Hermoine, compassion, and idealism

[malic-ba.livejournal.com]

Hi everyone

First post, hope this works!

This started out as a comment in response to DH chapter 9, below, but I decided to put it where it can be seen more easily because I'd really like to learn what people think.

The discussion was about Hermione as compassionate and/or ruthless, which grew out of a discussion of her changing her parents' identities.

To me it seems that she cares about the rights of others as an ideal, from her own perspective. That does show compassion but it's patronising. I think that's something pretty common among Western do-gooders (and probably do-gooders more generally) and it's something I have to struggle against myself. It's entirely likely in someone so young.

The scary thought is her level of potential power and the lack of guidance in the WW to help her really consider those she's trying to help. Ron points out that house elf values are different - whether because he actually considers them or to protect the status quo - but Hermione doesn't respect anything he says. Her approach agrees perfectly with the most 'enlightened' wizarding attitudes to muggles, and there are plenty of wizards who've grown up with them. I can easily see a 'greater good' type attitude developing as Hermione gains power in the Ministry.

Since JKR worked for Amnesty I wonder if this aspect of Hermione is based on what she found there?

Also, I wonder what message she was trying to send. Is it supposed to be a good or bad part of Hermoine's character? Or, with unusual subtlety for these books, both? The message almost seems to be that 'do-gooding' is pointless - SPEW is a misguided joke, compassion is wasted on goblins and giants, and no-one questions the inferiority of muggles. At the same time I'm sure it's meant to show Hermoine's courage and goodness.

What does anyone think? Is JKR really trying to turn people off idealism? If so, does that have anything to do with the actual wishes of the 'helpees'?

Comments

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

Having been the recipient of Hermione's kind of "help" from several relatives, I can tell you it really has nothing to do with helping at all. That is, I have family members who love to butt into other people's lives, saying, "You should do this," or "You should do that." But that's all they do: give orders. They never offer to help accomplish this goal they've arbitrarily set for someone else, with either money or labor. They just sit on their cans flapping their jaws, feeling morally superior because they tried to "help," and complaining about what incompetent losers the rest of us are for not following their "advice" (which is always couched as an order). And just like Hermione with the house elves, they never bother to find out if the people they're "helping" really want their help, or at least that kind of help. They just decide for someone else that someone else needs to do such-and-such.

For example, several months ago, my oldest sister told me, "You should set up a Facebook account for Mom so she can keep in touch with her grandchildren." Never mind that it's not my job to manage the social lives of a bunch of adults. Never mind that our mother is afraid of computers, so such an account wouldn't do her any good, anyway. Never mind that my sister already has a Facebook account, so if she thought this was such a great idea, she could do it herself. Nooooooooo. As Mommy's designated caretaker, it's my job to do anything like that. Whether I want to do this is totally irrelevant.

In other words, people like Hermione are not really helpers or reformers at all. They're just sermonizers on an ego trip. It's just another kind of narcissism: "Look how wonderful and helpful I am. Why, I'm so smart, I know when people need help, even when they don't realize it themselves. And, by God, they're going to accept my help--whether they like it or not. Because my feeling good about myself is more important than anything else."

[librasmile.livejournal.com]

Well said

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

But that's all they do: give orders.

But that's not all Hermione does.

She spends months trying to save Buckbeak.

She spends years saving Harry.

She spends months knitting caps to help the elves.

She's solicitous towards Kreacher even though he's a ratbag towards her.

She helps Neville with his homework (that I recall). She helps the boys for seven years with theirs. Rather than, like, 'giving orders' and then letting them wallow.

That's just not true at all.

They're just sermonizers on an ego trip.

Please cite examples from the books where Hermione stands up and shouts LOOK AT ME I'M WONDERFUL THIS IS MY EGO TALKING.

And I'll give you excerpts like this:

"You're the cleverest witch of your age I've ever met, Hermione."

"I'm not," Hermione whispered. "If I'd been a bit cleverer, I'd have told everyone what you are!"

Or this:

'But that's ... that's NEWT standard, that is,' he said weakly.

'Oh,' said Hermione, trying to look modest. 'Oh ... well ... yes, I suppose it is.'

Funny how the Ravenclaws hadn't known - from Hermione's public ego trips - just how smart she is. Look how modest she is instead.

And, by God, they're going to accept my help--whether they like it or not. Because my feeling good about myself is more important than anything else."

Hermione is one of the most self-sacrificing people in the books, as per my examples above. I don't know who you're talking about, but it's not the Hermione Granger from the books.

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

Funny how the Ravenclaws hadn't known - from Hermione's public ego trips - just how smart she is. Look how modest she is instead.

Maybe they didn't know she could do anything useful, just regurgitate information from textbooks?

