She’s British.

 

Sorry that I don’t have examples of my own to contribute. That being said I think it bears mentioning that all this must be taken in its own context. I think the general disregard for people’s feelings is a bit of a stretch, given that she does at other junctures demonstrate such concern (her helping Neville search for his toad in PS); in many ways she does show a lot of empathy.

Quick Edit: I just looked over the scene with Lavender’s rabbit and I wouldn’t really characterize her reaction as being insensitive. It’s mainly Hermione offering an explanation for Lavender’s dead bunny that isn’t supernatural; she doesn’t at any point mock or belittle Lavender for her beliefs. Granted, it would probably have been best for her to just shut up, but then she’s 13 and doesn’t have the full tact of an adult. I did however come across some scenes where she stands up for Neville in Snape’s class; which none of the others did.

If the point was just to pick out some specific instances; well then yeah but who hasn’t displayed instances of insensitivity at certain points in their life?

All in all, these criticisms have merit but must keep in mind that Hermione is simply an adolescent child. Your point about Hermione acting as a neutral arbiter is correct, but it is hard for any child to make such a stand. It takes a degree of bravery that we might expect instead for an adult.

That being said, there certainly is legitimate stuff to the point that she doesn’t fully reciprocate with Ron and Hermione. I think a lot of this is just her own independence; her choosing to enact plans by herself etc... In many ways Hermione is the most independent of the trio. Much of this might just be her own arrogance, thinking that Harry and Ron are not up to par with her. Much of it might be justified given her superior magical prowess (similar to Dumbledore’s keeping secrets).

Granted, Hermione is no Dumbledore, but Harry and Ron are also clearly not on her level in terms of their cunning and general magical ability (of course none of this justifies her haughty attitude or apparent superiority complex).

 

To be honest, Hermione's fixation on her grade has always seemed so extreme, to me, that I half expect her to have some horrible trauma or something to explain it.

Regarding her toilet qualities (i.e. reasons to shit on her):

The thing that jumps out at me most is the time in book 2 when, upon realizing that the monster was probably a basilisk, instead of telling anyone, she just runs off to the library to read about basilisks. If I were Harry, as soon as she jumped up from her seat having clearly just realized something important, I'd have grabbed the back of her robe and insisted she clarify what she figured out, rather than just allow her to be all dramatic for no good reason.

 

Let's see... Hermione always seems to think her way is the only way. This can be seen in HBP with the Prince's book and the Malfoy situation, etc. She keeps secrets from her only friends in the world for no good reasons.
She is a teacher's pet. This is shown in multiple books mainly in Transfiguration.
She has literally no originality when it comes to spellwork. She can copy stuff already discovered, but she won't ever be creating her own work.
She asks Cormac on a date to make Ron jealous, but then she doesn't even want to be around the guy. Kind of a jerk move all around really.

 

She is unintelligent. An intelligent 11 year old who studies the way she did will graduate by the time they are 15. At 15 she only knows a couple advanced spells.

She has bushy hair and buck teeth.

She forgot about Nicholas Flamel.

She disobeyed her parents' demand that she keep her horribly disfigured buck teeth.

She made her parents forget she ever existed and then forced them to rebuild their shattered lives in a glorified penal colony who's fauna gives sane people nightmares.

 

A lot of the reasons Hermione is being shit on here read to me like plot conveniences rather than things an actual human would do. That is to say, it's bad writing, not a character flaw, perse.

That being said, she's a shit friend. I read fiction vicariously through the eyes of the protagonist (escapism and all that). It always puts me in a bad mood when characters don't get called out on their bullshit. In fact I don't think I've ever read a story where characters stop being friends for reasons other than hardcore betrayal. If characters do things the protagonist doesn't like...they just move past it?

Fuck that noise.

This has probably been discussed to death, but the HBP notes thing always hacked me off. It always felt so petty and pathetic as opposed to 'friendly concern.'
--- Post automerged ---

Oi, cunt, don't forget about our flora!

 

Oi, cunt, don't forget about our flora!

 

Hermione made several remarks about Harry and Ron being oblivious, slightly immature or unable to comprehend others' emotions, while disregarding her own shortcomings in that regard.

