Hermione

During a recent catch-up on Popsugar, this image of Emma Watson drinking was posted. While some might go, "Hey, 15-year-old actress drinking a beer, that seems right," I screamed at my computer "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! Hermione doesn't drink!!!!!" Before you start telling me, Hermione is an imaginary character and Emma Watson is an actress playing her, I need to say this: Emma Watson is not a person. She only exists in the public world, my world, because she is Hermione. Therefore, I have the right to chastise her for public-un-Hermione-like behaviors.

Okay, okay, I give. I really don't think that, not really. Emma Watson can booze all she wants, as long as she doesn't drink and drive or beat up small animals in the course of doing so. Large animals are totally fine, though. Anyhow, my reaction did get me thinking about the idea of character ownership, especially related to literature characters. I am a huge Harry Potter fan, I admit, and when the movies came out I was a little nervous. In the end, I wholeheartedly accepted the children cast and in fact when I read the books, in my mind's eye I see Rupert Grint, Daniel Radcliffe, and Emma Watson. Thus, my belief that Emma Watson is Hermione. However, I'm not a true literal interpreter. I feel like I own the essence of the stories, but I don't get all in a tizzy when things are changed, like in Prisoner of Azkaban. Cuaron had to change some plot items and added/subtracted side-stories as he saw fit for his interpretation of the original story. I actually felt that Prisoner of Azkaban was the truest adaptation so far, in terms of capturing the feeling of the stories, of Harry's life.

My sister, on the other hand, is a true literal interpreter when it comes to her book/film adaptations. She essentially likes play-acting of what's in her head already. She hates Prisoner of Azkaban. It is her least favorite of all the Harry Potters, including the awful Chamber of Secrets. She also refuses to like the 2005 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice because it cut so much of the book out and because Keira Knightly is NOT Lizzy. Lizzy is actually a character where this ownership trait appears for a lot of people. Case in point: there were webpages devoted to anti-Keira Knightly as Lizzy, boycotts of the film, hate mail... And all because so many women feel that Lizzy is theirs, that she belongs to them, and that she deserves the movie that they have in their heads. For most P and P purists, the 1990s BBC version with Colin Firth hits the spot. It is nearly a line for line match of the novel and an image for image match of the imaginations of readers. Plus Colin Firth as Darcy makes most women weak in the knees. Myself included.

I personally liked the new adaptation. I think the director did a good job of capturing Bennett family life, Lizzy's spirit, and Darcy's love of her. He kept the essence of the novel in the film, which was a slight two hours compared to the eight hour BBC adaptation. It's become my P and P-lite. I watch it when I don't want to sit down for an entire week just for a Darcy fix.

In the end, whether you are an essence purist or a literal purist, there will be some films that fail to live up the reader's imagination at all. And there are some books that make better movies, I'm sure. But reading, unlike films, gives viewers the chance to place a bit of themselves in the interpretation, to imagine, to own the story. It's an amazing byproduct of the reading experience and one of the reasons that I'm a bookworm.

All the same, Emma Watson needs to keep away from the booze and stick to studying. Just like Hermione.