"Little Miss Perfect" (Was Re: The OOTP Gripe List, v. 5,432)

[Richard Jones]

No: HPFGUIDX 126104


I think the posters are incorrect about Hermione always being right 
in OOTP.  She has been consistently my favorite character throughout 
the five books, but in OOTP she made some big mistakes.  Here are 
five instances of "Little Miss Perfect," as that cow Rita Skeeter 
called her, screwing up in OOTP.

(1) Hermione's Guerrilla Hat Campaign.  How do the House Elves get 
freed?  It cannot be by merely touching clothing.  The Hogwarts 
students get their clothing cleaned, presumably by the House Elves.  
In Book 1 chapter 5 when Harry receives his letter from Hogwarts, it 
says that the students should have their names in their clothes.  Why 
would this be if their clothes weren't somehow mixed up with other 
people's clothes, and it is only during cleaning that this would 
happen.  The clothes aren't cleaned magically wherever the students 
drop them and left there.  Also, in the Polyjuice scene in COS, 
Hermione said she went to the laundry to steal some robes — so she 
knows there is a laundry and that someone is cleaning them, and I'm 
surprised that there weren't any House Elves hanging around for her 
to sneak by.

The essential problem is this: House Elves are not freed merely by 
contact with their masters' clothes, or else why didn't Dobby free 
himself when he was at the Malfoys by just grabbing some clothes 
himself?  Nor is it by intent since Lucius did not intend to free 
Dobby when he inadvertently threw him a sock.

The House Elves are freed only if their master *hands* them some 
clothing (like with Dobby at the end of COS).  Dobby speaks of 
being "presented with" or "passed" clothes (COS, p. 177 US ed.)  The 
master doesn't even have to own the clothes: Lucius passed Dobby 
Harry's sock.

And the Elves can't refuse to accept them if they don't want to be 
freed — remember Winky was fired by Crouch against her will in GOF 
(p. 138).

So how can Hermione's hats work?

Are the students "masters" of the Elves?  Dobby treats Harry like a 
master in the scene in OOTP 27 where he warns Harry that Umbridge is 
coming to the Room of Requirement.  So presumably the students count 
as "masters."  But if the students are not "masters" and only DD or 
the teachers are, then Hermione is making another mistake in thinking 
she could free the Elves at all.

But in any case, masters still must *hand* clothing to the Elves to 
free them.  The Elves can pick up the dirty clothing of the students 
and clean them without being freed.  It is only being passed the 
clothing that counts.

So ... this means that the great Hermione Granger is making a mistake 
when she thinks that the hats she is gleefully knitting and leaving 
around the Gryffindor Common Room will free the House Elves.  She is 
not handing the hats and socks to the Elves and so they can't be 
freed.  How did Hermy think her clothes were being cleaned for 
years?  She knew there was a laundry.  The Elves can pick them up and 
nothing will happen.  

But the House Elves are still annoyed and insulted that someone is 
trying to trick them and so they do not clean the Common Room.  
Shouldn't good little House Elves go on doing their duty despite 
this?  They know they are in no danger of being freed.  Apparently 
Hermione did enough to turn off even dedicated House Elves from doing 
their job.  That was quite an accomplishment in itself.

Second, why hasn't Hermione noticed the problem?  Why hasn't she 
thought this thing to death the way she does everything else?  And 
why didn't she bother to check to see if her hats were actually 
working by checking with the House Elves in the kitchen?  Why does 
she never bother to check to see if it is working?  Is this story 
line a signal of her drift into arrogance?  Or is JKR using it for 
something in HBP?

(2) The D.A. List jinx.  If Hermione had simply told the students 
about the jinx, no one would have told Umbridge.  Think about it.  If 
she was relying on the students' honesty all along, why bother 
putting a jinx on the list in the first place?  And if she doesn't 
tell them, why did bother putting the jinx on it at all?  The jinx 
wouldn't work to keep the secret unless they know it's there.  It's 
like the Doomsday Device the Russians had in the movie "Doctor 
Strangelove": it is only a deterrent if they bother to tell the 
Americans.  Was Hermione's object to keep the list secret or was she 
just being mean?

Of course, the students would be mad at her at first if she told them 
about the jinx ("Oh, by the way, I put this little jinx on the 
list . . ."), but they would get over that and realize that they were 
safe of being exposed.  Isn't that what is important?

So the question is: was the purpose of the jinx to protect the 
students and the list, or was it just a nasty little trick to catch 
someone?

(3) Umbridge getting the D.A. list.  Hermione apparently "left [the 
list] behind" "pinned" to the wall of the Room of Requirement, to 
quote the book.  Why in the world did she leave it pinned to the 
wall?  Why bother taking attendance at the meetings or anything else 
connected to the list?  Why didn't she take it and leave it somewhere 
hidden in her dorm room?  Everyone may think it is secure in the Room 
of Requirement, but Hermione usually thinks things through more than 
that.

If you reply that it wasn't her copy of the list but one that the 
Room of Requirement provided Umbridge (since the room provides 
whatever is needed and Umbridge needed that), there is still a 
problem.  Wouldn't JKR have Hermione the next day say something 
like "It's not my list!  Mine is still in my room!" or "The list 
vanished from my room!"?  The way JKR wrote the scene Hermione 
definitely pinned her copy to the wall and left it there, and 
Dumbledore ended up fired.

(4) The St. Valentine's Day Massacre.  If Hermione had taken a minute 
on St. Valentine's Day to tell Harry why she wanted to meet him 
during his Valentine's Day date with Cho or to say that other people 
would be there too, things might not have gone so badly when Harry 
told Cho that Hermione wanted to see him that day.  Moreover, since 
Hermione had to have been planning the Rita Skeeter interview days or 
weeks in advance, she could have told him sometime earlier what she 
was planning.  She was able to make time afterwards to have a nice 
long talk with Harry about Cho.  But the way she handled things, 
everything blew up for Harry.  H/H shippers might argue that she did 
it on purpose to ruin Harry's relationship with Cho, but I like 
Hermione and so I like to think that she would not be that devious 
with Harry no matter how she felt.

(5) Umbridge in the forest.  At the end of the book, was Hermione 
trying to get Umbridge killed?  Granted, she was thinking on her 
feet, but she knew the centaurs and spiders would kill an adult, and 
there she goes leading Umbridge into the forest.  Not many people 
would object if Umbridge was killed, but did Hermione really want to 
kill a human being?

I could talk about her lack of "people skills" in trying to get Harry 
to do what is best for him or how she treated Luna, but enough of my 
complaining.

Richard Jones