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deathtocapslock* 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’sa 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.
* 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
* 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.
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Re: Marietta's real crime?
Date: 2011-10-09 10:55 am (UTC)It *was* silly of Hermione; it *was* a punishment-after-the-act thing rather than a measure to actually protect the group from being betrayed in the first place. I'm hazy if 'unbreakable vows' and the like would have worked (I'm getting confused between fanon and canon). But I'm sure there would have been some sort of spell to stop Marietta from being a Judas. Or Hermione could have at least tried.
But that wasn't the story Rowling wanted to tell. She "loathes a traitor" - that's what she told fans in an interview once I believe. So Hermione wasn't allowed to consider other options. :-(
Re: Marietta's real crime?
Date: 2011-10-09 06:36 pm (UTC)There is such a thing as a Tongue-Tying curse, although I can't remember quite how it works (if we ever learned).
Re: Marietta's real crime?
Date: 2011-10-09 09:31 pm (UTC)Ah, thanks for that. It's mentioned in PS when Harry goes shopping, and is the curse that Moody sets up in Grimmauld Place to stop Snape from talking.
So that's one canon spell that Hermione could have researched and used.
But she just wasn't allowed to by her author. See, it's not Hermione that's evil for scarring Marietta ... it's ROWLING!!
Re: Marietta's real crime?
Date: 2011-10-10 12:43 am (UTC)You can't use that as an excuse for one thing without letting it be used to excuse all kinds of characters' faults. Wouldn't the same principle also excuse Marietta?
Heck, I dare you to try using that to excuse Snape for his "I see no difference" line, in an argument with someone who hates Snape. For that matter... would *you* excuse Snape for saying that to Hermione? I don't consider it the huge OMGhe'sevil deal that some people do, but I think it was inappropriate, and I certainly wouldn't say that it isn't him, it's JKR.
Re: Marietta's real crime?
Date: 2011-10-10 12:48 am (UTC)Hermione was stupid not to look into preventative measures; she was written that way.
Re: Marietta's real crime?
Date: 2011-10-10 04:27 am (UTC)It *means* something that Hermione chose to scar a "traitor" for life, rather than doing something 1) more effective and 2) less vindictive. It's a fact about her that should influence how we interpret her other behavior. Do you think that it influences how you interpret her other behavior? Maybe it does, but I don't see it.
Re: Marietta's real crime?
Date: 2011-10-12 10:34 am (UTC)No, I don't.
But I do think that the more someone follows - or stretches - Rowling's words, the more 'noise' will be produced. I had a mini-epiphany about the difference between myself and Oryx (and probably others here) a few days ago ... in a lot of my reasoning about HP I get to a point where it seems clear that Rowling just failed - the Rowling error horizon :-) - and I stop. To proceed would be to amplify error as well as reason/fact.
But Oryx is more interested in pursuing the HP canon to its absolute limits, so she soldiers on.
To me it seems as if the Rowling errors are amplified just as much as the Rowling canon.
Do you think that it influences how you interpret her other behavior? Maybe it does, but I don't see it.
I see it as something of a one-off aberration. I don't believe she permanently punished anyone else for anything. Plus, I *am* influenced by Rowling's interview meta-words - "I loathe a traitor". Poor Hermione wasn't given a choice. :-)
Plus you, and others, seem to only concentrate on her bad points, discounting them when there's something negative that can be highlighted. And really, all of the negatives are arguable. She permanently punished - a traitor. She fed to the centaurs - a fascist sadistic evil woman. I really can't get too upset with Hermione for those acts.
Re: Marietta's real crime?
Date: 2011-10-12 03:31 pm (UTC)And I think we are (or at least, I am) examining all facets of her character. In a way, she is written quite consistently. She is book-smart, aggressive, ambitious, and wants approval. As with Marietta, I can understand and sympathize with those traits. But I don't like where they lead Hermione in the last three books. There is a ruthlessness about her that I, personally, find very disturbing.
If you don't mind me bringing up Severus again, this is the difference between him and the trio. They do (except for Ron, who seems simply to become dumber - he started out as a CHESS PLAYER!) have character arcs. But Severus becomes a better person, while Hermione and Harry become worse.
My two cents!
Re: Marietta's real crime?
Date: 2011-10-12 10:41 pm (UTC)She was a traitor; we're agreed on that. It's black and white. Marietta betrayed the D.A., full stop.
I don't think people are trying to remove all blame from Marietta. We are trying to put things in perspective and point out that what Hermione does in response is not only vindictive and ineffective, it's morally appalling.
I think some of the 'perspective' here is skewed. There are some arguments here that are trying to portray Hermione (and Harry, and ...) as SO MUCH WORSE than Marietta, and thus trying to vastly ameliorate Marietta's sin to almost nothing. I'm finding some of those arguments exaggerated beyond the text, stretched beyond belief to try and get the girl off.
There is a ruthlessness about her that I, personally, find very disturbing.
There is a ruthlessness, yes. When one is at war a soldier has to be 'ruthless' to get the job done. If you want to live, if you want to win, if you want to defeat the evil dark lord who wants to take over your society and eliminate an entire social class.
