Since my thread asking how Hermione would deal with not being talented at magic got derailed by people claiming she's already not talented and everything she accomplishes is purely from hard work, thought I would open up a thread to discuss that instead of bogging down my idea with the discussion which isn't all that relevant to
Probably end up killing my thread, but at this point I honestly don't care. Internet arguments will be the downfall of mankind.
Mainly because I AM RIGHT AND EVERYONE ELSE IS CRAZY.
Joking aside, what does everyone else think? Is Hermione talented? Is she just hardworking? Or is she a combination of both?
Personally I think that she's both. She's talented enough to grasp most magic way ahead of her classmates, and hardworking enough that she can take full advantage of that ability.
Relevant posts from thread:
Rising Dragon said:
zerohour said:
Moved form Misc Ideas, because I really want to explore this thought.
What if Hermione was, at best, average in magical talent?
She's still as smart as she ever was, but for some reason or another, her practical skills in magic are average at best. She still writes long essays on the various charms and transfigurations, but has much more difficulty actually executing the spells. Sometimes even Neville can pull it off before her, though that's rare.
Okay, seriously, just need to point this out:
She already is.
There is absolutely nothing stating in the story that she's better than average with magic. She's nothing special, outside of the theoretical parts she excels nowhere (and actually struggles a bit with more advanced practical usage of magic), she does everything by the letter, and when handed the cheat codes, actually got mad anyone would resort to the cheat codes. What made Hermione different from other classmates is that she studied to the point of obsession, making her knowledgeable in many fields and understanding of many concepts, but as far as performing magic she's no better than the rest of her class.
Hermione who is still as smart as she is in canon, but has average practical skills in magic is...
Well, that's just canon!Hermione.
From what you want to accomplish, you want Hermione who is either A) not a bookworm, or B) dumb as rocks.
zerohour said:
...You're joking, right?
You're saying Hermione's skills come just from working hard? That she doesn't excel at magic?
She routinely scores more than 100% on tests, which include practicals. Fairly sure she managed Os on everything after Fifth Year, and probably did the same for NEWTs. Terry Boot was shocked/amazed that Hermione knew the Protean charm in fifth year, saying it was NEWT level work. That means she's exceptional by Ravenclaw standards. Since no one from Hufflepuff disagreed with that assessment, we can infer that it is also exceptional by Hufflepuff standards.
The idea that she is able to outdo the smart house and the hardworking house without having some exceptional talent is ridiculous. That or she really should have been put in one of those houses instead of Gryffindor.
Rising Dragon said:
But does she have the talent? Everything in the books points to her prowess being because she studies to the point of obsession. Of course she got top marks in her classes, she spent a great deal of time studying and she paid attention in class, doing everything by the letter and making sure everything she did was correct. That's the opposite of being talented, it shows that what she's capable of didn't come easy. When we see her working on advanced magic, though, we see her struggling. In a field where Harry was naturally talented. We've SEEN what talent looks like in HP, and Hermione is not it. She is skilled, make no mistake, but it wasn't because she was gifted at it. She just busted her ass in the books while Harry coasted on luck and the power of plot and Ron performed under-average while gimped by a hand-me-down wand and his own laziness.
The concept you want to explore is being aimed in the wrong direction. Your concept is "Hermione is very smart but has to work her ass off to get results". Which is exactly what she did in canon. If she were TALENTED at all this magic, she wouldn't have had to study nearly as much and would still get high marks in class, because it comes easy to her. Or she'd end up like Snape and show up her superiors through innovation of the work, doing things easier or making them more powerful, etc.
zerohour said:
Yes, talent is clearly a thing. Since she can do magic, she clearly has the talent for it. I find it hard to believe that Neville didn't try his absolute best in everything to live up to his parents' legacy, yet he was still fairly average for most of the series, if not lackluster. Likewise, Filch wouldn't be so devastated about being a Squib if all he needed to get over it was enough hard work.
Yes, we've seen her struggle with some magic, but she has also offhandedly mentioned that she knew spells beyond the expected curriculum. For the most part, we never see her have difficulty with regular coursework from what I can recall (Divination excluded.)
She works her ass off, I won't deny that, but a large part of that is her desire to be thorough and perfect, rather than being the best. She regularly writes way more than her teachers ask for, and has done multiple revisions on lots of homework. That doesn't indicate a struggle to keep up with the curriculum to me. She wants to demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that she is the best and brightest.
