HBP 5: An Excess of Phlegm

[seicat]

Harry and Dumbledore end their broom shed tryst with that flighty temptress, adventure (Yeah, let's see how long we can keep this gag going...) and knock on the back door of the Burrow. They are greeted by Mrs. Weasley and, oddly enough, Nymphadora Tonks (sans Atomic Pink Hair and feeling a bit on the melancholic side. Poor dear.) But Tonks

Comments

[cadesama]

Why would there be a Puking Pastille in Harry’s pillowcase? Doesn’t everybody put fresh linens on the bed for company?

You'd think, but going into the twins' room may simply be too hazardous for that sort of thing. I honestly think that Puking Pastille is left over from when the twins had to hide their stock.

Hermione’s reaction to Ron’s reaction to Fleur would be an addition to the collection of those anvils we read about. I think they’re all designed to be optical illusions. You can see jealousy, or you can see something else, which in this case is disgust.

I can see jealousy, although I largely see it as general jealousy of Fleur's beauty and ability to make boys into drooling morons. I think Hermione's make over in GoF proves that she's not immune to the desire to have that sort of influence. Which doesn't rule out romantic jealousy, but I think points to why Hermione has such nasty reactions to Fleur and Lavender in this book. Also, JKR is hanging a lamp shade on how susceptible Ron is to mind control. Mwahaha.

Fleur is rude and unthinking in her comments.

Some of them, I agree. But I think that she's only as rude as Hermione was at the beginning of PS/SS when she spent all her time telling the boys what they were doing wrong in a bizarre attempt to prove herself to them. As well, Fleur's comment about how funny the twins are when Hermione is being treated for her black eye very much strikes me as an attempted ice breaker, not a jab at Hermione.

[house_elf_44]

but going into the twins' room may simply be too hazardous for that sort of thing. I honestly think that Puking Pastille is left over from when the twins had to hide their stock.

They've had the shop for a year, so those would be some nasty sheets! I was wondering if they just magic the sheets clean, but Molly had a basket of laundered sheets. Maybe the twins put it there for emergency use, but everyone in their family knows about Puking Pastilles, so they wouldn't get away with it. It's just weird - why include it? I could see if his foot felt it just under the edge of the bed as he was getting in.

I can see jealousy, although I largely see it as general jealousy of Fleur's beauty and ability to make boys into drooling morons.

Okay, within seeing Hermione's reaction as disgust, I can see jealousy for the power pretty girls have over boys. It's a start.

[cadesama]

They've had the shop for a year, so those would be some nasty sheets!

Not actually. Remember, they only left school after the Easter Holidays and probably hadn't been in their room since the first couple of weeks of summer in OotP then. We don't know if they actually returned to their room often after they left, either. So while those sheets could be incredibly dusty, they wouldn't necessarily be dirty. After hiding their products, they would have hastily packed them up to take to Grimmauld Place, so I see how things would end up in very strange places. I do think it's likely, though, that Molly cleans their room from beyond the threshold, except when raiding for Wheezes.

[pilly2009]

I think Hermione's make over in GoF proves that she's not immune to the desire to have that sort of influence.

Thank you! I've always felt that one of Hermione's many insecurities happen to be her looks. Even if she doesn't spend a great deal of time on them, her main hostilities and feelings of superiority over other girls in these books (with the sole exception of Luna Lovegood) seems to be all about looks. Her initial jealousy over not only Fleur, but indeed ALL of the Beauxbatons girls, was portrayed as disgust and/or contempt: "Oh, it's not THAT cold...if you don't like it, why don't you just leave?", and this seems to be a recurring pattern.

Her vague relationship with Parvati and Lavender, two girls whom her best friends have defined as "the pretty girls", is similar in that all of the superiority is FELT by Hermione, but really held by Parvati and Lavender, and many times she seems to know it. Often she has looked down on their "girliness" and their silliness, while still making sure they know of all her romantic escapades in a very "you think I'm a loser, but I'm not" way. Hermione, and indeed even the canon seem to look down on Parvati and Lavender for their intelligence; and yet twice Hermione has become irrationally furious with Ron for basically "choosing" Lavender over here, twice have Parvati and Lavender seen Hermione in tears (and once have they indirectly been the cause; I expect the real sting of Ron's impersonation in HBP was that Parvati and Lavender laughed along with it. After all, Ron has made fun of Hermione before).

A similar case can be made for Pansy Parkinson -- the times we've seen Pansy directly mock Hermione, it has usually been on the subject of looks, when she has referred to Hermione's in a derogatory way. Which can be seen as insecurity on Pansy's own part, but given that the two retaliations we've seen on Hermione's part have either been her mocking Pansy's intelligence (rather than calling her on hypocrisy over looks), or her displaying delight over the destruction of Pansy's appearance (the antlers in OotP) makes me feel that despite Harry's harsh judgement of Pansy's looks, Pansy is actually relatively attractive.

What all three cases have in common is Hermione's contempt over the intelligence of the "pretty girls", and in two of the three cases, her anger at Ron or Harry for daring to contradict her one defense against the girls' prettiness ("Oh not you too!" - when Harry dared to suggest that Fleur's getting into the Triwizard Tournament meant that she was actually intelligent).

