Hermione's age

[Amy Z]

Barb wrote:

> 
> Q.E.D.: Hermione Granger was born in September of 1980.  It says so 
> in canon.

I don't seem to be able to let this question go, do I?  Feel free to 
ignore me.

I think Hermione was born in 1980 also, but I don't think there's any 
canon basis for it.  I certainly can't get a Q.E.D. out of it.

The thing is, people in fiction don't talk in syllogisms.  Everything 
we read has to be filtered through what we understand about the 
characters, and people in general, talk.  For example:  only a few of 
us on this list believe in the syllogism:

-Hagrid says there wasn't a wizard gone bad that wasn't in Slytherin.

-At the time he says this, he believes Sirius is a wizard gone bad.

-Therefore, Sirius was in Slytherin.

Why don't we?  Because knowing Hagrid, and knowing how human beings 
(or half-giants <g>) in general are prone to make statements that 
sound like simple statements of fact but are actually vast 
generalizations (and therefore, put bluntly, lies), we come up with 
another, IMHO more likely interpretation of Hagrid's statement--that 
there are plenty of dark wizards who weren't in Slytherin and he is 
not intending to make a factual assertion.

I use the same sort of logic in determining whether Dumbledore's 
statement is a statement of fact.  When I taught 8th grade, in the 
spring of the year I was likely to refer to them as "a bunch of 
13-year-olds," knowing full well that some were 14 and some were 12.  
That's how most of us talk.  I think Dumbledore would do the same, and 
so I take his "13-year-old wizards" comment with as many grains of 
salt as I take Hagrid's Slytherin generalization.

Therefore the most convincing part of your argument, to me, is the bit 
focusing on the question of whether Hermione would let such a 
statement go.  *That's* a character-based argument, not an attempt to 
squeeze the illogic of human communication into a syllogism.  (I don't 
buy it, myself; I think she would be very likely to bite her tongue at 
that moment.  Dumbledore has *just* asked them not to interrupt him.  
But I still think it's a good way to argue the point.)

In other words, just because it's written down in black and white 
doesn't mean it's canon.  We have to read it as fiction, in the 
context of character.

Amy Z