Another angle on Hermione's parents

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 175376

> Terri:
> I'm not sure why you would think that her parents might not have 
agreed to having a memory charm even if it may have been permenant.  
Having watched what a very good friend of mine when through when her 
21 year old daughter died very unexpectedly, I think that not 
remembering may be a blessing.  I know that my friend would love to 
wipe out the hurt of losing her daughter.  Even if it would mean 
losing the memory of her.  Everyone is different in how they handle 
grief, but for some, this is what they have prayed for.


Magpie:
First, Hermione doesn't say they talked about it and she has a 
history of doing stuff like this without telling people. It would 
require more explanation if she actually consulted them because it's 
OOC for her. Since the whole scene about Hermione's thoughts on what 
she's done are about Hermione in isolation, that seems a logical 
conclusion, especially with the way the Grangers are usually handled 
in canon and the way Muggles are generally handled in canon.

Secondly, while you think it would be a blessing for your friend to 
not remember her daughter, I find it very hard to believe that your 
friend would not want to remember her daughter. I've spoken to a lot 
of people who have lost children, and I can't imagine them wishing 
their child had never been born, which is what we're talking about. 
And even if we assume there are people who would be in such pain 
they'd cut off their child to spare themselves, the Grangers are not 
in pain. Their child is alive, so I doubt even more they'd just 
assume their pain at losing her would be so great they'll start 
focusing on themselves and forget her in case.

Magpie:
> I didn't say that Hermione didn't
> do the logical thing

Eggplant:
Then what are we arguing about?

Magpie:
As far as I can tell, we're arguing because I said I thought it was 
creepy the way the Grangers (and Muggles in general) are handled and 
viewed in the story, even though I recognized this was mainly a plot 
device to get them off-screen quickly. I would not want to be 
treated that way by anyone, especially my kid. You seem to feel this 
is a bad reaction, and that Hermione's actions are 100% admirable 
and just how you'd want to be treated by your child. We can both 
peacefully co-exist with those different opinions. I'm surprised 
that my being a bit Anti-Mindwipes for Middle Class Dentists is so 
radical.

Mary:
This is exactly what I think Hermione did. Hermione says that she 
has told her parents "quite a lot about" Harry---and I don't think 
it was just this past summer. Hermione writes and talks with her 
parents. She is the only one we see writing letters home. They 
discuss fixing her teeth by magic, even though they don't allow her 
to stop wearing braces.

Magpie:
She also makes it clear her parents "don't understand" the important 
stuff and when she makes a decision about what she's doing on that 
score she's been known to lie. (While her parents may not have 
allowed her to stop wearing her brace, she went ahead and fixed her 
teeth with magic anyway--for which I can't blame her, but that's 
typical Hermione.) Hermione has a history of *not* consulting people 
with these kinds of plans. Why would I suddenly think that she 
started here when she doesn't even say she did? She includes her 
spell on her family along with all the packing she's doing and cries 
over what will happen if she dies--everyone in the scene is focused 
on Hermione and not her parents. It's not presented as any sort of 
conflict between Hermione and her parents, just a sacrifice Hermione 
has made personally.

As for Hermione having the most contact with her parents, I 
disagree. Ron's in far more constant contact with his family. I know 
there are obvious reasons for that, but I just don't think Hermione 
is shown as having the relationship with her parents that you're 
saying she has here (one where she's supposedly dealing wtih them as 
equals and would consult them on what to do in a case like this), 
and it's even been established as part of her personality that she 
tends to have the opposite problem.

Therefore I think everything in the book and scene indicates that 
Hermione's parents were just taken care of and that that was the 
only thing anyone (including the author) thought was important. Just 
as all the memory charming of Muggles is throughout canon. 

Explanations to the contrary, imo, require more explaining that go 
against that for me, so they're not convincing. I find Eggplant's 
position far more in tune with that of the books, where Hermione had 
to act on her own to protect her parents and deserves our sympathy 
for it. I think the attitude is troubling if you're really putting 
it across as the correct way to handle situations like this in real 
life, but it's a minor blip in canon. I think that fits much more in 
with the pattern that we've seen in the books that trying to explain 
that Hermione suddenly did for once decide that she needed to think 
about this angle and her parents naturally said sure, we'll 
potentially forget you forever while you go to your death--what 
parent wouldn't? That raises far more questions than it answers, 
imo, than Hermione just taking things into her own hand again. 
(Similarly, after 7 books of one characterization of Slytherin, I 
don't believe that in the epilogue I should think of them as nothing 
more than Yale to Gryffindor's Harvard.)

Mary:
They, in turn, allow her to spend more time with the Weasley's and 
Harry. They know what kind of daughter they have--very bright, 
magical, and determined. This plan may have been the best compromise 
they could reach that would keep them safe. Like it or not, Muggles 
have little protection against magical attack.

Magpie:
Including Hermione's. I don't see where you're getting the 
word "compromise" from. Basically, if Hermione died her parents 
become other people for the rest of their lives, and go on living in 
Australia just as the Muggles at the World Cup suddenly decide they 
have to go to Cleveland or whatever (though they might come back). I 
suspect a compromise--one that gave the slightest thought to the 
Grangers at all (by the author, that is) would have had a back-up 
plan if something happened to Hermione. She certainly doesn't speak 
about it as a compromise--she concentrates on her own problems by 
saying that if she dies she thinks she did the charm well enough 
that her parents will just stay that way forever and that's okay for 
her.

Random:
What about the possibility that neither of them thought of that? That
it's not until they're halfway to Australia that Hermione finally 
thinks "oh CRAP, what happens if I'm killed?" - as smart as she 
supposedly is, she doesn't always think things through.

Magpie:
I know Hermione tends to forget stuff like that, but her dying seems 
to be what she's focused on most. That seems at the forefront of her 
mind.

As I said, basically I think the Grangers are occasionally just 
inconvenient. JKR doesn't want to kill them because Hermione is 
supposed to have a normal family, but at the same time she needs 
Hermione to be as free as Harry. This winds up meaning the Grangers 
sometimes just get in the way and need to be gotten rid of or 
ignored. They're fine as long as you don't think too much about 
them. But if you are going to think about them, and want to keep 
them normal parents, I think Hermione taking things into her own 
hands is the only way that fits their behavior--and there's a 
precedent for it in canon already.

-m