Hard work is not an unusual trait in Hogwarts. There is a House literally dedicated to the concept of hard work, there is another House dedicated to learning and knowledge. Hermione manages to outperform both of those houses, which represent about 50% of the population of wizards.
Also going to bring up the Time Turner. She was given a device that could kill her if not used properly, and in the worst case scenario, could cause the universe to collapse due to paradox. Seriously, the power to end all of existence, and you're suggesting that they gave it to an average person who just worked hard?
Hermione is talented. Yes, she works hard, but a lot of it is because her inner perfectionist won't accept anything less, rather than difficulty with the workload. Hard work can only carry you so far. Talent can only get you so far. You need both of them to be exceptional.
Rising Dragon said:
Neville comes across like Hermione does, working his ass off to finally achieve results. Sometimes, hard work only pays off so far, and I daresay a lot of his problems with magic stemmed from his own emotional trauma, because after the Lestranges escaped, he started to improve in magic because he could no longer afford not to. On the other hand, comparing Hermione to Filch is really unfair, because Filch is also suffering from a medical, and most likely genetic condition preventing him from using magic, at which point all the effort in the world won't help him.
Now, in what world does "being perfect" not mean "being the best"? That makes no sense whatsoever. If she's striving for perfection, then yes, she's trying to be the best. No, Hermione doesn't struggle with the curriculum, but that doesn't mean she isn't working her ass off to be the best witch possible. Like you said, she writes way more than necessary for her teachers and does plenty of revisions to her homework. Her knowing more advanced spells is hardly an indication of talent, it just shows she studied beyond her class's level. That's more evidence of working hard, not natural talent. That's the whole point of her characterization early on, that she is a very intelligent girl who studies a massive degree. I read a lot as a kid, often reading books that were not part of my class, does that make me naturally talented? Not a chance in hell.
What ABOUT the Time-Turner? What's it got to do with anything? She showed responsibility enough to not misuse it; that's not an indication of talent. Sure, if someone is only average but shows the maturity and responsibility that proves they won't misuse the Time-Turner, why not?
And what's that about safety? Remember that Hermione was burning herself out through the use of it, coming off as really exhausted and she started missing classes because it was all starting to run together in her mind. That's more proof that her capabilities originate from the sheer amount of effort she was putting in, not from any natural gift for magic. In fact, ignoring that really she was only given it so it can be used as a plot device at the end of the book to save Sirius, the whole thing was showcasing it as a negative aspect of Hermione's character, that she was going overboard on the studying and effort and leaving herself no time for herself, driving herself to exhaustion.
Perfectionism is not a sign of talent. It'd work well with talent, but that's not how Hermione was portrayed.
zerohour said:
All we know about Squibs is that it's a thing. We really can't say much more about it than that. If it's a genetic thing, then magical prowess is directed tied to you natural abilities, or "talent" as some people might call it.
How does mastering magic two years before you're even supposed to start learning it not qualify as talented? If it's NEWT level work, that's saying that she shouldn't be capable of learning it for another two years or so. The average person won't be able to do that, or they would teach it in fifth year. Every time they need a special kind of magic, Hermione is the one they turn two. They have her cast the spells, instead of explaining them so harry can cast them because she's not talented enough to do it herself.
Being the Best and Being Perfect are two different things. Being the Best is comparative. You want to be better than everyone else, and whatever score you get on the test is largely irrelevant as long as it's better than everyone else's score. Being perfect means aiming to get 100 percent regardless of how everyone else does. To use a sports metaphor, the best baseball player can hit the ball about 40% of the time he goes up to bat. a Perfect baseball player would hit the ball every single time.
Hermione works hard because she chooses to work hard, not because she needs to work hard. If she actually needed to work hard, Ron wouldn't be thinking she's crazy for going through so many revisions, or for going way over the minimum requirements for assignments. He'd feel bad because she's having difficulty with the work. She does those things because her standards are insanely high, way higher than anyone else's.
I bring up the Timer Turner because it a demonstration of getting special treatment. You don't give special treatment to the average person, you give it to the exceptional person. The fact that it's super dangerous to use only hammers the fact that she's special in harder. The Time Turner means that McGonagall thought Hermione was capable of handling a course load above and beyond what you would expect from the average student. If they thought the average person could handle taking all of those classes, they'd hand out timeturners at the start of third year, and not bother with having them select classes.
