Someone doesn’t become a main character just because you write from her POV and pin a literal Hero badge to her chest. You gave her toy problems to challenge, children to fight, and then killed her off before she found something to protect or accomplished anything of note, just to motivate the real, male main character. She’s a fridge death.
...unless and until she returns from the dead, in which case you’ll have used her death to motivate her. Gosh, I’m embarrassed to have forgotten that death doesn’t have to be forever. Even the introduction of the Blood-Cooling Charm wasn’t enough of a clue.
She died at age twelve. There’s a limit to how much she could have accomplished—frankly, we’re well past the point where accomplishments of preteens are straining the suspension of disbelief in this story, I’m just accepting it on the grounds that any story is entitled to one ludicrous premise.
I’m currently expecting that, once she wakes up, Hermione’s firsthand experience of death will drive her to rediscover the Philosopher’s Stone, not to pay off Harry’s debts, but to end death altogether. Harry’s quest is to defeat the symbolic Death at Azkaban, and Draco is apparently supposed to heal Slytherin House and end the prejudice against Muggleborns, however one would do that. So I hope you’re wrong about that limit, because it’ll make for a depressing ending; there’s no shortage of problems to solve and no adults stepping forward to tackle them.
You gave her toy problems to challenge, children to fight, and then killed her off before she found something to protect or accomplished anything of note
That’s precisely it, well put.
I’m not very happy about this death because it’s not like Hermione the character couldn’t possibly go anywhere any more, or her relationship with Harry for that matter. All that getting invested in her, all that development and “self-actualisation”, and it ultimately ends in a “not your fault” for Harry? It may get extra points on LW for being “realistic” and allowed to happen, but I don’t care; as a story I find it, well, somewhat unfulfilling.
EDIT: actually, Hermione being a girl isn’t any part of what personally bothers me here (my feminist goggles are almost nonexistent). It’s the killing off of a promising character we were invested in before they achieved even a fraction of their potential.
Someone doesn’t become a main character just because you write from her POV and pin a literal Hero badge to her chest. You gave her toy problems to challenge, children to fight, and then killed her off before she found something to protect or accomplished anything of note, just to motivate the real, male main character. She’s a fridge death.
...unless and until she returns from the dead, in which case you’ll have used her death to motivate her. Gosh, I’m embarrassed to have forgotten that death doesn’t have to be forever. Even the introduction of the Blood-Cooling Charm wasn’t enough of a clue.
She died at age twelve. There’s a limit to how much she could have accomplished—frankly, we’re well past the point where accomplishments of preteens are straining the suspension of disbelief in this story, I’m just accepting it on the grounds that any story is entitled to one ludicrous premise.
I’m currently expecting that, once she wakes up, Hermione’s firsthand experience of death will drive her to rediscover the Philosopher’s Stone, not to pay off Harry’s debts, but to end death altogether. Harry’s quest is to defeat the symbolic Death at Azkaban, and Draco is apparently supposed to heal Slytherin House and end the prejudice against Muggleborns, however one would do that. So I hope you’re wrong about that limit, because it’ll make for a depressing ending; there’s no shortage of problems to solve and no adults stepping forward to tackle them.
If she gets more time on this planet, the upper bound of what she can do will of course increase.
That’s precisely it, well put.
I’m not very happy about this death because it’s not like Hermione the character couldn’t possibly go anywhere any more, or her relationship with Harry for that matter. All that getting invested in her, all that development and “self-actualisation”, and it ultimately ends in a “not your fault” for Harry? It may get extra points on LW for being “realistic” and allowed to happen, but I don’t care; as a story I find it, well, somewhat unfulfilling.
EDIT: actually, Hermione being a girl isn’t any part of what personally bothers me here (my feminist goggles are almost nonexistent). It’s the killing off of a promising character we were invested in before they achieved even a fraction of their potential.