Hermione's parents (was Re: A Sense of Betrayal / Unforgiveables)

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 174334

> Magpie responded:
> > And yet every single person reading the book is a Muggle and can 
> > understand. 
> 
> Carol:
> Perhps because we've been reading the Potter books? Hermione hasn't
> even told her parents about Blast-Ended Skrewts and the everyday
> dangers of sports and classes at Hogwarts, AFAWK. She has spent 
very
> little time with them. The closest thing I can think of to an
> expression of concern or affection for them is buying them (ugh!)
> Self-Flossing String Mints (or some such thing for Christmas). She
> doesn't seem to have a very high estimation of either their
> intelligence or their ability to understand magic or her life at
> Hogwarts. 

Magpie:
Yes, I agree. But while this makes Hermione's dealings with her 
parents unsurprising, it doesn't make it right. It shows just how 
deep the attitude go and, for me, the danger of all those lies along 
the way. Hermione was probably no older than 12 when she started 
lying to her parents because she decided she knew best and it was 
just easier (and I can certainly identify with her there--I know how 
it's sometimes easier to lie and I've done it myself!). So for years 
that means she's rather taking the adult role and sheilding them 
from things. It's not surprising that once she reaches adulthood 
she's so used to treating them like lesser beings that it's easy 
enough to treat them like pets and memory charm them.

And that's fine for the story where her parents are really just 
inconveniences to be gotten rid of as quickly as possible. But I as 
a Muggle I find the attitude frightening. I can't believe anybody 
would want to be treated that way--presumably that's why when we 
read we all identify with the Wizards who get to make their own 
decisions and who are allowed to demand the truth and are the ones 
who make decisions for other beings rather than the other way around.

> Carol:
> Would they be that suportive if they really knew what went on at
> Hogwarts school or during Hermione's vacations? Hermione has never
> told her parents the truth. 

Magpie:
No, she hasn't, which is why I can't blame her parents' limitations 
for what she does. Any parent would be nervous about their child 
being put in danger at school. Wizarding parents deal with it, 
Hermione's parents are deceived and lied to. Then when Hermione is 
an adult herself and no longer has to ask her parents' permission to 
do anything at all, she still isn't honest with them and instead 
manipulates them even more totally than Voldemort or Dumbledore ever 
manipulated Harry. Surprising? No. Just a regular way of showing she 
cares? No, not for me. We *know* how Harry or Ron would react if 
Hermione tried this one them. Muggles are no different. (One of my 
favorite Ron moments is when he uncovers all the hats Hermione 
leaves around the Common Room because "they should know what they're 
picking up.")

Carol:
Even when she decides to go to 12 GP
> instead of joining them on vacation, she says she's staying at
> Hogwarts to study. It seems likely that she would simply let them
> think that she was going back to Hogwarts this time, too, even 
though
> she's nearly an adult in the Muggle world (eighteen in September) 
and
> they would let her make her own decisions as always. I just can't 
see
> her saying, "Mum and Dad, Harry, Ron, and I are dropping out of 
school
> so we can destroy Horcruxes because a Dark Wizard and his Death 
Eaters
> are taking over the WW and Muggles like you are in particular 
danger."

Magpie:
Neither can I, but I don't want to use Hermione's pattern of lying 
and dismissing her parents to justify her most impressive display of 
lying to them and dismissing them. She's been choosing the easy path 
for so long she continues to choose it. But for me the thing that 
stands out is that I think the right thing to do is to treat the 
parents who have always treated her with respect as people whose own 
intelligence and free will should be respected. 

I get that they're treated like this because they're minor 
inconvenient details to deal with in the plot, but that still adds 
up to Hermione treating her parents as minor inconvenient details 
rather than as even equals let along parents. I can't imagine a 
Wizard child zapping his parents that way as a sign of a healthy 
relationship. Being a parent implies respect, and since Muggles 
aren't respected they can't be parents. I tried to think of any 
Wizard kids who manipulated their parents in a way close to Hermione 
here and came up with only Barty Crouch.

