The OOTP Gripe List, v. 5,432 / "Little Miss Perfect"

[amiabledorsai]

No: HPFGUIDX 126146


Bonnie:
> I absolutely love OOTP and respectfully disagree with Lupinlore's 
> list of "gripes" in post no. 126081.  Sorry. :(

Agreed.  There's a lot going on in OotP, it bears careful reading.

Bonnie:
> >1. Dumbledore.
> 
> I haven't noticed anyone remembering that one of the reason's DD 
> gave for his actions, was his belief that VV would be spying on 
> him through Harry. <snip>

This is an important point.  Much of Dumbledore's behavior is
explained by it.  

Bonnie:
> >2. Harry.
> 
> The main reason Harry set the mirror aside and immediately put it 
> out of his mind was he didn't want to complain to Sirius and get
> Sirius upset to the point he would do something dangerous.  Harry
> was trying to protect Sirius and decided immediately he wouldn't 
> use the mirror no matter how badly he (Harry) needed help.  So he 
> just forgot about it.

And this is an extremely important part of Harry's character.  He
refuses to tell McGonagall about the Blood Quill for similar 
reasons.  

Bonnie:
> >3. Ron <snip>
> I think Ron has earned the Prefect 
> badge more than any of the other Gryffindors. 

Easily, so far as we've seen.  Which other Gryffindor boys have
won awards for service to the school?  Based on what we know, if DD 
can't choose Harry, he has to choose Ron.

Bonnie:
> >4. Ginny
> 
> I think the image of Ginny that was distorted was our original 
> image. <snip>

We *know* Harry's viewpoint of Ginny is distorted, Ron tells Harry
that Ginny acts oddly around him in the second book.  Besides, it
hardly seems fair to expect a character to act the same at 14 as at 11.

Bonnie:
> >5.  Hermione
> 
> I don't know, she is obnoxious.  But her part is essential.  I  
> guess we'll have to wait and see. <snip>

Hermione is a terrific character.  She reminds me of of a couple of 
girls I went to high school with.  It will be interesting to watch 
her character, and her relationship to the boys, develop in the next
two books.



Antosha:
<snip>
> 5) But Hermione ISN'T always right. Especially when it comes to
> tactical decisions, she can be absolutely thick, the creation of 
> the DA notwithstanding. Her approach to promoting elfish 
> welfare--SPEW and the guerilla knitting campaign--are just pain
> doomed, however noble her intentions. And her brilliant plan to 
> get away from Umbridge in the forest? Less than brilliant. She's 
> an extremely bright girl with a fine sense of logic (a talent 
> that she has pointed out is little prized in witches and wizards) 
> and an over-developed work-ethic, but 
> she, too makes mistakes, errors of judgment.

Hermione and Dumbledore seem to both suffer from the vices of
their virtues: They're both so used to being right--because they
*are* almost always right--that they fail to notice when they're 
going down the wrong path. 

Dumbledore has just had his nose rubbed in his mistakes, I expect 
he'll be a bit more thoughtful about how he handles Harry in the 
future.

Hermione made a couple of big mistakes in OotP (though I'd cut her
some slack on Umbridge and the Forest, I thought that was a pretty
good bit of improvisation, given how little she had to work with), 
but I'm not sure that she's had her epiphany yet--I really can't 
wait to see her in book 6 to find out.



Richard Jones:
> I think the posters are incorrect about Hermione always being right 
> in OOTP. <snip>
> (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.

Hermione's behavior is odd here. I don't believe that she
deliberately sabotaged Harry, but I also suspect that she didn't
approve of Cho as a girlfriend for Harry, and that she didn't do
everything she could have to help Harry out. Sure, she tells Harry
what he did wrong, but she doesn't tell him how to fix it. 

I'm agnostic about ships, but even if Hermione doesn't want Harry 
as a boyfriend, she has plenty of reason for not wanting Harry to 
hook up with Cho--starting with Ginny. Ginny may have given up on
Harry, but Hermione may not have given up on the idea of 
Harry/Ginny. 

If nothing else, Hermione probably knows Cho fairly well, both as
another prefect, and as an academic rival. Cho doesn't seem to 
like her much and the feeling may be mutual. Hermione may simply 
not wish to have her best friend saddled with a girlfriend that she
dislikes. So she doesn't sabotage the relationship (deliberately) 
but she doesn't help much, either.

Richard Jones:
> (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? <snip>

That human being? As opposed to having the the Cruciatus performed 
on her best friend and leaving Sirius hung out to dry? Probably. 
Hermione can be pretty ruthless if the stakes are high enough. Ask
Rita Skeeter.

Amiable Dorsai