That One Time Hermione Was Crueler Than Umbridge in Harry Potter
The Harry Potter movies have often failed to do justice to the books, but the fifth movie is just about the worst.
Dumbledore’s Army plays a huge part in the whole story, and you’d think that the director would pay more attention to how things went down in the book. Well, David Yates had his own vision and, apparently, didn’t care much for the canon.
Remember how in the movie Cho Chang is the one who betrays her fellow D.A. members and rats out their meeting place to Umbridge? She does it under the effects of the Truth Potion, but still. Cho doesn’t even suffer any consequences (except for Harry breaking up with her, that is).
This whole storyline doesn’t make much sense in the movie, and the reason is that it’s not how it should have been.
In the book, things are much darker. It’s actually Cho’s friend, Marietta Edgecombe, who betrays the D.A., and no Veritaserum is needed in her case. Marietta isn’t a big fan of Harry and the idea, to begin with, and she reluctantly joins the D.A. because Cho talks her into it.
After half a year of scary events, Edgecombe is done with the club and scared for her mom’s career at the Ministry, so she goes to Umbridge herself and gives her the location of the Room of Requirement.
We know that she does this willingly, and her betrayal causes Hermione’s spell to go off, covering Marietta’s face in boils that spell out, “SNEAK.” Hermione is truly something when she means business!
Hermione’s jinx is how the D.A. finds out who the traitor is, and Cho tries to support her friend by saying that she just made a mistake, and this is how her relationship with Harry is brought to its downfall.
Sure, they still break up in the movie, but Cho is made into the villain, which is not fair to her character.
Aside from that, what is really disturbing is Hermione’s behavior. She is the smartest witch of her generation, so we can believe that she knows a few nasty spells. The question is – does Marietta really deserve to have her face permanently disfigured?
After all, she never wanted to be part of the D.A. (Cho made her join), and she was forced to choose between some random classmates and her family. Was she really the bad guy?
Hermione’s choice of punishment resembles the methods of a certain pink-loving cat lady, and it is extremely alarming. It makes sense why Yates didn’t want to show this side of Granger in the movie…