Pansy/ Hermione

[zgirnius]

No: HPFGUIDX 150679

Irene:
> But Hermione is as prejudiced against Firenze as Pansy is against 
> Hagrid! We can't use it to compare the two girls in Hermione's 
favour.

zgirnius:
Hermione does not have a position on Firenze. She does not know him, 
she has not had him in a class, she certainly has never done anything 
which would harm him.

If you are referring to her comment about not being fond of horses, I 
have never thought that was meant to be an insult to Firenze or 
centaurkind. Parvati and Lavender were exclaiming in a groupie-like 
way about how *handsome* he is, and doesn't Hermione wish she hadn't 
given up Divination after all. The remark was to shut THEM up, I 
thought. Had the discussion been about a new super-handsome male 
professor of the human species, she might have asserted a lack of 
interest in blonds (or whatever conspicuous physical characteristic 
of this hypothetical professor came to mind). But YMMV...

Irene:
> And anyway, about the whole "let's get Hagrid fired" campaign - do 
we 
> honestly think that if it wasn't Umbridge inspecting Hogwarts, but, 
say, 
> Lupinlore or Eggplant - Harry and the friends wouldn't use their 
chance 
> to get Snape fired? :-)

zgirnius:
Sure Harry and Ron would! And they'd be wrong to, if they lied to do 
it. Or appealed to some general prejudices of those gentlemen against 
greasy-haired, hook-nosed, sarcastic persons, though I think they, 
unlike Umbridge, lack this character flaw and actually dislike Snape 
for the person he is (odd though this may seem <g>), as opposed to 
his race/species/etc.

I think Hermione would not participate, as I think she actually 
considers Snape a good teacher, and for her this would be a reason 
not to get him fired.

Irene:
> I know JKR considers disliking one of her favourite characters to 
be a 
> crime, after all the only reason Zacharia Smith is "eeeevil" is not 
> being a fan of Harry's, but I think a Hogwarts student can have 
> legitimate reasons for disliking Hagrid and wanting him out.

zgirnius:
And I agree with you, about Hagrid *and* JKR's favorites. If Pansy 
had told Umbridge she felt ill prepared for her OWL due to excessive 
class time spent on skrewts and flobberworms and a lack of a cohesive 
lesson plan, and frightened because people have gotten hurt by 
creatures in his class before, I would probably have managed to 
restrain myself from cheering (as I loathe Dolores the Dreadful). I 
certainly would not hold this behavior up as an illustration of what 
is wrong with Pansy.