Hermione and power (touches on SHIPping)

[Hella]

No: HPFGUIDX 29822

This topic comes at a good time, just after a fresh batch of shipping 
debates. I was explaining to a friend the different 'shipping' 
positions concerning Hermione, and she agreed with H/H, saying that 
Hermione likes Harry. She thinks that Hermione has a 'thing' for 
power. Her evidence is Hermione's crush on Lockhart as he was 
a 'powerful' professor, at least in the duration of CoS (I poo-poohed 
this but she was adamant). What does this tell us about her 
relationship with Lupin?

However the next things she said were a bit jarring - that Hermione 
likes Harry because of his power and his fame and that's the same 
reason she likes Krum. I argued with her on that, saying actually 
Hermione was doing something quite unpopular with her friends by 
going out with Krum, but she seems to think otherwise.

Anyway she is of the opinion that Hermione may be the 'weakest link' 
so to speak, in future books because of her desire for power and to 
be associated with it; that this is something the dark side might use 
against her. I disagree with her strongly, because her theory is 
dependent upon several things. One is that to Hermione the most 
important thing is power. This just rubs me the wrong way, but I 
can't really put my finger on why.

Another thing that seems to be implied is that Hermione is only 
friends with Ron because she has to be in order to maintain her 
relationship with Harry. (This is also her theory as to Hermione's 
positions in the PoA fight and the GoF fight). I guess the reason 
this rubs me the wrong way is that Hermione strikes me as being a 
very earnest and honest sort of person. I do think she loves Ron as 
much as Harry in terms of friendship, and just can't see her being 
dishonest about that. But I can't really place why I dislike this 
theory so much, and was hoping to get some concrete responses from 
you. I have more 'evidence' for this from the movie which I will post 
on that list and hope that it can be rebuffed as well.

One other question for shippers: what does who Hermione likes have to 
do with her personality? I think this may be the crux of the debate, 
as I understand it. I think that H/H shippers and R/H shippers have a 
very different opinion on who Hermione is and what is most important 
to her. This notion came to me only after my friend made those power 
comments. I'm aware that H/H-ers tend to love Hermione as their 
favourite character, and probably don't view her as power-hungry, but 
I was hoping to understand whether or not there might be some 
differences in the way the two 'camps' view Hermione.

Thanks,
Hella