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.