[HPforGrownups] Re: Hermione's rude comment

[Lady Macbeth]

No: HPFGUIDX 74535

Lisa G wrote:
> Well, let me phrase my thought in another way. You're a thirteen
> year old girl. Two girls that you DO NOT like by any stretch of
> the imagination are dreamily talking about a guy they think is
> soooooo cute.... sigh. They glance your way and say, with a
> sniff, "So, what do you think of him?" You reply, almost lazily,
> "Oh, I don't know. I don't think he's so great." "What do you
> MEAN?? He's the dreamiest!" they squeal at you. You roll your
> eyes, and make some sort of mildly insulting comment about the
> object of their affection (Well, he runs like a girl), smirk to
> yourself over the way their little jaws drop indignantly, and
> get on with your life.

Wanda Said:
>>> So now I find it rather disorienting that Hermione just
casually tosses off what in the wizarding world is basically a
racial insult, and nothing comes of it. Nobody speaks to her, nobody
comments on it, nobody even raises an eyebrow or looks troubled or
surprised.  I feel like Rowling is ditching one of her central
themes just to provide a little comic relief, and I don't think that
is allowed.  She is the one in control of her material, and she
could have selected any theme she wanted to build her story around.
She picked this one, and I can't figure out where this inconsistency
has suddenly come from.  If in the next book, Hermione confronts
this flaw in herself and learns from it, then it will turn out to
have been an intelligent move; but I'm troubled by the way the
remark just seems to drop into a black hole and causes no reaction
at all.<<<

Lady Macbeth:
Feel free to ignore me if one finds my hentai mind just a bit too offensive,
but I accepted the blatantly obvious meaning behind Hermione's statement -
the other two are looking at Firenze as potential boyfriend/crush material
and Hermione bluntly points out she's not attracted to people with four
legs. >_>  I don't know about the wizarding world, but in the muggle world
relations with our four-legged friends seems rather taboo.  (Of course that
might be true in the wizarding world too...after all, there was that bit
about Aberforth and inappropriate charms on a goat...)  Hermione seemed to
be pointing out in her rather dry and obvious fashion that Firenze may be a
cute human from the waist up, but he's got four legs, hooves, a
barrel-shaped body and a tail from the waist down - not exactly "ideal" or
"normal" boyfriend material for most witches.

Someone on this list had mentioned earlier having disgust of Hagrid because
his father was a wizard and his mother a giantess, and included a statement
to the effect of "how did THAT happen??" - well, at least giants seem for
the most part to appear human, if rather large.  If we accept that centaurs
are half breeds (supported by Umbridge's statements against centaurs, and
the use of the words "half breed" in reference to them in the book) then
SOMEWHERE in the wizarding world a horse and a witch/wizard live in a very
odd household and have difficulty explaining their children. ^_^v

That said, Parvati and Lavendar might well be justified in their interest,
and Hermione is just as well justified in expressing her opinion that it's
NOT her kind of thing. :)

And I will now leave all of you who read all of this to either scrub your
brains free of the mental image or join me in writing ecchi fan fiction. :)

-Lady Macbeth


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