Or just rearrange the schedule so you could take all of them without risking a Time Paradox. You know, if they were sane.
As for Hermione wearing herself out, maybe it's because she was aiming to keep up her insane work pace that caused her to have a breakdown, rather than difficulty with the work. Maybe because she didn't give herself enough time to sleep, maybe because humans are wired for 24 hour days, and changing that will probably mess you up a bit. Maybe it's the stress of potentially causing a paradox and ending the world. In the end, she passed all of her classes, and since she didn't complain about her grades, we can assume that her scores met her high standards, probably Os across the board.
Regarding the wands, Ron had a mismatched wand first year as well, and we never hear about him having unusual difficulties. Hell, he had a broken wand in second year, and he did just fine. I'm willing to accept that it could be a factor, but I hardly think it's the decisive force people seem to think it is. Neville does struggle because of it, but he does well enough that he passes his classes, so it couldn't be that big of a deal. Also, not every class involved using wands so you can't blame his mediocrity in those classes on his wand.
Rising Dragon said:
Oh, good, we're bringing the grades into this. Lemme tell you this, then: since the NEWTs are the endgame of Hogwarts academics, most students take them. Most students pass them, too. So... actually yeah, the average wizard/witch would complete NEWT level stuff. If they study for them, practice them, then by all means they can learn them ahead of time. They're the equivalent of senior year finals, not a PhD or a university thesis or something. If I study for things beyond my level and practice them, then do well on it, that's certainly not a sign of talent in me.
I know the difference between wanting and needing to work hard. That doesn't indicate that she's extremely talented in magic. At most you can call her talented at logic or critical thinking. There's been nothing in the source material to claim or even hint that she's talented at certain or all fields of magic. Everything it HAS indicated is that she's hard-working and studies a lot. From a storytelling perspective, you don't depict someone as naturally talented at everything as someone who studies and practices to an obsessive degree, because it's hard to depict someone like that. From a storytelling perspective, you depict talented people as those who don't HAVE to study or practice to that degree, because it comes naturally to them, to the amazement of others.
This franchise has already shown people like that. Dumbledore. Snape. Voldemort. Harry. The Weasley twins.
Hermione has NEVER been featured in any capacity as having an easy time of things, where she can coast on that talent and not stress herself out over it. And your Time Turner example is no better than your comparisons to Neville and Filch, because the usage of that isn't governed by talent, but by responsibility and maturity. Which Hermione has in spades for the most part. Most students you wouldn't dare hand a Time Turner out because they'd wreak havoc with one. They thought Hermione could handle the usage of one, but as I must point out again: she couldn't. Her insane course load got the better of her in the end. Even if she passed that year, it proved to her she wasn't the exceptionally talented person who can ace all the courses at once with no problems whatsoever.
As for your bringing up Ron, no. After his wand was destroyed he really had to struggle with magic, especially when it backfired on him and made him throw up slugs all night. As for the classes without wands, we only see one of them that he struggled in: Potions. And we know he struggled in it because Snape constantly terrified the boy. That's right back up there with his emotional trauma hampering him.
zerohour said:
No, OWLs are the equivalent of senior exams. They are ORDINARY Wizarding Levels. You are considered Ordinary if you can pass them, just like having a high school diploma is considered completion of you basic education, you can go get a job now. You want more than that, but theoretically, you could get by without it. The NEWTs are the apex of the educational system, ranging somewhere between a college degree and a doctorate, or we would have spent more time hearing Hermione worrying about getting into wizarding college.
Even if that wasn't the case, and NEWTs are the senior exams, she's still the freshman who has enough talent to go right to college. She's two years ahead, minimum, of where she's supposed to be. Again, that isn't average or normal. If it was normal, then EVERYONE would be doing it. There would be no shock that hse was capable of doing that two years early.
As for Harry being talented, he's got one class he does better than Ron. One. Everything else, he was as good as Ron, and Hermione left them both in the dust. He's talented in DADA, I'm not going to deny that, but other than that, he's average.
