Slytherin!Hermione?
Jan. 31st, 2004 01:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
owlSince OotP came out, I've come across the theory a few times that Hermione is a cunning little madam with a Slytherin streak a mile wide. Expressed to a greater or lesser degree, of course.
I won't argue that Hermione can be ruthless (Marietta and the boils). OTOH, I wouldn't say she is cunning. In her actions with Umbridge and the centaurs, IMO, she isn't showing an uexpected Slytherin side, but the unpleasant side of the Gryffindor character: rashness and a certain moral arrogance, combined with the specifically Hermione-like trait of riding roughshod over the emotions and beliefs of other people.
Canonically, we know that the Hat's other choice for Hermione would have been Ravenclaw. One can see why. I imagine a Ravenclaw would wish to be always right in matters of fact and intellect; a Gryffindor has to believe that they are morally right. Hermione believes both. She has the attitude that anything she does and believes is right because it is she herself that does it. (In other words, she's a classic example of a Myers-Briggs _NTJ.)Perhaps as JKR's author avatar and the voice of Harry's conscience, her creator shares the same view, though I hope not.
In the Forbidden Forest, Hermione's actions I think spring from the difficulty she has of understanding that other people feel differently than she does (sc. the house-elves, Lavender and Parvati re Divination). The plan itself is a spur-of-the-moment thing, and it goes well until Hermione, understandably stressed, blows the gaff. Can't you just see a real Slytherin (Draco): "It wasn't my fault! She [handwave in direction of fled Umbridge] brought me her! She had my wand! Don't hurt me, I'm only a foal, it's not my fault!" A Slytherin also has a healthy sense of 'get outta her while the going's good, ie when we still have legs'.
Another version of CunningPlot!Hermione, laid out by extreme Harry/Hermione shippers, is that she deliberately sabotaged Harry's relationship with Cho. I don't think so. First, I don't she's interested in Harry romantically, secondly, I don't think she's a good enough actress to hide her jealousy of Cho, supposing it exists, and thirdly, I don't think she's quite so underhand as that. Hermione has a tendency to go straight to what she wants. Her advice to Harry is IMO perfectly sincere. It also exhibits Hermione in lets-talk-about-feelings mode. She shows typical Thinker behaviour in this; treating people's emotions as another piece of data to be factored in to the logical pattern she's creating out of life. Listen to how she talks: Cho feels X because Y; therefore you should do Z. Hermione will never react viscerally to emotions, bypassing the intellect, the way Ron does almost all the time (Ginny too, from what we see of her)However, she can deal with them perfectly competently through the filter of her intellect, if she remembers to consider them.
Perhaps part of the problem is she knows what it's like to be a teenage girl, surrounded by clueless boys (as she points out, Harry would be take the Hogwarts Class of 98 Award for 'Clue Bus? What bus?', so long as Ron weren't around). She doesn't know what it's like to be a centaur or a house-elf. (I think she and Ron need to have a good argument about SPEW; if you could average out their viewpoints you might get a reasonable one that might actually produce a result, beyond poor Dobby having to clean Gryffindor Tower all by himself!)
I won't argue that Hermione can be ruthless (Marietta and the boils). OTOH, I wouldn't say she is cunning. In her actions with Umbridge and the centaurs, IMO, she isn't showing an uexpected Slytherin side, but the unpleasant side of the Gryffindor character: rashness and a certain moral arrogance, combined with the specifically Hermione-like trait of riding roughshod over the emotions and beliefs of other people.
Canonically, we know that the Hat's other choice for Hermione would have been Ravenclaw. One can see why. I imagine a Ravenclaw would wish to be always right in matters of fact and intellect; a Gryffindor has to believe that they are morally right. Hermione believes both. She has the attitude that anything she does and believes is right because it is she herself that does it. (In other words, she's a classic example of a Myers-Briggs _NTJ.)Perhaps as JKR's author avatar and the voice of Harry's conscience, her creator shares the same view, though I hope not.
In the Forbidden Forest, Hermione's actions I think spring from the difficulty she has of understanding that other people feel differently than she does (sc. the house-elves, Lavender and Parvati re Divination). The plan itself is a spur-of-the-moment thing, and it goes well until Hermione, understandably stressed, blows the gaff. Can't you just see a real Slytherin (Draco): "It wasn't my fault! She [handwave in direction of fled Umbridge] brought me her! She had my wand! Don't hurt me, I'm only a foal, it's not my fault!" A Slytherin also has a healthy sense of 'get outta her while the going's good, ie when we still have legs'.
Another version of CunningPlot!Hermione, laid out by extreme Harry/Hermione shippers, is that she deliberately sabotaged Harry's relationship with Cho. I don't think so. First, I don't she's interested in Harry romantically, secondly, I don't think she's a good enough actress to hide her jealousy of Cho, supposing it exists, and thirdly, I don't think she's quite so underhand as that. Hermione has a tendency to go straight to what she wants. Her advice to Harry is IMO perfectly sincere. It also exhibits Hermione in lets-talk-about-feelings mode. She shows typical Thinker behaviour in this; treating people's emotions as another piece of data to be factored in to the logical pattern she's creating out of life. Listen to how she talks: Cho feels X because Y; therefore you should do Z. Hermione will never react viscerally to emotions, bypassing the intellect, the way Ron does almost all the time (Ginny too, from what we see of her)However, she can deal with them perfectly competently through the filter of her intellect, if she remembers to consider them.
Perhaps part of the problem is she knows what it's like to be a teenage girl, surrounded by clueless boys (as she points out, Harry would be take the Hogwarts Class of 98 Award for 'Clue Bus? What bus?', so long as Ron weren't around). She doesn't know what it's like to be a centaur or a house-elf. (I think she and Ron need to have a good argument about SPEW; if you could average out their viewpoints you might get a reasonable one that might actually produce a result, beyond poor Dobby having to clean Gryffindor Tower all by himself!)
Re: Hermione's Myers-Briggs type
Date: 2004-02-01 01:41 am (UTC)Re: Hermione's Myers-Briggs type
Date: 2004-02-01 04:19 am (UTC)