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

[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.