Hermione's Crimes and Punishments

[elfundeb]

No: HPFGUIDX 149542

Catherine wrote:
 I think people are reading WAY too much into her behaviors as needing to be
punished. Whereas I agree that she has some faults that lead her into unwise
actions, she is also far from needing to be punished. This isn't real-life.
And the rules seem a little more blurry in the WW. All Rita would have to do
is to go an register herself as an animagus, and she could go on writing,
despite what Hermione says, since Hermione would have nothing on her
anymore. Rita has remained unemployed for over a year by her own CHOICE not
to register herself as an animagus.

As for Marietta, I think JKR wanted us to see just how good Hermione is at
jinxing people.


Debbie:
I think just about everything has already been said about the rightness or
wrongness of Hermione's actions.  My contribution (dating back to the middle
ages of this list) is here:

 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/messages/81788?xm=1&m=s
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/82355
(apologies to anyone who tries to read this; these are not short)

But I do find the notion of comeuppance quite interesting.  With Rita
Skeeter, with Marietta and to some extent Umbridge (though in that case all
Hermione did was lure Umbridge into the forest, allowing Umbridge to dig her
own grave with her half-breed comments), Hermione is acting as an agent of
comeuppance.  In my mind, there are two issues:

1.  How comfortable are we with JKR's use of Hermione as an agent of
comeuppance/punishment.

2.  Whether Hermione's manipulativeness has reached the point where she
should, or will, get any comeuppance.

Taking the first question first, I am quite uncomfortable with Hermione as
instrument of vengeance, but that's to be expected, of course, since I
dislike comeuppance as a rule.  I don't find the Twins very funny when they
engage in it (though I've acknowledged time and again that I believe JKR
means it to be funny).  Yet using Hermione for this purpose raises the
stakes a bit.  Hermione is a main character and her primary function is
*not* comic relief.

I suspect if we polled the list, the same people who are troubled with
Hermione's vigilanteism were troubled by, for example, the Ton-Tongue Toffee
incident.  We never resolved that one, and we aren't going to resolve this
one either.

So, on to question 2.  In OOP, I would describe Hermione as suffering from,
paradoxically, an excess of success (almost to the point of becoming
a Hermione Sue) while using questionable means.   Shutting down Rita
Skeeter's livelihood.  Permanently disfiguring Marietta.  Because of her
phenomenal success in OOP, I expected a spectacular failure in HBP, because
nobody can be *that* successful, even if she does everything right.

After HBP, I began to wonder if Hermione already *had* her moment
comeuppance out there in the Forbidden Forest facing the wrath of the
centaurs.  Because it was a short-lived failure, since Grawp came to save
the day, and of course it immediately followed her success with Umbridge,
her failure is easy to miss.

However, in HBP we see a more chastened Hermione.  She has lost her
overconfidence.  She's still manipulative, as her Confundus on McLaggen
shows, but she's less successful on the whole.  Harry challenges her on the
Confundus, and her attempt to make Ron jealous is a complete failure.

In addition, she seems unnerved by Harry's success at potions, even though
she knows it's a result of the secret tips in his book.  Perhaps her
determination to stick to the official instructions ultimately begins to
undermine her confidence in books.  And when she accuses Harry of not
thinking girls are as clever as boys (HBP ch. 25) appears to be a victim of
typical female self-doubts that often arise in the teen years as girls get a
better understanding of how male-centered the world really is.  She has also
abandoned her attempts to free the house elves, which can be read as further
evidence that she's questioning herself, her cleverness, and her efficacy.

All this adds up to a Hermione that seems a lot different from the
overconfident and successful Hermione we saw in OOP.  This appears to be a
step backwards, but I see it as part of a growth process that will result in
a Book 7 Hermione who is much better prepared to give Harry the help he
needs in Book 7.

Having once been a sixteen-year-old girl wracked with self-doubt, I think
Hermione's HBP experience was punishment enough.

Debbie
who thinks Hermione should turn her talents to developing an antidote for
Marietta, who also has had punishment enough for her crime


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