Character you wanted to like, but didn't

[kiricat4001]

No: HPFGUIDX 179706

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Bart Lidofsky <bartl at ...> 
wrote:
>
> Carol wrote:
> > Viktor Krum is canonically skinny, hook-nosed, and duck-footed, 
but
> > the girls follow him around just as they do Cedric. It has 
nothing to
> > do with looks; it's only celebrity status. 
> 
> Bart:
> 	Actually, Viktor Krum seemed like a pretty nice guy, but I 
never did 
> take a shine to him; he just seemed a bit on the slow side for 
someone 
> who was supposed to be champion of a school.
> 
> 	So, everybody, is there any character from the books who you 
WANTED to 
> like, but, for some reason, just couldn't?


Marianne:

Maybe it's more of a "I liked them at times and wished I could have 
liked them consistently but they do things that make me crazy!"

That would be Molly and Hermione.  Molly was obviously a very 
capable witch and loved her family to pieces.  Her hug of Harry at 
the end of GoF was a wonderful moment.  But, woe be to anyone who 
tries to undermine her mother routine, be it Sirius in OoP who 
thought his godson deserved not to be kept in the dark, or Hermione, 
who Molly was so quick to think ill of in GoF after the Skeeter 
article. 

Her fears for her family were poignantly described with the boggart 
in OoP.  I felt very much for her - how she certainly must have 
thought that the replay of Voldemort's return would bring loss to 
her, just as it did in the first war.  And, then she's rude to 
Fleur, picks at Arthur, denigrates the twins' choices, etc. So, on 
average, every time she did something I found wonderful, she'd 
undermine it with being the most annoying mother on earth.

Same for Hermione. I could identify with her as a bookish person. 
I'm sure she had a certain level of insecurity in trying to fit into 
this new world she had become part of.  I found her rational 
thoughts in the interactions with Ron and Harry to be a good balance 
to their more emotional/seat-of-their-pants ways of dealing with 
things. But, too often she seemed to be there soley to provide the 
answer the boys would never have come up with themselves. It got old 
for me.

And, I hated her being used as the voice of interpretation of other 
characters, especially given her age and experience. In HBP, her 
explanation for Tonks' general weirdness was "survivor guilt." In 
OoP, her explanation for Sirius's mood when Harry was about to leave 
for Hogwarts was that he was being both selfish and lonely. In 
neither case was she completely right, but she seemed to be self-
satisfied with her explanation, so no more thought was necessary. In 
a way it was very teenager-ly, thinking she knew it all.  But, she 
completely missed nuances in character and behavior. So, while 
sometimes I liked her, at other times she grated on me.

Marianne