Throughout
the series we see a development in Hermione from a student who toes the line as
far as rules are concerned to blatantly leading a group of students to breaking
them. Hermione is usually the voice of reason amongst the trio and in general
amongst others, attempting to sway their actions or openly scolding them after
they are done. This is exemplified in many instances but here are a few: she tells
Ron he’s not supposed to do magic on the Hogwarts Express in Sorcerer’s Stone, she criticizes Harry
when he keeps using the Prince’s potion book to cheat in Half-Blood-Prince, and the fact that she is assigned a prefect of
Gryffindor whose job it is to enforce the rules in Order of the Phoenix.
Although
she may not present herself as a rule breaker, if the instance calls for it she
is willing to break the rules for a good reason. The breaking of rules
escalates in severity as the books go along. A first example is brewing and
using the Polyjuice Potion to try and find out if Draco is the heir of
Slytherin in Chamber of Secrets. Next
she uses the time turner to save Buckbeak and Sirius in Prisoner of Azkaban. In my eyes the transformation is completed
when she organized the formation of the D.A. in Order of the Phoenix. This was done right under Umbridge’s nose;
breaching decrees that she had made which could take away the thing Hermione
loves most which is her schooling.
These
actions served to help others by saving lives, or prepare them to defend their
lives in the case of the D.A. All of this leads me to believe that it is in
general good to follow rules, because they have more than likely been made for
a just reason. However if the correct situation arises those rules may be
broken for a greater good. This is exemplified many times throughout our own history,
but I’ll use the idea of civil disobedience as described by Thoreau used by
Ghandi in India and Martin Luther King Jr. the United States as specifics. Though
there are times when the definition of greater good is blurred, fortunately Hermione
has a good moral compass leading her to break the rules justly more and more as
the books go on, a true transformation from the beginning.
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