Okay, okay, Iâm going to tell you what Hermione sees in Ron.
A trio is a balancing act, right? Theyâre equalizers of each other. Harryâs like the action, Hermioneâs the brains, Ronâs the heart. Hermione has been assassinated in these movies, and I mean that genuinelyâby giving her every single positive character trait that Ron has, they have assassinated her character in the movies. Sheâs been harmed by being made to be less human, because everything good Ron has, sheâs been given.
So, for instance: âIf you want to kill Harry, youâre going to have to kill me tooââRON, leg is broken, heâs in pain, gets up and stands in front of Harry and says this. Who gets that line in the movie? Hermione.
âFear of a name increases the fear of the thing itself.â Hermione doesnât say Voldemortâs name until well into the booksâthatâs Dumbledoreâs line. When does Hermione say it in the movies? Beginning of Movie 2.
When the Devilâs Snare is curling itself around everybody, Hermione panics, and Ron is the one who keeps his head and says âAre you a witch or not?â In the movie, everybody else panics and Hermione keeps her head and does the biggest, brightest flare of sunlight spell there ever was.
So, Hermioneâall her flaws were shaved away in the films. And that sounds like youâre making a kick-ass, amazing character, and what youâre doing is dehumanizing her. And it pisses me off. It really does.
In the books, they balance each other out, because where Hermione gets frazzled and maybe her rationality overtakes some of her instinct, Ron has that to back it up; Ron has a kind of emotional grounding that can keep Hermioneâs hyper-rationalness in check. Sometimes Hermioneâs super-logical nature grates Harry and bothers him, and isnât the thing he needs even if itâs the right thing, like when she says âYou have a saving people thing.â That is the thing that Harry needed to hear, sheâs a hundred percent right, but the way she does it is wrong. Thatâs the classic âsheâs super logical, sheâs super brilliant, but she doesnât know how to handle people emotionally,â at least Harry.
So in the books they are this balanced group, and in the movies, in the moviesâhell, not even Harry is good enough for Hermione in the movies. No oneâs good enough for Hermione in the moviesâGod isnât good enough for Hermione in the movies! Hermione is everybodyâs everything in the movies.
Harryâs idea to jump on the dragon in the books, who gets it in the movies? Hermione, who hates to fly. Hermione, who overcomes her withering fear of flying to take over Harryâs big idea to get out of theâlike, why does Hermione get all these moments?
[John: Because we need to market the movie to girls.]
I think girls like the books, period. And like the Hermione in the books, and like the Hermione in the books just fine before Hollywood made her idealized and perfect. And if they would have trusted that, they would have been just fine.
Would the movies have been bad if she was as awesome as she was in the books, and as human as she was in the books? Would the movies get worse?
She IS a strong girl character. This is the thing that pisses me off. They are equating âstrongâ with superhuman. To me, the Hermione in the book is twelve times stronger than the completely unreachable ideal of Hermione in the movies. Give me the Hermione in the book whoâs human and has flaws any single day of the week.
Hereâs a classic example: When Snape in the first book yells at Hermione for being an insufferable know-it-all, do you want to know what Ron says in the book? âWell, youâre asking the questions, and she has to answer. Why ask if you donât want to be told?â What does he say in the movie? âHeâs got a point, you know.â Ron? Would never do that. Would NEVER do that, even before he liked Hermione. Ron would never do that.