Another thing I don't get about the Harry Potter Series

At the Hogwarts' School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, students are sorted into one of four houses, based on their strongest quality vis-a-vis the qualities exemplified by the houses. The most cunning and, let's say, morally flexible students go to Slytherin House. The most courageous students go to Gryffindor House (in other words, the cool jock House of Hogwarts). The brainiest students go to Ravenclaw House (the nerds). And, the most hardworking students go to Hufflepuff House (Reject House alert! Reject house alert!). The magical world, at least at Hogwarts, assumes that there are four types of qualities by which students should be streamed - cunning, courage, brains, effort. Nothing on kindness, nothing on technical skill, nothing on interpersonal skills. That's fine. For the purposes of this post, we can ignore all that.

In the Philosopher's Stone, Harry Potter proved that you can pick the House into which you are Sorted. The Sorting Hat, if you don't recall, wanted to place Harry into Slytherin - which would help him achieve Great Things, apparently - but he didn't want to go to Slytherin. Instead, the Sorting Hat sent him to Gryffindor. Fair enough. As it turns out through the series, Harry was one of the most courageous people in the Potter-verse. As were the Weasleys. And Neville "Badass" Longbottom (nickname added by me). And the various supporting characters - Draco Malfoy in Slytherin, for example.

There are, however, anomalies which require deeper thought. For instance, one thing that has always bugged me is the Sorting of Hermione Granger. For those of you who don't recall, Hermione Granger is played by Emma Watson, whose gratuitous picture can be found below.

Lovely

Hermione Granger was called, "The smartest witch of her age" by Remus Lupin, werewolf-turned-teacher-turned-emo werewolf. She gained an Outstanding in all her subjects at the Ordinary Wizarding Levels (OWLs) except for Defence Against the Dark Arts, whereby only Harry got an Outstanding. The wizarding world is strange for examinations - apparently only the best person in the class gets an Outstanding. Because, of course, two students can't be Outstanding at a particular subject. (Evidence: In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Ron congratulates Harry on his Outstanding OWL for Defence Against the Dark Arts and says, "Knew you'd be top in Defence Against the Dark Arts." This statement implies that only the top students gets an Outstanding. Have I overthought this? No shit, Captain Obvious).

Now, Hermione, on the other hand, scored 10 Outstandings and an Exceeds Expectations in Defence Against the Dark Arts. Hermione got an Outstanding for Astronomy, Care of Magical Creatures, Charms, Herbology, History of Magic, Transfiguration, Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, Muggle Studies and Potions. This means that she was the best student in 10 out of 11 subjects (she walked out on Divinity) at Hogwarts. By this, we have to ask ourselves - why the hell was she Sorted into Gryffindor rather than Ravenclaw?

Nitpicky point: Neville Longbottom scored an Outstanding for Herbology as well, giving us two Outstandings in Herbology. This clearly contradicts Ron's statement earlier. Again, picking at nits here but consistency would be nice. 

The easy answer, or rather, implication - in my less than humble opinion - is that she was braver rather than smarter. Hence, her courage was her stronger quality and, consequently, there you go - Gryffindor. Thus, all the 'brainy' students in Ravenclaw weren't as smart as Hermione Granger and yet, she got placed into Gryffindor. Now, if she was really braver than she was smarter and considering that she was the smartest of them all - in a way that the entire Harry Potter series from Hermione's point of view could have been called "Hermione Granger and the Time I Saved Two Idiots from a Crisis" - surely she must have been the most powerful and the most capable of ALL the Hogwarts' students. Yes, Harry Potter could be braver than she, but for him to be the leader and whatever, the difference in quantum between his bravery and her bravery must outmatch the difference in quantum between her brains and his brains. Given what we know about Hermione's brains, I find that difficult to believe.

See, let's consider the implications on a deeper...

Oops! Distraction!

Where were we? Okay. Let's consider the implications on a deeper level. Taking the fact that the series was, after all, called "Harry Potter and the..." we therefore take the assumption that Harry was braver than Hermione more so than Hermione was smarter than Harry. If that were true, how bloody brave must Harry be? Yes, Harry was courageous. He constantly put himself on the line, when fear really would have crippled any ordinary non-Chosen-One teenager. He managed to walk himself to be killed by Voldemort. And he had the courage to return from the Deathly Hallows to the real world (Movie Kaki Karen and I have disagreements about this, but I think it stems from differences in the way we perceive the state of death). Would Hermione have done it? Maybe. Maybe not. We'll never know - though she proved her courage by not crumbling under torture at the Malfoys when Bellatrix Lestrange was torturing her as well as the countless other times she saved two other Idiots from a Crisis. She was courageous, at the very least.

