Ron's stubbornness

[linman6868 at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 16324

Hi!

Since I last posted on this topic, so many excellent points have been 
made that I feel the need to refine my position a bit.  So here goes:

I was the one who said:  "The boy can't admit he's wrong to save his 
life."  Several people argued back that Harry and Hermione come in 
for their share of this besetting sin.  Which is true.  In my attempt 
to focus solely on Ron this might not have been clear.  And, after 
all, it isn't a very rare failing is it?  I have it myself.  :)

So--

Re the Crookshanks War:  Penny's helped me out on this one a bit, but 
I'll draw the trajectory of the fight and pull out of it what shows 
up.  At the start, Ron gets angry with Hermione for buying 
Crookshanks and then taking an arguably cavalier attitude about its 
danger to Scabbers.  His frustration mounts as he watches her dismiss 
his concerns ("Don't mind Hermione, Lavender; she doesn't think other 
people's pets matter very much"); and he is aghast that she would 
rather think the best of her pet than help him protect his.  There's 
the Big Fight, the silence, the rediscovery of Scabbers, with the 
result that Hermione and Ron are both right:  C. is not evil, and C. 
is after Scabbers.  No one could have predicted this outcome, so both 
Ron's and Hermione's jumbly thoughts and feelings can be excused to 
some extent.

To some extent.  Ron's *anger* might be justified, but his 
*vindictiveness*?  After the Big Fight, it is no longer merely an 
issue of Hermione's cavalier attitude; Ron is now on a mission to 
punish her by suspending his friendship ("Can't you give her a 
break?" "No.  If she'd just say she's sorry...but she'll never admit 
she's wrong, Hermione...").  In my experience, one is most infuriated 
by the vices of others that one happens to share the most.  

Further, note that when Hagrid chides Harry and Ron, they both squirm 
but IIRC Ron doesn't do anything about it.  When the Firebolt turns 
out to be fine, Ron says, "See, Hermione?  There wasn't anything 
wrong with it!" effectively denying that she had a right to worry.  
When, toward the end of PoA, Hermione bursts into tears and throws 
her arms around him--"Oh Ron, I'm really, really sorry about Scabbers-
-"...he says, "Oh, well, he was old.  And he was a bit useless.  You 
never know, Mum and Dad might get me an owl now."  As a piece of 
fumbling magnanimity this speech is okay and even a little cute, but 
as a substitute for saying, "It's okay, Hermione.  And I'm sorry I 
threatened our friendship over it"--it doesn't wash.

The point is that, all the vicissitudes of his angers aside, Ron 
recoils from *saying* the words he ought to.  There's no excuse for 
anybody for not admitting outright that they are wrong when they know 
the truth--the difficulty of it notwithstanding.

OTOH, Ron's using Crookshanks as a litmus for his new owl is a very 
graceful non-verbal way of acknowledging Hermione's insistence that 
Crookshanks isn't evil.  Thanks to whoever pointed this out.  I'm 
very proud of Ron in this scene.  

Re the Fight With Harry:  There's no way to argue that Harry didn't 
do his part to make the fight a misery to them both.  I know after 
the fireside scene I was saying under my breath, "Geez, Harry, go 
easy, huh?"  When Harry "lay fuming...for a long time and didn't hear 
[Ron] come up to bed," we are left to imagine how miserable Ron is, 
down there in the empty common room.  

Then because of the fight, Ron doesn't know what's coming in the 
first task, so the sight of those dragons must have been a pretty 
potent cure for his case of envy.  

It's pretty clear, even by looking solely through Ron's point of 
view, that Harry and Ron have *both* something to answer for 
concerning their protracted fight.  But I stand by what I said before 
especially about the aftermath:  Ron's anxious, after the nervous 
reconciliation, to recoup his self-esteem, so he scorns Hermione for 
her realism--a pretty handy defense which he's made use of before.  
And IMO he spends the rest of the book trying to live it all down.  

Ron seems through these last two books to be making half-formed 
attempts to take the mature course.  It's not as if he can't be 
*shown* that he ought to--apologize, give someone his/her due, 
whatever.  But his successes at bringing it off are often abortive 
and colored with his thirst to get himself justified again as quickly 
as possible.  Like I said, these things really infuriate me about 
Ron, but at the same time they make me ready anytime anywhere to play 
the fight song when he even halfway gets it right.

Speaking of, I wonder if the Houses have fight songs?

Lisa