away while Umbridge and her cronies sat uselessly in front of the main entrance.

* Draco’s concealed “beneath an ugly dragon-shaped vase”, to match his ugly and monstrous soul.

* Umbridge has “an indecent excitement in her voice”. I wonder if this is how Hermione would sound to those on the receiving end of her little schemes.

* When I first read this scene, I didn’t really mind the “Sneak” curse, because I just sort of assumed that Madam Pomfrey managed to find a way of removing them after a couple of weeks. Then we found out that she still had the scars years later and... yikes.

* Not only is that extremely vindictive, but it doesn’t actually help the DA in any way. It didn’t stop them being betrayed in the first place, and it didn’t alert them to the fact that Umbridge was coming to get them. If this had been a one-off incident and the curse hadn’t been permanent, I’d be inclined to put it down to youthful lack of thought, but when you compare it to some of Hermione’s other actions (her treatment of Rita Skeeter, or sending those canaries after Ron), it seems like a rather worrying pattern is starting to emerge...

* Minerva gets all self-righteous about Willy Widdershins being let off. I wonder whether she feels the same about Mundungus Fletcher, or whether petty crooks are OK just as long as they’re on her side.

* Also, she’s not above a bit of petty corruption herself, since she lets Gryffindor Quidditch players off homework when a match is coming up.

* So Kingsley memory-wipes Marietta to stop her telling. You know, this is exactly the sort of mentality that leads DEs to Imperius people and get them to do their bidding: not caring about your victims’ autonomy, just violating their minds when it’s convenient to do so.

* Also, if they are going to mind-wipe Marietta, why not do it to Percy, Fudge and Umbridge too? That would get them out of trouble entirely.

* And really guys, Umbridge has a list of DA members and access to Veritaserum. Obliviating one witness shouldn’t be enough.

* I’m surprised Umbridge thought she could get away with manhandling students like that in front of Dumbledore. I mean, that man’s just so concerned about his students’ welfare.

* Hermione left the membership list pinned to the ROR wall. Well done, Hermione. Not that any DA members will point out this idiocy to her. Nor will they point out the fact that her defensive jinx was (a) vindictive and useless, and (b) not told about to them when they joined up. Maybe they’re all worried she’ll brand the word “COMPLAINER” across their forehead if they speak up.

* Dumbledore taking the rap is all very noble and everything, but I don’t see how it’s meant to help. Fudge can still charge the pupils with attending, even if they didn’t organise it, and now Dumbledore’s ensured that he’s going to be on the run and unable to give them any help.

* Face-scarring aside, I actually quite liked this chapter. It was quite well-paced, and I never really felt like I was wading through pages of filler. It will be interesting to see if the other chapters will be more like this now the book’s reaching its climax, or whether the quality will slip back down again.

Comments

[sunnyskywalker]

I'd probably give Hermione a pass for the centaur thing if after the fact she expressed dismay that it had been so much more awful than she intended, said she hadn't fully thought it through, Umbridge was awful but whatever happened was still a terrible thing to happen to anyone, etc. But she laughed right along with Ginny when Ron made the clip-clop noises to terrify Umbridge. After having had plenty of time to think it over and see the state Umbridge was in. So, I'm not seeing signs of empathy, moral responsibility, conscience, or any of that, just amusement that her enemy is traumatized.

The elves thing is tough to call. She does seem to have a visceral reaction that slavery is wrong - but has no empathy whatsoever for individual elves, doesn't listen to them, and makes no attempt to find out details like whether there's some magical reason (externally imposed in the past or otherwise) freeing elves would harm most of them (and so is ignoring the possibility that she might have another problem to solve if she really wants to help the elves). Then once she finds that her campaign isn't succeeding right off the bat, instead of persisting and doing more research and trying alternate strategies, as far as we see she just gives up.

And yeah, I do blame JKR for this, but I can't just overlook several books in a row of this kind of thing when she has other characters - like Neville, as you pointed out - actually learn things and start helping others more than in the past (the Trio ditched the DA once it wasn't useful to them personally anymore, but Neville started his resistance at great risk to himself even when as a Pureblood he could have kept his head down and escaped a lot of the trouble).

