[HPforGrownups] Re: The Hermione thread (was the ron thread)

[lrcjestes]

No: HPFGUIDX 5006

> What type of strong female character do I want? Umm . . . myself? <g>
>  Seriously, I think a lot of people's perception of Hermione's
> character as strong has to do with self identification.  Penny (hope
> you don't mind me singling you out . . . but you are the biggest
> Hermione defender) obviously thinks of herself as a strong person; for
> that matter most people think of themselves as being strong.  She
> identifies with Hermione and therefore sees her as a strong character.
>  I on the other hand don't identify with Hermione.  Therefore, while I
> don't see Hermione as a weak character, I don't see her as being as
> strong as the people who identify with her do.  I do think she's a
> strong character in her own way . . . it's just that I want someone I
> can identify with.
>
> Was that coherent?  I hope it doesn't seem like I'm implying Hermione
> doesn't have a strong character . . .

Hermione doesn't irritate me at all, and I do see her as a strong character,
and echoing other threads from earlier I like the fact that the girl is the
one who raises her hand and has all the right answers and is a central
player in this story..it can't help but encourage girls to not be afraid of
academic success.  BUT I'm with you in that I long for a character I can
identify with.  I was never the Hermione type (Hermione is my older sister).
I would tend to say I was more the Ginny type, but we know so little about
Ginny that who knows.

Of all the female characters in the book she's the closest...the little
sister who develops crushes on big brother's (sister's in my case) friends
then gets all shy and embarrased around them.  But the person my sister's
friends saw was not the person I was around my friends.  So I guess I
project a lot of my personality onto the shapeless form of Ginny, and
therefore see her as a not so uninteresting (talk about double negatives)
character as a lot of people do.  People see her as weak, shy, immature,
etc. and irritating because her character is relatively undeveloped.  But I
guess I've tended to give her the benefit of the doubt and assumed that she
is different when in her own element.  I hope we see some of that charcter
development in future books.

I've been meaning to jump in here on this thread, and I planned on echoing
the comments about sibling dynamics.  My older sister (Just 1 year older)
was the civic and drama standout.  English and History were her subjects,
and she was the bookworm.  I purposely shied away from everything she was
good at or interested in.  I was the math / science person.  I quit chorus
as a junior, although I loved singing because it was too close to her
specialities.  But I do realize I got a lot of privledges earlier because
she had been through it.  Got to drive earlier, moved out of the dorms in
college (and in with a boyfriend...now my husband) with not so much as a
blink from my mom because my sister had weathered the storm for me.  So
although I limited myself because of my sister, she also made my life
easier...and how this paragraph relates to HP....hmmmmmm I think I've gotten
a bit off topic...oh well...maybe I need caffeine!

carole