Hermione is passionate about magic, or studying in general. She gets books for Christmas, because it's something that she loves to do. That is not indicative of struggling with it. You say that showing someone studying is the opposite of talent, but the corrallary to that is that if they have to study, they are inherently inferior to the talented ones., if only to emphasize how gifted that individual is. Hermione does better overall than everyone else. She didn't get a single Average result, despite the fact that you're claiming she IS average, and outperforms three people you list as talented, Harry and the Weasley Twins.
When do we see Hermione struggle? You keep saying that she's struggling, but we never see it. Whenever we see her studying, Ron is always asking WHY she's studying. She's one of his best friends. If she was struggling with schoolwork, they wouldn't ask why she was still studying. They would let her do what she needed to keep up with them. She also wouldn't be the one to correct them on their own homework, or be the first to pull of spells in classes.
The only time I recall her failing in magic was Third Year DADA Exams, when she was told that she failed every course. Other than that, can you name one incident where she failed, when she's seriously struggled in actuality, not just by choosing to study when Harry and Ron are goofing off, or fretting about exams and schoolwork?
You're forgetting that Hermione had to have something other than responsibility and maturity in order to get the Time Turner. She also had to have capability. She needed to be capable of handling the additional course load. People thought she was capable of handling it, and they were right. She passed all of her courses with the same degree of skill she demonstrated in previous years.
You're saying that she is an entirely average girl who happens to work harder than anyone else, who has just as much difficulty as your average students, and you want to give her more work than the rest of the average students? That doesn't make sense. Hermione is special, or her accomplishments would not be notable. They would be considered normal. She wouldn't get special treatment if she wasn't head and shoulders above everyone else.
As for the stress, if you're claiming overwork, remember Hermione had the ability to give herself as much time as she needed. Need to study more? Time Turner. Exhausted? Time Turner. Need to complete the fourth revision before class starts in five minutes? Time Turner. There was nothing preventing her from using the Time Turner in that fashion.
The stress was just as likely to have been causes by other factors. There was a notorious criminal hunting one of her best friends, a friend who turned on her after she got his broom taken away. Another friend was antagonizing her about her choice in pets, and blamed her for the death of his own pet. There were also the soul sucking monsters around the school which she was exposed to more than anyone else because she had more hours in the day. Or it could be she was taking a class from a complete fraud, who repeatedly said she didn't have talent, and didn't have the mitigating factor of a schoolgirl crush.
Did Ron struggle? Not so much first year from what I recall. Second year? Yes, but not to the point where he failed out of class. We would have heard something about it if that was the case, at least in passing as he worries about being kicked out of school, and what his mom would think. I don't think his family would fail to scrounge up the equivalent of fifty bucks to keep their son from failing school. Likewise, EVERYONE knows that the wands chooses the wizard. That means either the wand isn't as big of a deal as everyone seems to think it is, or Ron and Neville's families wanted them to struggle and possibly fail.
...you know what? This argument is getting us nowhere. You're shooting down everything I say, and I'm doing the same to your points. This is getting us nowhere, and isn't doing anything to offer idea on how Hermione
If you want to keep going, I'm happy to start up a thread in the talk section to continue debating. But for the purposes of this idea, whatever degree of talent Hermione possess in canon is now lessened. She had an amount of talent above zero (or she couldn't do magic) and below whatever theoretical limits there are on magical ability, and I'm halving them.
Rising Dragon said:
You seem to have this thing where you equate average to being subpar or bad at something. That's not how average works. But fine, ignore that point if you want.
Yorae Rasante said:
^this.
You are not making Hermione smart but with ordinary abilities. As I mentioned before in the other topic, her first canon show that can be considered talented instead of just fast-learning is the Protean charm in book 5, which we can only count if we take "NEWT-level" as needing more than being extremely smart to learn earlier. Her only other shown skills were learning spells fast - which adds to learning things fast, which comes from her smarts and not from magical talent - and being good at potions (which is not exactly a magical but a chemistry-like talent) so there would be no changes before then.
Hermione is great in the smarts area, if you are talking about the theoretical or following minutiae to do her work as perfect as possible it is her field, but until book 5 we had no proof she had anything else. She learns fast and as perfectly as possible, but her work is just that, learnt earlier and perfectly, NOT better.
You are thus not making her "ordinary but still as smart", but "bad with smarts to try to catch up". If you want to make Hermione a less tsundere Louise, then say it outright.
