#hermione meta

[bluethepineapple]

Reconciling Kindness and Callousness: A Discussion on Hermione and Emotions

One of the aspects that people struggle a lot with when it comes to Hermione is how she deals with emotions. This is a struggle that I, personally, find to be fair because she is quite complex in this regard.

Hermione can analyze people's emotional states well and is often shown manipulating emotions to get what she wants. We can see this as early as Philosopher's Stone where she, for example, flatters Hagrid to get him to reveal more information about the Stone.

“Oh, come on, Hagrid, you might not want to tell us, but you do know, you know everything that goes on round here,” said Hermione in a warm, flattering voice. Hagrid’s beard twitched and they could tell he was smiling. “We only wondered who had done the guarding, really.” Hermione went on. “We wondered who Dumbledore had trusted enough to help him, apart from you.”

As the series goes on, we will find more and more examples of Hermione perceiving, analyzing, responding, and even using other people's emotions with great accuracy and sensitivity. Most notable perhaps is her explaining Cho's emotional state to Harry and Ron in OotP, but several smaller examples are littered all over the books like her being the first to notice Neville's distress in GoF, correctly reading Harry's feelings about the Goblet of Fire, and giving a similar analysis for Tonks in HBP among other.

For as many examples as we can give of her perceptiveness and sensitivity to emotions, it also cannot be denied that Hermione commits massive social blunders over the series, many of which are attributable to emotional stupidity or failing to read the room. Most notable perhaps is her reaction to the death of Lavender's bunny where she uses it as a jumping point to try and convince her of the bogusness of Divination. There are many other examples of course, ranging from her haranguing Harry and Ron early in PS, to her approach with the house-elves, to insisting Harry teach them DADA in OotP despite his obvious discomfort.

How does one then reconcile Hermione's great sensitivity to people's emotions with her just as great callousness, both being prominent and consistent aspects of her character all throughout the series.

To me the answer is three-fold.

First, Hermione is incredibly cerebral even when it comes to emotions.

It is worth noting that Hermione's assessments of people aren't actually instinctive or even very empathetic. Rather, they are often profiles she builds about people based on observation and inference.

Let us take a look at the way she dissects Cho's feelings for example:

“Well, obviously, she’s feeling very sad, because of Cedric dying. Then I expect she’s feeling confused because she liked Cedric and now she likes Harry, and she can’t work out who she likes best. Then she’ll be feeling guilty, thinking it’s an insult to Cedric’s memory to be kissing Harry at all, and she’ll be worrying about what everyone else might say about her if she starts going out with Harry. And she probably can’t work out what her feelings toward Harry are anyway, because he was the one who was with Cedric when Cedric died, so that’s all very mixed up and painful. Oh, and she’s afraid she’s going to be thrown off the Ravenclaw Quidditch team because she’s been flying so badly.”

Hermione says what Cho's feeling and then follows it up with the circumstances that might have created those feelings plus her evidence for them. She lays everything out in a clean and methodical manner very reminiscent to when she's lecturing the boys about some sort of fact in their missions.

While certainly not cold or emotionless, it does become readily apparent that Hermione processes the emotions of people around her the same way she processes most other forms of information. She "studies" people around her, and from there, builds a baseline of information against which she infers what they are feeling and decides how to respond accordingly. In many ways, people's emotions to her are information just like any other.

Secondly, as kind and as warm as Hermione is, she prioritizes problem-solving over caretaking and is amazing at compartmentalizing emotions away if that's what it takes to get things done.

The fact that she understands what someone else is going through does not always mean she prioritizes these feelings. As mentioned above, what she understands of other people's emotions is just another bit of information she holds - and how she uses these facts vary wildly depending on whichever problem she was trying to solve at the time. Whenever she makes a social blunder, it is almost always traceable to her needing to solve some problem first and insisting on solutions that require significant emotional costs from the people around her.

The most extreme version of this is probably her insisting that Ron focus on their mission right after Fred dies.

They seemed to be wrestling together, and for one mad second Harry thought that they were embracing again; then he saw that Hermione was trying to restrain Ron, to stop him running after Percy. “Listen to me—LISTEN RON!” “I wanna help—I wanna kill Death Eaters—” His face was contorted, smeared with dust and smoke, and he was shaking with rage and grief. “Ron, we’re the only ones who can end it! Please—Ron—we need the snake, we’ve got to kill the snake!” said Hermione. But Harry knew how Ron felt: Pursuing another Horcrux could not bring the satisfaction of revenge; he too wanted to fight, to punish them, the people who had killed Fred, and he wanted to find the other Weasleys, and above all make sure, make quite sure, that Ginny was not—but he could not permit that idea to form in his mind— “We will fight!” Hermione said. “We’ll have to, to reach the snake! But let’s not lose sight now of what we’re supposed to be d-doing! We’re the only ones who can end it!” She was crying too, and she wiped her face on her torn and singed sleeve as she spoke, but she took great heaving breaths to calm herself as, still keeping a tight hold on Ron, she turned to Harry. "You need to find out where Voldemort is, because he’ll have the snake with him, won’t he? Do it, Harry—look inside him!”

From the section I bolded, it is obvious that Hermione knows that Ron is grieving and that she too is feeling the horror of Fred's death as well. It is worth noting though that she doesn't actually spare any words to comfort Ron. She doesn't stop to talk him through his feelings - rather she is telling him over and over that their mission has to come first. They both watched Fred die, but her focus even now is seeing the mission through.

This leads us to the final aspect:

Hermione projects this ability to compartmentalize to the people around her, especially when she believes them to be working together.

It is noteworthy that not only did Hermione set her own emotions aside, she asked that Ron do so too. And when Ron finally calms down, she then asks Harry to go and look into Voldemort's head. Not only is she compartmentalizing her own emotions away, she expects both boys to do so too.

Once more, there are many smaller instances like the above that cropped up all over the series. The Lavender problem, her campaign with the house-elves, her insistence that Harry teaches them DADA, her many many arguments with Harry - all of these are traceable to her insistence on setting emotion aside to solve a problem.

Doing the right thing holds primacy over people's feelings - both her own and those of the people around her.

Conclusion:

Hermione is a sensitive individual who reads people's emotions well and has many times reacted with great kindness and empathy to distress. This ability to read emotions however happens in line with her very cerebral personality, and while she can be sweet and caring, when push comes to shove Hermione focuses on problem-solving. This oftens leads to a disregard for other people's feelings and a consistent streak of callousness.

All in all, I find Hermione's relationship with emotions to be utterly fascinating. It is complex and dynamic, something that we see grow with her over time. Her reactions and tendencies are not clear-cut nor easy to map. Not only does Hermione defy the false dichotomy of book intelligence versus emotional intelligence, both are integral in the way she processes and reacts to emotion.

[sparsilees]

Harry is a clever and competent wizard

A recurring theme in fandom I find endlessly tiresome and disappointing is the portrayal of Harry as an academically struggling student who’s lamentably hopeless at Potions and middling in all other subjects aside from DADA, and who, alongside Ron, is in constant need of Hermione’s guidance. It’s present almost everywhere. It’s reinvented canon. And it’s shoved down new readers and non-fans’ throats alike. Please, there’s an HP wiki available for your perusal. Don’t go about consulting popular fics and the Hermione-biased movie director’s visions to draw your ideas of Harry and Ron’s psyche!

It’s doubly aggravating when this depiction is used to highlight Hermione, Draco, or so-and-so classmate’s magical Einstein-levels of genius and reinforce the false narrative that Harry’s singular claim to brilliance lies in Quidditch, and that he’s got nothing more than fluff and snitches between his ears on top of being oblivious to the point of idiocy. That apart from excelling in Defence, he doesn’t have much upstairs... (And even then a minority of the fandom portray DADA as akin to gym class where it’s all honing muscles, muscle memory, and reflexes, with Harry framed as an archetypical gymbro on top being a himbo. What?!)

So we’re just going to overlook his devastatingly biting wit and clever asides? Or brush aside how he repeatedly demonstrates his ability to perform well under pressure? His keen intuition and how he carefully retains seemingly insignificant, misfit puzzle pieces until the eureka moment strikes and he seamlessly integrates them into the bigger picture?

Take these two examples from Philosopher’s Stone with an intrepid tiny Harry:

Harry was quite sure the unsettled feeling didn’t have anything to do with work, though. He watched an owl flutter toward the school across the bright blue sky, a note clamped in its mouth. Hagrid was the only one who ever sent him letters. Hagrid would never betray Dumbledore. Hagrid would never tell anyone how to get past Fluffy . . . never . . . but — Harry suddenly jumped to his feet. “Where’re you going?” said Ron sleepily. “I’ve just thought of something,” said Harry. He had turned white. “We’ve got to go and see Hagrid, now.” “Why?” panted Hermione, hurrying to keep up. “Don’t you think it’s a bit odd,” said Harry, scrambling up the grassy slope, “that what Hagrid wants more than anything else is a dragon, and a stranger turns up who just happens to have an egg in his pocket? How many people wander around with dragon eggs if it’s against wizard law? Lucky they found Hagrid, don’t you think? Why didn’t I see it before?”