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

So, I'm not seeing signs of empathy, moral responsibility, conscience, or any of that, just amusement that her enemy is traumatized.

*after the fact*, yes. But Hermione *tried to prevent* it - or at least ameliorate any punishment by the centaurs on Umbridge. She tried to get Umbridge to shut up when things escalated beyond her planned intent. No sociopath there.

Sure, after it was all over Hermione got a giggle over Umbridge's fate. (Blame Ginny for that; we see here a precursor to Rowling's boosting Ginny into the limelight in book 6, where Hermione and Harry found everything the youngest Weasley said or did - belittling Fleur, tripping Ron, mocking other students - hilarious.)

Regardless of what happens *afterwards* a sociopath wouldn't have tried to get Umbridge out of her predicament while it was actually taking place. Hermione did so try.

but has no empathy whatsoever for individual elves

But that's just not right, she has heaps of pity/empathy for Kreacher, in several scenes.

And Winky, too. I just found one scene where Hermione shows her *sincere empathy* for individual elves:

"You know, house-elves get a very raw deal!" said Hermione indignantly. "It's slavery, that's what it is! That Mr. Crouch made her go up to the top of the stadium, and she was terrified, and he's got her bewitched so she can't even run when they start trampling tents! Why doesn't anyone do something about it?"

Sorry, you're wrong. Hermione was very much "in Winky's head" with that scene, consciously considerate of the elf's feelings.

Then once she finds that her campaign isn't succeeding right off the bat, instead of persisting and doing more research and trying alternate strategies, as far as we see she just gives up.

Which means she isn't the best social evangelist in the world ... but still nothing close to a sociopath. Sociopaths don't try and help people (even if they're incompetent in delivering that help).

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

She tried to get Umbridge to shut up when things escalated beyond her planned intent.

I don't really see her actions in the forest as trying to protect Umbridge so much as anger at Umbridge's open bigotry. It's reasonable anger, of course... but I don't believe it had anything to do with trying to protect her from the consequences of her words.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

The first of Hermione's interruptions is 'furious', so I'd say you've got a point there. But the second exclamation is one of alarm for how the situation is degrading, the danger to Umbridge mounting.

Certainly nothing suggesting 'sociopathic' tendencies on Hermione's behalf to deliberately and callously place Umbridge in extreme danger.

Oh, and if Hermione *is* 'furious' over Umbridge's arrogance in speaking down to the centaurs ... well, that's just more proof that the girl is nothing close to a sociopath, right?

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

But the second exclamation is one of alarm for how the situation is degrading, the danger to Umbridge mounting.

(shrug) Maybe. Not necessarily. For the benefit of those without the books, here's the quote:

ʹFilthy half‐breeds!ʹ she screamed, her hands still tight over her head. ʹBeasts! Uncontrolled animals!ʹ

ʹBe quiet!ʹ shouted Hermione, but it was too late: Umbridge pointed her wand at Magorian and screamed, ʹIncarcerous!ʹ

Hermione really likes telling people what they should be doing, too. She's often right (heck, she's right in this case), but that doesn't mean she's motivated by any kind of concern for Umbridge.

Also -- I hate to say it, but... I would like to see a demonstration of empathy from Hermione that does not involve her raging at anyone.


Oh, and if Hermione *is* 'furious' over Umbridge's arrogance in speaking down to the centaurs ... well, that's just more proof that the girl is nothing close to a sociopath, right?

Why? She can be furious about someone being arrogant without caring about the people that person is being arrogant towards.

Keep in mind that Hermione used the centaurs for help against their will. They were willing to attack intruders, sure, but they weren't willing to help humans. Hermione knew they didn't like to help humans -- that Firenze's teaching humans made him a traitor deserving a death sentence! -- but she was startled when they got angry at her, and never tried to apologize. She was only concerned with them not attacking her.