Anyway, here's an example of Hermione more focused on showing off than on anything else:

-----------------------------
“As I was saying before Potter interrupted, Professor Lupin has not left any record of the topics you have covered so far —”
“Please, sir, we’ve done Boggarts, Red Caps, Kappas, and Grindylows,” said Hermione quickly, “and we’re just about to start —”
“Be quiet,” said Snape coldly. “I did not ask for information. [...]


Today we shall discuss [...] — werewolves,” said Snape.
“But, sir,” said Hermione, seemingly unable to restrain herself, “we’re not supposed to do werewolves yet, we’re due to start Hinkypunks —”
“Miss Granger,” said Snape in a voice of deadly calm, “I was under the impression that I am teaching this lesson, not you. [...]


“Which of you can tell me how we distinguish between the werewolf and the true wolf?” said Snape.
Everyone sat in motionless silence; everyone except Hermione, whose hand, as it so often did, had shot straight into the air.
“Anyone?” Snape said, ignoring Hermione. [...]


“Please, sir,” said Hermione, whose hand was still in the air, “the werewolf differs from the true wolf in several small ways. The snout of the werewolf —”
----------------------------


Regardless of whether you think Snape should have called on Hermione (and allowed the rest of the class to sit there blankly), Hermione's behavior is focused on what *she* wants, not what anyone else wants. The first interruption could be genuinely intended to be helpful, but with the second and third, Hermione knows she isn't helping. She's more interested in what she has to say than what anyone else has to say, and that determines her behavior.

The other students take her side in this case because Snape is unpopular and because this was a time when they didn't have anything that they *wanted* to say. But "every one of them had called Hermione a know-it-all at least once." That isn't a compliment, and it isn't a reflection of how much she knows: it's a reflection of how she behaves.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Maybe they didn't know she could do anything useful, just regurgitate information from textbooks?

Ha ha ha! You shouldn't let your enmity for the character flavour your interpretation of 25% of the students of Hogwarts. :-)

“we’re not supposed to do werewolves yet ..."

And she was right! Just being helpful again. So that's both first and second interruptions being helpful.

And as for the third:

“Anyone?” Snape said -

Are you saying that Hermione Granger is not 'anyone'?

Snape asked for 'anyone'.

Hermione replied.

I see no problem here.

Three out of three 'interruptions' fully justified.

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

If you don't care about anything the person being "helped" thinks, then yes.

Of course, Hermione doesn't care about what the person being "helped" thinks.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Severus is right and Hermione is wrong. Her 'helpfulness' was neither needed nor useful. She should have realized that her teacher, who was already at the start of the lesson, already made his plans as to how to spend the class time. And he was not going to change them based on her answer. He was not asking 'where did you stop last time?' in order to improvise a lesson from some point that to him would be arbitrary. He made a lesson plan to teach a self-contained unit. And if she did not realize this the first time, once he announced the topic she should have understood and not interfered any more. Really, the curriculum was a series of Dark Creatures, each can be taught independently of knowledge about the other creatures. There is no pedagogical reason to teach them in one particular order. From a student's POV - a teacher was asked to substitute, maybe at the last minute, without knowing what the class was doing. Since the order of instruction of this particular curriculum is arbitrary, it would make sense to choose a topic from a late part of the text book, because it would be less likely that the topic had been covered already, if the regular instructor was going in the order of the book.

And this being her third year she should have realized teachers don't like letting one student answer - it leads the other students to coast. Yes, it was the first contents-related answer she offered this lesson, but she offers answers all the time in all her classes (or so we are led to think). And in any case, a teacher is not obligated to call on a student who is volunteering an answer, nor does the student have the right to blurt out the answer without being called on. It is the teacher's privilege to decide which student speaks when.

[nx74defiant.livejournal.com]

“Anyone?” Snape said, ignoring Hermione.-

I think the is an implied else in that anyone. As in: does anyone besides Granger.

I known people who as instructors make it a point to call on as many different people as possible. That way the whole class in involved and encourage those don't find it as easy to answer by giving them a chance.

[maidofkent.livejournal.com]

The clue is in 'trying to look modest'. If she were actually modest, she'd be blushing and mumbling, not putting an effort in. You could say that she shoudn't have to be modest about her intellectual/magical ability, but that is a different argument. Your argument is that she is naturally modest, when the text is telling you quite clearly that she is not; she has recognised that being modest about cleverness is a socially desirable norm in the UK, and she is trying to achieve that norm. It does not come naturally.

As to the Ravenclaws' knowledge of Hermione, do they actually share any classes with the Gryffs? Potions is shared with the Slytherins, and Herbology with the Puffs, but I can't think of a class with Ravenclaw until NEWT level.

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

Thanks -- this is something that I was thinking, but couldn't find a good way to express.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

A modest person is someone who acts modestly.

To act modestly one has to 'try' to be modest.