Quirrell cursed under his breath. “I don’t understand . . . is the Stone inside the mirror? Should I break it?” Harry’s mind was racing. What I want more than anything else in the world at the moment, he thought, is to find the Stone before Quirrell does. So if I look in the mirror, I should see myself finding it — which means I’ll see where it’s hidden! But how can I look without Quirrell realizing what I’m up to? He tried to edge to the left, to get in front of the glass without Quirrell noticing, but the ropes around his ankles were too tight: he tripped and fell over. Quirrell ignored him. He was still talking to himself. “What does this mirror do? How does it work? Help me, Master!” And to Harry’s horror, a voice answered, and the voice seemed to come from Quirrell himself. “Use the boy . . . Use the boy . . .” Quirrell rounded on Harry. “Yes — Potter — come here.” He clapped his hands once, and the ropes binding Harry fell off. Harry got slowly to his feet. “Come here,” Quirrell repeated. “Look in the mirror and tell me what you see.” Harry walked toward him. I must lie, he thought desperately. I must look and lie about what I see, that’s all.

Bravery alone wasn’t enough to overcome his troubled upbringing with the Dursleys, or Quirrelmort, or Diary Tommy, or the final leg of the Horcrux hunt — it required a combination of mental agility, resourcefulness, and cunning to evaluate the situation, outsmart his opponents, and tip the odds in his favour. Harry needed to survive. To survive, he needed something other than mere guts. Harry’s ability to think on his feet and leverage his intelligence to gain the upper hand in challenging scenarios remains a testament to his brilliance and his remarkable presence of mind. He isn’t the foolhardy, impulsive Gryffindor who leaps into danger headlong without prior planning everytime.

(For that matter, Gryffindor are more than their “bravery” which has somehow been twisted into being synonymous with “reckless” — Sirius being a prime example of this, when in GOF he was urging Harry caution in their communications, despite the fandom conveniently only zeroing in on the depressed, cooped up version of him in OOTP, sigh. Bravery is fortitude, pluck, tenacity, strength of moral fibre, resilience, and heart as well.)

Some other less-mentioned examples of his quick mind: Harry wondering about Snape and Karkaroff being on a first-name basis; remembering Nicholas Flamel just from a long-ago glance, and again, Stan Shunpike despite their single encounter; Harry coaxing out Slughorn’s secret (no, it wasn’t all the Felix Felicis); Harry putting himself in Voldemort’s shoes, and Ron and Hermione deferring to his superior, albeit scary, knowledge; and Harry frightening Ollivander with his deductions about the wands. (It wasn’t solely Hermione’s brains that enabled their chances of survival in DH, let’s ditch that false narrative.)

The most laughably contrived bit in fanon is the unfounded notion that Hermione lets the boys cheat off her work to coast by in class. Fanon is wrong on both counts. Hermione would sooner report the boys for cheating than allow them to copy off her, and Harry isn’t anywhere close to scraping the bottom of the barrel in class, and neither is Ron. The handful of instances in canon where she looks over their assignments and helps correct mistakes isn’t cheating. Her input is akin to getting a second pair of eyes or a beta reader to ensure their work is up to snuff — heaven forbid a student help out a friend by suggesting some tips and tweaks. (Or attend tuition or retain a personal tutor or three.)

The ‘that’s why Harry isn’t a Ravenclaw’ jokes get pretty stale once you realise a large portion of the fandom genuinely think he isn’t a smart kid or has never read a book of his own volition/interest in his life. But Harry enjoyed reading his new books late into the night before starting Hogwarts (he found Hedwig’s name in A History of Magic, after all). Admittedly, studying is a feat in and of itself when you have zero access to books, but some cunning can turn around your luck!

Nevertheless, Sirius had been of some help to Harry, even if he couldn’t be with him. It was due to Sirius that Harry now had all his school things in his bedroom with him. The Dursleys had never allowed this before; their general wish of keeping Harry as miserable as possible, coupled with their fear of his powers, had led them to lock his school trunk in the cupboard under the stairs every summer prior to this. But their attitude had changed since they had found out that Harry had a dangerous murderer for a godfather — for Harry had conveniently forgotten to tell them that Sirius was innocent.

‘Oh, Potter can’t differentiate between a salamander and newt’s eyes.’

‘Asking him to skin shrivelfigs is a tall order since he can’t wield a dagger properly.’

‘He used shredded jobberknoll feathers when the recipe called for a fine powder. Poor Hermione will have to take over yet again to save his stupid arse.’

It’s these many variations and renditions of Harry’s alleged, often exaggerated, ineptitude in fandom content and making a monkey out of him, which I come across more often than not, that are an instant turn-off.

The widespread idea that Harry’s success in the subject can be attributed solely to the Prince’s book is misguided and further undermines his intelligence — and this jaundiced belief that’s crystallised itself as canon, of Harry and Ron putting on a double act as stupid slouches in class and therefore deserving of Snape’s derision and the Slytherin’s put-downs, is a far cry from the truth. Snape’s opinion of Harry’s intelligence or ability should be taken with a grain of salt, given that Harry has been described as a bright and talented child since his first year, by the Professors, Dumbledore, and the Sorting Hat. Even the resident megalomaniac described him as “not unintelligent”. You know what’s actually canon?

1) Snape’s biased approach towards Harry and Neville caused them to have an unwarranted fear of failure and reprimands. The Potions classroom was a hostile and unwelcoming learning environment for these two boys.

2) Harry is pretty confident when left to his own devices in class in OoTP before Snape flushed his effort down the gutter.

Exhibit 1:

Snape, meanwhile, seemed to have decided to act as though Harry were invisible. Harry was, of course, well used to this tactic, as it was one of Uncle Vernon’s favourites, and on the whole was grateful he had to suffer nothing worse. In fact, compared to what he usually had to endure from Snape in the way of taunts and snide remarks, he found the new approach something of an improvement and was pleased to find that when left well alone, he was able to concoct an Invigoration Draught quite easily. At the end of the lesson he scooped some of the potion into a flask, corked it, and took it up to Snape’s desk for marking, feeling that he might at last have scraped an E. He had just turned away when he heard a smashing noise; Malfoy gave a gleeful yell of laughter. Harry whipped around again. His potion sample lay in pieces on the floor, and Snape was watching him with a look of gloating pleasure. “Whoops,” he said softly. “Another zero, then, Potter . . .” Harry was too incensed to speak. He strode back to his cauldron, intending to fill another flask and force Snape to mark it, but saw to his horror that the rest of the contents had vanished. “I’m sorry!” said Hermione with her hands over her mouth. “I’m really sorry, Harry, I thought you’d finished, so I cleared up!”

Exhibit 2:

“After this year, of course, many of you will cease studying with me,” Snape went on. “I take only the very best into my N.E.W.T. Potions class, which means that some of us will certainly be saying good-bye.” His eyes rested on Harry and his lip curled. Harry glared back, feeling a grim pleasure at the idea that he would be able to give up Potions after fifth year.

Exhibit 3:

Ron found it quite easy to ignore as they spent most of Saturday and Sunday studying for Potions on Monday, the exam to which Harry was looking forward least and which he was sure would be the one that would be the downfall of his ambitions to become an Auror. Sure enough, he found the written exam difficult, though he thought he might have got full marks on the question about Polyjuice Potion: He could describe its effects extremely accurately, having taken it illegally in his second year. The afternoon practical was not as dreadful as he had expected it to be. With Snape absent from the proceedings he found that he was much more relaxed than he usually was while making potions. Neville, who was sitting very near Harry, also looked happier than Harry had ever seen him during a Potions class. When Professor Marchbanks said, “Step away from your cauldrons, please, the examination is over,” Harry corked his sample flask feeling that he might not have achieved a good grade but that he had, with luck, avoided a fail.

Whereas in Ch 15 of OoTP, Snape had marked Harry’s essay on moonstones as Dreadful and claimed it to be a realistic expectation of OWL grading:

“I have awarded you the grades you would have received if you presented this work in your O.W.L.,” said Snape with a smirk, as he swept among them, passing back their homework. “This should give you a realistic idea of what to expect in your examination.” Snape reached the front of the class and turned to face them. “The general standard of this homework was abysmal. Most of you would have failed had this been your examination. I expect to see a great deal more effort for this week’s essay on the various varieties of venom antidotes, or I shall have to start handing out detentions to those dunces who get D’s.” He smirked as Malfoy sniggered and said in a carrying whisper, “Some people got D’s? Ha!”

And yet, Harry did very well on his OWLs before he even got a whiff of the Prince’s book.

Astronomy A

Care of Magical Creatures EE

Charms EE

Defense Against the Dark Arts O

Divination P

Herbology EE

History of Magic D

Potions EE

Transfiguration EE

Harry and Ron studied (!) both days of the weekend before Potions OWLs (!) without Hermione (!), and still Harry wasn’t sure he’d secure a good grade yet ended up scoring an EE. Exceeds Expectations, which y’know translates to: Surpasses Expectations, So Much Better than Expected, Rather Brilliant.