ʹ...They already have the arrogance of their kind! So we were to do your dirty work, were we, human girl? We were to act as your servants, drive away your enemies like obedient hounds?ʹ

ʹNo!ʹ said Hermione in a horrorstruck squeak. ʹPlease ‐ I didnʹt mean that! I just hoped youʹd be able to ‐ to help us ‐ʹ

But she seemed to be going from bad to worse. [...] A roar of approval met these words and a dun‐coloured centaur shouted, They can join the woman!ʹ

ʹYou said you didnʹt hurt the innocent!ʹ shouted Hermione, real tears sliding down her face now. ʹWe havenʹt done anything to hurt you, we havenʹt used wands or threats, we just want to go back to school, please let us go back ‐ʹ

ʹWe are not all like the traitor Firenze, human girl!ʹ shouted the grey centaur, to more neighing roars of approval from his fellows.

No apologies, no seeing things their way. Even though that might, in fact, have helped. When her first explanation angers them, Hermione tries to use their morals against them, but keeps insisting that she didn't do anything wrong -- when it's very clear that from their perspective, she *did*.

(Note that being a sociopath is not the same as lacking morals, per se. If I understand correctly, it is primarily an inability to empathize with others and see them as people. The other stuff follows from that.)

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

Hermione was very much "in Winky's head" with that scene, consciously considerate of the elf's feelings.

Really? Take this exchange:

"And how much is Professor Dumbledore paying you, Winky?" Hermione asked kindly.

If she had thought this would cheer up Winky, she was wildly mistaken. Winky did stop crying, but when she sat up she was glaring at Hermione through her massive brown eyes, her whole face sopping wet and suddenly furious.

"Winky is a disgraced elf, but Winky is not yet getting paid!" she squeaked. "Winky is not sunk so low as that! Winky is properly ashamed of being freed!"

"Ashamed?" said Hermione blankly. "But - Winky, come on! It's Mr. Crouch who should be ashamed, not you! You didn't do anything wrong, he was really horrible to you -"

But at these words, Winky clapped her hands over the holes in her hat, flattening her ears so that she couldn't hear a word, and screeched, "You is not insulting my master, miss!

This is what I believe sunnyskywalker meant by "individual elves" -- Hermione has beliefs about what the elves should be feeling, and she's angry at the people that she believes the elves should be angry at, but she sure isn't in the head of the actual person in front of her in this scene.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Heh. Good excerpt (curse you!).

Okay. So we have a warm and caring girl with a social conscience who wants to improve society for the betterment of all sentient creatures. In empathising with those unfortunates she wants to help she gets some things right ... and some things wrong. But she's still exhibiting that strong 'social conscience' which is in direct violation of the definition of a 'sociopath'. Hermione Granger ain't a sociopath.

It's been said her that an indictment against Hermione is that she just 'assumed' what the elves wanted, didn't both to actually ask them, was arrogant in her dealings with them, etc. Yet here she's taking the time to talk to one of those elves and is learning what makes them tick. Certainly no sociopath here!

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

Yet here she's taking the time to talk to one of those elves and is learning what makes them tick.

That's only accurate if she listened, learned, showed some sign of behaving differently afterwards. Can you show that she did that? I love to see signs of any of the characters learning something from their experiences.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

I think Hermione showed an extreme jump in sensitivity and understanding with Kreacher's tale at the start of DH.

Here's a reminder of the extreme empathy displayed by our heroine:

“Well, then, you did what you were told, didn’t you?” said Hermione kindly. “You didn’t disobey orders at all!”

...

“Oh, Kreacher!” wailed Hermione, who was crying. She dropped to her knees beside the elf and tried to hug him.

...

“Stop him – stop him!” Hermione cried. “Oh, don’t you see now how sick it is, the way they’ve got to obey?”

...

“Harry, Kreacher doesn’t think like that,” said Hermione, wiping her eyes on the back of her hand. “He’s a slave; house-elves are used to bad, even brutal treatment; what Voldemort did to Kreacher wasn’t that far out of the common way. ...

Socipaths don't cry over the plight of slaves. 'Nuff said.

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

I don't see any evidence of Hermione's having changed from the way she was before, here. I don't even know that in the last of these quotes, that she's gotten Kreacher's perspective *right*.

