Hermione's origin? (was: What's Coming Will Come)

[davewitley]

Griffin782002 now:

> And that's is Hermione. She has said that she based that character 
on 
> herself. 

But what does that mean?  I think people tend to read more into 
JKR's statements about Hermione than is there.  Yes, she is 'based 
on' herself - but look at this:

Q: I was going to say, are you a Hermione?
A: Yeah. I mean none of the characters in the books are directly 
taken from life, but real people did inspire a few of them, but of 
course, once they are on the page they become something completely 
different. Yeah, Hermione is a caricature of what I was when I was 
11, a real exaggeration. I wasn't that clever. Hermione is 
borderline genius at points and I hope I wasn't that annoying 
because I would have deserved strangling. Sometimes she's an 
incredible know-it-all.

(The Connection, http://www.quick-quote-quill.org/articles/1999/1099-
connectiontransc.html )

I've just had a quick skim of many her quotes about Hermione, and I 
get this sense of JKR distancing herself - she sees Hermione as 
similar to what she *was*, but she stands outside that, looking in.  
That first sentence there is typical, IMO: start from a real person, 
but "once they are on the page they become something completely 
different".

One sometimes sees statements like 'Hermione is JKR's avatar in the 
series', but I don't believe they are really supported by the 
evidence.

In fact, the only character who she says required very little change 
is Lockhart.

David