Skip to main content

harry potter - What is Hermione Granger's ethnicity?


In all of the Potter books, there appears to be only one reference to Hermione's skin colour:



They were there, both of them, sitting outside Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlor — Ron looking incredibly freckly, Hermione very brown, both waving frantically at him.
Prisoner of Azkaban, Chapter 4: The Leaky Cauldron



While it would be easy to assume that JKR meant that she's tanned (e.g. from the sun), other writers have suggested that the line above, and lack of other descriptors strongly implies that Hermione is naturally dark-skinned. Zeba Blay, the 'Voices Culture Writer' for Huffington Post even goes so far as to say that it's down to individual readers to make their own judgement on the issue.




"So is the fictional character actually white? Perhaps that's a determination readers should make for themselves." - Italics and bolding mine




Is there any evidence either way? Has JKR ever given an in-universe reason to assume that Hermione is white, black or mixed-race?



Answer



There are a few clues to Hermione's racial background;


Hermione is described (in Prison of Azkaban) as having a 'white face'



‘One moment, please, Macnair,’ came Dumbledore’s voice. ‘You need to sign, too.’ The footsteps stopped. Harry heaved on the rope. Buckbeak snapped his beak and walked a little faster.



Hermione’s white face was sticking out from behind a tree.


‘Harry, hurry!’ she mouthed.


Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - Chapter 21: Hermione's Secret



Note, however that JKR has now gone on record as stating that this was not indicative of her race



“I had a bunch of racists telling me that because Hermione ‘turned white’ – that is, lost colour from her face after a shock – that she must be a white woman, which I have a great deal of difficulty with. But I decided not to get too agitated about it and simply state quite firmly that Hermione can be a black woman with my absolute blessing and enthusiasm.”



Hermione is drawn Caucasian


The US versions of the Harry Potter books had chapter illustrations that were hand-chosen by JKR. Although it's a little hard to see the detailing, in the pictures that contain Hermione, she certainly appears to be white/Caucasian. There's no substantial shading and her colouration appears to be the same as Ron's and Harry's.



enter image description here enter image description here enter image description here


Hermione is JKR


In various interviews, JKR has stated that Hermione is basically a Mary Sue character, essentially herself in fictional form:



Lydon: I was about to say 'are you Hermione?'


JKR: Yeah - w-well - n-n-not ... I mean none of the characters in the books are directly taken from life. Real people did inspire a few of them, but of course once they are on the page they become something completely different. But, yeah, Hermione is a caricature of what I was when I was 11 - a real exaggeration, I wasn't that clever - Hermione is a border-line genius at points - and I hope I wasn't that annoying, because I would have deserved strangling; sometimes she is an incredible know-it-all.



It's by no means definitive, but it seems unlikely that someone portraying themself would change their race.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...
Post a Comment
Read more

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
Post a Comment
Read more

languages - Do we ever see written English in the Star Wars films?

In Empire Strikes Back , we see a transcription of what R2's beeps and bloops mean, but it's not English (sorry for the low quality, it's from the 2004 DVDs): I'd assume it's what Basic looks like when written, but is there some point in the the Star Wars films we see written English instead? (This sort of spun off from a discussion in How do people understand astromech droids? .) Answer At one point there was English but it has been phased out in subsequent versions of the films. Chris Gould at DVD Active did a comparison of all versions of each of the Star Wars films, and in his comparison of Episode 4 , there are a couple of screenshots showing how the power gauge for the Death Star tractor beam was changed. I imagine there are probably more to be found in his other comparisons but I haven't got around to reading those yet.
Post a Comment
Read more

Was the "pure soul" of Harry's what had really hurt Voldemort?

In the Order of the Phoenix, Voldemort possesses Harry, and it hurts. Greatly. I think that Dumbledore explained that it was because Voldemort's rotten soul was incapable of assimilating Harry's pure soul, that Voldemort didn't understand the love and friendship etc that Harry has in his heart. But, I think it was a lie. Remember that in Deathly Hallows, while looking for information regarding Horcruxes, it is discovered that it is in fact possible to merge a soul fragment back, but that the process was extremely painful. Now then, if Voldemort tried to possess Harry, and Harry had a fragment of Voldemort's soul, I think that it could have been the true cause of Voldemort's pain: the fact of having his soul so close of another fragment. I think that Dumbledore knew that fact, but had to lie to Harry because it was inappropriate to let him know that he had one of Voldemort's soul fragments at the moment. Is that right? Or was it truly the pure soul of Harry's...
Post a Comment
Read more