Hermione's parents (was Re: A Sense of Betrayal )/Luna's Creepy Father

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 174291

> > Magpie:
> > She is not upset about it and is not doing any such thing when 
> > talking about it. She tells Harry that she's coming with him and 
> > simply reels off that she's taken care of her parents. She 
begins 
> to 
> > cry not because she's done something horrible to them, but 
because 
> > in talking about it she brings up the possibility of *her own 
> > death.* She says if she survives the Horcrux hunt she'll lift 
the 
> > enchantment. If she doesn't, well, she's cast a good enough 
spell 
> to 
> > make them happy as the two people they aren't. She's not crying 
> > about having done this completely unacceptable thing to these 
two 
> > people, but her own future. Her parents get off easy as far as 
> she's 
> > concerned. They'll be fine even if they live a lie the rest of 
> their 
> > lives. It's Hermione who will be missing out by dying. It's her 
> > who's felt sorry for in the scene.
> <<<HUGE SNIP>>>

> ****Katie again:
> 
> I simply do not see the scene that way.
> 
> ""Assuming I survive our hunt for the Horcruxes, I'll find Mum and 
> Dad and lift the enchantment. If I don't --- well, I think I've 
cast 
> a good enough charm to keep them safe and happy. Wendell and 
Monica 
> Wilkens don't know that they've got a daughter, you see."
> 
> Hermione's eyes were swimming with tears again."

> 
> I interpreted this, on first read and on subsequent ones, as 
> Hermione crying because her parents don't remember her. This 
> obviously upsets her. I never saw it as her crying for herself. 
> 
> I guess I just don't see her as so self-involved. Katie

Magpie:
But you just indicated the same point I'm making--she's crying that 
her parents won't remember HER, not because she's done something 
horrible to THEM. It's her we're encouraged to feel sorry for 
because she might die and her parents wouldn't even mourn her. The 
fact that her parents would probably would be ten times as horrified 
at this than she is doesn't come into it.

Here's the whole scene :

'Let's see,' said Hermione, slamming Travels with Trolls on to the 
discarded pile with a rather fierce look. 'I've been packing for 
days, so we're ready to leave at a moment's notice, which for your 
information has included doing some pretty difficult magic, not to 
mention smuggling Mad-Eye's whole stock of Polyjuice Potion right 
under Ron's mum's nose.

'I've also modified my parents' memories so that they're convinced 
they're really called Wendell and Monica Wilkins, and that their 
life's ambition is to move to Australia, which they have now done. 
That to make it more difficult for Voldemort to track them down and 
interrogate them about me--or you, because unfortunately, I've told 
them quite a bit about you.

'Assuming I survive our hunt for the Horcruxes, I'll find Mum and 
Dad and lift the enchantment. If I don't--well, I think I've cast a 
good enough charm to keep them safe and happy. Wendell and Monica 
Wilkins don't know they've got a daughter, you see.'

Hermione's eyes were swimming with tears again. Ron got back off the 
bed, put his arm around her once more and frowned at Harry as though 
reproaching him for his lack of tact. Harry could not think of 
anything to say, not least because it was highly unusual to for Ron 
to be teaching anyone else tact.

'I--Hermione, I'm sorry--I didn't--'

'Didn't realise that Ron and I know perfectly well what might happen 
if we come with you? Well, we do.'

***

End canon.

Hermione's setting out to help Harry--her relationship with him is 
not self-centered. Her parents' memories are listed along with all 
the packing and difficult magic and Polyjuice stealing she's done. 

In the third paragraph she starts talking about what will happen if 
she *doesn't* come back from the trip. This is where her eyes fill 
with tears, at the idea of being dead and her parents not mourning 
her at all--she's removed their memories that they even have a 
daughter. She's telling us she's made things good for them, but is 
crying about what that means to her. The fact that they will never 
again get their identities back is fine. 

