JKR and the boys (and girls)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 162196

Betsy_HP
> 
> I flipped through GoF just to get a feel for Ginny and Hermione's 
> relationship during that time.  And they do hang for a bit (Hermione 
> shows up with Ginny when Harry arrives at the Burrow, for example).  
> But the sticking point, for me, is the ease with which Ginny is 
> excluded from the "Trio" talk.  I cannot accept a true, deep 
> friendship between Hermione and Ginny when Hermione excludes Ginny 
> from such a large part of her life.  It just doesn't follow for me.  
> YMMV, of course.
> 
Pippin:
As has already been pointed out, Hermione didn't tell her best friends
that one of their teachers was a werewolf! She would never have revealed
that, or told Harry about the time-turner, if it hadn't become
a matter of life or death. Ginny is excluded from Trio business in
GoF explicity because the kids need to talk about Sirius, and it isn't
their secret to reveal. In real life, people who do secret work can't 
share it with their friends and families, but that doesn't mean those
relationships aren't as close as can be.



> > >>Pippin:
> > ROTFL! Hermione's date may have been a matter of no importance
> > to anyone but Ron, but Viktor Krum's date would have been news on
> > the international level.
> > <snip>
> 
> Betsy Hp:
> So?  I'm talking about how greatly *Hermione* values the 
> information.  I just never got the sense that this was a deep, only 
> my best friend shall know, sort of secret. 

Pippin:
Erm, but if it wasn't, then wouldn't the whole school have known?
Ginny was obviously sworn to secrecy and trusted enough to be 
given a piece of information that Rita Skeeter would have killed
to get her feelers on.
> 
> 
> Betsy Hp:
> I feel like I'm going with canon rather than assuming.  I mean, sure 
> it's based on a lot of negatives, but I'm just going with what JKR 
> gave me (or didn't give me, as the case may be). <g>
> 
> > >>Pippin:
> > <snip>
> > But I see no reason that Hermione, and all the other students
> > at the school, could not have had the benefit of professional
> > or magical fashion advice, not to mention that Hermione
> > is perfectly capable of seeking that out for herself.  (One
> > might guess that Ron would be too embarrassed to complain
> > about his dress robes, and that Ginny secured hers by
> > threatening to take advantage of whatever funds are available
> > for indigent students if Mum and Dad didn't cough up.) 
> > <snip>
> 
> Betsy Hp:
> Now see, this is what I'd call an assumption.  I mean, it makes 
> perfect sense, but there's nothing in canon to suggest such a thing.  
> (We'd have to assume McGonagall was talking about embarrassing 
> fashion faux-pas as well as spiking the punch and getting caught half-
> naked with that cute guy from DADA in the bushes.)

Pippin:

It's a question of how the students would interpret it. Obviously they
interpreted it as meaning they should look their very best and
though canon doesn't tell us how they managed it, we can assume
that most of them did, since only Ron feels embarrassed about his
appearance. Canon doesn't say that Hermione's appearance, 
dress or hairdo were more elegant  or more stunning than the rest, 
only that she looked like "a pretty girl in blue robes."  It's not as if she
turned herself into a veela.

And I certainly didn't see Hermione of HPB as too perfect to be
believed, not with that killer canary tantrum and her wrongheaded
insistence that the HBP was a girl, not to mention that someone
should inform her of LeGuin's dictum that heroes never say
'I told you so.'

Pippin