So, we are now at the sixth book. Better than I remembered it being so far. I only read it once. I still think the fourth book starts off with much more excitement. This book brings more mystery though, with less action in the first eleven chapters. So far the major questions we readers should have in our minds are: What side is Snape really on and what task has Malfoy been assigned; who's The Half Blood Prince and is his potions book dangerous; what exactly is Dumbeldore trying to do with Harry; and on a more general note what areVoldemort and the Death Eaters up to?
As a craft element, Rowling's methods of introducing these questions are pretty transparent, but they are sucessful. We readers will now read through the book to find the answers to these questions, and a long the way we shall enjoy all the beautiful details and moments of humor. Any fan of the Harry Potter books would have a very hard time indeed putting the book down after being presented with these questions.
On a different note, the relationship between Hermoine and Ron is being flushed out. The last two books gave us small hints that they might like eachother, well mostly that Hermoine might like Ron, but here we see a definite sign of her feelings for Ron on page 232 when she admits to using the Confundes charm on Ron's main oponent for the position of Keeper on the Quiditch team. This is the first time she does something really disshonest without having a true greeter good motivating her. While sweet in one way, it actually makes me think less of her, and Harry for letting it slide. Disshonesty of that sort is not something I like to see.
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I totally agree on how you feel about Hermione. As we read the book we are constantly seeing things from Harry and the trio's point of you. As the books go on we do see some things that they don't (i.e. chapter with Snape, Bella, and Narcissa) but for the most part we see the wizarding world through their eyes. Based on this, I remember reading the book the first time and thinking that Hermione was so cool for helping out Ron. I imagined myself having an awesome friend that could possibly help me through a similar situation and couldn't get over how amazing this would be. Upon the second time that I read this book I felt the way you do here...to an extent. If you go back and possibly remember the first time you liked someone did you do anything you maybe wouldn't have done before. What I mean is...when you like someone, you can do things to try and impress the other person. I think that this is all Hermione was doing in this situation. Yes, it is unlike her...but in earlier books her life is somewhat linear...make friends...keep them...but overall, do what's right. I think we are now starting to see that Hermione's life is a lot more complex. She is named the smartest person in their class by a number of people and so I figure she's got quite a bit of pressure to uphold her name. She is also the person to think...about everything. If Harry and Ron think they should go about route A, she tells them to wait and thinks about possibly going route B, C, D, and so on. Now she is falling for one of her friends and well to impress him she must do something unordinary. She can't just be like "oh Ron, chcek it out I got an A on this paper" because Ron won't think anything of it since it is a norm. Thus, it so happens that she helps Ron get the goalkeeper position. The main reason I think she did this to impress is because she told her friends what she had done. No one else needed to know what she had done if her only objective was to get Ron the position.
ReplyDeleteSorry for the long post...I started to ramble on >.<
I agree that she did what she did because she liked him. That doesn't change the fact that doing what she did was wrong. She also never told Ron, nor Harry, but he figured it out and didn't tell Ron, so her real motivation was not to impress him to get her to like her, but for him to be in a good mood and feel good about him self, which is when they get along best, both of them in good moods I mean.
ReplyDeleteDoes this action make us trust Hermione less, or teach us something about the nature of her friendship with Ron? Does this diminish her feelings towards him, as if to suggest that because she breaks her own (and possibly the readers') strongly developed moral code she is betraying not only her code but her true self as well? These are some pretty heavy questions Hermione's recent behavior seems to be raising.
ReplyDeleteHow do the questions at the beginning of the novel frame the rest of the text? Is it all we look to, is it all we find in the end? Is she just stringing us along or are we a part of the process now?