![[icon]](http://www.journalfen.net/userpic/67365/9138) |
The HMS STFU - Hermione is a Mini-Umbridge!
|
| | Current Music: | the sound of the Avada Kedavra Satellite... | | Subject: | Hermione is a Mini-Umbridge! | | Time: | 03:49 pm | | Current Mood: | E-V-O-L |
|
| After all of the batshittery we've seen recently from pstibbons and hir stance on Hermione being the most important character in the books, on a level with Mother Theresa and even Harry is not worthy of her in canon, I have decided to re-post my list of how Hermione is like Umbridge as an antidote to all this worship of Saint Hermione of Granger.
I remain firmly convinced after re-reading OOTP that the whole reason Umbridge and Hermione hated each other on sight is that each of them subconsciously recognised too much of themselves in the other, while similtaneously despising all that the other stood for. I also think that without friends like Harry and Ron to drag her out of her books and into the real world occasionally, Hermione may very well have grown up to be another Dolores Umbridge - relentless, ruthless, patronising and narrow-minded, unable to see any viewpoint but her own.
Why do I think this?
UMBRIDGE: Potter, take this special quill and write on your arm to mark yourself as what I think you are.
HERMIONE: OMG, Harry she can't do this to you! I'M going to write on coins for the DA because I'm so much better. It is a good idea, though... Oh, did I forget to mention the parchment jinx? My bad.
UMBRIDGE: Hem-hem. The Daily Prophet prints what is true - that is, what the Ministry tells it to.
HERMIONE: OMG, that's oppression of free speech and manipulation of the press via blackmail, how wrong! Rita, write exactly what I tell you to or you're going to Azkaban, understood?
UMBRIDGE: Hem-hem. The Ministry will dictate what you learn this year, because as mere children who are not Ministry-appointed officials, you do not know what is best for you.
HERMIONE: How dare she imply we don't know what we think or what we need! Oh! These poor elves - they're not free! And you can see how miserable they are because they're so HAPPY about it! I must free them, because I know what's best for them more than they do. Here, elf, take a hat. NOW.
UMBRIDGE: You are pissing me off, Potter. Cruci-
HERMIONE: No, wait! Um, Dumbledore hid his weapon in the forest!
UMBRIDGE: Show me.
HERMIONE: Okey-dokey. *leads the way to centaurs*
UMBRIDGE: Oh goodie - a chance to show that I'm bigoted AND stupid by insulting big creatures with weapons!
HERMIONE: Thanks for doing our dirty work for us, horsie-men. We'll be on our way now.
CENTAURS: Hey! You're not going anywhere!
HERMIONE: What?? You said you didn't hurt the innocent!
CENTAURS: Like it isn't blindingly obvious you brought that twat here on purpose knowing we'd have to mob her?
HERMIONE: ...So what's your point?
Sorry to anyone who's seen this before, but I thought it bore a repost. | comments: Poke a delusional shipper     |
| *nods* That's what I like about Hermione through the books - she GROWS, just like the other characters. In HBP she was a hormonal teenaged girl and you know what? I liked that. The Harmoanians (as distinct from "Harmonians" without the extra 'a') find this a step back in her character but to me it was a step forward. In books 1-3, she was mainly the messenger of information between the books and Harry and Ron. In books 4-5, she went from books to going into action on what she thought - SPEW, suggesting the DA and so forth. She didn't always think things through, but at least she took a stand. In book 6, she added hormonal teenage girl to those things. It didn't mean she wasn't clever or bookish or idealistic anymore, it just meant she'd discovered another aspect of herself.
Although I must admit, OOTP!Hermione seriously creeped me out sometimes with her Umbridgian-ness, which is why the addition of 'teenage girl' to her character in HBP made me like her much more again. | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| You know what's really depressing? Soon after HBP came out, I posted this comparison to Harmony forums (I think it was Harmony forums) under the username "justfriends" and with an icon that said "R/Hr or H/Hr but first of all FRIENDS" (I can't use it here, it exceeds the 40kb icon limit). I'd made it very clear in previous posts that while I was not a H/Hr person and tended to see R/Hr, I wasn't AGAINST people who shipped H/Hr and just wanted to see their side of things.
So as I said, I posted this Herm-Umbridge comparison, adding that it was a humourous treatment of a serious issue - that Hermione's behaviour in OOTP hadn't actually been all that admirable and not that different from the things she'd done in HBP that many people on the board were complaining about (canaries at Ron, Confunding McLaggan and so on). Well, apparently not, because one person actually responded to me that in OOTP, Hermione had done all these things for Harry's sake, and thus had done it "for the greater good". Direct quote there. (This icon was born from that, by the way, by the talented melandry)
Not long after that, the forum moved servers, and my username and posts got 'mysteriously' lost in the move. Odd, that. *wryly* Seriously, I didn't troll them, I was trying to understand at that point why they thought what they thought. I made maybe four or five posts total. I did NOT say anything inflammatory, I swear. | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| | I think I've heard a Harmonian repeat that line, several times over. Must be a popular thesis with them. You know, all that time she spent living and breathing just for Harry while being far too perfect a person for a mere Weasley. | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| | Yup. Every time they go on about Hermione doing everything for Harry out of her pure selfless love for him, that song "Everything I Do, I Do It For You" comes into my head and I can't get rid of it. | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| Wow. I never saw it like that before. It seems as though Hermione's luckier in her friends than she knows!
There but for the grace of God... | | (Reply to this) (Thread) |
| Wow. I never saw it like that before. It seems as though Hermione's luckier in her friends than she knows!
