Revenge on Rita was First lesson

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 185804

> > Magpie:
> > I see what you're saying, but it's not clear at all on my re-
reading. 
> > The whole thing completely depends on me seeing Rita as an honest 
> > writer who would have reported the truth because it was the truth
> and  that's not Rita.
> 
> Pippin:
> She would have reported that Harry Potter was accusing prominent
> wizards of Death Eating, not because it was true, but because it 
would
> have been a colossal story, which the Ministry wasn't telling  even 
as
> craziness.

Magpie:
Okay. So she might have reported that (had she been allowed in the 
Prophet, I guess). But is that line in GoF really a story of Hermione 
shooting herself in the foot? Because Hermione forcing her to write 
the story to her specifications (so, for instance, the spin *isn't* 
that Harry is being crazy in accusing these people, which would 
hardly have helped him at all so what did they miss out on there?) is 
still a big triumph of OotP. So while I will totally concede that *I 
don't know* how things would have gone if Rita hadn't been muzzled in 
those months between GoF and OotP (though I still think the whole 
conversation about Rita in GoF is merely there to bring up Rita and 
not to show in retrospect that Hermione made a big mistake here) 
that's not enough to make this a story about how Hermione's inabilty 
to deal with public humiliation as well as Harry (thanks, in part, to 
Snape picking on him in class) causes Harry's difficulties in OotP. 
The emphasis in the story is still on Hermione's using her power over 
Rita to strike a blow for the good guys. That's far more powerful 
than any speculations about what Rita might have done if left to her 
own devices in GoF and how that might have been better or worse for 
Harry. Rita could just as easily have *started* the crazy!Harry train 
and then left them with no way of fighting back in OotP. (I suppose 
they just would have put the article in the Quibbler themselves 
without Rita.)

Pippin:
> Hermione had to coerce Rita, but only into writing the story for 
free,
> not into writing it at all. Rita thought at first that the public
> wouldn't want Harry's version. But Hermione convinced her that they 
would.

Magpie:
Hermione had power over Rita. Rita had no power over Hermione. If 
Hermione could not convince Rita that the public would want Harry's 
story then Rita could just continue being forbidden to write at all--
or else Hermione would probably write the story and Rita would be 
forced to put her name to it. Any "discussion" in the scene is an 
illusion since Rita's under Hermione's thumb. It's Hermione's power 
over Rita that makes Rita an ally. That doesn't make for a good 
cautionary tale about blackmail. Nor does it show Hermione overcome 
by passion.

 
> > Magpie:
> > The fact that the same kind of opportunity and situation never 
came 
> > up again does not prove that Hermione decided it wasn't worth it. 
The 
> > book showed Hermione use blackmail without remorse and without 
bad 
> > consequences. The fact that one can insert some lukewarm 
objections 
> > to that doesn't make those objections the point in the story. I 
don't 
> > know what JKR thinks about it, but given what I read in the story 
I 
> > would predict her answer if challenged to be slyly gleeful about 
> > Hermione's triumph and at most add a lukewarm warning not to try
> this  at home kids because the author of your life doesn't have 
your back.
> 
> Pippin:
> Exactly. It works as a revenge fantasy, if you can overlook all the
> inconvenient "realities" that JKR put in the book. Easy to do, if
> you're reading, but not so if you had to live day-to-day with
> Hermione's anxiety, the dangers of blackmail (dealt with in the 
Malfoy
> and Twins storylines) and Rita's determination to write some more
> nasty stuff about Harry and Hermione one day, which doesn't fret
> Hermione by the time of OOP, but was the initial point of the 
exercise.

Magpie:
It works as a revenge fantasy because it is a revenge fantasy--the 
fact that I can say "it would never work like this in real life" 
doesn't translate into the story showing me how blackmail doesn't 
work. There are no pesky "realities" in the story, so why would my 
ability to bring them in myself make them part of the story? I don't 
have to imagine dangers of blackmail that never appear or imagine 
Hermione suffering anxiety she's not ever shown to be suffering. 

You claim that Hermione "seems to be scared" of what she's done based 
on one line out of context that describes her as speaking in 
an "oddly constrained" voice that trembles. But the scene itself 
explains both those things as Hermione being not scared but thrilled 
with herself. Those descriptions are followed by Harry's impression 
that Hermione has been "dying" to tell them about Rita days but 
stopped herself because of what was going on. Iow, she's not showing 
horror over what she's done, she's just bursting to tell them about 
it. She "happily" reveals to Harry how she figured out what Rita did. 
Then Hermione's voice trembles in "quiet triumph"--the trembling 
isn't fear or even negative. Hermione then again speaks "happily" 
while "brandishing" the jar at them. She's next described 
as "beaming." Then she "smiles" at the beetle in the jar, who buzzes 
angrily back. Then "smiling serenely" and puts the jar back in her 
bag. This is a happy memory for Hermione that sums up what I see as 
her feelings about the blackmail scheme in general. Would she do it 
again if she felt it was necessary? I don't see why she wouldn't.

The Twins don't blackmail anyone, that I remember, and it's unclear 
how things would have gone if they did. I don't remember what the 
Malfoy storyline about blackmail is but I would suspect *that* 
storyline would show blackmail ending badly because the Malfoys are 
bad guys--it's different when Hermione does it for the side of good.

-m