CHAPTER DISCUSSION: Chapter 33 - Fight and Flight

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 119459


Vivamus wrote:
<snip> Hermione is far more intelligent than DU, but made the same
stupid blunder (and it was stupid not in a lack of understanding the
Centaurs in the first place, but in not shutting up and thinking when
they reacted badly to the first statement.)   
> 
> To me, it shows that even the brightest and best have to tread
carefully at times, and even the best of intentions can cause bad
things to happen, if actions are not done with respect for others.
<snip>  Remember how much trouble she caused Harry by minding his
business and doing his moral thinking for him? Remember her deleting
his potion?  Here is an example of Hermione, once again, showing the
same disrespect for other persons' free choices, and potentially
causings some very serious consequences. <snip>
>
<snip> She has a huge blind spot when it comes to other
> people's freedom -- the house elves are a perfect example of that. 
She knows what is "best" for them and they do not.   She is going to
give it to them even if it gets everyone killed in a WW race war.  
<snip> In her own way, I think she is as blind as Hagrid is about
monsters -- and that may well be JKR's point.

Carol responds:
While I still think that the centaurs are as "racist" in their way as
any wizard in the WW and demonstrated the mob or *herd* mentality in
their overreaction to Hermione and Umbridge, I also think that Vivamus
has a valid point here.

Hermione is like many intelligent and idealistic young people (she is
just fifteen and really doesn't understand how very young that is
despite hoping that the centaurs would consider her a "foal"). She
thinks she knows exactly what's wrong with the world and exactly how
to fix it and doesn't understand why everyone else doesn't immediately
see the light of reason when she explains it to them. So she doesn't
see that she has blundered in her first encounter with the centaurs
(whose goodness and rationality she has overestimated, IMO) and
continues with the same tactic, convinced that she is right and that
if she speaks long enough, she'll convince them of her rightness. As
Vivamus says, she's knows what's "best" and they don't, just as she
knows what's "best" for the house-elves, whose feelings don't matter
because, in her view, they've been deluded by wizards and can no
longer think for themselves.

We've discussed Harry's "hero complex" (and Snape's as well). Can it
be that Hermione also has a "saving people" thing, a desire to fix
what's wrong with the world (as she sees it) and make it right (by her
standards)? Strange if all her idealistic thinking and Harry's gut
reaction to make things right by taking action have led them both in
the same wrong direction!

A little growing up would help them both, but they don't have time to
acquire wisdom through life experience in the normal fashion by Book 7.

Carol, who once upon a time had all the answers, too, but has long
since grown disillusioned