Unless you believe that anything less than the top percentiles is rubbish, Harry is not a ‘certifiable dunce’. There’s no denying he’s a competent and clever wizard and easily punches above his weight when he’s properly motivated and applies himself. Intelligence is a genetic trait, and Harry comes from nerdstock.

If he could achieve those grades whilst serving 7-hour torture sessions with Umbridge, suffering from Voldemort and Snape tearing into his mind, and putting up with the government slandering him in his second most important school year, running on fumes and sheer will (constantly disruspted sleep routine? Ugh!), then yeah, remove all those crutches, and he’d be raking in straight Os for most of those subjects. (It sort of sounds like ‘excuse our mental health and and anxiety’ for us if we perform poorly in exams, but not for Harry ‘he’s an idiot throwing teen tantrums’. Someone give me a hammer.)

“You’d need top grades for that,” said Professor McGonagall, extracting a small, dark leaflet from under the mass on her desk and opening it. “They ask for a minimum of five N.E.W.T.s, and nothing under ‘Exceeds Expectations’ grade, I see. Then you would be required to undergo a stringent series of character and aptitude tests at the Auror office. It’s a difficult career path, Potter; they only take the best. In fact, I don’t think anybody has been taken on in the last three years.”

Did he earn the grades? Yes. The Auror program ran aptitude tests, too, and only took the best, yes? Not because he’s a hothead with a daredevil streak and impulse issues, yes? Not because his dream was to be an Auror since his third year, or that he was only exceptional at fighting, or some such nonsense. After all, Barty Crouch Jr, he of the impeccable OWLs record, saw something worthy of Auror material in Harry and planted the seed in his mind. (Reminder: Barty also said Hermione should consider joining the Aurors too because her “mind works the right way”.)

And Moody thought he, Harry, ought to be an Auror! Interesting idea . . . but somehow, Harry thought, as he got quietly into his four-poster ten minutes later, the egg and the Cloak now safely back in his trunk, he thought he’d like to check how scarred the rest of them were before he chose it as a career.

If Harry was incapable of telling up from down in Potions, the Prince’s annotations would have been like casting pearls before swine. Worse still, Harry��s supposed lack of know-how would have caused more harm than good. The book only helped to refine the skills and knowledge he had cultivated over five years of study. Having a comfortable learning environment, an encouraging teacher, and superior instructions allowed Harry to maximise his potential and excel in class. (This phenomenon of underachiever-to-star pupil can happen in real life and is not unique to Harry. It happens with neurodivergent students with slightly different needs, students who require a more personal teaching style, and students stunted by an unhealthy learning environment. When their needs are met and supported, they tend to thrive and reach their potential.)

To put it into perspective, imagine taking an average kid whose expertise in cooking extends to making beans on toast and putting them in a professional kitchen. Imagine asking this kid to fillet a salmon and very finely slice lemons for garnish, tasks that require careful hands, finesse, and patience. If the kid can’t distinguish between a paring knife and a boning knife, they don’t stand half a chance. They’re liable to mess up the fish from the get-go. They might use a petty knife for everything and present a terribly executed dish; or they might cleverly choose a smaller knife but misuse it, not knowing that the flexibility and sharpness of a blade vary depending on their purpose, and end up seriously hurting themselves. Either way, filleting a fish is best left to seasoned home cooks and the pros.

In contrast, Harry is identical to a proficient home cook who knows the ropes but lacks some finesse and the fancy carving and plating skills of a trained culinary student. He has a firm grasp of the necessary theory and techniques and knows how to prep ingredients correctly, but may fumble the ideal application of said techniques, lacks an inborn zeal for the craft that lends to creativity, and overlook the finer details, particularly when he’s weighed down by fear of censure and humiliation. His level of success hinges on variables such as his confidence, familiarity with a recipe or method, and the type of environment he’s in. Talent is like a little seed; when nurtured, it will flourish.

Slughorn’s NEWT class was small, admitting twelve students out of a fortyish-student batch. No Gryffindor apart from the Golden Trio made the cut, and they were joined by the lone Hufflepuff, four Ravenclaws, and four Slytherins. Essentially, only a dozen students achieved an EE or O to qualify for NEWT Potions. Fanon will tell you most of the Slytherins have been tinkering with cauldrons in their diapers, but canon shows that only two other Slytherins, besides Draco and Blaise, made the grade. So, how are we still perpetuating this incorrect interpretation that Ron and Harry were barely keeping up academically when they’re more adept than half their year?

Harry and Ron aren’t academically inclined or driven by an obsessive urge to pore over books most hours of the day for fun, so what? Let them joke around and play chess and cards and broom race in the rain without bringing their brains and academics into the equation. Let Harry be a proper child/teen when he’s not busy hunting clues and crushing evil plots. Stop making the sum of HJP be “Powerful Himbo” or “Saviour Complex and Running on Luck”, which is pretty disrespectful towards a character who has shown himself to be so, so competent and well-rounded.

It’s such a huge thorn in my side that both Harry and Sirius (of all people, when he’s twinning with James as the insultingly effortless mavens during their time at Hogwarts!) habitually have their intelligence questioned and maliciously devaluated, or blown off entirely. So I had to sit and get this chaotically demonstrative commentary off my chest. Thank you, if you’ve read till the end!

[hollowed-theory-hall]

Do you think Harry would swear or has sworn? Such a niche question, but trying to realistic write him swearing is such a mixed basket. On the one hand, I don't really picture him doing it, even under extreme distress. But I can also imagine him letting out a light swear if he's having a bad day and has a minor inconvenience

I 100% believe Harry swears. This post ended up being a little longer since I kinda went off and detailed how a bunch of characters in HP swear, not just Harry.

Sometimes, characters are shown to "swear" on page:

“Blimey,” said Ron weakly. (CoS)

“Blimey, it is!” said Ron quietly (OotP)

“What in the name of Merlin are you doing?” said Ron (OotP)

“Why the hell,” panted Ron (DH)

“I’ll join you when hell freezes over,” said Neville. (DH)

“Merlin’s beard,” Moody [Barty] whispered (GoF)

“Merlin’s beard,” said Mr. Weasley wonderingly (OotP)

“Harry, what the hell’s going on?” asked Bill (DH)

“Blasted thing,” Snape was saying. (PS)

("Blimey" and "blasted" are here since they were considered mild swear words when they became part of the language like "gosh" and "darn". "Merlin's beard" is kinda like saying "Jesus Christ" which was also considered a mild swear, even if no one really considers most of the above swears by today's standards).

The above is done when the swears are (very) light and something that you could print in a children's book. But sometimes, characters swearing is censored in the books:

Dean swore loudly. (CoS)

Thankfully, Snape sneezed at almost exactly the moment Ron swore. (CoS)

Ron dropped several boxes, swore, and made a rude hand gesture at Fred that was unfortunately spotted by Mrs. Weasley, who had chosen that moment to appear. (HBP)

and Lee swore so badly that Professor McGonagall tried to tug the magical megaphone away from him (PoA)

The lift clattered into view and they hurried inside. Every time it stopped Mr. Weasley cursed furiously and pummelled the number nine button. (OotP)

When that happens, I assume the swears are ones JKR couldn't get away with in a children's/YA book series. Like: "fuck" or "shit".

(Molly calling Bellatrix "bitch" is the only harsher swear word not censored in the books)

When Harry swears, it's sometimes not censored:

“She doesn’t love me,” said Harry at once. “She doesn’t give a damn — ” (OotP)

“And he didn’t think my mother was worth a damn either,” said Harry (HBP)

“Why not?” asked Harry. “Let’s get rid of the damn thing, it’s been months — ” (DH)

“Where the hell have you been?” Harry shouted. (DH)

But often enough, Harry's cursing is censored:

Harry swore under his breath (OotP)

Harry swore and turned away. (OotP)

Harry swore at the top of his voice, spinning on the spot to see where Mundungus had gone. (HBP)

Harry swore. Someone screamed. (HBP)

So, to me, this suggests Harry says "fuck" or British stuff like "sod off". He 100% does use harsher swears, and it's in character for him to do so. He swears under his breath when shit goes badly or he finds himself in a situation he really doesn't want to be in. He swears loudly when Mandungus escapes him, so when he's really angry, he can go and shout a proper F-bomb. Let Harry say "fuck", his life sucks and he deserves it.

Ron also swears sometimes harsher swears than "hell" or "bloody hell" but he does so more rarely than Harry and when things are really bad. Usually, he goes for lighter stuff like: "Merlin", "hell", or "blimey".

