[HPforGrownups] Re: Could Hermione Fight the Imperius Curse?

[Margaret Dean]

No: HPFGUIDX 25334

caliburncy at yahoo.com wrote:

> The other thing to note about Hermione is she is very lawful, as well
> as ethical.  This lawfulness makes her naturally obedient.  So the
> Imperious Curse is something she might readily succumb to.  But when
> pressed to do something unethical, her morality might kick in and in
> some ways it might be a much more interesting fight to see--her
> lawfulness vs. her sense of morality--than, say, watching Harry
> fight it, who is also ethical, but not as strictly lawful.  This makes
> it less of an inner conflict for him.

This is very true:  Harry and Hermione have widely different
ingrained attitudes toward authority, and I think a lot of this
has to do with their upbringing.  We haven't seen much of
Hermione's parents so far, but in absence of evidence to the
contrary I think we can assume she has a good relationship with
them, trusts them, possibly gets a lot of her attitudes from
them.  Therefore she has no reason not to trust the natural adult
authority figures in her life, leading to a certain respect for
authority.

Harry, OTOH, has been raised by the Dursleys.  Do I have to
elaborate on what this has probably done to his attitude toward
authority figures?  :)  Practically all his life he's had to defy
authority, at least within his own mind, in order to survive
psychologically, to preserve any sense of self-worth at all.  I
suspect this is why he finds it so much easier to resist the
Imperius Curse than most of his classmates; those particular
mental muscles are well-toned.  That's not necessarily true in
Hermione's case.  They're both strong people, but their strengths
are differently directed.  Hermione might eventually learn to
throw off the Imperius Curse but I don't think she'd do it as
easily as Harry -- certainly not at first, and possibly never.


--Margaret Dean
  <margdean at erols.com>