Carol: 
> It's perfectly in character for Hermione to take things into her 
own
> hands without consulting her parents. I'm actually happy that she
> loves them enough to want to protect them, and there's no question
> that as the Muggle parents of a runaway "Mudblood" companion of
> Undesirable Number One, they would be in terrible danger.

Magpie:
It's absolutely in character. Hermione's got some scary stuff in her 
character!

Carol: 
> It seems to me that telling the truth is out. I don't see how they 
can
> possibly believe her when she's never given them a hint that the WW
> isn't the happy, magical world of Diagon Alley in Hermione's first 
year. 

Magpie:
We don't actually know what she's given them a hint of, but even if 
she hasn't (which is quite possible), that doesn't make telling the 
truth out. It makes telling the truth more difficult because she's 
been lying for so long. 

Carol: 
> I don't necessarily approve of her method of protecting her 
parents,
> but I can see Katie's point. Hermione's parents have even less idea
> than the Dursleys (who at least know about Voldemort and Dementors)
> what they would be facing if they stayed. And if she finally told 
them
> the truth she's been withholding about what the WW is really like 
and
> how much worse it is now, and that helpless Muggles can be victims,
> too, especially if they're related to friends of Harry Potter, they
> might well think she's exaggerating (or insane.)

Magpie:
Speaking as a Muggle, I would always prefer to be told the truth and 
decide how I feel about it myself if it effects me or my family. Why 
should my kid decide on her own how I will react to something? And 
why would I think she's insane if I dealt just fine with the biggest 
revelation of all, that there are wizards in the world and magic 
exists? Iirc, in DH Harry speaks on something like this issue where 
he says he doesn't just want to think something's true because it's 
comforting, because the truth matters. I can't believe it doesn't 
matter to the Grangers, no matter how ugly the truth is. 

Carol:
> 
> What, then, are her options? The happy oblivion she's given them 
may
> be reversible (I'd kind of like to know what I was doing as Monica
> Wendell, thank you), and Australia is certainly safer than England 
as
> of DH. It seems impossible for the Ministry and its DE minions to
> trace her there.

Magpie:
I think her options do include telling them the truth. Respecting 
them as humans who deserve to have a say in their own life rather 
than treating them like pets she can stick in a kennel. As to 
whether the charm is reversible, according to Hermione she gave them 
a false life and plans to "find them" when Voldemort's gone and 
reverse it herself. If she dies, they will live the rest of their 
lives as strangers. (Apparently they have no one else who cares 
about them who might be hurt by them suddenly disappearing.)

Carol: 
> OTOH, "Little Miss Perfect," that "insufferable know-it-all," 
doesn't
> seem to have consulted anybody else, any more than she did before
> capturing and blackmailing Rita Skeeter or putting a Sneak Hex on 
the
> DA parchment before they were even an official group. Hermione is
> intelligent and gifted--Harry owes his life to her in DH--but 
couldn't
> she have done something more along the lines of what the Order is
> doing for the Dursleys, a safe house protected by a Fidelius Charm?

Magpie:
Of course. Hermione being an insufferable know it all who does 
extreme things to other people because she decides it's best is very 
canon, but I think it's also a huge black mark on her character. Not 
that the author necessarily sees it that way--the fact that she 
thinks Hermione being high up in Magical Law Enforcement shows that. 
But that's partly what I said in my other post--as much as we are 
discussing the icky implications of this, it's nowhere in canon. 
Nobody ever questions that Hermione isn't right to do any of these 
things because she's working for the right side and that justifies 
everything to the point where nobody ever thinks about their actions 
much. The same is true of Harry's Crucio. Certain readers might 
challenge what they're doing, but in canon it's a movie-triumph 
moment (the Crucio) or something that gains them sympathy. JKR 
herself brushes it off with "Harry's never been a saint," a 
defensive non-answer.