Hermione doesn't swear except for the "Merlin's pants" comment in DH which was clearly meant to be "Merlin's balls" but JKR got censored by her editors and one time she says "damn" in DH. Hermione doesn't even use light swears like "Merlin", "damn" or "hell". She, just, doesn't swear until DH, and even then only twice. Like, her most extreme for the majority of the books is going: "oh my", "oh my god", or "oh my goodness". Hermione is the only member in the Golden Trio that doesn't swear:

“Oh, my — ” Hermione grabbed Harry’s arm. (PoA)

“Oh my goodness,” said Hermione suddenly (PoA)

“Oh gosh, I forgot!” said Hermione (OotP)

“Oh my ...” Harry heard Hermione squeal, terrified, beside him. (OotP)

“Today?” shrieked Hermione. “Today? But why didn’t you — oh my God — you should have said — ” (HBP)

“Oh my — !” shrieked Hermione, as she and Ron caught up with Harry (DH)

I went a bit off track, but theses are some characters and how they swear that I found while searching this:

Harry, Dean & Lee: swear in profanities that need to be censored ("fuck", "shit", "sodding hell") often and sprinkle lighter swears ("hell", "damn") in there. Harry uses "damn" relatively often.

Ron, the twins, Bill & Arthur: use mostly light swears ("hell", "bloody", "blasted") but use some harsher swears ("fuck", "shit") when needed (and Molly isn't looking).

(I assume Ginny is in this above category too, but I only found her saying "damn" once)

Neville, Dumbledore, Hagrid & Snape (at least, when we see him): use only light swears such as "hell", "blasted" or "Merlin" and its derivatives.

Molly: Doesn't really swear except that one time (calling Bellatrix a bitch).

Hermione & Luna: never use profanities unless really at their limit. Don't even use light swears or "Merlin" and its derivatives. Hermione says: "oh my god" or "oh my goodness", Luna says: "oh, no".

Lupin doesn't swear anywhere on-page either.

Surprisingly I couldn't find any mention of Sirius swearing, not even light stuff (like "Merlin's beard"). I guess he really was raised to have proper manners. Or maybe he's actively censoring himself in front of Harry to be a good role model.

[iamnmbr3]

ok unpopular opinion time. hermione was more into quidditch than ginny. i know what you're going to say. but hear me out.

there's no denying that hermione doesn't care about quidditch as much as harry or ron do. BUT she does get invested. sometimes more than she wants to admit. she comes to every quidditch game and to many of the team's practices, just as ron does (even when he's not on the team). she sometimes forgets to be reserved and gets genuinely excited about winning. especially when the rivalry between the houses is high. like after she hits malfoy in book 3 and tells harry he better beat him in quidditch etc.

and yeah she doesn't really care about krum's fame the way some people do, but she's nonetheless impressed by his flying in book 4 and what it says about his character. (also if you ship harmione you could totally read this as her having a type).

ginny, by contrast, doesn't participate in the quidditch talk at all in book 4. and her only real reaction to the game is the moment where she is very concerned and upset by apparently seeing a player injured (and doesn't seem to know enough about the game to realize it is a relatively common and not very serious type of accident - as Charlie is immediately able to see).

it really feels like her getting interested in quidditch later was an attempt to get closer to harry and become his "perfect girl" and get to spend time with him. (joke's on her because harry's reaction to her being on the team in book 6 is to...not really notice and 'never have been less interested in quidditch' because draco isn't there, and apparently having a perfect excuse to spend time with his alleged crush isn't enough to keep him engaged.)

jkr is weirdly sexist and so ginny being into sports makes here '#NotLikeOtherGirls' and thus superior. it's supposed to show how ginny's superior to hermione and harry's perfect girl TM or whatever. but... it doesn't really fit with canon. ginny's character thru book 5 was fine as it was. out of universe jkr didn't need to totally retcon it. and in universe ginny shouldn't have felt that she needed to turn herself into another person to get harry to like her. that isn't healthy or sustainable.

[dream-with-a-fever]

the people who claim ginny’s “personality” came out of nowhere never fail to amaze me with their inability to actually comprehend the text

it’s literally shown in PS (fleetingly) on the train platform and talked about as early as CoS that ginny weasley is a certified YAPPER. she’s a talkative, opinionated gal. ron points out that her quiet / shy behaviour is very unusual for her, so if one does have basic comprehension skills, it is pretty clear that the ginny we see in the earlier books (which are from harry’s pov) is not who she really is. ginny says as much herself in HBP, “i never used to be able to talk in front of you remember? hermione thought you’d take more notice if i was a bit more… myself”? like are we comprehending this? it’s not rocket science…

as the books go on, her confidence around harry grows the more she detaches herself from the idea of harry that she grew up with, and the actual harry. this journey is slightly impeded by the fact that harry saves ginny’s life in CoS, which she feels a significant amount of guilt and embarrassment over (which harry himself picks up on this in PoA), not to mention she’s still processing the trauma that accompanied that experience (as seen in the way she reacts to the dementors — she is the only one who has a strong reaction to them, like harry). in the years following, we find out in CC (whether you take that to be canon or not), ginny explains she was very lonely during and after the diary debacle, as she felt very isolated from everyone else. this would also cause her self-confidence to take a severe battering, therefore her true personality is not able to shine, especially not in front of harry potter aka her crush aka the boy who saved her life and almost died doing it.

in GoF, harry (and in turn us, as the readers) start to see glimpses of her playful personality - she’s close with fred and george, she calls her brothers out when they’re being unkind, she goes to the yule ball with neville (turning down the opportunity to go with harry, because she doesn’t want to go back on her word), she gives ron’s owl a silly name and she starts to let go of her childhood crush, and takes a chance on another boy who’s actually shown interest in her.

by the time we see her again in OotP, OF COURSE she has undergone some serious character development. she has a boyfriend now! she has a group of friends now! she’s able to be herself around harry! she has a better support system now, her self confidence has returned, and with it, her sense of self worth. she calls harry out on his shit when he needs it, she also comforts him and gives him the space to share his worries without judgement or admonition, she stands up for what’s right, she kicks ass at quidditch (which she’s been wanting to do for the past four years bc she has been practising since she was six years old!), she joins the fight at the DoM, risking her life and dumps her boyfriend for being a sore loser! because she deserves better than that!

the ginny we see in HBP has gone through So Much. but she has only continued to grow as a character - with so much heart, wit and spunk. of course, harry is paying attention now and of COURSE he’s a flustered mess trying not to fall for his bestfriend’s sister for nearly 800 pages but he can’t help it!!!

a lot of ginny’s development happens behind the scenes, in quiet ways, but if you actually pay attention, it’s very obvious who she truly is. the reader slowly becomes more fascinated by this girl as more and more of her story unravels — as does harry. and that’s the beauty of it.

[whinlatter]

What’s something about Ron Weasley as a character that you think is underrated?

That Ron is really, really funny, and that his sense of humour isn't a sign of immaturity or gratuitous comic relief for the reader's sake, but an absolutely essential part of what both Harry and Hermione value in Ron as a character as an antidote to their own tendencies (moodiness and seriousness/anxiousness, respectively). Ron makes bad days bearable to get through for the people around him. I think people mistake Ron making jokes for a lack of emotional awareness, but I actually think it’s the opposite. By the series end Ron is literally the most emotionally well-adjusted of the central canon characters. That line about Peeves’ poem right at the end of DH when the war is won (“Really gives a feeling for the scope and tragedy of the thing, doesn't it?”) is a) brilliant and b) such a great manifesto for how Ron’s outlook on the world — not humour as emotional avoidance, but humour that sits within all the grief and pain and suffering, and makes it that bit more bearable. So yeah Ron Weasley’s love for chuckles is Important and Overlooked and I will keep saying it til I am blue in the face

[indigo-scarf]

Did you know?

Hermione doesn't actually call Ron "Ronald" like he's an idiot and she's a nagging wife from a 2000s heteropessimism comedy.

She only calls him "You — complete — arse — Ronald — Weasley!" the one time when he comes back after leaving in DH.

[rickktish]

Some unsolicited Harry Potter Thoughts and Headcanons

Ron Weasley is one of my favorite characters. Ron Weasley should have died from the poison in Slughorn's office when he was 16 so that y'all would treat him with the respect he deserves instead of shitting on him and replacing him with Draco in Leather Pants.

The entire reason Dumbledore is so fucked up actually has nothing to do with his sordid past; it comes from the (Doylist) fact that he was a plot device in a children's book until the main characters (and thus the audience) got old enough that it needed to become a YA series, and then had to find ways to justify is plot device-ness after being magically transformed into a character. The justification did not succeed.

Harry and Ginny were fine as a ship. Not spectacular, but fine. But if the series had come out 10-20 years later than it did I would be frothing at the mouth that Harry ended up with Ron's sister instead of Ron.

