Hermione's attitudes, age, and SHIP/s...

[monicawitt at msn.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 29882

There's been a lot of discussion of Hermione's personality, & I can't 
resist putting in my two cents...

First of all, I'd always thought of Hermione as a bit of a prodigy. 
She's muggle-born, yet is casting spells and charms before any of the 
other first year's are, and she's got a remarkable intellectual 
capacity. She's top of the class, and is even allowed to take on 
extra classes (which I would think would be a highly unusual thing; 
it took special permission from the MoM to clear her), something even 
the best past students at Hogwarts have never been mentioned to have 
done. Obviously she's a voracious reader, with a great memory for 
detail. All that would point to her being quite out of the ordinary. 

As is often the case with children who posess intellectual gifts 
beyond their years, they're often very clumsy in the social realm. I 
don't think anyone here needs me to go into examples for how socially 
inept Hermione can be. It struck me as interesting when, in GoF, she 
changes her appearance for the ball. She could use the hair potion 
every day (it would certainly be in keeping with the hair-practices 
of a large number of girls I went to school with...there must be 
Hogwars equivalents to them that get up at the crack of dawn just to 
do their hair)... but Hermione doesn't find that sort of thing 
important enough to do every day. Social opinions and correctness 
don't concern her. 

Like a lot of exceptionally gifted children, she seems to be posessed 
of a maturity and conviction that is more developed than her peers. 
But -- as she doesn't have the life experience yet -- she can be 
swayed to behavior and opinions that don't follow with her 
established values when she's confronted with situations she has to 
deal with on her own (i.e. internal, emotional situations).

I think it's Hermione's age "getting the best of" her intellectual 
self when she develops her crush on Lockheat, and I also think her 
constant bickering with Ron is, too. I wouldn't say that she's 
consiously attracted to Ron, per se, but I do think there's a hint of 
beyond friendship feelings for Ron on her part. In GoF, once Ron 
finds out she's going to the ball, they have an argument, where 
Hermione's says to Ron:

  "Just because it's taken YOU three years to notice, Ron, doesn't 
mean no one ELSE has spotted I'm a girl!"

That doesn't seem like something a girl with strictly platonic 
feelings would say to a boy. Then, later on, they have an argument 
Harry only hears the end of:

"  "Well, if you don't like it, you know what the solution is, don't 
you?" yelled Hermione; her hair was coming down out of its elegant 
bun how, and her face was screwed up in anger.

  "Oh yeah?" Ron yelled back. "What's that?"

  "Next time there's a ball, ask me before someone else does, and not 
as a last resort!"     "

She's taking Ron not asking her to the Yule Ball as an insult, a 
slight, and it's a slight on her feminity to her, not their 
friendship, otherwise the "I'm a girl!" comment doesn't make any 
sense. She's angry that Ron has never "noticed" her. That's not the 
reaction of a person who wants to be considered strictly a buddy to 
someone...

Hermione has two sides, really. On the one hand, she's a typical 
young teen, struggling with adolescence, and trying to define herself 
socially. On the other, she loves learning. It isn't about power or 
fame, it's about knowledge, the acquiring of knowledge, and the 
proper use of it. I think she's perceptive enough, and a good enough 
judge of character, to know that the Crouches and Crouch/Moody's of 
the world aren't true posessors of wisdom and knowledge, but abusers 
of power. She's got a strong streak of social consciousness in her 
(i.e. S.P.E.W), and that tempers her attraction to the Dark Arts and 
those that practice them. The only way she could go over to the other 
side would be if she were tempted by utter and complete deception on 
the part of someone she trusts.