And there are also lots of positives about Hermione that either (a) 'cancel out' that 'ruthlessness' or at least make her a normal, acceptable, rounded character. Not the 'sociopath' that was mooted in this community a couple of weeks ago (talk about *exaggeration*!!).
Re: Marietta's real crime?
Date: 2011-10-12 11:35 pm (UTC)Re: Marietta's real crime?
Date: 2011-10-12 11:49 pm (UTC)Indded Harry and Hermione are much better than Marietta. They are war heroes (valiant ones) and put their lives on the line again and again to save society and people's lives. Harry walked with deliberate premeditation to his death to save people like Marietta. Hermione was tortured by the dark lord's right hand witch because of her unfailing fight to do what was right. She's a crusader for justice, a fighter for good, a loyal friend to Harry and a whole host of other things.
Re: Marietta's real crime?
Date: 2011-10-13 01:27 am (UTC)Re: Marietta's real crime?
Date: 2011-10-13 02:51 am (UTC)Re: Marietta's real crime?
Date: 2011-10-13 02:54 am (UTC)Re: Marietta's real crime?
Date: 2011-10-13 03:15 am (UTC)Secondly, as a thought exercise, imagine that Marietta had betrayed Harry - okay, no imagination required, she *did* - and Hermione hadn't saved him. Harry gets tortured, maybe tossed into the clink - Umbridge/Fudge continue to be in control if we let Marietta have her way, remember - and the wizarding world is doomed.
Just a thought exercise, but useful.
Finally -
... this does not justify their crimes.
This is where my ignorance of the real world betrays me. Are soldiers in war given leeway in such things? Certainly they do from one end of the scale - they're at liberty to kill. So if Harry and Hermione (and Ron) had killed (something Rowling artificially prevented (other than - was it Marion who pointed it out - killing DEs in the Privet Drive exodus)), that would have been excusable, right?
But you want them burnt at the stake for ... right, two seconds of Cruciatus. Hmmpf. Sorry, no.
So that's Harry off the Oryx hook. As for Hermione, you listed her 'crimes' as 'assailant, kidnapper, blackmailer'. Who did she 'assail', by the way? Ron? Draco? *snort*. The 'kidnap' and 'blackmail' both apply to Rita, yes? That's 'kidnap' as in 'catch and then let go'. And 'blackmail' as in 'for absolutely no personal nor monetary gain'.
Pretty tame 'crimes'!
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From:Re: Marietta's real crime?
Date: 2011-10-13 08:54 am (UTC)Re: Marietta's real crime?
Date: 2011-10-12 05:06 pm (UTC)To me it seems as if the Rowling errors are amplified just as much as the Rowling canon.
You see, I don't see "errors" and "canon." I see a text, and the Author is Dead. You've decided that some things are errors, and some things aren't, and the things that are errors will sometimes excuse the characters you like, but never the characters you dislike.
So... yeah, you mean it.
I see it as something of a one-off aberration.
She permanently punished...
She fed to the centaurs...
Well, that's two that you've raised, just there.
Don't forget setting the canaries to attack Ron.
Re: Marietta's real crime?
Date: 2011-10-12 10:47 pm (UTC)So ... no I don't.
Sorry Lynn. Of the two of us I'm the expert on Madderbrad, so when I say he's just being flippant when he jokes about meta-causes as to characters' actions, that's exactly the case.
I distinctly recall your arguing against accepting her statement -- seconds before that line -- that Marietta was scarred for *life*. What you accept there apparently depends on what you want to believe.
No. The books are the final source of proof.
It's simply not canon that Marietta's acne was permanent. The last we see of her is at the start of HBP. We know that she was using heavy make-up 3-4 months after she was scarred.
And that's it.
Show me where it says, in the books, that the acne was permanent - or Hermione saying she set things that way - and that'll settle it. But if you can't - then that permanence is *your* 'head canon'. A possibility, sure, but neither confirmed nor canon fact.
Re: Marietta's real crime?
Date: 2011-10-12 11:20 pm (UTC)Well, your explanation of how you don't believe it sounds exactly like a statement admitting you do. I explained why it sounds like that in my previous post. I don't know what you're thinking, but I can read what you say.
Re your second point:
Although I think that it's suggestive of the severity of the scarring that Marietta was still scarred after the summer, and I can get into that if you like, that isn't my point. At all. I accept that the books allow both the reading that it was permanent, and readings where the scarring was cured, even a day after Harry saw it last.
My point is that *just above*, you accepted JKR's "I loathe a traitor" as a reason to believe something about canon, but in this latest post, you reject JKR's Marietta-was-scarred-for-life. My point is that you're picking and choosing, and you're debating as though the rest of us should accept your choices.
It works for head-canon; it doesn't work in a debate.
Re: Marietta's real crime?
Date: 2011-10-12 05:14 pm (UTC)And look... I have no problem with doing that for your head-canon. However, if you use that when *debating* interpretations of canon? It doesn't work.
Re: Marietta's real crime?
Date: 2011-10-12 04:38 am (UTC)Hermione was stupid not to look into preventative measures; she was written that way.