Yup. I was actually surprised to find I wasn't the only one who thought so - in a fic where everyone had betrayed Harry (it was a pretty stupid, standard "betrayal Azkaban fic") but the part that interested me was when Harry went on a tear and verbally ripped a strip off just about everyone who had turned away from him. And his attack on Hermione was based on the fact that she was exactly like Umbridge, and when she protested in shock, he pointed out a whole bunch of similarities like the ones above. He also said that without the friendship he and Ron had offered, she would have been another Umbridge. And since the author and I had never had any contact, I can only assume we both came to the same conclusion seperately. | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| (Anonymous) | | Link: | (Link) | | Time: | 2007-06-30 07:46 am (UTC) |
|
| | Thanks for that! I love this aspect of Hermione. Bossy and annoying know-it-all and very strong personality. Unlike Harmonian Hermione, Merope-like saint who suffers unrequired love in silence and the only thing she has in common with Umbridge is A LOT of pink. | | (Reply to this) (Thread) |
| | I like this aspect of Hermione too, as long as it doesn't get out of control. Frankly, OOTP-Hermione creeped me out at times, because she was just so ruthless when she chose to be. HBP brought her gentler side back more often, which I liked, while still keeping that bossy spirited part of her that makes her Hermione. | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| | OotP Hermione creeped me out for ruthlessness, yes, but she also has something else similiar to Umbridge that you left out--when Umbridge was confronted and somebody smacked her down that she couldn't overpower, she just crumpled up. Hermione's the same in that regard, too. Bosses Harry and Ron around, but what happens when Harry threw one of his (MANY, MANY, MANY, MANY, MANY GODDAMMIT, YOU SORRY LITTLE BASTARD) tantrums in OotP? Crumpled up and started crying. When wrath is aimed at her, she can't hack it--and neither can Umbridge. | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| Yes, I forgot to add that. But now I can't think of a way to write that into the list and make it funny. *sigh* Any ideas?
And yeah, this is one of the main reasons why people who say that book 5 is "the Harmonian Bible" really boggles me. He YELLS at her (okay, usually after she's been nagging him at a time when she KNOWS he's stressed, which is dumb) and she cringes back in FEAR! Sure, she can't handle being smacked down, she's too accustomed to being the one laying down the law herself - but the Harmonians think that THIS is a good omen for a relationship? He bottles up his negative emotions, she nags, he blows up and she's terrified when it happens? This is their idea of something "more morally acceptable"? Geez... | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| | Yeah, that one always threw me, especially coming from the crowd insisting that Ron would totally beat Hermione based on... how unafraid the two of them are of each other when they disagree, apparently. | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| I think someone (though I don't know if it was a Harmonian, it might have been a Draco/Hermione person) once wrote a fanfic prompt where they wanted (at the start of the fic) for Ron to ask Hermione out while on the Platform Nine Three-Quarters, Hermione to reject him, and Ron with his (quote) "infamous Weasley temper" to immediately try casting an Unforgiveable at her. After this would come the romance between Hermione and... whoever it was that I can't remember. I was like "Bzuh? What?" Ron would sulk and storm off in an embarrassed huff, yeah, I could see that after having been rejected so publically, but whipping off ANY sort of jinx/hex/curse? No. And an Unforgivable? Sorry, Ms Fanbrat, that just sucks.
What's worse is that I've seen much more terrible and OOC fanprompts for fic that are more basically fic outlines for the author to follow and woe betide if the author misses anything. | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| This is really sound thinking. I never thought of this before, but bingo! You've hit the nail on the head. *claps*
One of the reasons I like Hermione in the book canon is her faults: she's sometimes officious, and full of her own importance. I really liked her in book one, when she realises this and goes and cries (leading into the troll episode). She can blunder in, but underneath this, she is actually quite a shy person with a soft centre.
Fanon paints her differently, with her being almost superhuman (*avoids looking pointedly at bloody Kloves) and that's why we get such awful HermioneSue fanfic. Usually said fanfic paints Harry and Ron as total wastes of space, while Hermione cops off with either Draco, Snape or any other random person. In canon, as you say, she got very lucky befriending and being befriended by Harry and Ron. The point of the three, as I read it, is that they pretty much cover all the bases between them and make a formidable team.
As I hopefully already conveyed: nice post. | | (Reply to this) (Thread) |
| One of the reasons I like Hermione in the book canon is her faults: she's sometimes officious, and full of her own importance. I really liked her in book one, when she realises this and goes and cries (leading into the troll episode). She can blunder in, but underneath this, she is actually quite a shy person with a soft centre.
Yeah. The whole point of JKR's writing is that she's not writing about cardboard cut-out saints, but real people with faults and virtues and funny little individual habits. It's what makes them so real and vibrant when you're reading. | | (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
| | Hmmm ... it is true, isn't it? Shows why the trio functions so well together. Each gets from the other two what they need (and want, according to what they each see in the mirror of Erised) the most. Harry, who sees his family, gets one through Ron and Hermione. Ron, who sees himself standing out above his brothers, gradually builds the confidence to realize he's not just a younger brother being constantly overshadowed but an individual. And Hermione, who (says JKR) sees Voldemort being defeated and herself "closely entwined" with a certain someone, gets a deep sense of purpose and a bit of humanization. | | (Reply to this) (Thread) |
| (Anonymous) | | Link: | (Link) | | Time: | 2007-07-06 03:27 pm (UTC) |
|
| | A little out there, and has nothing to do with personality, but I just noticed yesterday during a commercial for OotP that they both have the same middle name: Jane. | | (Reply to this) (Thread) |
|
The HMS STFU - Hermione is a Mini-Umbridge!
|
|
![[info]](http://www.journalfen.net/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}