Character connection: Hermione Granger



Character Connection is a meme hosted by the introverted reader, and I couldn't really find any new ones, so I don't know if it's still going. But I like the idea of celebrating characters you like, so here we go. This week it's Hermione Granger, because I have no fantasy, so girl or Harry Potter characters apparently.

Book: Harry Potter series
Author: J.K. Rowling
Years: 1997-2007
Language: English
Publisher: Bloomsbury







Hermione Granger
My mother gave me Harry Potter when I was like 12, because that is how old I was when the first book came out in Norwegian. I think I read it in something like three days. I stayed up nights to finish it. It was that addictive. I had to know how it ended. And I really liked Hermione. Obviously. She was a girl, a badass, clever girl who had guy friends. She was tough. She was nerdy, pretty bossy, and I love her.

If the Harry Potter phenomenon has somehow passed you by it is about a young boy named Harry Potter who grew up with his aunt and uncle, and one day he is told he is a wizard and he is given the chance to go to Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. He learns that his parents were not killed in a car accident, but by an evil wizard. Unlike most of his classmates Harry has no idea about the wizarding world. The kids usually grow up with witch and wizard families, so they don’t have to learn it all. There are also those witches and wizards who come from non-magical families. Like Hermione Granger. She is a witch from a non-magical family, who was told suddenly out of the blue she’s a witch. And she started Hogwarts with Harry. Hermione soon becomes friends with Harry, and his other best friend, Ron Weasley.

Why is Hermione awesome you ask?
You didn’t, but I’ll answer anyway. Hermione doesn’t come from the world of magic, but because she is clever and likes to learn she pretty much decides to read everything to figure it out. How can you not like someone who always thinks first how many books she needs to pack? Hermione is basically like one of those people who has a Bible quote for every situation. If you need some information she knows which books of magic to look in. She always knows where to look, and she always tries to find the answer.

Hermione might not seem as brave as Harry, or Ron, for that matter, but she is always willing to fight for her friends. And in my opinion she is sometimes braver them, because she is often willing to make hard decision, to protect her friends. She’s willing to become unpopular if it keeps people safe. For instance in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban she tells McGonagall about Harry’s broom because she thinks Sirius gave it to him and she wants to keep him safe. And she keeps working tirelessly to help Hagrid, even if she’s overworked.

She also does something that is completely adorable and something that only later I’ve realized is sort of fantastic. Because of the way the books are written and how the rest of the wizarding world sees it, you sort of feel like it’s a bit silly. Hermione starts a society to help house elves. And it sounds weird, because they are perfectly happy with their slavery, and they don’t see the need to be freed. But it is basically brainwashing, and it’s interesting that the only person who seems to stand up for house elves, apart from Dumbledore, is someone who was raised in a world where slavery is in general seen as something horrid and antiquated. While I’m not sure her method of trying to free them without them realizing is right, her intentions are honorable. She refuses to back down from what she stands for, no matter how much people mock her, and I love her for that.

Hermione also has some negative traits obviously, she’s a bit narrow-minded and she has a tendency to be a bit insensitive. It seems like she doesn’t necessarily get that she might be hurting people. She usually means well though and she saves Harry’s ass more than anyone else.