[HPforGrownups] Re: Views of Hermione

[Sherry Gomes]

No: HPFGUIDX 160542

carol wrote:
(Hermione is in no such position, yet she blackmails Rita Skeeter and
imprisons her in a jar for a year. If anyone did that to Hermione, fandom
would be in an uproar. Not all that different from what Barty Jr. did to
Mad-Eye, except that she didn't pull Rita's hair out or Imperio her.) 


Sherry now:

A slight correction.  Hermione did not keep Rita in a jar for a year.  She
was going to let her out when they got to London, but she told her she could
not write anything for a year.

However, having said that, I actually agree with you about Hermione in this
instance.  It wasn't what Rita wrote about Harry, nor what she wrote about
Hagrid, that caused Hermione to take action against her.  It was after Rita
turned her poisonous quill on Hermione herself, that Hermione became so
outraged that she decided to take action.  It was not justice; it was pure
revenge.  She was upset by what Rita had said about her, and she set out to
get something on her and captured her in the jar and black mailed her.  It
is one of Hermione's lowest moments for me, even the first time I read it in
GOF, because there's no mitigating reason behind it, just Hermione in a snit
taking revenge.

Carol:
If Harry's greatest weapon is indeed Love, he's going to have to let go of
his desire for revenge and his hatred of both Voldemort and Snape. ) Note
that the same people who condemn Snape for wanting revenge against Sirius
Black for what Snape considers to be a murder attempt condone Harry's desire
for revenge against Snape and Hermione's for revenge against Rita Skeeter.
Possibly they would also have condoned the murder of Wormtail at the hands
of Lupin and Black, regardless of the legal and psychological consequences
for the murderers, becuse Wormtail deserved it (as he certainly did). IMO,
Harry was right to spare Wormtail and try to hand him over to the
authorities rather than mistaking revenge for justice and allowing Lupin and
Black to kill him themselves. 


Sherry now:

Just because I do think Snape committed murder on the tower, does not
suddenly make me someone who believes anyone should take revenge on Snape or
Peter.  One of the moments I most love in the entire series is when Harry
stops Sirius and Remus from murdering Peter.  I've already said how I feel
about what Hermione did to Rita.  Neither do I think that taking revenge
against Snape will help Harry win against Voldemort in the end.  In fact, I
think his hatred of Snape, though perfectly reasonable--one would not easily
love someone one saw murder another person in front of one's own eyes--I
think it could become a dangerous distraction from what Harry needs to do.
As far as not wanting Snape to seek revenge against Sirius for whatever
happened back in their Hogwarts days, as this is 20 years later, and we have
been told by JKR we don't know all the details, I think taking revenge is
out of line there as well.  There's more to that story than we know, but
even if what we've been told so far was all there was to it, I would not
want to see Snape take revenge 20 years later.  

As for Harry learning to forgive Voldemort, I hope that isn't required for
the ending.  Maybe he can learn to forgive the former tom riddle, who was
once an innocent boy, but it would be way too sappy and unrealistic to
expect Harry to forgive and even love Voldemort, the one responsible for his
parents' deaths, his miserable upbringing, the death of Sirius and now the
hand behind the hand that murdered Dumbledore.  I don't believe justice
requires forgiveness and love in order to apply it.  As for revenge, at
least I'm fairly consistent, because I don't want either the good guys or
the bad guys to practice it.  It isn't really true to imply that we all
think revenge by Harry is the way to go.

Sherry