Draco Malfoy was a victim of circumstance in that he was raised by racists to be a racist. Draco Malfoy did not change his mind about his racism by the end of the series, but he did change his mind about the cult leader his parents had raised him to worship, and he deserves credit for that. Do not give him credit for what we do not have evidence of him doing, namely becoming not racist. No one in his family did that. Don't pretend that they did just to make them look shinier.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione were all bad friends at different points in the series, but as far as I can recall only Harry and Hermione exhibited actively toxic behavior. Ron had his disagreement with Hermione in book 3 and with Harry in book 4, but he had valid points in PoA (owner of a pet is responsible for that pet's actions) and was operating under false assumptions which he clearly communicated in GoF ("I thought you might've told me if it was the Cloak... because it wouldn't covered both of us, wouldn't it? But you found another way, did you?") before getting his head out of his ass ("Harry," he said, very seriously, "whoever put your name in that goblet -- I -- I reckon they're trying to do you in!") Followed by a sincere apology, interrupted though it was ("Ron opened his mouth uncertainly. Harry knew Ron was about to apologize and suddenly found he didn't need to hear it. "It's okay," he said, before Ron could get the words out. "Forget it." |"No," said Ron, "I shouldn't've--"| "Forget it," Harry said. Ron grinned nervously at him, and Harry grinned back.) Ron also apologized after leaving in DH. If anyone can remember a single instance of either Harry or Hermione apologizing to Ron for something they did that was wrong or for direct harm rather than accidental harm they've done, would you please add it to this post? I'm hoping it's just been too long since I did an in-depth read of the series and I've forgotten something, because I genuinely can't remember a time and I haven't been successful in locating one by my cursory searches through my ebook editions. I would genuinely like to be wrong about this, please and thank you.

I believe with my whole soul that the reason Dumbledore didn't get Sirius out of prison was because he was having Grindelwald flashbacks. Person I trusted with my whole soul turned out to be pro-enslavement/genocide? Person my students trusted with their magically concealed location appears to have turned out to be pro-Voldemort (and everything he uses to justify his pursuit of power)? He literally did not believe any doubts he might have held about Sirius' guilt, because he hasn't trusted his own judgement since he was 18 and his little sister died. also he 1) canonically did not know that Sirius wasn't the secret keeper and 2) probably did not know that Sirius never had a trial, so there's also that.

Harry and Ron 100% should have gone to the Yule Ball together. I would forgive their not ending up together so long as they had gone and had a fantastic time. Unfortunately, GoF was written in 2000, and we missed out for it.

Hermione would be an emotionally (and potentially physically) abusive spouse to Ron, not because I feel any need to put her down or bash her in any way, but because she wasn't willing to tell him that she was into him and instead conjured birds to attack him when she caught him kissing another girl. I think with time, effort, and a decent dose of humility, they could work it out, but at some point their kids are going to be chatting with friends and reveal the most casually fucked up shit about their parents' relationship to someone who's going to look utterly horrified and poor Rose and Hugo will have no idea why because to them it will be completely normal.

Childhood is thinking Dumbledore is the good guy and Snape is the bad guy. Angsty teenhood is thinking Snape is the good guy and Dumbledore "raised Harry like a pig for slaughter." Maturity is realizing that Snape did good things for really fucked up reasons like "I'm obsessed with the woman whose husband and child I would have seen killed so I could have another chance to get in her pants but unfortunately she's dead so I guess I have to keep her child who I hate alive" while also actively causing (directed) severe harm to the children under his care, and that Dumbledore did fucked up things for some good reasons like "I can't let this person who tortured animals as a child and committed murder in his teens destroy the world" and for some bad reasons like "I would literally die right now but unfortunately I have shit to do" (I honestly think everyone somehow missed the fact that Dumbledore was suicidal?? in spite of the fact that he committed assisted suicide?? I'm not quite sure how, but I suspect it has something to do with the woobification of Snape, so. there's that) while also causing (mostly indirect) moderate to severe harm to all who were in his care including, but not limited to, the government officials who asked him for advice, the staff and children at the school he ran, and his own family. The essential difference comes because Snape acted as he did toward others because he hated the world and everything in it, especially children, whereas Dumbledore acted as he did toward others because he couldn't make up his mind whether or not the ends justified the means and his life was entirely defined by the practice of both intentional and unintentional self-sabotage.

This absolutely might be giving Rowling too much credit, but I grew up with fairy tales of goblins who stole and guarded gold and didn't learn that goblins were a racist caricature based in antisemitism until I was in my late teens or early twenties by reading a post about how writing goblins as bankers meant that Rowling is antisemitic. I also genuinely didn't believe it at first, because I grew up in a culture that reveres Judaism and the Jewish people as God's chosen and the source for the foundation of mankind's relationship with God, and I had to seriously work to believe that the slightly goofy, slightly gross fairy tale creature I was familiar with could have such a disgusting connotation. I strongly suspect that Rowling herself had no idea until she started being accused of racism, at which point she pulled her classic schtick and doubled down, radicalizing rather than being open to being told she might be wrong. Sometimes you grow up with something being so normal and part of the regular zeitgeist that it never occurs to you that it could have its origins in racism. (I experienced this myself recently from a post about the origin of the popularity of private pools in the US, which I always thought were just a rich people status symbol. Even though I've known about the issue of pool discrimination since my mom, who attended a formerly black-only middle school in Alabama as a child, read me picture books about it when I was in elementary school, I didn't put it together until I read the post.) The quality of your character is determined then by how you respond to the criticism rather than whether or not you knew before the accusations began. The end result is the same, but I feel like holding her responsible for knowledge we have no way of telling if she knew before she started being accused of having it is bad-faith criticism, and I'd much rather hold her accountable for wrongs I know she's committed rather than ones I can only speculate about.

Dudley Dursley deserved his redemption. He grew up with the rule "Don't be like Harry" and figured out by the end of the series that Harry was a person, which is better than either of his parents managed. I honestly think a good dose of the real world-- maybe university or something-- would give him the foundation he would need to separate himself from his parents' beliefs and become a halfway decent human being. I wish the best for Dudley Dursley.

Neville Longbottom deserved better. In every possible way.

[blorger]

So, picture this:

Here I am, sat in an internet-less room, twiddling my thumbs and waiting for time to crawl ever so slowly by. For lack of a better alternative, I start flipping through the pages of Chamber of Secrets and I notice A Thing.

"My, how peculiar" I say to myself, fully intending to let The Thing be, but alas; time moves slowly, boredom persists and, not unlike the tell-tale heart, The Thing calls to me.

"Come," it beckons, "notice me further". "Compile some data" it begs, "that's surely the most productive way to pass the time"; like a moth to a flame, I am caught.

This, dear reader, is how I found myself tallying all the different ways the word "mudblood" is used in canon. So gird your loins and let me introduce you to

The Mudblood Chronicles, or what's in a name?

part 1: methodology

Since the purpose of this exercise is to analyse the use of the term "mudblood" as a slur, I'm not going to count the times in which the word is not being used with malicious intent. Throughout the books this happens on several occasions, those being:

during the course of the narration (it happens once in the context of "everyone present knew mudblood was a very offensive term")

when Harry uses the term, since it only happens when he either recalls someone else saying it (one time with Draco and once with Snape) or he's forbidding Kreacher from using it (twice).

when Ron uses it; it happens once to explain the slur's meaning and once (in conjunction with Ginny) to demand Kreacher stop using the term.

when someone is quoting themselves. Draco quotes himself to Dumbledore once ("you care about me saying mudblood when I'm about to kill you?"; incidentally, it's also the last time he ever utters the word)

I am counting instances in which a muggleborn character uses the term to refer to themselves, since it happens in the context of reclaiming the insult and I am interested in who the author chooses to highlight thusly.

part 2: the results/ WHEN

The word "mudblood" and its plural "mudbloods" are used as an insult a total of 62 times in the Harry Potter books. Here we can see the book by book breakdown:

Unsurprisingly, The book where "mudblood" is used the most ( a total of 34 times) is Deathly Hallows since it takes place during a war about muggleborns. Chamber of Secrets, where the term is introduced, follows with 10 mentions, after which is Order of the Phoenix (7 mentions), followed by Goblet of Fire (6 mentions) and Half-Blood prince (5 mentions). The term "mudblood" is not used in either Philosopher's Stone or Prisoner of Azkaban.

part 3: the results/ WHO

So who is our biggest culprit?

Draco Malfoy is our uncontested lead, having both the advantage of appearing in all books and of orbiting around our narrator. Both Bellatrix and Kreacher make a good showing, with Bellatrix's 6 times being especially notable since they all occur during the course of Deathly Hallows.

Let's break this down further, shall we?

Despite introducing us to the term, Draco appears to scale back his usage of the slur as he ages.

Before partaking in this experiment, I was under the vague impression that, in the wizarding world, "mudblood" is seen as a childish insult. I can now see why: in times of peace (i.e. before Voldemort's resurrection), Draco is the only person in Harry's day-to-day life saying it and he himself peters off in the usage of "mudblood" as things get more serious. To Draco, it appears, "mudblood" IS a childish insult, and we'll see further proof of this at a later date.

part 4: the results/ HOW

Let us now look at how the term is used:

Unsurprisingly, the person "mudblood" is hurled most often at is Hermione. As a main character, she is the most visible muggleborn in the narrative and, if that wasn't enough, she is more often than not the only muggleborn present, even when it doesn't make much sense (Hermione is the only known muggleborn member of the order of the phoenix, an organization whose supposed aim is the fight for muggleborn rights.)

There are no known instances of the word "mudblood" being used to refer to any other muggleborn student during Harry's time at Hogwarts. Lily Evans is the only other school-aged character who gets the dubious honor of being a "mudblood".