The third quote doesn't represent a change in her perspective from the beginning of GoF. She's capable of being angry about their slavery and having to punish themselves without listening to what the elves actually want or think, as demonstrated by my quote above.

In the first quote, Hermione's talking about a situation where Kreacher obeyed an order, and it was an order where an elf saved his own life even though it meant abandoning his master. Hermione approves of that action, quite apart from anything else. She isn't wrong to approve, but that isn't the point; she's failing to pay attention to the fact that Kreacher found abandoning Regulus to be traumatic.

In the second quote... oh, come on. An example of Hermione's new empathy? Now accepting that individual elves have their own views of the world? Here's a little more context.

“Oh, Kreacher!” wailed Hermione, who was crying. She dropped to her knees beside the elf and tried to hug him. At once he was on his feet, cringing away from her, quite obviously repulsed.

“The Mudblood touched Kreacher, he will not allow it, what would his Mistress say?”

Yes, that's nasty of Kreacher. However, Hermione did *not* truly empathize with Kreacher, or she'd have understood that he still abhorred her as a Muggleborn.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Hermione may still not be an expert on elves. However she clearly understands them more than the boys. And I think the scene shows that she's improved from the time 3 years earlier when she just didn't understand Winky's attitude at all.

However, Hermione did *not* truly empathize with Kreacher, or she'd have understood that he still abhorred her as a Muggleborn.

Hermione's sympathy for Kreacher - who didn't deserve it, as you've noted - momentarily overrode her academic knowledge that he would abhor her touch. So? Still proof enough that this caring and sympathetic girl, crying over the plight of the miserable nasty elf, is light years away from a sociopath.

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

And I think the scene shows that she's improved from the time 3 years earlier when she just didn't understand Winky's attitude at all.

No, I really don't think so. In both cases, she doesn't see the elf in question as a real person. They're just something she's projecting her beliefs on.

Put it this way: in HBP, if she'd been the one to find Draco crying in the bathroom, would her first impulse be to hug him? Probably not. She takes his dislike seriously, because she sees him as a real person capable of having opinions and beliefs. She doesn't take Kreacher's dislike seriously, because she doesn't see *him*.

The point isn't whether she acknowledges people as capable of having opinions, though, but whether she can empathize with them. In this scene, she's empathizing with the imaginary Kreacher in her head, who doesn't hate her and who doesn't really love Regulus.* She isn't empathizing with the real Kreacher in front of her.



*Even when she "explains" elves to Harry, she only acknowledges that Regulus was kind to Kreacher, not that Kreacher cared about Regulus.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Hermione may still not be an expert on elves. However she clearly understands them more than the boys.

No, it is Ron who understands them the best. He is the one who sees Winky is behaving as if she is in love with Crouch. He is the one who thinks the elves shouldn't be tricked into freedom - they should have a choice about it.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Ron certainly understands the elves but he's not driven distraught by their plight; not like Hermione is. She's in tears while listening to Kreacher's tale. She spends tens/hundreds of hours knitting away to give them their freedom. Her heart is in the right place, even if she gets things wrong sometimes.

With regard to Kreacher I think she shows much more understanding than Ron. When it comes to the knitting thing, yes, she was silly. But overall I think she 'understands' the elves quite well - certainly by the last book - and she's by far the one most emotionally invested in their welfare.

Definitely no sociopath here!

[oryx_leucoryx]

While she understands Kreacher better than Harry, I don't think she is even remotely close to understanding his motivation. It isn't about liking people who treat him with kindness, it is about people who respect his service. And his plight is about his inability to fulfill Regulus' last orders to him, while at the same time his order of secrecy being in conflict with his service to Walburga.

Ron understands Winky's plight - her service, which is her love, was scorned by Crouch (of course he doesn't know the full picture, which includes conflicting loyalties to both Crouch men). Hermione just thinks she must have been brain-washed to respond so badly when Crouch Sr makes unreasonable demands of her and fires her.

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

I think that you seem to be under the impression that crying about something gives a person pure or compassionate motives. People can definitely cry for selfish reasons, and it's also quite easy for some people to fake it if they have a reason to. I mean, if she really wants to come off as sympathetic, tears are a pretty good way to go.

