To still be annoyed that Hermione married Ron?

[ThomasRichard]

I know, the last book came out years ago, but I’m re-reading them now with DS and it’s got me annoyed all over again. He’s a mediocre, sulky man-child, while she’s a brilliantly talented witch. Why would she ever marry him?!

DW knew someone who said Hermione was Indian because Hermione is an Indian name , and therefore she'd been whitewashed in the films.

Dogswithteddies - Ikr? She could be all intellectual about it, delving through history books, investigating unsolved dark mysteries of the wizarding world and secrets of wizarding crime families, uncovering corruption ... and going after the bad guys! JKR pretty, pretty, please?

I could try and write a fanfiction myself about it, but I know it would be rubbish!

So polite.

Hermione is white because EVERY character that is black is explicitly described as being black in the book.

And you know that Rowling specified that EVERY SINGLE black character in the books is black how? How do you know that there aren't any black characters who aren't specifically described as black? There's a roster of black people at Hogwarts?

Oh, right, because a character can only be black if they are specifically described as black. Whereas you don't need to specify that white characters are white.

Again: Hermione can be black or white. JKR - who wrote the fucking books - says that it works either way. Why do some people get so pissed off about this?

PS You do know that Emily Watson isn't really Hermione Granger, don't you?

Emily Watson, ffs. Emma Watson. (Emily Watson isn't Hermione Granger, either).

@Babysharkdoodoodoodoodoodoodoo

Does this mean that Hogwarts has no view on discreet same-sex liaisons?

A very public-school attitude.

YANBU - she’s clearly gay, that’s how I read her anyway when I read HP the first time. Once she stops trying to do the ‘right’ thing all the time she’ll ditxhnRon, and fall in love with a nice girl who deserves her

@amusedbush
I read an incredible one... pretty long... I wonder if it was yours?!

And also one of, I think, Lupin and Sirius if memory serves correctly?

In prisoner of Azkaban it says “Hermione’s white face”

I’ve never known a black person to have a white face

Hermione is white. She's literally described as white.

But the beauty of her character being completely fictional and in no way grounded in reality, is that she can also be black. So who gives a shite?

And this is a sketch Rowling did in the early days. I think pre-publication.

wavy it’s up to you to write that fan fiction! I agree with that, Hermione should have had some spin-off years being a badass independent witch, doing “some good in the world”, as she put it.

I had a thought randomly about Petunia. In the first book, uncle Vernon has overheard talk of Harry Potter (after L+J die), and when wondering if he ought to tell aunt Petunia, there’s the whole thing about never mentioning the Potters, and pretending that she doesn’t have a sister. In Lily’s letter to Sirius, she mentions (shortly before her death) a vase that Petunia had given her for Christmas. So Petunia sent it without telling her husband? She kept in contact with Lily in secret? I feel like there was something more to Petunia, and that there was a Snape-esque side to her treatment of him.

slithytove So when they say that someone has gone green, you expect to see an alien?

Yes, people with darker skin go pale sometimes.

Why everyone getting their panties in a wad over H’s skin colour? If balcknkids read her as black she’s black. If a white kid thinks she’s white the. She’s white. And if the queer kid thinks she’s gay she’s gay. It’s fiction, and subtext is a BIG deal for us non-white non- heterosexuals by the way.

It is important that Othello is black, because his blackness is relevant to the play.

In Harry Potter's world, what is relevant is whether you are a muggle or not, not the colour of your skin.

Yes, it's likely that JKR envisaged Hermione as white when she wrote her. Does it matter? According to the author herself, it doesn't. And it's not relevant to the books. So Hermione can be anywhere on the melanin spectrum.

It's not that hard to understand.

And yes, Hermione deserved better than Ron. She'll be bored silly in no time at all.

White skinned people can go green, at least I certainly can. And pink and blue and brown.

White face does not mean black face. It just doesn’t. Pale would be different but it doesn’t say pale. It says white.

Why does she have to be black? As long as no one has an issue with the actress in the play, which I don’t think they do, what’s wrong with Hermione also being white?

It is weird that people get upset by a black Hermione.

Re-read the books, imagine her as a fiercely intelligent black girl. What's changed? Nothing.

So why the angst?

I always thought the "Hermione is black" thing was metaphorical, because of the racial abuse that Hermione suffers.

TheSeasonOfTheWitch

I haven’t written any really long fics for a while, sadly; I work full time and study part time so that puts paid to any writing for fun!

My stuff is mainly Harry/Draco, Teddy Lupin/James Jr and Albus/Scorpius. Obviously not all in the same universe

No issue with what her skin colour is, more that the books are being misread and Rowling is being disingenuous.

More honest to say that she pictured Hermione as white but that there is no reason she can’t be black and that the actress chosen is the best one to play that character.

what’s wrong with Hermione also being white?

She is also white, in 7 books and 8 films. Does it make a difference that she's black in a play?

x-post!

White skinned people can go green.

Righttttttttttttt.

Look, JKR probably had a white girl in mind when she wrote Hermione. But she described the character loosely enough that you can also imagine a black girl. And her race is in no way relevant to the plot. And JKR has said that she is happy if a black actress plays her, and that it fits the canon. So you can imagine Hermione as white or black.

So what is the problem?

Why does she have to be black?

Nobody has said that she HAS to be black. Just that she CAN be black.

Christ, the amount of shit non-white people have to put up with.

Course she can be - she is fictional
Just like James Bond can be

It’s not integral to the character
I’m just saying she wasn’t originally written that way