[HPforGrownups] Re: Hermione's greatest fear

[Erika L.]

No: HPFGUIDX 87477

its_a_monstertrucker suggested:
>I think it's implausible that Hermione, >even in PoA, could imagine 
>nothing scarier than failing classes.  >Most likely she made up a 
>lie about the boggart being McG, >because she was too 
>embarrassed to admit what her boggart >really looked like.

Taryn replied:
>I don't think her fear should be taken >exactly literally. I think her greatest >fear is failure in itself. However, >failure is an idea more than a physical >presence, so the boggart probably took >the most current fear about it and used >that. It's very plausible to think of >Hermione's greatest fear being just >failure in general, which I believe it >is.

 
    I agree with Taryn that it makes more sense to understand Hermione's greatest fear as failure itself. In fact, Hermione's boggart says nothing about her having failed exams:

 "--P--Professor McGonagall!' Hermione gasped, pointing into the trunk. "Sh--she said I'd failed everything!" (234 UK)

    The boggart says she's failed everything. Not all her classes, not all her exams, but _everything_. So, as Taryn suggests, I think it's safe to say that Hermione's fear is a more abstract one: the fear of failure. Just as Harry's fear of the Dementor!boggart is the fear of _fear_ (according to Lupin, PoA UK 117) rather than a specific cause of fear, so Hermione's boggart represents the fear of failure in general, not of failing at a specific thing such as classes or exams.

Just my two knuts
Erika (Wolfraven)

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