Also, I know this might seem slightly off topic, but as a knitter I feel the need to point out that once you get to be decently good at knitting it doesn't actually take all that long to make something as small as a hat. If you use thick enough yarn and big enough needles you can knit one up in less than an hour. So it isn't like it was really that that much of a commitment.

I hope that I don't come off as rude or anything, but I do feel the need to point it out.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

But Hermione's tears are never shown as having any 'practical' utility. Where is it in the book that her 'acting' compassionate gets her ahead, does her a service? Why would she be 'acting' so kindly from day #1, when we never see her profit by that 'acting'?

If you use thick enough yarn and big enough needles you can knit one up in less than an hour. So it isn't like it was really that that much of a commitment.

Sure, one hat might only take an hour, but Hermione knitted hundreds of them. It's the time she spent knitting away. I've never knitted in my life, if I'd tried to save the elves the same way maybe I would have manufactured one hat in the same time that Hermione knitted twenty. But we both would have sacrificed the same amount of *time* ... and that's the measure of her personal commitment to helping the elves.

(Absolutely no 'rudeness' discerned at all from my end, and I love learning new things! :-))

[sunnyskywalker]

Didn't Molly have a spell that made her knitting needles do the knitting for her while she did other things? That would take even less time than regular knitting. And we know Hermione's smart enough to look up a knitting spell.

[oryx_leucoryx]

No, Hermione is not 'in Winky's head' - she doesn't understand the meaning of service to a house-elf. She assumes house-elves have the same wishes and preferences people she knows have, even when repeatedly she is told and shown this is not the case. Ron is the one who understands house-elves on their own terms much better.

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

So Hermione is to house-elves as Hagrid is to wild animals -- she loves and cares about them, but it's an unrealistic, anthropomorphised version of them.

[sunnyskywalker]

Sure there's a reason she might try to shut Umbridge up that has nothing to do with empathy: getting Umbridge chased off or distracted is one thing, but if she actually gets hurt, then Hermione could get in trouble later. That's what she worried about when they knocked out Snape in PoA. Plus, if the centaurs get angry enough, it might interfere with the kids escaping to go help Sirius. I don't see any reason to assume she's actually worried about Umbridge's welfare for Umbridge's sake.

Sociopaths will absolutely help people when it serves their own purposes. They might be nice to old ladies whose magical artifacts they intend to steal later, for instance. They might volunteer for charity events if it gets them a good reputation (a useful thing to have) or lets them meet people they intend to use. They can rail against injustice so others will think well of them, or to wind people up, or for any number of reasons. Which isn't to stay that Hermione is definitely a sociopath, but it doesn't rule it out - sociopaths aren't committed to never doing any good deeds for any reason, just to not doing good deeds that don't also benefit them in some way. Hermione could have started the house-elf campaign without having genuine empathy for the elves. (Lynn and Oryx have covered that part pretty well, I think.)

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Which isn't to stay that Hermione is definitely a sociopath, but it doesn't rule it out - sociopaths aren't committed to never doing any good deeds for any reason, just to not doing good deeds that don't also benefit them in some way. Hermione could have started the house-elf campaign without having genuine empathy for the elves.

Okay, so we're still at a place where we reject for_diddled's claim that Hermione is a sociopath. I'm saying she's not; you're saying she doesn't look like one. Your argument that it's all an 'act' could be used against almost any canon character - Ron's a secret sociopath (certainly he's much less caring of others than Hermione), Ginny intends to become a Dark Lady (through Harry?) and so forth. If we can jettison any any canon evidence/behaviour that doesn't fit our theory then almost any theory is possible.

Sociopaths will absolutely help people when it serves their own purposes.

But Hermione's actions rarely served Hermione. No, she was trying to save Buckbeak, save the elves, or save Harry.

[sunnyskywalker]

And Lucius Malfoy really cares about the sick kids at St. Mungo's? Well, maybe, but I've never seen any evidence of that. But we know that he thinks giving a bunch of money to people he might not give a damn about will benefit him - indirectly, in the long run. Charity serves Lucius's interests. Just because freeing the elves wouldn't benefit Hermione directly right at this moment doesn't mean it's necessarily all for the elves, any more than Lucius's donations are necessarily all for the sick kids.