So, Hermione was certainly not average as a courageous person. She was clearly the opposite of Courage, the Cowardly Dog (had to, I apologize). Now, let's consider Harry's OWL grades (the best available benchmark for brains that we have in the Potter series. Nitpick: I refuse to consider it a legendarium until JK Rowling comes up with an entire history of how the world of magic was created and formed and evolved to the present state). Harry scored an Outstanding for Defence Against the Dark Arts, an Exceeds Expectations for Care of Magical Creatures, Charms, Herbology, Potions and Transfiguration, an Acceptable for Astronomy and he failed Divination and History of Magic, scoring a Poor and a Dreadful respectively. Now, this is likely me being patronizing here, but those are the grades of a distinctly average student. It's essentially one A, five Bs, one C, one D, and one E. Alphabet soup.

So, Harry is likely an average student. Unless all other Hogwarts students really suck. Now, we've agreed that Hermione Granger was not a person with average courage. Indeed, we must accept the premise that given that she was Sorted into Gryffindor, her courage must surpass her brains or otherwise, she would have been Sorted into Ravenclaw. We come to this - Hermione's brains are amazing. Harry's brains are average. Harry's courage is amazing. Hermione's courage is far above average. How is she not the most powerful of Dumbledore's Army, with Harry as the Symbol?

Wouldn't you want your leader to look like this?

Look, if she was sorted into Ravenclaw, as I argue she should have been, then fine. I can see the case for Harry Potter as the most powerful. And it's not like she's just book smart. I mean, I fully recognize that someone who scores an A for a given subject will not necessarily be as successful in that subject when it comes to practice. I get that. Potter makes this point too in the Order of the Phoenix, on one of his supremely emo rants:-

"You don't know what it's like! You - neither of you - you've never had to face him, have you? You think it's just memorising a bunch of spells and throwing them at him, like you're in class or something? The whole time you know there's nothing between you and dying except your own - your own brain or guts or whatever - like you can think straight when you know you're about a nanosecond from being murdered, or tortured, or watching your friends die - they've never taught us that in their classes, what it's like to deal with things like that..."

Fair point. Excellent point, actually. I can only offer counter examples. Hermione was involved in a shitload of battles with Harry from the Philosopher's Stone up to the Deathly Hallows. She dealt with Nagini, she dealt with Dementors, she dealt with Bellatrix Lestrange, she dealt with werewolves, she dealt with Death Eaters, and that sort of thing. She was also capable of putting things into practice. And this doesn't include all the other times her quick thinking got them out of a jam. Consider in Deathly Hallows, when the trio were visiting Xenophilius Lovegood and the Ministry of Magic came to capture them - she covered Ron in the Invisibility Cloak (as she knew that they thought he was supposed to be sick at home with Spattergroit), she blasted the floor so that the Ministry people could see Harry there (thus making Xenophilius' report true and getting him out of trouble) and she Disapparated them away. Bloody brilliant. Quick thinking. The only real difference in terms of challenges faced between she and Harry is that Harry fought Voldemort. That's it. 

Harry has the advantage against Voldemort because Harry is an anti-Voldemort bomb. Harry is himself a Horcrux. If Voldemort tries to kill Harry, Voldemort will kill the bit of Harry that is Voldemort's soul first. Next, and here's the fucking kicker. Harry's blood runs through Voldemort's veins, following events from the Goblet of Fire. Harry's blood has Lily's (his mom) protection, which protects Harry from any Voldemort spell essentially. So, as long as Voldemort is alive with Harry's blood in him, Voldemort keeps Lily's protection alive, thereby protecting Harry from Voldemort. So, essentially, Voldemort has neither the incentive (if he knew that Harry was a Horcrux) nor the ability to kill Harry. Convenient. You'd think Voldemort would have figured this shit out after having failed to kill Harry as a baby, in the Philosopher's Stone, in the Goblet of Fire, in the Order of the Phoenix and twice in Deathly Hallows. More so, after he Avada Kedavra'ed Harry in the Forbidden Forest towards the end of the Deathly Hallows. 6 times Voldemort failed to kill Harry. The Einstein Insanity quote comes to mind here. Voldemort isn't quite the rocket scientist, is he?

Hermione does not have that sort of cheat code. Now, if you were to face any other Death Eater except Voldemort himself, you'd have to pick Hermione. You just have the better chance. You lose some bravery points, but you gain a shit load of brain points. And, you have a massive distraction:-

Check out those pins. 

No, really, check out those pins. 

Anyway, the whole premise of Harry Potter has an asterisk to me, founded on the plothole that Hermione Granger was Sorted into Gryffindor. There's no way she shouldn't have been the most powerful student in the fight against Voldemort.

Now, what if she were Sorted, appropriately in my opinion into Ravenclaw? She wouldn't have been close to Harry and Ron. Harry and Ron, the Two Idiots who Get Into a Crisis, would find themselves lost and potentially dead without her brains. Ron would have continued dating Lavender or something, or maybe find himself some other girl. Harry and Ron may have gotten a third companion, sure, from Gryffindor, but no way that person is as smart as Hermione. No way they find all the horcruxes, solve all the shit that goes on in Hogwarts and all that jazz without Hermione. The only thing that would probably remain the same is that Hermione would still score top grades for everything, maybe even Defense Against the Dark Arts. And she would probably be the Boss of them. 

And she would still be lovely.