The textbook and the diary (Re: Am I the only one... )

[iris_ft]

No: HPFGUIDX 135107

Milz wrote (message 135069):

"Why should she question the instructions now? Because they are
faulty, that's why. The mere fact that she can't bring herself to
acknowledge that a book is wrong or deficient is an example of why
Hermione doesn't think outside of the box. Within the "box",
textbooks are correct, unquestionable. Yet, the box in this case is
faulty---the readers know it's faulty, Hermione knows it's faulty,
Harry and Ron know it's faulty. But she is insistent that it is
correct. She only follows what convention tells her to follow even if
it is wrong: that's intellectual stagnation. Rather than questioning
and trying to problem solve, she accepts the faulty book information
as fact---in other words, her intellectual curiosity is diminished to
non-existent due to her overdependency on the books."

Iris now:
Maybe
 and maybe not.
I'm sorry if this has been said already but I didn't have enough 
time to read the whole thread. I just wanted to tell you that in my 
opinion, Hermione, though she loves them, doesn't consider the books 
are always reliable.
Okay, in this book it seems at first sight that Hermione doesn't 
want to "think outside the box" concerning Potions.
However, we have to remember that in OotP, chapter 12 she criticizes 
what the DADA textbook says, and she's the first one to do it.
The DADA book Umbridge wants them to learn from isn't "efficient" 
enough, Hermione doesn't trust it and asks Harry for DADA lessons. 
The book isn't useful, because "there's nothing written about using 
defensive spells", so Hermione rejects it, even if it belongs to the 
conventional program, and she tries to get information from another, 
more reliable source.

So, why isn't she ready to listen to what the Prince has to say 
concerning Potions, when it's obvious he knows much more than the 
author of the textbook?
Her negative reaction can seem contradictory if we consider her 
thirst of knowledge: Hermione Granger not wanting to know more, 
doesn't it sound strange?
Except if we admit that JK Rowling wants her readers to guess that 
the HBP's textbook isn't that "friendly". 
Hermione spends her time warning Harry, saying this book is 
dangerous, and I think she's completely sincere.
When Harry says the book is useful because it told him to use a 
bezoar as an antidote, she replies he'd better have remembered 
Snape's first lesson.
Hermione has a very good memory, and not only concerning books. What 
I'm trying to explain is that she perfectly understood, learned and 
remembers the lesson Tom Riddle's diary taught them all. 
She doesn't want to learn from the Prince, not because his book 
isn't conventional, but because her intuition tells her to be 
defiant and not to trust him.
It's only my opinion, but I think that, through Hermione's negative 
reaction, JK Rowling is warning the readers; she wants them to 
understand there's something strange concerning that textbook. 
Obviously, we can draw a parallel between the Prince's book and 
Riddle's diary.
Let's see:
•	Both books come from the past and belong to someone who was 
a Hogwarts student before Harry.
•	Both times Harry gets them unwillingly.
•	Both book's owner seem "friendly" at first sight (Tom, 
because he made Harry believe he was there to help him, and the 
Prince, because his corrections did "help" Harry in a difficult 
subject).
•	Both books turn out to be dangerous (the diary contains a 
part of Voldemort's soul, and the textbook contains the Sectumsempra 
hex).

And you probably can find other parallels. As always, JK Rowling 
tells us what the book is actually, but immediately, she manages to 
mislead us. Why wouldn't we trust the textbook, given that Harry 
himself tells us reassuringly "It's nothing; it's not like, you 
know, Riddle's diary. It's just an old textbook someone's scribbled 
in"? He has so many brainwaves in this sixth novel, dear Harry. And 
of course, he's right in a sort of way, because there won't be any 
Prince bursting from the book in order to kill him. But he's also 
mistaken: the textbook has to be used carefully, like the diary. And 
what happens to Harry because of it looks a bit like what happened 
to Ginny with the diary: first it is an accomplice (Ginny has what 
she considers as an understanding confident for the first time in 
her teen age life; Harry follows the textbook instructions and has 
excellent results in Potions for the very first time in six years), 
and then it makes them do what they couldn't even imagine and what 
they regret (Ginny opens the Chamber and sets the Basilisk free; 
Harry hurts Draco).

So, I don't call Hermione's rejection of the Prince's helpful 
corrections "depending on books" or lack of intelligence or of 
intellectual curiosity. She loves books, she uses them, but she's 
also able to question them and she doesn't trust them necessarily, 
precisely because she's intelligent and wise. 
It takes intelligence to think out of the box. But sometimes, it 
takes wisdom to resist the temptation of thinking out of the same 
box.
Maybe Hermione looks a bit too conventional, for example when we 
compare her to the twins. But is it such a bad thing when we compare 
her to Tom Riddle? He used to think out of the box
 we know what 
happened. 
And we could find examples of this very difficult topic in real 
life. And  that's also a debate for philosophers.

I'd like to end this post saying that HBP is probably the most 
complex book in the series so far. Its complexity doesn't root 
necessarily in the plot or in the construction. It's rather in the 
ideas we have to face every time we try to analyze what there's 
between its pages, or when we try to debate about it. 
But that's of course just my opinion, concerning the HBP book, and 
concerning Hermione. 


Amicalement,


Iris