That may be easy for those who are naturally modest, or have nothing to be modest about. More difficult for those who are superior to her classmates. And intelligent enough to know it.

But, luckily, determined to be modest and thus not push that fact in their faces.

As to the Ravenclaws' knowledge of Hermione, do they actually share any classes with the Gryffs?

I have no idea.

But I do think that, if Hermione had been trumpeting her superiority all over the place, the Ravenclaws would have known. Gossip has been shown to move very fast at Hogwarts.

[oryx_leucoryx]

When an external observer notices you are trying to be modest it suggests you are faking modesty, probably because you want to give the impression of modesty when you really aren't. Very immodest, very attention-seeking.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Poor Hermione. She just can't win (at deathtocapslock).

If she was bragging, boasting, egotistical, she'd be slammed for being immodest.

If she's deliberately trying NOT to boast, squelching her ego, actually being modest ... she's still slammed as being immodest.

The only way some people here will accept that she's modest is to give the girl a lobotomy and, therefore, nothing to be modest about!

[malic-ba.livejournal.com]

Oh, I think that's a bit too much. Sure, it suggests that you're trying to act modest when you don't really feel it, but that's trying to moderate your actions to be more socially acceptable, not attention seeking. I don't think Hermoine is naturally modest, but be fair, she's trying here. ( As opposed to, say, the 'haven't you worked it out yet' scene.)

I think that Hermione is not naturally modest, empathic, or sociable, but she does her best to 'do the right thing' on all of those. She's better at doing months of legal research than really understanding people face to face, but she does her best to help. Shame she doesn't get any guidance to help her understand others' needs from their own point of view.

[maidofkent.livejournal.com]

Actually, madderbrad, I do agree with your there. Hermione doesn't just give orders, she actively involves herself in causes, but sometimes she is less than helpful - the houselves' hats, doing Ron and Harry's work for them.

In a post below, librasmile talks about Hermione being self-satisfied because of her professional middle-class background. I'm not sure that's quite right. Hermione comes to Hogwarts with an almost pathological desire to do well, 'sitting on the edge of her seat, desperate to start proving she wasn't a dunderhead'. Even in third year, her Boggart is Minerva telling her she's failed academically. That speaks to me of a child who feels (rightly or wrongly since we know little of the Grangers) that love for her, her self-worth, is dependent on her achievements, particularly her academic achievements. She needed support on that front, and didn't get it.

Hermione is not a monster when she comes to Hogwarts. She is a little girl with good instincts, to study hard, to help the weak, to be a loyal friend. However, she does not take account of how other people feel about being helped; as with Neville on the train, she forces her help on them. A decent school could have taken and developed Hermione's good instincts, and helped her understand how to direct them. She could have emerged a thoroughly decent person.

Instead, she is allowed (except by Snape) to get away with rote-learning. She becomes ruthless in her loyalty to her friends, and is left to throw herself into causes without adult guidance. (Why, for example, was helping Buckbeak left to a 14 year old? ). So the negative side of her instincts is allowed to develop. Harry couldn't have survived without her, but the Hermione we end up with is not the way Hermione should have developed.

[malic-ba.livejournal.com]

Well put, maidofkent! That's just how I see Hermoine, too, but I couldn't put it as elegantly as that. She seems so clearly insecure and driven, and she's compassionate but not empathic.

Early on in the series she does start developing in a healthy way, I think. When we first see her she doesn't understand others or social norms - hence the 'looking for Neville's toad' scene for example - but she does, painfully, work out that her behaviour isn't socially acceptable and works to change it.

It's a shame that what *is* socially acceptable at Hogwarts, especially in her group of friends, and the imperative of the 'war' combine to encourage her darker potential.

(I really liked her as a character in the early books, but was horrified by OotP, and then DH - aargh.)

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Yes to both of you! Hermione is no monster, especially in the early books - she's just a normally insecure, competitive, and academically-inclined little girl. But the Wizarding World does her no favors. You know, some time ago Terri came up with the idea that what these books really show is how the Wizarding World corrupts kids raised in the normal world (Snape, to a degree, though he managed to climb out of the hole he'd dug for himself; Harry, Tom Riddle (who had no interest in climbing out of his hole, but just wanted to make it deeper); Hermione, Lily). All leave Hogwarts worse people than they were went they went in. Yes, even Tom Riddle!

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and whom do all those kids have in common, hmmm? Do I hear "Albus Dumbledore," anyone?

That's what psychopaths and narcissists do, especially when they're in positions of power. They corrupt everyone and everything around them.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Hermione starts out rough, but with a good heart and good intentions, as you say.

But I think she improves over time ... even at Hogwarts.

However, she does not take account of how other people feel about being helped; as with Neville on the train, she forces her help on them.