Carol:
> Even Lee Jordan (and it was nice to hear his voice again) is
> suggesting putting protective charms on the houses of Muggle
> neighbors. Why didn't Hermione protect them with a Fidelius Charm 
or
> protective spells like the ones she placed on the tent? Or, if that
> wouldn't protect them when they left the house to go to work, why 
not
> ask the Order to place them in one of the safe houses? The worst 
that
> could happen would be having to share a house with the Dursleys or
> Auntie Muriel.

Magpie:
That would be good too, I agree. The pattern with Hermione I think 
has always clearly been not only to protect her parents but to keep 
them interfering with her in any way that's inconvenient. This 
doesn't even occur to Harry to want to do to the Dursleys. Perhaps 
at least partly because we know them as characters so naturally 
expect our hero to not just zap them into docile robots.


> <snip>
> 
> Carol:
> I think that if Hermione had been honest with her parents about the
> dangers she was facing from the beginning, an explanation might 
have
> worked, but I don't see how they can possibly be made to comprehend
> just how great the danger is. So the problem is in part of her own
> making. And I wonder if the reader is supposed to have exactly that
> reaction: How is Hermione's taking her parents' protection into her
> own hands, robbing them of their identities and their capacity for
> choice, any different from what young Albus Dumbledore was 
advocating
> on a larger scale at he same age? (I'm not comparing her with 
Gellert
> Grindelwald, who had been expelled from *Durmstrang* for the 
tactics
> he used to support his views.)

Magpie:
I think two people who managed to get through dental school could 
understand it--though of course it would probably mean Hermione 
would have to confess that their relationship of the past few years 
has been a lie in itself, which wouldn't be pleasant (I wouldn't be 
surprised if they don't already suspect it, though). I just don't 
see the idea that they would be incapable of making the leap. I 
mean, Muggles have dealt with similar revelations and adjusted just 
fine.

I don't much see any hints that we as readers as supposed to have 
this reaction. It's one of those muddy moments as I think Sneeboy 
also said. Now that I have the conclusion to the story, I no longer 
assume that I am supposed to be asking the question, since there's 
never any time in canon that anyone else does. I mean, it's fine to 
say, "Maybe we're supposed to ask this!" but it's meaningless when 
everything in the text is saying it's pretty much fine. It's 
like...if I'm supposed to be asking the question, why am I supposed 
to be asking it when the story's conclusion honestly seems to be 
saying it's okay? 

> Magpie:
> > Wanting to protect them [is not] the problem. It's the way she
> decides what's good for them and completely robs them of their own
> will and freedom and at the least an entire year of their lives 
that's
> a problem, and she does it without the slightest thought that she's
> done anything wrong. <snip>
> 
> Carol:
> Which is perfectly in character for Hermione. She *is* wrong on one
> point in the books--the Deathly Hallows are not just a legend (so
> Xenophilius Lovegood is one up on Hermione), but does she make any
> moral progress in this book? Ron, IMO, makes enormous strides 
toward
> maturity. Hermione does a pretty good job of finally understanding
> Kreacher. But she also sees herself as part of a persecuted 
minority
> (Muggleborns) without seeming to see that her parents are part of a
> persecuted majority that doesn't even see its danger. It's a little
> too close to DD's original conception of "the greater good" and 
just a
> step from there to "Magic Is Might."

Magpie:
Well said (and thanks for adding my missing words!). I also think 
it's very much like Magic is Might and the Greater Good. It's very 
in character for Hermione. My own stance is that she's absolutely 
wrong in that attitude. But I honestly don't think I'm supposed to 
be thinking that, and since she's never called on this really (even 
the House Elves seems in the end to have been more about Hermione's 
personality limitations getting in the way of her good intentions) 
it's hard to think the author sees it as a problem. She's okay 
making Hermione shown to be wrong about some things (her blunder 
with the centaurs, some of her romantic machinations in HBP, 
thinking the Hallows are fake etc.), but when she's doing stuff in 
the service of the greater good the book seems to be cheering her 
on. And many people do that--not all readers have this reaction to 
Hermione. But those of us who do seem to pretty much react to the 
same things.

-m