Oh, TV Tropes...!

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

Quite honestly, the Harry Potter stuff on that site has gotten to the point where I can't read it because just about everything is fawning over how great and super-special-awesome the series is, oh, and how Snape is an evil douchebag who wanted to get Harry and James killed so he could keep Lily. But this... this makes me want to scream:

"Hermione... [is] one of the smartest and more pro-active females in the whole Harry Potter canon and English literature in general"

WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!

How could they make such a claim?! Hermione is a better heroine than, say, Tiffany Aching?! How about Eliza Doolittle?! And I'm sure you could come up with other examples.

No, no, in Harry Potter it seems fairly obvious that the most powerful women in the series are antagonists. Sure, Hermione's perfectly independent and capable, but in the last several books it's like she becomes Harry's servant because he's too lazy to do anything himself!

God damn it, Harry Potter wouldn't bother me so much if everyone didn't insist it was the greatest thing since sliced bread!

Comments

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

If I knew that anyone I interact with IRL did anything on that level I'd stay away from such a person ...

Ah, I think I see one of the biggest differences between us.

See, when I map the goings-on of the books into 'real life' and then hit a discontinuity I shrug my shoulders, note it as yet another example of Rowling's poor writing and move on. In other words, it's the author's credibility/worthiness as a writer which crumples first in any chain of 'extrapolation' that I employ in my mind.

But you soldier on. Your particular joy in your HP reconstruction work is to take Rowling's words more seriously, you soldier on where I've said "oh, Rowling's a bad author" and stopped. And so you get to these more 'extreme' positions where poor Hermione is a budding sociopath whom you'd eschew with extreme prejudice in the real world, etc. You're taking Rowling at her written word and mapping the books straight into real life without adjustment nor attenuation for what is a work of (poor) fiction.

I think that's a mistake. Because (a) Rowling just isn't that good a writer; we KNOW she didn't think all these things out, from her interviews and such. And (b) the books - and Rowling - just didn't have the depth, the detail, that you're expecting. It's like putting an electron microscope to bear on a brick; we're supposed to just see the brick, but you're picking up fractal patterns in a microscopic world of quartz molecules far removed from the brick's purpose/placement.

*considers that he could have come up with a better metaphor* :-)

I do think you still tend to 'amplify' those negative things that Hermione is seen to do and not similarly mark her up for all of her good deeds and emotions. But that's because you're trying to redeem those nasty death eaters too. :-)

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Um, but Madderbrad? What you are criticizing us for where Hermione is concerned is EXACTLY how you're reading Snape. You don't cut him any slack at all. There is no evidence in the text, for example, that he actually hates Harry because, after all these years, he still hates James. But you don't give the man any slack at all, while you bend over backwards for Hermione.

I used to love Hermione in the first two or three books. In the last three, she became a horror. Well, in my humble opinion, anyway. In the meantime, I was pretty much vindicated in my interpretation of Snape (I'd been a Sev/Lily shipper from POA, and it was glaringly obvious that he killed Dumbledore on Dumbledore's orders.)

Just my two cents.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

You don't cut him any slack at all.

That's not true. Somewhere here I wrote just a few hours ago as to how Harry's hatred for him was unbalanced/unfair, viz blaming Snape (totally) for the death of Sirius.

while you bend over backwards for Hermione.

Likewise, not true. I acknowledge Hermione's faults (one or two new ones I hadn't realised the last few days in the 'sociopath' thread!). But I acknowledge her redeeming traits too. Some here damn her with the negatives and filter out the positives entirely, it seems.

In the last three, she became a horror.

No; she did a couple of horrid things. Big difference. And she did lots of good/positive things too, you know.

... it was glaringly obvious that he killed Dumbledore on Dumbledore's orders.

Yes, even I'd seen that after putting HBP down, I think.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Sorry, I'm just going on what I'm shown. I am shown Hermione doing terrible stuff. Even when she could have easily been written as a better person. She could have reversed Marietta's curse later in the year, she could have expressed horror at how Umbridge ended up - neither of these changes would have mattered to the plot, only to her characterization.

And wrt the DEs, I'm going on what I'm shown too. Some are ruthless killers and torturers, some clearly don't have it in them. For Severus there is of course more evidence in favor.

Rowling had hundreds of pages, I don't see why she should get away with 'Death Eaters - evil!!! doom!!! an 11 year war!!!!' without actually writing it.

[sunnyskywalker]

But by that logic, you could also say that any action which seems to show Hermione having empathy was also the result of bad writing one way or another (she wrote Hermione as teary-eyed at Plot Point X because it popped into her head as something girls do in the movies, or something), and therefore can't be used to say anything definitive about her character. She might have intended to portray Hermione as a troubled, highly-strung girl who very occasionally has some good impulses peek through, and you're just mpaping those incidents of bad writing - tears-as-cliche for a vague girly emotional reaction, juvenile self-important impulse to do Great Things and lead a Moral Crusade - straight onto real life, without adjusting for the bad writing, leading to an extreme position where Hermione is a paragon of morality.

You could read her consistently as a deeply troubled kid who occasionally has good impulses and suffers through lack of good guidance, in which case the good impulses would be the discontinuities, and then you'd have to consider tossing them out as writing mistakes ;-)

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

I think that the common denominator here is that JKR is not a good enough writer to clearly portray her one way or the other. I wonder if her cruel acts aren't more of a result of JKR trying to make her more edgy or badass, and her cliched tears added in because "hey, she's female, right?" On the whole, I'm starting to think that her characterization is too inconsistent to be able to make a case for her being either a sociopath or a warm, caring girl.

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

Agree with this. Personally I think of the first four and last three books as practically two separate series, featurning different characters who just happen to share the same names.

[sunnyskywalker]

That sounds about right, sadly. I mean, that Shrieking Shack scene bounces around between a very cold Hermione (upset that they'll be in trouble, not that they possibly badly injured someone who was trying to save their lives, and just turning away so a guy could be murdered), to a Hermione who might have some empathy (she maybe-kinda-sorta is interested in a fair hearing and justice, possibly, although it's hard to tell - see next point), to a Hermione who honestly seems like she's just there to ask the questions the reader is asking. It's like a bunch of different plot necessities (have to get exposition, have to have Harry look most empathetic because his name's on the cover, have to show Hermione being stressed like all year and worried about school rules because that's one of her tags) just got mushed together, and I really don't know how anyone's supposed to sort out an actual consistent interpretation of her character.

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

/I wonder if her cruel acts aren't more of a result of JKR trying to make her more edgy or badass/

I think that that may be it. I remember JKR saying that Hermione would ‘loosen up’ in the last three books. Maybe Hermione’s behavior was a result of JKR trying to make her less of an uptight stick-in-the-mud.