Let's break this down further and look at who people are referring to when they say "mudblood":

*= Walburga's portrait never directly addresses Hermione, she only alludes to the presence of various filth (muggleborns, blood traitors, werewolves..) in her home. That said, Hermione is the only muggleborn we ever see in Grimmauld Place so it must stand to reason that Walburga is referring to her, just like she's indirectly referring to Remus Lupin when she mentions werewolves.

**= Both Hermione and Lily use the term mudblood to refer to themselves in an attempt to reclaim the slur, they both do it twice.

***= Our only "other" is mr Ted Tonks, who Bellatrix only mentions in order to disavow when Voldemort talks about Remus and Tonks's marriage.

Interestingly, the only people who ever refer to Lily Evans as "mudblood" to her face are Severus Snape (one instance recounted three separate times) and Lily Evans herself. Voldemort uses the insult when talking about her with Harry long after her death.

Of further note, our only written "mudblood" comes by courtesy of a ministry pamphlet Harry finds in Diagon Alley, heavily implied to have been written by one ms Dolores Umbridge.

part 5: a brief interlude/ Draco's language

Draco refers to Hermione as “Granger” 13 times and, while their interactions often consist of him talking about her blood status, he uses "mudblood" instead of her name only 4 times. Furthemore, there are 4 additional times where he uses both mudblood and Granger (as in "that mudblood Granger").

The very first time Draco mentions Hermione in the books occurs during this exchange with Lucius:

I find this interesting because, even in private, his first instinct is to use her given name. It's only after he is scolded by Lucius* that we get our first "mudblood", in a scene where he is once again feeling threatened by her.

*= Guess who never utters the word "mudblood"? Lucius, that's who.

part 6: conclusion

I am not a linguistics expert, I cannot tell wether JKR uses the slur she made up in a way that mimics real world slurs. What I can do with the data I compiled is try to track various characters' attitudes towards muggleborns in the books by looking at what they call them.

People whose views remain unchanged (Voldemort, Kreacher, Walburga) remain consistent with their usage of "mudblood"; Draco, who grows up as the books progress, scales back. Snape only ever uses the word once, in the past, and the incident is retold multiple times to signify its importance.

As the situation in the wizarding world worsens, more people feel emboldened to use an otherwise taboo term, as seen by how most one-off utterances of "mudblood" take place in book 7, during wartime.

Finally, I would like to note that we only ever hear two muggleborns' (Lily and Hermione) opinions on "mudblood" as a slur, the rest of the time it's mostly purebloods (and the occasional half-blood) telling us how to feel about the insult; I find that very interesting.

There. Now all this useless information is out of my brain and into the aether, where other nerds can ponder on its significance while this nerd here sleeps the sleep of the truly righteous.

xoxo

[constitutionalweasleymonarchy]

I really wish some Ron fans would take a step back and realize how Ron antis have successfully lured you into playing on their field via the neverending social media moral purity circlejerk, buying into their arguments in your efforts to debunk them.

Whenever I hear a Ron fan say something about how the author did him dirty in HBP and how HBP was written in some kind of weird effort to malign him while glorifying Hermione and everyone else, i want to flip a table. You know why? Because in making this argument you are buying into the idea that Ron was some kind of awful person in that book (or at least really looked like one) and the only way you can combat that notion is by saying, "uh, well, yes, but the author intentionally wrote him wrong because we all know Hermione is her self-insert so she had to level the playing field."

I read HBP before social media had become anything like it is today, and before I was involved in any way with fandom online. HBP did nothing to lessen my love for Ron -- absolutely nothing. It did nothing to lessen my love for Hermione. It made me love them more, individually and together. The fucking humanity and heartache evoked in those characters in that book -- via their imperfect and completely fucking human attitudes and actions -- is wonderful. These are two young people each convinced that they are not being seen by the person they want the most. And they're dealing with this on top of the stress of school and the impending war and just how much it fucking sucks to be 16 years old. (And the fact that they have "more important" problems, by the way, doesn't magically make people behave more maturely and rationally when it comes to "silly" personal issues. That's some other pure unrealistic nonsense I've heard.)

I'll bet when you read it, HBP did nothing to lessen your love for Ron either. It was only after you began entertaining and internalizing garbage on tumblr and twitter about how awful and "abusive" they were, because people like pretending they've never behaved similarly in their lives, and social media isn't known for fostering nuance.

I behaved at age 16 in ways I really wouldn't like to have held against me forever. In ways I wouldn't have liked -- or deserved -- to have held against me for even a month. Same at age 20. And 25. And sometimes even today. If you claim you haven't behaved in harmful ways rooted in your own hurt, I won't even engage with that. Because it's delusional.

Forget this "who was worse" trap. The great thing about Ron and Hermione is how evenly matched they are -- in force, in fury, in passion, in loyalty, in pigheadedness, in their desire to be loved and needed, in their deeply-embedded sense of right and wrong, and not least of all, in their ability to know exactly how to push each other's buttons when they're pissed off. They both have moments where they behave shitty in this book, but none of it is in a vacuum and none of it is without a catalyst. And that doesn't mean the action itself is okay, but it's a hell of a lot different from someone like, say, Malfoy, who is maliciously cruel without provocation, or Cormac "Her Lack of Interest Means Try Harder" McLaggen.

Sometimes in a relationship, you need to say you're sorry for causing hurt even if you didn't mean to do it, or even if you believe you were in the right or the hurt was started by the other person in the first place. Because that's part of having a loving, understanding, gracious relationship. It's also being willing to admit you've done something uncool without falling into a sense of despair that you're suddenly a bad person. And it's no different when you're talking about these two idiots. If someone points out Hermione behaved like x because she was upset when Ron did y, it doesn't mean we need to do mental gymnastics to prove that y was completely justified. Y might not have been justified. Or maybe it was. Either way, we can acknowledge Hermione was responding out of hurt, without it having to mean that Ron is the devil incarnate. And vice versa. We don't need to do the proverbial "oh you like pancakes so you must hate waffles" bullshit.

The first stop in combating Ron hate, should be for self-proclaimed Ron fans to stop trying to reason his bad moments into nonexistence. Stop giving the time of day to people who believe someone's dipshitted moments of indiscretion during a time of learning and growing somehow make him less worthy. You were never going to win an argument against that kind of mindset anyway.

[bluethepineapple]

Death by a Thousand Cuts: On the Granger Family

I have read many interpretations of Hermione's parents in meta and fic. They run the gamut from all-loving, saintlike parents to functioning alcoholics to outright abusive, and many of these make excellent cases purely on how such upbringings would very probably result into a child like Hermione.

I have a lot of love for the outline (and journey no matter how bare) that we see in canon though. There is something compelling in the idea that Hermione was a raised by people who loved her very much and who she likewise loved fiercely. That despite their love, these people could not understand her. That regardless of her own love for them, she ended up estranged from these parents nevertheless. That for all her parents tried to reach out to her, she strongly felt that she could not rely on or share her life with them. That their story ends (as we see it) with her deeply hurting them and leaving them behind.

There is something so deeply tragic at the thought that there was no tragedy in the Grangers. There is no big hurt. There is no lack of love. And yet their family frayed and broke apart anyway. There is something terrifying about relationships simply fizzing out - and how not even love could save them.

Instead, it was a death by a thousand cuts.

[sparsilees]

it’s almost the end of 2024. can we drop this absolutely inane fanonical idea that harry james potter is “oblivious” or “unobservant” or “average”?

fuck your fanon harry. fuck that soggy tissue who doesn’t inspire confidence in others. fuck that lummox who cannot string a sentence together. fuck that hothead who’d lash out in anger and throw punches at every provocation. fuck that namby-pamby who can’t read clues or between the lines or come up with a plan of action. fuck that sheep who can’t function without hermione’s direction. fuck that neanderthal who’s a messy eater, messy writer, messy speaker, and has poor manners.

who the bloody hell is that? that’s not harry james potter. why are you twisting and malforming him into a bloody clown?

why are you undermining the main character of his own series? boy has an abysmal self-esteem, stays quiet and lowkey, bottles up his truest feelings and thoughts (that we as readers are privy to, but not the other characters!), and has a calm and composed mien so you think you too can dismiss his character easily and strip him down to a skeleton of his canon self and instead carve out huge character growth, redemption arcs, and love letters for everyone else?

you wish to evoke sympathy for draco by making lucius out to be an abusive father and crafting a pitiful childhood for draco when they have an affectionate parent-child relationship canonically, but downplay harry’s abuse? you realise that tom riddle, sirius black, james potter, and hermione granger are acknowledged to be the brightest of their generation, yet forget harry potter and tom riddle are two sides of the same coin, even sharing a similar appearance, and reduce harry to a silly caricature? you make harry magically powerful but wrest his smarts away to highlight someone else’s big brain?

you make him out to be a short dork with a shorter fuse and no idea what’s going on around him when harry and tom are both described as woe-ridden orphans—with all that entails from constant hunger to cold sleepless nights to hypervigilance to the forced, quick maturity—but treat tom true to canon as tall, cunning, and clever, then do an about-face to conveniently slap the malnourished, oblivious, and slacker labels on harry to make him as lesser than?

