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Order of the Phoenix
Apr. 17th, 2015 09:11 amThis book should be subtitled "Hermione has excellent ideas and is right about almost everything but no one listens to her."
Most of the story is about Harry being angry that no one listens to him, but the people not listening to him have obvious political motives for discrediting him. Meanwhile, the people not listening to Hermione are her best friends in the world. Harry is allowed to be outraged when no one believes him (even though he's frequently and quite catastrophically wrong), but Hermione has to be humble and sensitive and apologize to everyone when they don't believe her.
The only time Hermione is clearly wrong about something is when she knits and leaves out clothing for the Hogwarts house elves, but I maintain that this functions as a brilliant and subtle critique of immature social justice warrioring, which makes perfect sense when you consider how long the author spent with Amnesty International when she was younger. Anyway...
I was 19 when this book was published, and I don't have any memory or record of reading it again since then until now. I remember that the initial experience was painful and made me feel shitty. Now that I'm 31, I appreciate the book for what it is and what it's trying to do, but I think it hit a little too close to home when I first read it. I was 28 or 29 when I formally resolved to stop apologizing to people all the time, and I still feel crying-in-the-restroom guilty when I have to fight for someone to acknowledge me when I'm right. Reading Order of the Phoenix now, I look at Hermione and am like, "Oh my god."
The Order of the Phoenix movie is actually one of my favorites, mainly because it swaps out the anger and frustration of the book with wonder and joy, but Hermione still gets the same treatment. She delivers flawless exhibition and drives the plot, but she's never in the foreground (she's always in the second or third row of characters) on the movie posters.
What the everloving fuck, you know?
Most of the story is about Harry being angry that no one listens to him, but the people not listening to him have obvious political motives for discrediting him. Meanwhile, the people not listening to Hermione are her best friends in the world. Harry is allowed to be outraged when no one believes him (even though he's frequently and quite catastrophically wrong), but Hermione has to be humble and sensitive and apologize to everyone when they don't believe her.
The only time Hermione is clearly wrong about something is when she knits and leaves out clothing for the Hogwarts house elves, but I maintain that this functions as a brilliant and subtle critique of immature social justice warrioring, which makes perfect sense when you consider how long the author spent with Amnesty International when she was younger. Anyway...
I was 19 when this book was published, and I don't have any memory or record of reading it again since then until now. I remember that the initial experience was painful and made me feel shitty. Now that I'm 31, I appreciate the book for what it is and what it's trying to do, but I think it hit a little too close to home when I first read it. I was 28 or 29 when I formally resolved to stop apologizing to people all the time, and I still feel crying-in-the-restroom guilty when I have to fight for someone to acknowledge me when I'm right. Reading Order of the Phoenix now, I look at Hermione and am like, "Oh my god."
The Order of the Phoenix movie is actually one of my favorites, mainly because it swaps out the anger and frustration of the book with wonder and joy, but Hermione still gets the same treatment. She delivers flawless exhibition and drives the plot, but she's never in the foreground (she's always in the second or third row of characters) on the movie posters.
What the everloving fuck, you know?