"Maybe Hermione didn't want Umbridge to mess up the escape" isn't just a random explanation you can pull out of a hat; it actually makes sense for the circumstances. Now, if we said she was planning this whole escape to win Harry's trust so she could make him her puppet to her Dark Lady Puppetmaster someday, that would be dismissing evidence to make things fit theories. But that she might want to actually escape, and that wanting to escape doesn't tell us one way or another whether she genuinely feels concern for Umbridge? Um, not really a stretch.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

The cases are totally different. Malfoy's charity serves him, as you point out. Not only does freeing the elves NOT benefit Hermione - as you say - there's absolutely no sign, none whatsoever, that (a) she sees any benefit coming to her, EVER, or (b) that there's any other reason for Hermione to do what she does.

That's circular reasoning, basically; "Hermione is evil because she's aiding the house elves for her own self interest; oh, we can't see how it will help her, but we're sure it will, because she's evil". No, sorry.

[sunnyskywalker]

*sigh* Okay, let me try again. If I understand your argument, you're saying that because Hermione says she is concerned for the house-elves and because there isn't another reason she might help them spelled out in bold type, then that must mean the ONLY POSSIBLY MOTIVE she could have is true empathy for the house-elves. What I am saying is that just because Hermione doesn't directly say otherwise and because we can't see an immediate, direct benefit after thinking about it for half a second doesn't mean there is no possible other motive, whether instead of or in addition to actually caring about the house-elves for their own sake.

Take real-world abolitionism in the US for an example: plenty of people worked for abolition before and during the Civil War, but did nothing or sided with Southerners after Reconstruction ended and lynchings became massively more common. Why? There's lots of possible reasons, and they could all be true for different people; the one thing we do know is that a lot of people who had been pro-abolition were not to be particularly pro-black rights or to have a lot of sympathy for blacks, and plenty were actually quite racist. (Frederick Douglass calls out the generally decent people, not just the bigots, for this - "Even the noble and good Mr. Lincoln, one of the best men that ever lived" is noted as having a warped lack of sympathy on occasion and blaming slaves for causing the war by existing for white people to fight about in The Lesson of the Hour, among other places and among other related issues.)

So. If real people can be anti-slavery - maybe even get teary-eyed over sad scenes in novels or passing by slaves while on a road trip - without actually caring about the people they want to free, and even despising them sometimes, then I don't think it's reasonable to assume that the only reason a fictional character could possibly want to free the magical slaves is having a pure and empathetic heart (unless you believe that since that's probably what the author intended it to mean, therefore that's all it does mean), and it's fair to examine the situation more carefully. Might Hermione believe that attacking wizards' social hierarchy at any point - in this case, house-elves' position - would benefit other groups supposedly low in the hierarchy, like Muggleborns? If house-elves can become free citizens, after all, then the boundaries of "most different kind of person we accept as a citizen" has shifted, with Muggleborns suddenly not on the lowest rung. Now, I don't know that she's that cynical - and it's possible to have that self-serving motive and genuinely care about house-elves simultaneously anyway - but the point is that there could be (long term, possibly indirect) benefits to her, and real people have been in her position without actually being moral paragons who care about the slaves as people, so I don't think we can dismiss it out of hand either. (There's also the "not entirely rational psychology" possibility that she sees in the house-elves how she would feel in that situation, and is essentially reacting to a mirror image of herself. I've heard the argument that this was in fact the motive of many female abolitionists who later gave up abolitionism for suffrage instead of doing both - they saw similarities between their condition and slavery, but didn't have strong feelings about the slaves themselves and it was easy to give it up once they got involved in their own movement.)

Again, I am NOT saying "Hermione is definitely evil and has never done a good thing ever." I'm saying that she has done some things that look seriously dodgy which I can't explain away, and also that some of the other things she has done may or may not be due to empathy or more cynical motives, and we do not know for sure, so assuming that she's perfect is jumping the gun.