Am I the only one...

[delwynmarch]

No: HPFGUIDX 134987

Milz wrote:
"It takes REAL intelligence to be able to think outside of the box
with the knowledge base and tools available."

Del replies:
Such a definition ends up making 98% of people, whether in RL or in
the Potterverse, idiots. That's pointless. What you are describing is
genius, not just intelligence.

Milz wrote:
"However, Fred and George don't get respect because their magical
endeavors are jokes and other seemingly frivolous things, but their
creations involve a complex magicks. Moreover their lack of academic
excellence tarnishes their reputation amongst people who can't fathom
that grade point average does not necessarily indicate intelligence. "

Del replies:
Like Hermione, you mean? Sorry, but canon contradicts that. In HBP, in
"Draco's detour", Hermione qualifies the "Patented Daydream Charms" as
"extraordinary magic". She was already impressed by the Twins' tricks
in OoP, though I'm too lazy to look for the reference. So Hermione
knows full well that the Twins are extraordinary wizards, and she's
fully aware that the only reason they never had brilliant grades is
because they never cared.

Milz wrote:
"Issac Newton, Godfried Lymans, Linus Pauling, Blaise Pascal,
Bernoulli, etc. were all teenagers or young adults who contributed
greatly to science and mathematics---and they did that not by reciting
verbatim, but through innovative and creative application of that
knowledge."

Del replies:
Yes, but FIRST they had to LEARN that knowledge! Can't you see that
Hermione is only in the *learning phase* for now? She is learning
everything she can, because this time in her life is the perfect time
to do that. She is at school, she's got a library available, she's got
professors to ask questions to, and all this extra studying can even
help in her primary occupation: school work. She is at Hogwarts to
STUDY, NOT to invent. But once she's learned all she can, I really see
no sign that she won't be able to apply all that knowledge creatively
in whatever field she chooses to work in.

Milz wrote:
"As for falling apart without instructions: yes she does. HBP showed
that Hermione is a limited talent because she worships the god of
knowledge at the altar of textbooks. Classic case: polyjuice potion
brewing---again, Hermione followed instructions in a book. But if you
really want to test Hermione's real intelligence vs. booksmarts, you'd
 have to ask, would Hermione had been able to devise a polyjuice
potion, de novo? In other words, if polyjuice potion never existed,
would Hermione been able to create a polyjuice potion? My guess is no,
because as she's demonstrated in the past books, Hermione depends too
heavily on what the textbook and not on creatively applying that
information."

Del replies:
This is unfair, ridiculous, and contrary to canon.

Unfair and ridiculous, because you are asking a 12-year-old
Muggle-born witch to create something that wizards several years older
than she is can't even produce correctly even with the instructions.
In short, you are asking that Hermione invents relativity when she
hasn't even covered the bases of calculus.

And contrary to canon because we HAVE seen Hermione apply her
knowledge creatively. She created a Jinx that nobody has been able to
break! So OBVIOUSLY this Jinx is NOT in a book, or all those who have
tried to help Marrietta would have found it.

Milz wrote:
"The greats of science, mathematic, medicine, literature, music,
cooking, etc. were great because they "broke" the rules of convention
and opened up new avenues of possibility and thought.. In doing so
they opened up a new world of possibilities."

Del replies:
Yes, but FIRST they had to LEARN those rules of convention. Which is
what Hermione is doing.

Milz wrote:
"Again, I'm not saying that Hermione isn't bright and isn't a good
student, but don't inflate her abilities to something more than it
really is."

Del replies:
I think you're the one who is deflating her abilities to much less
than they really are. Hermione is much more than a bookworm: she is a
creative witch, who is learning the principles of magic. Reducing her
to a mindless robot is not at all conform to canon IMO.

Milz wrote:
"Also, I've seen what happens to "talented and gifted kids". Some of
them become even more talented and gifted--these are the kids who are
the innovators and who realize that book knowledge isn't all the
knowledge in the world. These are the kids who constantly are
searching for answers and pushing the limits to find those answers
because they know the books don't contain everything."

Del replies:
And that's Hermione all right. Let me give you two examples.

PS/SS: Hermione SAYS that (paraphrase) books and cleverness are less
important than what Harry's got.

OoP: when Umbridge refuses to teach them proper DADA, Hermione turns
to *Harry*, NOT to books! Hermione could have taught herself all the
jinxes and charms necessary to ace her DADA OWL. But that's not what
she wanted! What she wanted was Harry's EXPERTISE, she wanted him to
teach them how to APPLY DADA in real life.

Just because Hermione does soak in everything that books can give her
does NOT mean she thinks they are the ultimate source of knowledge.
And she most definitely does NOT worship books: she said in the very
first book that there are things much more important than books!

Milz wrote:
"So Hermione's "dumbing down" in this book came as no surprize to me."

Del replies:
Another huge misconception IMO. Hermione is in no way "dumbing down".
She is still the exceptionally bright student that she always was. The
only thing that happened is that Harry bested her in PRACTICAL Potions
because he had a better recipe BOOK. But she knows the principles
involved far better than he does, and if anyone could imagine a
complicated and totally new Potions, it would be Hermione all right.

Milz wrote:
"Her intellectual growth is stagnating because she's taken the role of
a walking encyclopedia as opposed to the role of a fountain of ideas,
discovery and innovation. And Rowling uses her well as that sort of
plot device--a walking encyclopedia who conveniently offers some bit
of information in a book that Ron nor Harry has bothered to read."

