CHAPTER DISCUSSION: Chapter 25, The Beetle At Bay

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 111812

KathyK:

At first, Hermione was teaching Rita a lesson-not to write 
 nasty lies.  But now she's * using* her knowledge to blackmail
 Rita into doing her bidding.  Granted, it's for a good cause but
 do Hermione's means justify the end?    <

> At the Edinburgh Book Festival, JKR said we would be seeing 
more of  Rita Skeeter.  Will Hermione continue to blackmail her?  
Does Rita  Skeeter deserve everything she gets?<


Pippin:

We've already seen  Hermione resort to questionable methods 
in  trying to free the House Elves, much to Ron's dismay. 

It's also interesting that Fred and George seem to have the 
moral high ground over her in this area. What Bagman did was 
just as bad, but Fred and George refused to use blackmail 
against him.

Plus, Hermione's a bit careless, isn't she? She already 
knows there's a danger of being overheard in pubs, yet she says 
out loud that Rita is an illegal animagus. She might have been 
overheard. That would make it possible for other people to 
blackmail Rita. We've already been told that blackmail is one of 
Voldemort's favorite tactics for recruiting supporters. 

Here's another Rowling quote from the Vancouver Sun article of 
October 26, 2000:

"because that, that is how tyranny is started, with people being 
apathetic and taking the easy route and suddenly finding 
themselves in deep trouble.''

I think Hermione is one who might find herself in deep trouble.

JKR might also being using Hermione's foray into blackmail to 
prepare us for a situation where blackmail is or was being used 
and we don't know about it. We're told that blackmail is one of 
Voldemort's favorite methods of recruiting followers, but so far 
we haven't seen it applied.

JKR has a tactic --show us with the good guys, tell us with the 
bad guys, which she used with illegal animagi and polyjuice. 
There's also another illegal animagus who could have been 
subjected to blackmail: Peter Pettigrew.  

Pippin
who expects we'll see the bad guys use a time turner too.