Ron: prejudices, meanness

[Amy Z]

No: HPFGUIDX 16298

Heidi wrote:

>Just a question I'm tossing out here:
>How many of you who forgive Ron's prejudices about giants and house >elves
>because "he grew up in a wizarding family" would be willing to (a) 
> >consider the
>genesis of Draco's seeming prejudices against muggle-born witches & 
> >wizards, and (b) forgive him those?

The truth comes out...Heidi, you don't like Ron because he hates Draco even 
more than Harry does.  Admit it!  <g>

Okay, it's a fair question.  First of all, I think his prejudice against 
giants is negligible--his feelings for Hagrid aren't affected in the 
slightest by his learning that he's half-giant, and he shows no qualms about 
Dumbledore's plans to send envoys to the giants.

But to address your point, I do =not= forgive Ron's prejudices--I just hope 
he'll outgrow them; in fact, my guess is he already has, but is 
exasperatingly slow to say aloud that he's changed his mind, as Lisa and 
others have argued very well.  But they are not on a par with Draco's.  Ron 
harbors reactionary views about house-elves, but in this he is like almost 
everyone else in the wizarding world (which is not to excuse him, but just 
to place his prejudice on a spectrum), and he treats the house-elves he 
encounters with genuine kindness and respect.  =Speaking from canon=, and 
not from an admirably imaginative but entirely speculative hidden story in 
which Draco is a secret good guy, Draco is actively hostile to 
non-purebloods.  Do I need to cite chapter and verse?  On the racism 
spectrum, Ron is your garden-variety white guy who would never say a racist 
word but doesn't get what black folks are complaining about; Draco is a 
junior member of the KKK.

And if we're talking about prejudices, Draco's singleminded devotion to the 
project of getting Buckbeak killed should be added into the mix.  So should 
his unforgivable comment about Cedric and refusal to salute him.  He has 
seen the choice that lies before everyone, and he's sided with Voldemort, 
with glee.  It just isn't comparable to Ron's attitudes.

Meanness:  wow, I thought I had a low tolerance for sarcasm, but I never 
would have characterized Ron as "mean."  Can someone give some specific 
examples, aside from the Yule Ball fight, which I will grant you was a mean 
moment?  A lot of what people are mentioning is hot-temperedness.  He is 
definitely the one with the short fuse, but while that's a problem, I don't 
call it meanness.  I even find it rather endearing, especially because it is 
so often in defense of others--Harry, Hermione, Ginny, Neville--that he 
loses it.  Even most of the shots at himself that so enrage him are really 
about his family--their poverty, their status.

My 2 Sickles,
Amy Z
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