In PoA, she refused to talk to Harry about Scabbers after the Firebolt incident, citing her workload as an excuse to avoid any reasonable discussion.

In OotP, she rattled off about Cho's emotional state, while failing to understand that Harry wasn't in any position to support someone else. She urged Harry to work harder at Occlumency (which is not wrong) but disregarded his mental state after being ignored and kept in the dark for over 6 months.

In HBP, she dismissed Harry's theory of Malfoy being a Death Eater, especially after he started using the Prince's book. Hermione also teamed up with Ginny to diss Fleur, and went out with McLaggen just to rub it in Ron's face. All because of jealousy, something which Ron is accused of all the time.

Hermione was extremely hypocritical at times.

She wouldn't hear a word against Crookshanks, but didn't have any empathy for Lavender when her rabbit died. Mocked Ron for not having a date in GoF, and gave her own opinions about anyone they (Harry and Ron) wanted to go out with, but didn't bother telling them about her date.

Hermione called Sirius reckless, selfish and accused him of disregarding Harry's feelings, and then spent a better part of the year doing that herself.

Instead of asking Ron out herself, she dropped ridiculously subtle hints under a mountain of reprimands, and then blamed him for not asking her out, attacked him physically and purposefully went out with someone she know he doesn't like. If that isn't called toying with someone, I don't know what is.

Hermione didn't bother herself with taking Harry and Ron's opinions into consideration.

In addition to most of the incidents in PoA, she didn't talk to them about the Yule Ball, told Harry to start a Defence Club but kept him unaware of some of the details (the number of people in Hog's Head, the specific jinx on the parchment). Heck, she didn't mention Fiendfyre as a viable, although impractical, means of destroying Horcruxes till the end of DH.

 

She's racist against Centaurs.

She basically called a Hogwarts professor an animal because of his race.

 

She is an incredible hypocrite. For a whole HBP, she complained that Harry cheats by using a superior edited version of the potions book. But she had no problem to manipulate tryouts so that her crush keeps the position.

 

Not only did she accuse Sirius of all that, she started having doubts about the DA after learning he approved of the idea.

I guess you could classify it as a superiority complex. If the 1st half of PS is anything to go by, it's pretty much the only way she got positive attention. By HBP only 4-5 people outside her parents had given her positive attention outside academic success.

Hermione could be smug and attention seeking

This is how she's introduced and why she has no friends. It's part of a larger issue, but it's no less annoying. She reverts back to form in PoA when Ron and Harry aren't speaking to her. A specific moment is after a DADA class when Ron wonders about Lupin.

Hermione was close minded

This has already been mentioned and we can discuss Luna and the Hallows all day, but it's her reaction to the Map and Prince's book that does it for me. Her reactions aren't "wow that's fascinating" but "oh my god that's dangerous." A whole book full of changes to recipes recipes and instead of studying it to see how they work, she spends months complaining.

 

Hermione destroyed the only chance for a fellow Gryffindor to join the House Team and have a successful career in Quidditch

Cormac McLaggen may be an ass, but Hermione still hexed him so that he would not get the spot on the team. Later on she would harp on Harry for allegedly putting Felix Felicis in Ron's drink, but she had no issue doing something on the same level. Hypocrite!
Cormac McLaggen may have gone on to have an amazing Quidditch career, ending up with ending the massive dryspell for Britain winning the World Cup. But all of this did not happen, because Hermione was a bitch that was a witch.

Hermione advocates whoring out to get the guy.

Her famous advice to Ginny was the push that led to the bicycle of Hogwarts. If you have such friends, do you even need enemies?*

It does not matter that it worked for some time.


Hermione is a pathetic fighter and a hindrance to her allies.

For all her vaulted knowledge and skill as the "brightest witch of her age", she sucks in a fight. In the Department of Mystery she is the first one to be taken out and even hinders the effort of others when she stops them from hexing a Death Eater. Neville, Luna, Ginny and Ron all stand while she needs to be carried around. Talking about hype meeting reality and getting a punch in the face.

