The Beetle At Bay

[slgazit]

No: HPFGUIDX 111999

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "ohneill_2001"
<ohneill_2001 at y...> wrote:

> > Let's not be too harsh on Herminone she is only 14/15.
> 
> This is true enough, but the thing is that Hermione is the trio's 
> social conscience.  In a lot of ways, she is a better person than Ron 
> and Harry in terms of being more level headed, more fair, etc.

She is more mature and level headed but I disagree that she is the
social/moral conscience in the trio - that one is Harry. Hermione is 
my favorite person in the HP saga, but she is not too good at making
moral judgements and lacks understanding of people's emotional
motivations. She is good at problem solving when that could be reduced
into a logical puzzle. Therefore she could figure out things like the
basilisk, animmagus Rita, how to handle Harry in book 5, etc. but
totally fails in things where the logical explanation just does not
cut it (house elves, relationship with Ron, etc.). Least of all she
can understand her own emotions. The real motivation for Hermione's
vandetta against Rita (IMO) was that she wrote about her that "she is
really ugly" and the letter that contained that puss that caused her
hands to swell and ache for days. She then says "I am going to get
her" (or something like that) - and that's what she did.

So Hermione locking Rita up in a jar and forbidding her to write was
primarily a revenge act which turned out to be really usefull in book 5...

I think Hermione downfall will eventually come from her deficiency in
the spiritual/emotional sense compared to her intellectual brilliance.
I am sure she'll use it as a learning opportunity though.

Salit