[pilly2009]

*"if you don't like it, why don't you just leave?"

--Sorry, I misquoted: the line is actually "No one's making you stay."

[cadesama]

I pretty much agree. I think that Hermione's huge, underlying insecurity is that she's got nothing to offer but her smarts -- and since she could never handle that being confirmed, it's the dimension that she defends herself along (by continually making herself "indispensable" to the boys with her notes) and attacks others along. I think there's another element that leads to her condemnation of the Parvati and Lavender, which is the contempt she holds for her own lack of emotional control. Hermione wants to be eminently logical, but she isn't. She bursts into tears at seemingly random time over things that are often trivial -- seemingly, because I think her tears at those moments are usually tears that have been repressed for some time until she doesn't have anyway to avoid crying anymore. Part of her repressing process, I think, is condemning people who indulge into the type of emotionality that she disdains in herself.

I do think the sting of Ron's impersonation is that a friend of five years mocking her (er, what page is that on) and, like most impersonations, that it's largely true. But I think you have a good point about Lavender and Parvati's roles there. As much as Hermione likes to pretend to be about social politics, she wouldn't look down on it so much if it didn't affect her. Anytime her failure in that arena is presented to her (like all failures), I greatly upsets her.

[madderbrad]

I'm afraid that we're analysing this all too much; after JKR's interview post HBP I think we're *supposed* to take Hermione's umbrage at Fleur's hold over Ron to be a simple case of personal love-lorn jealousy, she's in lurrrve, don't you know. Prior to HBP I was agreeing with you people, in that it was Hermione's general disgust at boys/men in principle and how they can be swayed by the Veela looks.

I enjoy hearing what you have to say about Hermione's insecurities about her appearance in GoF, but after the events of that book - her teeth are straightened out, the handsome champion and Quidditch star makes her a belle of the ball, general jaws dropping all around her - wouldn't her ego have been bolstered by all that? Were there signs of her still being worried about her appearance, etcetera in OotP? If so I'm afraid I've forgotten them. Mind you, these days I think we's supposed to forget that OotP existed and just pretend that HBP followed from GoF ...

[cadesama]

I actually think that much of Hermione's jealousy of Fleur is actual romantic jealousy over Ron. But, since Hermione has hated Fleur since before gave Ron a second glance, I think that it's deeper than that. Her hatred of frivolous girls (despite having those inclinations herself) plays into her hatred of the fact that boy fall for such frivolities.

but after the events of that book - her teeth are straightened out, the handsome champion and Quidditch star makes her a belle of the ball, general jaws dropping all around her - wouldn't her ego have been bolstered by all that? Were there signs of her still being worried about her appearance, etcetera in OotP?

Well, the fun thing about the type of insecurity Hermione has is that there's no external fix to it, and it goes far deeper than her looks. Hermione knows she's smart, but she thinks that's all she is. She's not pretty, or funny, or a lot of fun to be around. No matter how pretty she actually becomes, because she refuses to gamble and put herself forward as anything other than the smart girl, she will still think that it's secondary to her smarts, or something people are just saying to be polite. And, of course, she justifies this to herself by saying that she's being true to herself and that if people liked her for not being the smart girl it would be worse than them not liking her as she is -- which lets her being down on herself, not change, and hold moral high ground in her own head.

We don't have any examples of her being insecure about her looks in OotP, I don't think, but neither do we have any examples of Hermione being suddenly secure. She puts all of her stock in intellectual ventures in OotP, which she considers her strength, yet still preens under "unexpected" praise and doubt her own plans (like with the DA). Still, romance never comes up for her, so I don't think we see the full breadth of her insecurities in that book. And, well, JKR has this habit of putting characterization aside when it's not integral to whatever plot is going on, and then picking it up again when it's relevant.

[jabbamacmilly]

You both seem to have hit the nail on the head conserning Hermione, and I think that is what JKR was trying to convey to us during this book with Hermione's OOCness. But I had to rethink over that more then once after finishing it to really get what was going on with Hermione. I think if JKR is planning on writing after HP then that is something she needs to work on desperatly.

And would it kill either of the boys to say that she(Hermione) looks nice once in a while, it would do so much for her poor ego. Grrr stupid boys.

[cadesama]

. . . I don't think Hermione was actually OOC. Well, I do. To a degree. I think when you focus entirely on the worst of a character you are writing the character off-balance, and therefore OOC. I just don't think that the way Hermione behaves is outside the normal range of possibilities for her. It's simply that it's not all there is to her.

And would it kill either of the boys to say that she(Hermione) looks nice once in a while, it would do so much for her poor ego. Grrr stupid boys.

Of course, it would kill them. They're boys. But I don't think it would help much. The problem is how Hermione thinks about herself, not how the world treats her, so the solution isn't going to any external fix. Hopefully age and some degree of happiness will mellow her enough so that she can get beyond her insecurity, but happiness is awfully hard to achieve while so insecure.

[prellyree]

I can remember one reference to Hermione's looks in OOtP. She tells Harry he should have called her ugly, to Cho. It's added as an afterthought, and in my opinion, was some serious fishing for compliments. He counters beautifully with "But I don't think you're ugly."

That's the only one I remember, though.