Ron, Hermione and insecurities (this is probably quite long)

[eggplant88 at hotmail.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 4877

>Simon J. Branford 
>The past is unimportant in friendships.

Well that's certainly untrue, the past is the only thing we know 
anything about.

>It is worth noting that Ron also risked his life to save Ginny and 
>was prepared to risk his life for Harry. He sacrificed himself in 
>the chess game in PS and I am not certain that he was sure that he 
>would recover easily from that. In PoA he has a broken leg but still 
>tries to help Harry when they think that Harry's life is at risk 
>after he has attacked Sirius.

Yes, there is no doubt Ron acted very bravely and with great nobility 
on those occasions, that's why it seemed so out of character when he 
started acting like such a petty jealous ass.       

>In GoF Ron has to believe that either Harry lies to him or that 
>Dumbledore is not as powerful as people make him out to be. Either 
>Dumbledore has made a mistake by allowing Harry's name to get into 
>the cup or Harry is refusing to say how he got his name in. Written 
>like this the choice becomes less clear. Do we really want to admit, 
>or even know, that Dumbledore makes mistakes?

You're giving reasons why Ron was an ass, perhaps your theory is 
correct, perhaps not, it doesn't matter, he's still an ass, he still 
unjustly called his best friend a liar. I happen to think that's a 
very big deal, I think it would permanently poison most friendships, 
it's just lucky for Ron that Harry has a forgiving nature. Few people 
are fortunate enough to have a friend as good as Harry and Ron almost 
threw it away.