And in DH she *doesn't* force herself on Kreacher. Yes, in a moment of emotional stress she tries to hug the racist elf, but afterwards she does NOT try to 'save' him, or 'convert' him, or even give him clothes (how EASY would it have been for her to attempt that?).

she is allowed (except by Snape) to get away with rote-learning.

Like everyone else. Certainly not a flaw of Hermione's; although I gather you're regretting the lack of developed potential in this case. Still, she does do some impressive magic - the bottomless bag, the Polyjuice, the DA jinx (that was original), the DA coins (that was an adaptation of a Protean charm), etc.

But yes, imagine what Hermione could have done if she had been encouraged to develop her magical skills! And if she hadn't had to spend all of her time helping Harry!

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Brad, I don't honestly see how you can say that Hermione improves over time. Permanently scarring another girl whose only crime was to put *her own mother* ahead of her peer group? Deliberately using the centaurs to neutralize Umbridge? (The point here is not that she tried to neutralize Umbridge - that was arguably justified, though even Umbridge didn't deserve what the centaurs did to her. No one would. No, the point is that she was using other sentient creatures, without their consent or permission, for her own ends.) But, to me, the way she treats Ron in HBP and DH. Evil enchanted canaries? BEATING him? Think how you would feel about Ron if you read of him treating Hermione this way. Abuse is abuse, even when a woman (or girl) is abusing a man (or boy).

No, I don't really like Hermione any more in the last two books. It's a pity, because she was really a pretty great character in the beginning.

And I see the Wizarding World as entirely corrupting. There is nothing I like about it after DH

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

I think RE the Marietta instance, it actually confuses the issue to focus on what happened to Marietta as Marietta. Rather, think of it as permanently scarring anyone who mentioned the meetings to an outside party for any reason, without informing them beforehand that this would happen. After all, we see no evidence for any mechanism for the magic to distinguish between justified telling and not-justified telling - it seems to simply kick in when the secret is revealed. Suppose, for an extreme instance, one of the students set off a blasting-type curse wrong, or got overly confident and tried Fiendfyre, or any one of a number of other things that could potentially trap DA members in the room and harm them. Should someone who managed to wriggle out and go for help be scarred for life on the face for blurting out to the nearest teacher that their friends were trapped in the room of requirement and needed help because something they did during their defense club went wrong?

Hermione's whole set of implicit assumptions, not just about the morality of permanently scarring someone or the spell being secret, but also about when, how and why someone might tell, is fundamentally flawed and ill-thought out. (Not to mention the utter pointlessness of the 'secret' aspect from a practical standpoint. THIS is the brightest witch of her era? Doesn't say much for her peers, then does it?)

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, but I have to address this exchange, presented as an example of Hermione's modesty:

"You're the cleverest witch of your age I've ever met, Hermione."

"I'm not," Hermione whispered. "If I'd been a bit cleverer, I'd have told everyone what you are!"

After due reflection, it isn't modesty to acknowledge having made a mistake when the mistake is a werewolf you could have gotten kicked out (as she believed) teaming up with an apparent mass-murderer to apparently kill you and your friends. While confronted with said werewolf and possibly rapidly approaching death. At it's best, that's being honest.

On the other hand, *staying silent* was a bit of an ego-trip. Here's the first mention of Hermione knowing, about midway through the book:

“Still looks ill, doesn’t he?” said Ron as they walked down the corridor, heading to dinner. “What d’you reckon’s the matter with him?”

There was a loud and impatient “tuh” from behind them. It was Hermione, who had been sitting at the feet of a suit of armor, repacking her bag, which was so full of books it wouldn’t close.

“And what are you tutting at us for?” said Ron irritably.

“Nothing,” said Hermione in a lofty voice, heaving her bag back over her shoulder.

“Yes, you were,” said Ron. “I said I wonder what’s wrong with Lupin, and you —”

“Well, isn’t it obvious?” said Hermione, with a look of maddening superiority.

I'm not sure what exactly I think of Hermione, but I do *not* think she's modest.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Yeah, someone described with this line: "“Well, isn’t it obvious?” said Hermione, with a look of maddening superiority." is not modest. She clearly wants them to know that she knows, and that she thinks them stupid for not being able to figure it out. She doesn't simply keep quiet as if she knew nothing (which would be the most beneficial thing to do if you're thinking about the person whose secret you believe needs keeping), nor does she simply tell them what the matter is and why it's got to be kept secret. Instead she turns it into another way of centering herself in their minds: look at me, I know the secret, I can figure this sort of thing out, aren't I smart?

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what exactly I think of Hermione, but I do *not* think she's modest.

I think she is. As other examples show.

As to *your* last example, Hermione was on the outers with the boys at the time. That's why she was trying to irritate them. Reasonable enough for children at odds.

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

(shrug) You cited it as an example of Hermione's being modest. I showed that it wasn't one.