It doesn't matter what level OWLs and NEWTs are, since they are things everyone does at that age. If she was so great she would be doing them earlier.
You said it yourself. If it wasn't so impressive to do them earlier, everyone would be doing it... yet, well, all Hermione did was learn and cast one spell of that level, it is not like she got the level earlier.
Harry being good at DADA without trying IS talent. He is above average there. All we see of Hermione is her trying to be the best. She is smart and perfectionist, and talented at THAT, not at magic as you are trying to imply. If she does not struggle to study, it does not mean she is talented at magic, it means she is talented at learning.
In other words, making her ordinary but just as smart would change nothing.
Ron dislikes studying. For him getting an average score is good enough. Hermione is a perfectionist. For her being the best is not enough. Not to herself.
As her failure at the DADA at third year proves, since it showed her fear is failing.
And THAT is why her accomplishments are notable to the teachers. Because she studies as hard as she can.
It does not matter if she can use the time-turner to avoid overworking, you clearly did not pay attention to her if you didn't think she'd use it to work MORE instead of relaxing.
Other factors contributing? Yes. Still does not remove that factor.
The reason the argument is getting nowhere is because... I don't see you ever admitting you may be wrong and that, besides her smarts, Hermione has ordinary magic, and thus your idea would either remove her smarts and thus make her someone else or make her weak at magic and not ordinary as you claim.
Replies to latest posts:
@RisingDragon: Being average is not a bad thing, for the average person. Average/Normal/Ordinary people make up the majority of the human race. However, Hermione does not want to be average. She wants to be the best. The average people are the people we see at the sorting ceremony and never hear from them again except in passing. They are mostly irrelevant to the story and are lucky if they end up with bit or minor parts.
@Yorae Rasante
-No, her first display of exceptional magical ability came before the school year started in first year, when she offhandedly mentions to Ron, someone who grew up with magic, that his sspell might not have been a real one, and that all the spells she tried at home worked perfectly. If we brush that off because the Twins were messing with Ron, the first display of exceptional ability is when she is the first one to cast teh levitation charm, before all the other muggle raised who think magic is super cool and want to learn as much as they can, and the magically raised, who grew up with this sort of thing as an everyday thing.
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-OWLs are tests that everyone takes. If you don't do well enough on your OWLs, you CANNOT take the NEWT course. This was a major concern for Harry because he foudn out he hadn't scored well enough on Potions to take the course under Snape's requirements. Again, reinforcing the idea that they are college entry style tests rather than something else.
-Yes, Harry is talented there, I'm not denying that. I specifically said he was talented.
-Ron would probably be fine with an average score, but he gets an above average score on his OWLs. Exceeds Expectations is exactly that. He clearly cares abut his grades to a degree, his family saw to that, just not to the same degree as Hermione. I agree that Hermione is a perfectionist and that she fears failure, my idea was questioning how she would react to no longer being able to attain perfection.
-Again, if studying super hard was all it took to impress teachers, then Hufflepuff would rule the school, and be issued Time Turners as standard equipment at the start of third year. We have an entire House that could be defined as average but hardworking, and she is demonstrably better than them.
-Yes, it is entirely relevant. RisingDragon is claiming that she is mature and responsible enough to handle the Time Turner. If she's not using it properly, that indicates that these are not true. If Bill and Ted can use time travel properly to ace a history exam, Hermione can use it to get enough goddamn sleep.
-The end result I'm aiming for is making her ordinary. Let's suppose there are three dials that determine how well you can do magic. Talent, Understanding, and Effort. Hermione has Understanding and Effort Maxed out, and probably has talent at above average as well, since again, she's outclassing the Houses that Specialize in Understanding and Effort. What I'm doing is turning down the Talent dial so the end result is something approximating Ordinary. I can't turn down the Understanding, because that would make her a dunce, and OoC. I can't turn down the Effort, for the exact same reason. That leaves me only with her innate ability to use magic to adjust, and I'm NOT turning it down to zero.
I'm not making it impossible for her to use magic, I'm not making her the dunce of the class. I'm making it so her Perfect/Above 100% results are now B or C range. Still passing, still enough for the most part to get into and through the advanced classes, but not the perfection that she wants from herself.
Alright, I
THINK I addressed all of your points. If I missed any, let me know and I'll try to get to them later.
