Harry Potter Series Could Finally Let Hermione Granger Be More Than Just the Smart One

Harry Potter Series: The characterisation that happens to girls in stories about exceptionally talented boys has always been something with a template. They are intelligent, capable, usually are the ones who have read the book, packed the right thing, remembered the rule and figured out the answer while everyone was still thinking, and somehow, just like that, their intelligence becomes the entire personality.

Hermione Granger was so much more than that when she was in the books. The Harry Potter films, however, often had the unfortunate job of turning a sprawling story into a few hours of cinema and, in doing so, Hermione’s character could feel compressed into her most immediately recognisable traits: clever, prepared, loyal, brave.

The upcoming Harry Potter series has something the movies simply did not have: time! That could change everything, not necessarily because Hermione needs to be rewritten, but because the series could give itself the chance to actually stay with her and explore the Hermione that was really written.

Harry Potter Series: Hermione Was Never Just the Girl With the Books

Hermione’s introduction makes us reduce her to “the smart one”. The girl who has read ahead, knows the spells, is constantly correcting her friends, is initially desperate to follow the rules, but the interesting thing about Hermione is how quickly the story complicates the image.

She is a girl who learns that being right does not always mean being good; she can be judgemental, stubborn, controlling, frightened, deeply emotional while desperately trying to behave rationally, and that is precisely where Hermione becomes interesting because she is not compelling because she gets good grades but because she has to figure out what to do with all that intelligence when the world stops making any sense, which is a much bigger story.

The Movies Sometimes Turned Her Intelligence Into a Superpower

There is a strange irony in Hermione’s film portrayal. Emma Watson’s Hermione was iconic; there is absolutely no denying that. The performance gave the character its warmth, wit, vulnerability and a kind of determined firecracker energy that made her instantly loved.

The films, however, had to make choices: the entire pieces of Hermione’s inner life, relationships and development had to be condensed, altered or removed, and sometimes the result was a Hermione who was too competent. 

Since the surrounding material remains missing, the audience does not always get to sit with why Hermione behaves the way she does. She is interesting because she is a teenage girl trying to understand who she is while being repeatedly placed in situations where being clever is not enough, and the series could finally have room for that.

Imagine Hermione Having More Space to Be Wrong

This would perhaps be the most exciting possibility. Let Hermione be wrong even emotionally; let her misunderstand people; let her believe that if she works hard enough, prepares enough, she can control what happens next because that is such a painfully teenage thing to believe. 

Hermione enters Hogwarts with an almost desperate faith in knowledge, but then Hogwarts throws in dragons, prejudice and evil, and suddenly there is not always an answer in the book. That particular evolution deserves time. The series could show how Hermione slowly understands that being the smartest in the room does not mean being the one who understands everything.

Hermione Cares About Injustice

One of the most fascinating parts of Hermione’s character is that her intelligence eventually turns into something bigger than academic achievements. She cares about the injustices; she sees systems that other characters accept as normal and asks why they are normal.

The film touches this aspect of her character, but a television adaptation has the opportunity to explore the uncomfortable parts too because Hermione does not always understand the people she is trying to help and that is important. Her activism can be passionate and admirable while also being naive, presumptuous or flawed. The contradiction makes her human. The new adaptation has a chance not to polish the character into a perfect progressive teenage heroine who always has the correct political analysis.

The New Harry Potter Series Has a Chance to Give Hermione Her Full Story

There is a permanent temptation with adaptations to compare every new version to the one before it. The films are highly appreciated and loved; Hermione’s portrayal is beloved; Emma Watson’s performance is inseparable from the character for an entire generation.

The new series does not need to compete with that. It can actually do something different; it can take the Hermione we already know and open the door wider and let us see the overachiever becoming a friend, the girl who always had answers sit with a question.

Perhaps that is the Hermione story the films never really had enough room to tell because Hermione Granger was never merely the smart one; she was a girl who believed that if she learned enough, prepared enough and cared enough, perhaps she could make the world make sense.

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