 

Speaking of 'subtle' hints, a lot of people use Hermione's "Next time there's a ball, ask me before someone else does, and not as a last resort!" rant in book 4 as "proof" that she liked Ron and that he should have gotten the hint that she liked him. How are Ron and the readers supposed to see this as proof? What Hermione basically said is "First come, first serve". She's calling him out for being immature (which, granted he was) and putting him in his place for making a fool of himself by throwing a tantrum over Krum (which, again, he was).

If Hermione really wanted to show proof, she would have followed the rant with "I wanted to go with you, why didn't you ask me?" or something like that, since she clearly knew Ron wanted to go with her.

When it comes to Ron appreciating Hermione very few people take the negative (arguments, yelling, insults, etc) as proof of his love for her (unless they're calling him out) so why is Hermione's book 4 rant okay? This was not a "Hermione likes Ron" moment, it's a "Hermione reprimanding Ron" moment (which fits her characterization, doesn't give her unnecessary credit, and allows Ron to see he fucked up for being an asshole, not for not asking her out).

Stop letting Hermione have her cake and eat it too.

 

Hermione is a bit too "muggle" to ever really be successful in the Wizarding World.

I say that, because despite being 'brilliant', she shows a distinct lack of understanding about the idea of innovation when it comes to magical theory. She seems to treat magic like a car. You can't stick gasoline in a diesel engine and expect it to run flawlessly, but with magic, you absolutely can.

In their first Potions class, Snape calls potion making a subtle science and exact art. What do art and science have in common? Innovation! You build upon the theories and concepts of old and create newer, better potions and potion brewing techniques. Snape, for all his faults, does seem to be a Potions savant. Considering that Hermione, the brightest witch of the generation, had Moste Potent Potions for weeks (months?) and it did not mention the silver knife trick that Harry used to win the Felix Felicis, Snape either developed the technique or found it in such an obscure potions text that he might as well have invented it.

It's perfectly reasonable to not trust thing written in a book with no proof. But after seeing that the annotations were correct more than once, and living in a school where you easily and safely test the others, Hermione should have been worshiping that book like it was a gift sent from on high, especially after Harry used it to save Ron's life. She should have been either magically duplicating that book or hand writing out all the tips.

But she doesn't, because the book doesn't fit into her muggle-ish concept of how things work. A person with no ability to think outside the box or innovate on old concepts doesn't because a master Potioneer or Charms master or Transfiguration innovator. Hermione outright rejects the idea of magic that cannot be measured (diviniation).

And yes, I know JKR made her the Minister For Magic. That was a fan service that make absolutely no goddamn sense.

 

Truly Hermione's biggest flaw: she isn't a furry.

 

Shit, I forgot about that one. One thing I was gonna mention but didn't because I haven't opened OotP in at least a decade is how after she lured Umbridge into the forest and got her taken by the centaurs was how, despite having come up with a persuasive lie to fool Umbridge on the fly, when confronted by the centaurs she basically admitted she was just using them to get the toad off her back. She's really not much better than Umbridge on the racism front, is she?

 

How fucking dare anyone out there make fun of Hermione after all she has been through? She lost her parents, she went through a school full of craziness. She had two fucking kids. Her husband turned out to be a ginger. And now she’s going through a custody battle. All you people care about is readers and making money off of her. She’s a human!

What you don’t realize is that Hermione is making you all this readership and all you do is write a bunch of crap about her. She hasn’t performed on page in years. Her heartsong is Britney’s “Give Me More” for a reason. Because all you people want is more, more, more, more more!

Leave her alone! You are lucky she even researched for you bastards! Leave Hermione alone, please!

Rita Skeeter talked about professionalism and said if Hermione was a professional Harry would’ve pulled it off no matter what. Speaking of professionalism, when is it professional to publicly bash someone who is going through a hard time. Leave Hermione alone, please.

Leave Hermione Granger alone right now! I mean it! Anyone that has a problem with her you deal with me, because she is not well right now.

Leave her alone.

 

She spends most of the books being a kid, doing stupid kid things, as kids tend to.

 

Yeh. In general, Hermione faces the same problem as Harry and Ron. She’s a kid.

we give Ron a pass on his failings bc he’s a kid, same applies to Hermione. Though that goes against spirit of the thread. Hmm...

 

What sites have you been on? It's almost always the exact opposite.