CHAPTER DISCUSSION: Prisoner of Azkaban Chapter 13: Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 190021



--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "willsonteam" <willsonkmom at ...> wrote:

> Again, it was Lavender who brought up the whole Trelawney thing--I don't think it was so much insensitivity on Hermione's part as it was bad timing and perhaps some poor choice of words.

Pippin:
I agree, it wasn't a simple case of Lavender trying to mourn her pet in peace and Hermione wouldn't let her. I think Lavender seized on the drama of Trelawney's prediction to distract herself from her grief, and Hermione, who didn't get that any more than she got why Harry wanted to play Quidditch rather than talk about Sirius, kept pressing for details about Binky.

But it's also not a simple case of Hermione wanting the truth to be told. Hermione  has personal reasons for wanting to discredit Trelawney. She dislikes Trelawney both for disparaging her and for upsetting Harry with her predictions. But those predictions,  let us remember, were dead on. Harry did have an enemy, and he was in mortal danger. 

I think insensitive is the wrong word -- but Hermione faced with a logic problem is like a dog with a bone. She just can't let go of it, even when a more perceptive person might see that it's not the time. And I think, too, that there's just a touch of Dursleyism  in Hermione's refusal to see any merit at all in divination. She didn't think the world should  be allowed to work in ways that Hermione Granger could not understand. 

Pippin