Poor Hermione...

This spring break, my roommate and I eagerly checked Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows on tape out from the library in order to survive a 23-hour-long car ride from Maine to Georgia.

We turned onto the highway and popped the CD into the player, and I was immediately enthralled by Jim Dale’s deep voice and wonderful British accent. The characters sounded just like I imagined they always would.

All of the characters except Hermione, that is.

I acknowledge the incredibly difficult task of having to create appropriate and distinct voices for each and every character in the book. I know that it must be extremely difficult for a man in his seventies to do the voice of a teenage girl, and because of this, I will overlook the raspy nature Hermione’s voice.

Once I get past the fact that Hermione sounds like a chronic smoker, however, I still cannot ignore the fact that she sounds relentlessly passive, whiney, and desperate. Jim Dale clearly resorted to female stereotypes when creating the voice of Hermione.

“Har-eeee!” This is what it sounds like every time Hermione says Harry’s name, and I shudder whenever I hear it. About halfway through the book everyone in the car, including myself, began imitating her every time she spoke, the “y” sound in Harry’s name becoming more and more elongated each time. We were too busy making fun of her to hear any of the important things she had to say.

Hermione, for all her know-it-all tendencies and occasionally annoying anxiety, is undoubtedly one of the smartest females in the history of fiction, and Jim Dale’s interpretation of her does her a huge disservice.