Hermione, Knowledge and Blackmail (WAS: Re: Did Rita see Sirius transform?)

[ssk7882 <skelkins@attbi.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 52640

Amy wrote (about Hermione's plan to silence Rita):

> How is she going to enforce this rule? Blackmail-- she'll "spill 
> the beans" on her being an unregistered Animagus if she doesn't 
> keep quiet for a year.

Back in December there was an interesting thread about Hermione's
decision to engage in blackmail, started off by Porphyria, who drew a 
parallel between Hermione's treatment of Rita and Snape's of Lupin, 
and then asked (in message #47912):

> Isn't this worrisome, since a pair as boisterously reckless as 
> *Fred and George* worry about using blackmail? Didn't the subplot 
> of Fred, George and Ludo Bagman indicate that blackmail in the 
> Potterverse is wrong from many people's point of view?

I was thinking about this, and it occurred to me that the Twins/Bagman
subplot is not the only place where GoF hints at the perils of 
blackmail.

"'But Bertha Jorkins heard Winky talking to me. She came to 
investigate. She heard enough to guess who was hiding under the 
Invisibility Cloak. My father arrived home. She confronted him.'" 

-- GoF, Ch. 35

Why precisely did Bertha Jorkins "confront" Crouch about what she
had heard?  My own instinctive reading of this line was that Bertha 
Jorkins had attempted to blackmail Crouch, a reading which also led 
me to suspect that she had been planning something very similar when
she agreed to go for that pleasant evening stroll with Peter 
Pettigrew in Albania.  It was only later that I learned that most 
people had not read the line in at all the same way.

But whether or not we are meant to read a blackmail attempt in the 
above phrasing, the fate of the unfortunate Jorkins certainly does 
seem to me to touch upon the particular dangers inherent in 
conflating knowledge or information about others with power *over* 
them. 

Ironically, it is a failing to which Rita Skeeter herself would seem 
to be prone.  She does not merely distort the truth. She also ferrets 
out *real* truths, truths which she often uses to discomfit others.  
There is indication that she is not merely a glory-hound; she also 
revels in the sense of personal power that she gains from knowing 
that she possesses hidden information about others, even (or perhaps 
especially) when it is information that she chooses not to reveal.

"I know things about Ludo Bagman that would make your hair curl..."

Rita in fact does *not* tell Hermione what she knows about Bagman's 
past.  Why?  Because her malice does not extend that far?  To me, 
the impression is rather that she takes active enjoyment in 
possessing information that others do not.  It is the mind-set, if 
not the actual crime, of the blackmailer.

Given that Rita does seem to me to be established quite firmly as a 
nemesis for Hermione in particular in GoF, I find myself wondering if 
we are likely to see this emerge as a temptation for Hermione herself 
in the future.  Hermione *is* proud of her ability to root out 
knowledge that others cannot find.  We see her struggle briefly with 
this in PoA.  She does not in fact betray Lupin's secret to Harry and 
Ron, no.  But she cannot quite resist making it quite clear to them 
that she *has* figured something out about him, something which they 
themselves have not.  Her particular type of pride-in-information is 
apparent not only to the other students, but also to the staff.  Not 
only children, but also the adult Snape, refer to her as a "know-it-
all."

probono wrote of Hermione, back in December:

> She's been accused of meddling in things that she shouldn't (see 
> below), so is this the one that backfires?
> 
> By Snape: "Keep quiet you stupid girl. Don't talk about what you 
> don'tunderstand."
> And Skeeter: "Sit down, you silly little girl and don't talk about 
> things you don't understand."

Yes, that is interesting.

Is Hermione being set up for a fall here?  

Rita Skeeter is a ticking time-bomb, to be sure, but I find myself 
wondering whether the ramifications of Hermione's blackmail plot 
might be even more serious than that.  "Only knowledge, and those
too weak to seek it?"

I wonder if GoF's repetition of blackmail-inflected plotlines might 
not be giving us a foretaste of precisely *which,* of the many faces 
of the temptation of power, we might be seeing Hermione forced to
confront in the future.


Elkins