This is then made clearer by Ron looking at Harry as if he's been 
tactless in making her think about her sacrifice, and Harry tries to 
apologize, at which point Hermione herself speaks up about knowing 
the risk she's taking--again, Hermione's sacrifice.

The idea that she's robbed her parents of something by taking away 
their own memories of their daughter, perhaps forever, is never 
suggested by anybody. Nobody in the scene questions that she's done 
this, the focus is on comforting Hermione for what might happen to 
her. You yourself seemed to have gotten the same impression, that 
Hermione is sad at her parents not remembering her, but that taking 
away her parents memories is fine because they're Muggles and can't 
understand, so don't need to be consulted.

Lisa:

Heavens! That's not the scenario I imagine at all!

Magpie:
I'm not sure what scenario you meant. I said that if Hermione talked 
to her parents--and that wouldn't even mean telling them everything--
they might agree to certain protections of their own free will. It's 
not like Hermione's not doing what she wants has been a question for 
7 years--these people couldn't even get her to fix her teeth with a 
brace or go on a ski trip, she's hardly going to listen to them if 
they tell her not to endanger themselves. But the fact is, that 
never comes up. She doesn't even have to tell them she's an adult 
now and this is what she's doing. Ron's parents can be filled in, 
but Hermione's parents go from years of just being kept in the dark 
to having their identities robbed. (Though as I said I assume it's 
just a throwaway joke because there's more to a new Muggle identity 
than thinking it.)

As an aside, I was just watching a movie where this guy is kind of 
trapped by his wife, and he kills her with an axe. It was fun and 
satisfying. I don't think watching annoying people have horrible 
things happen to them in fiction means you would act that way in 
real life. But I was watching a cheesy horror movie--one in which I 
equally enjoyed watching the same guy get strangled in revenge by 
his dead wife's severed arm. It wasn't a bildugsroman dealing with 
good and evil, and the guy wasn't a Good Guy. And I wasn't arguing 
for the rightness of what the guy did. Different genres do have 
different expectations, and every work has its own pov it puts 
across in how it deals with stuff.

Like I said, I get that it's just explaining away Hermione's 
parents, and that Muggle memory charming is played for laughs, but 
if it's seriously defended as a good thing to do, no I don't think 
it is. I think there are other things at stake than protecting 
people. There's a lot of ways to protect people that are scary.

Guzu:
Seeing as how he had been planning to give the horn to Luna as a 
gift,it seems the DEs actually saved her from severe injury or death 
by kidnapping her. I'm not sure what J.K. Rowling's intent was in 
writing him to be as nasty as he was, other than to make us feel 
even more sorry for Luna.

Magpie:
Me too. Maybe I shouldn't even suggest how dark that relationship 
came across to me. For some reason that picture of Luna with her 
mother looking more "kempt" stuck out to me too, since Luna was 16 
now and would be taking care of herself. At first I thought, just as 
Betsy did, that Luna was dead (which seemed pretty cool to me) and 
he was crazily always waiting for her to come home.

Veronica:
Your adult child witnesses a crime and is put in the witness
protection program with everyone thinking he/she is dead. You will
never see him/her again... never get to meet the person he/she
marries, never know your grandchildren. Terrible, right? But better
than him/her being brutally murdered by criminals, no? Again,
horrible situation, but you have to make the best of it even if it's
VERY far from ideal.

Magpie:
The problem is Hermione deciding on her own to rob someone else of 
their lives without their consent or even thinking of it as far as 
we know, not that she would rather never see them again than have 
them murdered. As I said above, there are lots of ways of protecting 
people that are scary. And yes, sometimes you might wind up having 
to make decisions for them even if you think it's wrong. But this 
isn't presented as a moral dilemma in the slightest. Nobody once 
questions whether Hermione ought not to have just made this decision 
for her parents, and nothing in the situation that makes it 
dangerous for her to have tried. Her magical might is gets her out 
of having to do that. The books are full of Muggles being treated 
that way (though as someone else noted, bizarrely the Dursleys are 
given choices, perhaps because their choices always show them them 
off badly). 

-m