when he picked up the impervious spell simply from having seen hermione perform it once, when his closest friends have difficulty gleaning his thoughts, when his anger is cold and sharp like dumbledore (ootp was a study in ptsd, next!), when he’s just as tall as his father, was just as ill-treated as a house elf, and rightfully brilliant as the son of lily and james potter—the two powerful and talented individuals who once had voldemort trying to recruit them to join his cause?

the sheer disrespect on his name. the sheer mockery of his character. the absolutely mind-boggling erasure of his most defining traits.

who do you think sussed out most of the big clues, and stowed away all the little, random bits of information in his memory bank, to ultimately piece the puzzle together at the final showdown every end of the school year? who realised as a mere firstie that quirrel was the man hagrid blabbed to about fluffy and the dragon egg? who noted that ginny was withdrawn and unlike herself? who had an inkling fleur had taken a fancy to bill? who picked up on what was brewing between ron and hermione before their own selves? who noticed that hermione cast a confundus on cormac mclaggen during the match? who caught on instantly to the change in tense used for the diadem’s existence and confidently tracked it down? who cottoned on to luna’s longtime disappearance from her cold, untouched bed and the layer of dust? who did voldemort consider his equal? who actually has an uncanny sense of intuition? who calls the shots when the trio gets into a pickle? who?

mcgonagall? flitwick? draco? hermione? blaise zabini? no!

excuse harry for that one time he did not look deeply into the mental workings of a grieving girl because he’s not equipped to deal with them, and has in the first place never been taught to process his own emotions properly because he didn’t grow up in a healthy environment, prohibited from expressing his feelings, let alone vulnerability, and voicing his thoughts!

let’s bury this annoyingly stupid narrative for good. go read the books and refresh your perspective. stop doing him dirty. you’ve already butchered sirius black’s character into a pathetic sisspot. and now you want to assassinate harry’s too.

[hollowed-theory-hall]

Hey how are you? I was actually curious how the characters' main writing was like. I remember that Harry makes his "i" like Lily's and Ron has a bad writing but I don't remember well for characters like dumbledore, Snape, Malfoy...

Hi, I'm doing pretty good, swamped with uni, but I don't have much to complain about.

Luckily for you, I actually have some notes regarding canon character handwriting. These notes are from supplementary books (Fantastic Beasts & Tales of Bettle the Bard) which actually have the character's handwriting in them. Along with some quotes I found about character handwriting.

(Also I'm not using signatures from the movies)

Harry:

'She had made her “g”s the same way he did' (DH) - Harry's handwriting shares some letters with his mother's handwriting. Notably, the "g".

Ron:

'Ron’s untidy scrawl' (CoS)

 'said Ron, scribbling away, making his writing as large as possible' (CoS)

'Harry stared at the word “Pig,” then looked up at the tiny owl now zooming around the light fixture on the ceiling. He had never seen anything that looked less like a pig. Maybe he couldn’t read Ron’s writing' (GoF)

Hermione:

'Harry could make out Hermione’s neat writing' (CoS)

'And Hermione’s done four feet seven inches and her writing’s tiny' (CoS)

Dumbledore:

'Written in narrow, loopy writing he had never seen before' (PS)

'The narrow handwriting was vaguely familiar' (OotP)

'thin, slanting writing on the parchment' (HBP)

'were five words written in the thin, slanting handwriting that Harry recognized as Dumbledore’s' (DH)

McGonagall:

From the actual HP books we get McGonagall's handwriting as well, due to her signature being on Harry's Hogwarts letter:

Snape:

Thanks to the HBP book, we also have some notes about Snape's handwriting:

'and yet his writing was minuscule and cramped' (OotP)

'cramped handwriting' (HBP)

 'Although Harry had offered to share his book with both of them, Ron had more difficulty deciphering the handwriting than Harry did' (HBP) - I take this to mean young Snape had tiny handwriting and that might be slightly similar to Harry's own (hence his ease at reading it).

'I think the handwriting looks more like a girl’s than a boy’s' (HBP) - assuming the handwriting is small and has some flourishes. (I kina imagine Snape's and Lily's handwriting is similar, which is why I think Harry's handwriting is a little similar to the Prince's)

Hagrid:

We also have some notes regarding Hagrid's writing which is nearly eligible.

'even a scribble that looked as though it was from the Hogwarts gamekeeper, Hagrid.' (CoS)

'He recognized the untidy scrawl on the brown paper at once: this was from Hagrid' (PoA)

Tom Riddle's:

'Riddle’s reply came quickly, his writing becoming untidier, as though he was hurrying to tell all he knew' (CoS) - meaning his handwriting is quite tidy usually.

(On an unrelated note since I've been searching for mentions of writing in the books I encountered this line in PS:

Harry cheered up a bit when he found a bottle of ink that changed color as you wrote

Considering we all talk about Harry's gold cauldron, I think we need to talk about Harry's color-changing ink. More cute Harry additions to Fantastic Beasts since I found them adorable:

The kid's adorable, I don't understand how the Dursleys could keep hating him, my boy.)

Edit: I got my hands on the 2017 edition of Quidditch Through the Ages, so I have more handwriting to add for anyone curious:

We've got in this photo: Ron (with comments), Neville, Susan (with comments), Hermione, Padma, Earnie, Melicent, Hermione again, and Draco.

(I'm not sure who commented on Ron and Susan's names as I don't recognize the handwriting. These are two different commenters I belive, due to how they write their 'S' and 'i'. The 'stinks' next to Ron's name might be Bulstrode as the 's' and 't' are a little similar)

[vivithefolle]

Hi Vivi! I'd like to ask something as a Ron fan. How abusive is Ron really in book six? He gave Hermione the silent treatment, and when I decided to research about the silent treatment I found it's a form of psychological abuse???? WHAT??? I love him so much but he literally disgusts me in this book, making girls cry, and what he did to Hermione isn't exactly forgivable. The more I think about it the less I like him which is a shame, because I would defend him with my life but the hbp makes it IMPOSSIBLE for me to feel sympathy for him. And it kinda icks me how hermione keeps crying over a boy who might not even be worthy her tears. Jkr clearly wants to villainize him in some way and make us hate him and think he's gross and unworthy. And unfortunately, that bitch succeeds by ruining his arc

Okay okay, valid. Somewhat.

Because. Really. Remember.

Who's the one who later *extends* the silent treatment?

I'm sure you've read some asshole basher's take on HBP!Ron and yeah it's certainly not his proudest book. But know who else is an absolute dickface who's not worthy of Ron's tears in that book?

Hermione.

Hermione and her "spared Ron one look of disdain". Hermione and her treating Ron coldly when he reacts to Lavender being nice to him (while Hermione withholds attention from him deliberately, WHICH IS ABUSIVE BEHAVIOUR but Rowling justifies with "oh but that's how girls are like tee hee"). Hermione and her "golden bullets", Harry and his "yeah Ron you may have just gotten assaulted but shouldn't YOU apologize to Hermione cause yknow it's basically your fault if she's an unhinged violent asshole who thinks she's allowed to hurt you as a form of retribution?". Hermione and her "I like really good Quidditch players". Hermione and, when Ron *immediately* tries to talk to her once he sees her upon returning from Christmas, her blatantly ignoring Ron and keeping the silent treatment going UNTIL RON'S BIRTHDAY IN MARCH. RON KEPT THE SILENT TREATMENT GOING FOR LIKE ~3 WEEKS, HERMIONE KEPT IT UP FOR MONTHS.

You see, the book keeps crowing that Ron is immature and stupid and isn't Hermione just so out of his league and so much better than him, isn't it such a tragedy that such a good girl cries over such an unworthy boy?

But then you remember the actual events, you remember the stuff that Hermione actually did and that Rowling treats as though it's just desserts for Ron or "girl stuff", you remember that Rowling talks at length about all that Ron fucks up and how he's sooo mean and horrible for making girls cry waaah... but then remember. Remember Hermione's actions, remember how Hermione treats Ron as though he belongs to her, how she consciously withholds affection from him to control him and once he subverts that control? She consciously, deliberately, physically attacks him. Then starts months of silent treatment that only end when Ron ALMOST FUCKING DIES.

At every turn, she proves worse than Ron ever is - Ron accidentally harmed Demelza, Hermione deliberately harmed Ron; Ron did the silent treatment a bit, Hermione prolonged it even as Ron tried to reconnect; only thing she didn't do is make Ron cry and that's because Ron isn't allowed to express hurt by crying because he's a boy, but she definitely hurt him just like he hurt her, and perhaps even worse because she deliberately targeted his insecurities.

And remember, Hermione is supposed to be "the mature one". "She who is out of Ron's league". The sacred all-knowing brilliant girl who is so nice and loving and only the worthy may wield, or something.

This is the behaviour of our "mature above all" goddess? Ron's behaviour, except worse because she does it for longer and with full intent? If Ron's behaviour in HBP makes him unworthy of Hermione, then what does Hermione's behaviour in HBP make her? I think, perhaps, it makes her unworthy of being considered someone Ron should "prove" worthy of.

