Hermione must be stopped, or at least slapped

[Ceridwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 149296

katssirius:
> > She was judge, jury, and warden for Rita Skeeter 
> > at the age of 14.  Hermione knows what is right for house elves in 
> > spite of the up close example of Winky.  
> 
> Hickengruendler:
> 
> I cannot blame her for blackmailing Rita. Sorry, maybe I'm an old 
> cynical, but Rita was deliberatly destroyng othe rpeople's lives with 
> half trues and outright lies. 

Ceridwen:
I couldn't stand Rita Skeeter.  I really couldn't.  She deserved to be 
given to an amoral five year old in her bug form.  But the point is, 
Hermione is fourteen.  It isn't her place to do any of this.  This is 
completely Hermione thinking she knows more than anybody, including 
Dumbledore.

It is never her place to play vigilante.  Not with Umbridge - Harry 
thought of it late, but he thought of it - Snape was there, the only 
remaining member of the Order.  Why not go to him instead of playing at 
commando diversions, before they got trapped into only one way out?  
She is supposed to be the thinking one of the trio.  Not the schemer.

And, not with Rita Skeeter.  It was no more her place to imprison Rita 
Skeeter in a jar than it was right for the MoM to imprison Sirius Black 
without a trial.  In fact, the MoM could get more of a pass because 
they are the WW's official, voter-approved body for taking care of such 
things.  Hermione's action here was pure vigilantism.

And, not with Marietta Edgecomb.  Marietta, as it was explained later, 
had a real crisis in her personal life over the vow.  There was a 
conflict that a fifteen year old child will find difficult if not 
impossible to handle.  Children should go to their parents with crises 
like this.  So, here's Hermione, punishing her for going to her mother -
 and getting away with the punishment!

She may have gotten some sort of an idea that she shouldn't treat 
others poorly or use them and think she can cast them aside, when she 
met with the centaurs.  She was certainly naive!  But has she really 
changed?  We haven't seen, one way or the other.  She's too busy in HBP 
with her crush.

And, yeah, the birds.  Ron got clawed and bitten by them.  They broke 
skin.  Not nice.  But as someone else said, this does look like 
Hermione acting like a normal teen for once, jealous and petty and 
vindictive.  I don't think she should have done it.  Feeling like that 
is one thing, acting on it is another.

But, I think that most of this was about Hermione stepping into shoes 
that are still years too big for her.  It was not her place to do any 
of this.  When things like this happen, the books look to me like the 
typical kid sop, where the adults are clueless that all the teens on 
Elm are dying off mysteriously, or so stupid that the kids are running 
the school.  And, I really think the books are much better than that.

Ceridwen.