Fred & George

[Flying Ford Anglia]

No: HPFGUIDX 8054

Ebony said, on the subject of the Weasley twins:

<<<At first, I thought Fred was the mouth and George was the brain of 
the duo.  But in GoF (Ch. 23, "The Dream"?), when Harry, Ron, and 
Hermione are up in the owlery they overhear a conversation between 
the twins.  Fred wants to go ahead and "convince" Bagman to pay the 
money they won in the World Cup bet; George is saying "it's wrong, 
it's blackmail".  From this, I'd say the blackmail is Fred's idea and 
George is trying to talk him out of it.>>>

IMO, the above is evidence that Fred is the more impulsive and George 
the more cautious of the twins.  I think it was also Fred who asked 
Angelina to the Yule Ball, and perhaps that was another example of 
his bolder character...

I reckon the fact that Fred and George are identical twins will be 
crucial to a future storyline. It's also true, though, that the 
twins' closeness serves to exclude Ron and gives him the need for a 
surrogate brother, which is met in his friendship with Harry Potter.  

If Ron had had just one brother two years older than him, the two of 
them might easily have been closer and Ron might not have felt so 
isolated among the Weasley siblings.  Having twin brothers that age 
meant that he would always be the third party in any relationship 
with them. For various reasons, none of his other siblings could give 
him what he wanted: Ginny is a girl, Percy is rather joyless and 
snooty and Bill and Charlie are much older.  

It's interesting that Ron is now in a friendship triangle that has 
the potential to exclude him in much the same way as his relationship 
with the twins.  Perhaps this is another reason he would be over-
sensitive about a growing relationship between Hermione and Harry or 
any imbalance in the component friendships.

Neil 

(as usual, I bet someone else has already said all of this at some 
point...)