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Hermione's Intelligence
Sep. 8th, 2004 07:26 pmI thought I would comment briefly on the 'How clever is Hermione, really?' debate currently going on at ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
hp_essays.
My opinion: Hermione is a highly intelligent, insecure overachiever. I wouldn't say she's a 'genius' in the commonly used sense of the word, like Einstein or Mozart. She may fulfil the technical definition of 'genius', ie have an IQ of over 145. As I think it's unlikely we'll see IQ tests at Hogwarts, we shall never know.
She isn't well-educated in any classical sense of the word, as her education since the age of eleven has focused only on her magic, and her outside reading seems to be more of the same, although it's hard to say as she could be reading the Kama Sutra in the middle of the Gryffindor common room and Harry wouldn't notice. Ron might, though :-P
Just because she like to hang out in the library doesn't mean she's not intelligent. She can't be expected to remember everything (I don't think she has a genuine eidetic memory, just a very good retention of facts and text), considering the state of the libray, any research is bound to take a longer time than, say, in a modern university library.
A lot of people commenting seemed to be bright slackers, the sort who score top marks on night-before revision. I'm one of them, but I'm that most miserable of creatures, a perfectionist who won't work. Anything that requires major effort (for me) to do well in, I ditched at fifteen. I coasted through fifteen of my seventeen years of full-time eduction. On the other hand, my sister is very like Hermione in a lot of ways. She has to get top scores in everything, including the subjects she hates. She also has a full social life and a range of extra-curricular activities, while I curl up somewhere with a book and successfully avoid being organised.
Back to Hermione; while my sister the Hermone-type has a higher consistent mark than I do, I have a wider general knowledge base and possibly a higher IQ (she's never had hers tested). So because Hermione gets the highest mark in her year doesn't mean she's the most intelligent. I think, otoh, she would also be suited to Ravenclaw. She seems to genuinely enjoy learning (taking Muggles Studies in PoA, for example). But she's not going to produce the great magical breakthroughs of the post-Voldemort era. She doesn't have the careless brilliance that most people think of as genius. She'd make a good, diligent middle-rank scientist, but I don't think the life of the intellect would wholly satisfy her. She's not in Gryffindor because of a lack of intelligence, but because of her courage and forthright moral quality.
hp_essays.My opinion: Hermione is a highly intelligent, insecure overachiever. I wouldn't say she's a 'genius' in the commonly used sense of the word, like Einstein or Mozart. She may fulfil the technical definition of 'genius', ie have an IQ of over 145. As I think it's unlikely we'll see IQ tests at Hogwarts, we shall never know.
She isn't well-educated in any classical sense of the word, as her education since the age of eleven has focused only on her magic, and her outside reading seems to be more of the same, although it's hard to say as she could be reading the Kama Sutra in the middle of the Gryffindor common room and Harry wouldn't notice. Ron might, though :-P
Just because she like to hang out in the library doesn't mean she's not intelligent. She can't be expected to remember everything (I don't think she has a genuine eidetic memory, just a very good retention of facts and text), considering the state of the libray, any research is bound to take a longer time than, say, in a modern university library.
A lot of people commenting seemed to be bright slackers, the sort who score top marks on night-before revision. I'm one of them, but I'm that most miserable of creatures, a perfectionist who won't work. Anything that requires major effort (for me) to do well in, I ditched at fifteen. I coasted through fifteen of my seventeen years of full-time eduction. On the other hand, my sister is very like Hermione in a lot of ways. She has to get top scores in everything, including the subjects she hates. She also has a full social life and a range of extra-curricular activities, while I curl up somewhere with a book and successfully avoid being organised.
Back to Hermione; while my sister the Hermone-type has a higher consistent mark than I do, I have a wider general knowledge base and possibly a higher IQ (she's never had hers tested). So because Hermione gets the highest mark in her year doesn't mean she's the most intelligent. I think, otoh, she would also be suited to Ravenclaw. She seems to genuinely enjoy learning (taking Muggles Studies in PoA, for example). But she's not going to produce the great magical breakthroughs of the post-Voldemort era. She doesn't have the careless brilliance that most people think of as genius. She'd make a good, diligent middle-rank scientist, but I don't think the life of the intellect would wholly satisfy her. She's not in Gryffindor because of a lack of intelligence, but because of her courage and forthright moral quality.