In short: whatever Ron does in HBP, Hermione does, and worse. It's just that Rowling deliberately puts more emphasis on Ron's behaviour so you will think he's bad, and "softens" Hermione's bullshit with "oh but she's a girl, she's emotional, and it's really just Ron's fault she acted like an abusive dick :/" which in my language we call victim blaming and sexist double-standards.

Ron gets ruined by Rowling. And Hermione? Hermione is Rowling's idea of a perfect girl. A bossy, controlling nightmare who can make your "best friend" think it's YOUR fault she hit you. A dickhead who weaponizes her tears as a shield to deflect any form of criticism, an actual child who can't reflect on her behaviour for shit and will always make it everyone else's problem, a tantrum-throwing brat who for all her supposed "intelligence" has nothing to show for it but grades that don't mean shit in an actual job.

If Ron isn't "worthy" of this, then I'm happy for him. Indeed it feels more like Hermione, despite Rowling's intent, is less of a prize and more of a curse.

[dream-with-a-fever]

in defence of ginny weasley (ft fleur delacour)

never thought i would feel strongly enough about this topic to comment on it, but the ginny bashing in this fandom is just insane so i thought why the hell not. ginny seems to get hate for everything under the sun from being being a mary sue who can do no wrong in anyone’s eyes (meaning she’s boring and uninteresting as a character) to being a nasty bully responsible for hurting those around her (??? and they’re both completely contradictory statements btw). when the latter is brought up, ginny’s “terrible” mistreatment of fleur is always front and centre. ‘she’s nasty, she’s cruel, she is a jealous bully etc!’ and i just feel like we should put on our thinking caps and actually take a step back for a fucking second. people may disagree with me, but i think ginny’s reaction to fleur was totally understandable — and reminder, she is a TEENAGE girl, (not to mention both mrs weasley and hermione held fleur in the same regard but no one seems to focus on that side of things).

now in the books, we do see ginny mocking fleur, calling her ‘phlegm’ behind her back, imitating her gait and elegance, expressing her annoyance at her newfound presence in their lives.

let’s look at why she might have reacted that way. first of all, in general, we see that the w are a very humble and welcoming family; they don’t have much but what they do have, they are more than willing to share with others. their financial circumstance plays a massive role in how the characters in the wea clan react and interact with others (as seen with their refusal to accept money from harry etc). their sense of pride in that regard is also quite prevalent. we see that when harry first goes to the burrow, ron is slightly embarrassed by his home, painfully aware of the way many people in the wizarding community view/judge them. when harry goes on to say it’s best place he’s ever seen, we immediately see how touched ron is. ginny is the same in that sense — embarrassed that she has second hand robes & books etc, but at the same time she, like ron, is fiercely protective of what they do have, and what they as a family stand for. they are also very protective of people they love inside and outside of the family (see, ron with ginny, mrs weasleys with all of them etc).

this is relevant because one of the reasons ginny and in turn mrs weasley, have a problem with fleur is the way she talks to them. despite them inviting her into their home, fleur makes her distaste clear even if it is in small ways. she says it’s boring at their house as there’s nothing to do, she often talks disparagingly about how things are done in the weasley household, she loudly mocks celestina warbeck (who mrs weasley loves to play at christmas time) and insults her, she speaks badly about tonks several times etc. her words and mannerisms are also viewed by some (ginny etc) as very pretentious and arrogant — also rather posh, a sign of her family’s wealth (which might have been a sore spot for ginny also).

now don’t get me wrong. i love fleur as a character. i think she’s really cool, charming and brave, and i wish we got to see more of her honestly!! i think she makes a lovely contrast to the other younger characters, and i think she undergoes some nice character development in the books we do see her in. it’s also very clear to me, that when she acts the way she does, it is never out of malice or cruelty— it comes from a place of openness and honesty — which often comes across as quite blunt. it’s a cultural disconnect in many ways; when she inadvertently insults people throughout the books, i think it’s pretty obvious she isn’t trying to hurt anyone’s feelings. but i also think it’s obvious how this attitude might annoy those around her.

calling ginny is a big bad bully for disliking fleur (in the beginning), when her behaviour towards the weasley family would make anyone a bit frustrated, is a bit far. not to mention, her individual treatment of ginny is understandably annoying - ginny complains that fleur is very condescending when speaking to her (‘you’d think i were about three!’).

there’s also the fact that ginny is bill’s little sister. he is her favourite brother (as seen from the way she respects him and his opinions, looks up to him - she wanted to go to hogwarts ever since bill went!). ginny having a reaction to her brother’s new girlfriend is very normal - he’s her big brother! all his attention is now on his new girlfriend - who ginny finds to be full of herself, patronising & annoying. part of her may also be worried that fleur will end up breaking his heart in the end — because she’s protective of her brother.

add the fact that her brother and old crush and basically every man ever is drawn to her because of her godly beauty (as a part veela), her and bill’s wont to shower each other in public displays of affection (who wants to see their brother doing this!?) and the fact that ginny always gotten along with tonks (the person her and molly had in mind for bill’s future partner) has always treated her kindly and as an equal, and therefore would much prefer as a sister-in-law — it’s not that surprising that ginny feels the way she does towards fleur.

nevertheless, do i think this is something ginny would grow out of? yes, of course. we already see changes in their relationship in the final book. besides, a lot of this stuff is surface level, as ginny and fleur don’t know all that much about each other — i think fleur’s love for bill (especially shown in the hospital wing after he’s been attacked by greyback) definitely changes the way ginny regards her. i also like to think that they grew closer as they got older, as with age comes maturity, and with maturity comes understanding. i also feel that fleur was someone who really stepped up when it came to supporting the weasleys after fred’s death, something that ginny would have appreciated. i see them having a nice relationship later in life.

ANYWAY, this was an exceedingly long rant for which i apologise but i have often seen people talk about how nasty ginny is to fleur, and i think it’s so unfair to not look at the context which leads to her being a little frustrated at her future sister in law. plus, she is allowed to dislike someone who she does not get along with and who she finds unpleasant to be around. we all have people like that in our lives but god forbid ginny does…not to mention, ginny is never openly rude to her EVER, and she’s allowed to voice her frustrations to her friends/family. the fact people call her an outright bully for this is just insane.

people on here will defend so many other dubious characters but the second a teenage character with good intentions makes a mistake / doesn’t act perfectly (i.e ron, ginny), they are suddenly the epitome of evil in human form, i mean get a grip, honestly. also one last quick thing(!!!), i do note some people blame jkr for writing her female characters this way, as we’ve seen the way she seems to frown upon conventional/typical displays of femininity (lavender and parvati being seen as ‘silly’ girls with frivolous thoughts, cho chang as overly emotional - despite having a very rational reaction to the death of her boyfriend, fleur as overly feminine and therefore less serious/intelligent). her heroines are women who often conceal or discard these more feminine traits — and i will say that despite loving these characters very much, i do think some more nuance here, could have been very beneficial to the story, and to the message being sent to young female/female identifying readers. there is strength in femininity, and rejecting feminine traits does not make you more or less a person.

okay, rant over. if you actually got to the end, bless you, if not — well, that’s totally fair (lol). also please don’t kill me in the comment section if you disagree. this is just my two cents. ok that’s all.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

How similar in temperament are your versions of Molly and Hermione? I can't help but wonder if they would be thick as thieves or Dire Enemies if they were contemporaries

Thoughts on Hermione

Thoughts on Molly

Oh, Hermione's a thousand times worse than Molly. Molly's the normal amount of judgement and spite you expect from a person. Yeah, she's not as nice as Harry thinks she is, but she's relatively normal. Hermione will cut your face.

As for whether they'd get along or not...

It depends.

In canon they get along fairly well but do have their moments of friction. Namely, in fourth year, Molly believes that Hermione's a gold digger because of the Rita Skeeter articles and that she's after Harry and Viktor and who knows who else. Now, they got over it, we discover Rita's a fraud, Hermione shuts Rita up, and Molly moves on to hating Fleur instead and thinks Hermione's just wonderful for Ron.

But they're both extremely judgemental and it's not so much about who the other is as a person but their veneer.

Hermione hates Lavendar and Parvati, and true part of it is their treatment of her, but a large part of it is that she views them as silly girls obsessed with makeup and boys. Hermione despises the very idea of them.

Molly, for her own part, likes girls next door who are pretty enough but not bombshells (e.g. Fleur) who know their place and have the humble virtues that she approves of.

It works out because they're at the ages they're at. Molly is so "mother" that Hermione doesn't think about the fact that she's raising these seven children, has no career, and has a very affectionate relationship with Arthur and is interested in things like household charms. She's Hermiones surrogate mother, not her peer. Hermione, in turn, is a bright young woman, Ron's close friend, and easily becomes a sort of Percy-like (but without all the betrayal) daughter for Molly.

I think they'd hate each other if they were the same age.

Hermione would think Molly is dumb, unambitious, too focused on boys and her future as a house wife while Molly would think Hermione's snobby, uppity, and weirdly focused on employment.