focus on Hermione

[Nora Renka]

No: HPFGUIDX 110153

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "romulusmmcdougal" 
<romulus at h...> wrote:

> RMM:
> Well Nora, let me help you with the logic of it then.
> For a couple of dentists who have a daughter born to them on 
> Wednesday, September 19, 1979, Wednesday being the day of Mercury 
> (Hg), also the day of HERMES (Greek for Mercury), it is of a 
> little more significance then that since the child was a girl -- 
> Hermione, instead of Hermes, would be more appropriate for a name.

The best word for this is...Baroque.

We've already gone over the dates thing and reached a disagreement 
on the outcome, but I always recall for myself the interview where 
we get something like 'JKR: Ooh, maths.'  (I won't go into the mess 
that's inevitably made about any character's age...I won't...because 
someone else inevitably will, again and again...)

What's more interesting to argue here is whether there actually IS a 
subtext of Hermes/Hermione/Mercury, and whether that matters.  
Notwithstanding the whole complex of issues involving relating Greek 
divinities to Latin ones and then the complete 
warping/conflation/whatever you want to call it of that stuff into 
mediaeval alchemical theory (that I'm not sure really plays into the 
books EITHER), the whole idea hangs on a thin thread of word 
association.  

I think it's looking for Deep Meaning where there really isn't any.  
As this is not Baroque literature, not every detail fits into a 
perfectly mapped out canvas and is essential to figuring out the 
grand scheme of things--didn't Mark Evans learn us all that one?

So when we get to this grand denoument in which we find out Hermione 
is the One, are we going to get a speech like: "Oh, Harry, if you 
count September as the seventh month and go by a realignment of the 
calendar using the Julian dates, it all works out so obviously..."?

> I'm sorry, but where I see great cleverness in the naming of their 
> child you skeptics see nothing but pretension.

It's a cute name.  I believe JKR when she said she got it from 'A 
Winter's Tale'.  I hear the name and think of 
Euripides/Racine/Rossini's Hermione/Ermione instead, but I'm not 
going to try for some argument of grand cosmic linkage between the 
two, because there isn't one.

> I dare say, if someone comes up with a 3 syllable word, you must
> think that person is not just a genius, but a pretensious genius.

When someone plays with extremely loose 'logic' with little 
canonical relation to the defined universe of the books, this reader 
does tend to find it pretentious.

> RMM:  
> Okay Nora, are you saying "quite ordinary" equals "pretentious"?
> Oh now I get it.....in your mind, an ordinary set of folks are 
> typically one-upping the neighbors in everything including the 
> naming of their children!!  
> Hmmmmmmmmm........interesting concept of life there.....

I think they're probably fairly ordinary folks in that they really 
have no role to play in the story.  I think they name their daughter 
something obscure because they get at least a little bit of a kick 
out of it.  I don't think that there's any Deep Significance to her 
name or her birthday, partially because...

<quote>

Harry. He really is the whole story. The whole plot is contained in 
Harry Potter; his past, present and future—that is the story. Harry 
came to me first and everything radiated out from him. I gave him 
his parents, then his past, then Hogwarts, and the wizarding world 
got bigger and bigger. He was the starting point.

</quote>

-Nora goes and drinks a bottle of Lillet with Faith; where are the 
clean glasses?