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

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

There nothing virtuous about her joining the order rather than the DEs. There is something positive, at least, about fighting to protect your group, even yourself, rather than letting other people do it.

Well, yeah, but...

Given how small the wizarding world is, it might have been hard for her to sit the war out, particularly when one considers:

a) She was a Gryffindor, and you know how they love to fight. ;-)

b) She had made a big deal out of publicly dumping her "future DE" friend, thus declaring her opposition to that group. After that, joining the Order would be a reasonable next step.

c) She was slated to marry an Order member, all of whose friends were in the Order, and whose parents were friends with the founder of the Order. It would have looked awfully weird if she hadn't joined, given all that. One of my sisters joined a church she didn't care about when she married, just because her husband and in-laws were dedicated members, and her joining was expected. Lily may have looked at it something like that.

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

That's true. (c) is particularly convincing; that *would* have looked weird. Still, that doesn't necessarily mean that she wouldn't've wanted to join the Order anyway. Fair's fair.