I agree with Lynn below. You say you're joking, yet whenever you're confronted with evidence of Hermione being a jerk, you let her off with your excuses. Nobody else gets such a pass.
For example, you've gone after Snape many times for not really loving Lily, and dismissed as "childish" and "irrelevant" the perfectly reasonable arguments that no other character displays such generosity of spirit, either. You also ignore the fact you agreed with this argument several months ago when it came up before. By taking him out of his social and historical context and judging him apart from anyone else in his time and culture, you engage in completely invalid reasoning from both cultural and historical perspectives.
But when it comes to Hermione, you shamelessly engage in defenses that couldn't be more childish and irrelevant if you tried. "It's all Rowling's fault for being a bad writer." That one's been rebutted by others.
"Hermione was corrupted by Ginny's evilness." Never mind that Ginny was two years younger than Hermione, an age difference that matters a lot when you're both kids, and that Hermione was a natural leader, which Ginny was not.
Well, you know what? It's not Snape's fault he was emotionally stunted and ungenerous. JKR wrote him that way. If Rowling hadn't made him a total emotional cripple, that ludicrous scenario she saddled him with--throwing away his entire life obsessing over a dumb girl who never cared much about him in the first place--would have been totally unbelievable instead of just 99% unbelievable.
Snape loved Lily as much as he was able to, which is all you can ask of anybody. He certainly loved her more than James; this is proven by both his willingness to leave her alone when she told him to, and his refusal to try to control her. By contrast, James harassed Lily after she'd told him to back off, and he tried to blackmail and threaten her into going out with him. That's not love; that's abuse. John Douglas, legendary founder of the FBI's criminal profiling unit, says violent criminals want "manipulation, domination, and control" over their victims. That's the way James treated Lily, not Severus. One could also argue that's the way Lily treated Severus.
And please quit using Judas as a synonym for betrayal. In traditional Christianity, the reason Jesus came to earth was to live as a human and die for the sins of humanity. IOW, he was destined to die no matter what. By betraying Jesus, Judas actually did Christ a favor by helping him to fulfill his destiny. If you want to blame somebody for Christ's death, blame God. He's the one who set that whole situation up. All the humans involved were just His pawns.
Re: Marietta's real crime?
Date: 2011-10-12 10:47 am (UTC)You're exaggerating. 'Whenever' means 'all of the time'. Not so.
You also ignore the fact you agreed with this argument several months ago when it came up before.
I don't remember the arguments that I dismissed as 'childish' and 'irrelevant' but please, if you think I'm inconsistent or hypocritical, refer me to my previous comment of months back and the one of today which differs, and I'll explain/retract where necessary.
"It's all Rowling's fault for being a bad writer." That one's been rebutted by others.
It's still applicable. See above to another comment I just posted.
"Hermione was corrupted by Ginny's evilness."
Oh goodness, you're taking that seriously? Damn, have you deliberately chosen something I wrote out of context, deliberately eschewing the smiley-face, or did I forget it there too?
Actually, can you give me the link to that one? I just did a search on my e-mail and can't see the message where I made a post with those words. Thanks.
It's not Snape's fault he was emotionally stunted and ungenerous. JKR wrote him that way.
We're agreed then, I guess.
Snape loved Lily as much as he was able to -
Which was less than what others can produce, not 'true love' that we would expect of a hero, say. Or of a character whose primary motivation for 17 years was based on that 'love'. That's why Snape's course through the series doesn't stand up to the weight it was supposed to bear.
And please quit using Judas as a synonym for betrayal.
Oh, sorry. I understand your point, but I'll keep using the synonym; it's a fairly widespread term I think. Although I might start switching to another name; Marietta was a Judas, Judas was a Marietta. :-)
Actually I'm glad you brought that up; the second definition of the word on dictionary.com says:
Judas - a person treacherous enough to betray a friend; traitor.
That's Marietta, exactly! She simply doesn't deserve the industry of some of the people here to try and alleviate her of every iota of blame and responsibility for her betrayal.
Re: Marietta's real crime?
Date: 2011-10-12 03:40 pm (UTC)NOBODY in this series loves more than Snape. NOBODY is more effective. Nobody.
And yes, he, and Harry, and Hermione, are written inconsistently at times, and yes, it's because Rowling isn't as skilled a writer as she might be. She's still pretty darn skilled, or we wouldn't be discussing these books four years after the publication of the last volume. But it's a pity she didn't think things through and give us a coherent story and coherent characters. It's a pity she doesn't show the humanity and thoughtfulness of Lewis or Doyle, to give two examples others have mentioned. Basically, the series falls apart in the last two books. It's completely plot-driven, not character driven, and all her characters take a step toward two-dimensionality in DH.
One final thing: I don't think people are trying to remove all blame from Marietta. We are trying to put things in perspective and point out that what Hermione does in response is not only vindictive and ineffective, it's morally appalling.
Re: Marietta's real crime?
Date: 2011-10-13 10:01 pm (UTC)Re: Marietta's real crime?
Date: 2011-10-14 05:03 am (UTC)