Chapter Nineteen

[merrymelody]

The Lion and the Serpent

Useless Fact: This is the chapter I read first when I got my copy, purely on the basis of the title.

Comments

Re: i know... *blushes*

[jollityfarm]

I'd consider you too stupid to listen to the instructions (unless it was liek rilly rebellious not to or something) and too in love with your own thoughts to know when to stop.

I was always told that when people write reams and reams of stuff in exams, it doesn't mean they have better answers, it just means they've been writing Everything I Know About Thermodynamics or whatever and quite possibly padding out their paper by adding blank sheets and double-spacing. Likewise, an essay which is over the wordcount is usually considered to be full of waffle (although Rowling is a big fan of waffle, it seems). In fact, I would love the next DADA teacher to take Hermione to task for this, with the red pen of d00m.

Hermione to me, is like the Hollywood, layperson (oooh!) idea of a genius: She reads whole books and works an entire level above the rest of her class!

Hermione is what somebody who isn't very bright thinks of as "clever". When you're in school, people who read a lot and get high marks because they're up all hours studying are often considered to have teh_SMRT, but these people never create anything or go on to great works of genius. Genius comes from people finding out how things work when you don't work by conventional standards. Plenty of people regarded as geniuses (genii?) today were people who pissed off their teachers by not following the rules and maybe not knowing the answer. People who do something new. Hermione will never be that person, because she cares about rules more than anything else.

I'm betting Rowling wasn't Queen of the Prom or the nearest equivalent

sistermagpie said that what Hermione actually is is a forty year old woman's idea of what they would have done if they hadn't been so young and stupid. So Hermione comes to the Yule Ball in a "classic" "understated" ballgown and a really boring hairstyle when a real teenager would come in something shiny and Big Hair!, possibly Big Hair with glittery bits. Which is, of course, the natural order of things. Hermione's menopausal soul doesn't actually make her seem more intelligent, just more irritating - but in the book, all the boys <3 her and Viktor Krum wants her as his date (what does he see in her?) even though he's a super 1337 stah and she's an oh-sucks lil' old me ordinary schoolgirl. Vomit.

I could tolerate McGonagall, like a lot of characters, a lot better if I wasn't being force-fed how great she is, and how she's such an example of fairness when she patently isn't.

You mean, every time she appears in a scene? Yes, I do rather think they could tone that down a bit, just like they could tone down Ron's poverty, Hermione's brains and every Slytherin's ugly.

Re: i know... *blushes*

[merrymelody]

Rowling is a big fan of waffle, it seems

Heh. I shouldn't really laugh tho, since my summaries aren't exactly concise. Oh well. I'm not getting paid to write.

I would love the next DADA teacher to take Hermione to task for this, with the red pen of d00m.

Oh lord. Then they'd be liek, totally evil!11
Teh Best Evar DADA teacher was Lupin, who adored Harry and Neville and thought Hermione was Teh Smartest!1

There should be some crazy K2K style theory about Hermione in actual fact being forty+. Makes a lot more sense than Ron.