Del replies:
That's silly and not supported by canon. Yes one of Hermione's roles
is to be a walking encyclopedia, but that's far from being her only
role! Let me list a few things that Hermione does and which don't come
from books:
- heart counselor (with Cho)
- political advisor (helping the boys understand the interference of
the Ministry at Hogwarts in OoP)
- agent (organising the interview with Rita AND its publication by the
Quibbler)
- personal coach (encouraging Harry to lead the DA, helping him in his
various problems)
And so on. All those things require much more than book smarts. And
some of them show a GREAT DEAL of creativity! 

Juli gave this ENCARTA definition of intelligence:
"Intelligence, term usually referring to a general mental capability
to reason, solve problems, think abstractly, learn and understand
new material, and profit from past experience. Intelligence can be
measured by many different kinds of tasks. Likewise, this ability is
expressed in many aspects of a person's life. Intelligence draws on
a variety of mental processes, including memory, learning,
perception, decision-making, thinking, and reasoning."

Del replies:
- reason: Hermione does that a lot
- solve problems: Harry and Ron are lucky that she's here to do it so
often!
- think abstractly: she does that too
- learn and understand new principles: she's a goddess at that
- profit from past experience: she does that too.

So there is no doubt to me that Hermione is extremely intelligent.
Likewise, she possesses every single one of the mental processes
listed at the end of the definition, and in large quantities too.

Juli wrote:
"Hermione gets all her answers from books, she trusts books more than
anything,"

Del replies:
I'll repeat: this is not true. For example, when she wanted to learn
practical DADA in OoP, she turned to Harry, not to books. 

Juli wrote:
"(Einstein) managed to see beyond other people, he invented
stuff, he made theories, he went beyond all of us. Now, do I think
Hermione could do that? Nope. She's book-smart, she doesn't
experiment, she doesn't invent."

Del replies:
Canon contradicts you. Hermione invented a Jinx that nobody has
managed to break. Do you have any canon to support your opinion that
Hermione couldn't invent new theories?

And by the way, Einstein wasn't inventing anything earth-shattering at
the age of 16 or 17, so if you want to compare Hermione to Einstein,
you'll have to wait until she leaves school and starts actually
working on producing new stuff.

Juli wrote:
"Intelligence has a new definition (don't have the quote, sorry), and
it is the capability to relate to others, to form relationships and
sustain them. Their ability to communicate. Hermione clearly doesn't
have it (remember in PS she had no friends?). Harry has it, Fred and
George have it, Ron also, Ginny a lot..."

Del replies:
That's emotional intelligence. And it is totally unfair to judge
Hermione only by what she was in PS/SS.

-relate to others: she brilliantly demonstrated in OoP that she could
relate to both Harry and Cho.

- form relationships and sustain them: are you saying that it is all
thanks to Harry and Ron if her friendship with them is still alive and
well? And what about Viktor? And what about Ginny? Sure Hermione does
not have many friends, but she doesn't seem to want more friends. And
anyway, Harry doesn't have many friends either: remember that when he
wasn't talking to Ron in GoF, he was stuck with Hermione even though
he didn't overly enjoy it, simply because he had no other friends? And
Ron had to go with his older brothers because he had no other friends
either. So I'd say Harry and Ron have no more emotional intelligence
than Hermione, and maybe even less.

- communicate: if anyone in the Trio doesn't know how to communicate,
it's Harry, not Hermione. Hermione is not overly brilliant at it, but
at least she does discuss things over, while Harry tends to keep
everything to himself. And bickering, by the way, IS a way to
communicate...

So, I'm still not convinced.

Juli wrote:
"Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that, even though Hermione is very
smart, she doesn't have the ability to think abstractly, to invent,
create... She can't think outside the box."

Del replies:
Canon support for that?

And finally, concerning the big question (why didn't Hermione examine
the HBP book?), I can think of 3 reasons for now.

1. The plot device. If the handwriting is indeed Snape's, the risk is
too great that Hermione would have recognised it. So in order to
ensure that Hermione would not look too closely at the book, JKR
cleverly ensured that this book would antagonise her right away, by
hitting where it hurts most: her position as best student of the year.
By having Harry, of all people (well, Ron would have been even worse
:-), beat her at making a Potion, JKR made sure that Hermione would
take an immediate dislike at the book, and that from then on she would
remain highly prejudiced against it. The ridiculous nickname ("the
Half-Blood Prince"), and the ambiguous jinxes didn't help either.

2. Another possibility is that the HBP triggered Hermione's
competitiveness, maybe even only on a subconscious level. It is
possible that the more Harry bested her by using the HBP book, the
more determined she became to best the HBP using the "orthodox" method
and her brains.

3. And finally, speaking as a reasonably good student who happened to
be around a couple of "genius" students, I wonder if Hermione didn't
discard the HBP book simply because it wouldn't do *her* any good.
Contrarily to what many think, I don't think that Hermione is only
interested in the results. I am strongly of the opinion that Hermione
is at least as interested in the *principles* as in the results. She
wants to *understand* how things work. Doing the Potions according to
the school book helps her do that. It's just like when I would go
through the textbook long and complicated method of resolving a Maths
or Physics problem, so that I would understand the different steps
involved. But my genius friends, who already understood all that, and
who could manipulate those concepts at will, would invent new,
improved, much more neat and elegant and impressive solutions. I would
marvel at them, but those new solutions were of no value *to me*,
because they implied a previous knowledge of the principles involved
that I didn't have yet, that I was working on acquiring. So it is
possible that Hermione stuck to the school book because she wanted to
understand the *principles* much more than anything else. After all,
let's be honest: Harry got the best results, but he didn't learn much
as far as Potion-making goes. But Hermione did.

Del