Ron's stubbornness, and a little note on forgiveness

[linman6868 at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 16536

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., eggplant107 at h... wrote:
> "Indigo" <indigo at i...> wrote:
> 
> >It's not really in Ron's nature to seek someone out for an apology 
> >given his previous history. He didn't rush right off to apologize 
> >to Hermione for Crookshanks.
> 
> Huh? Will somebody explain to me why Ron should apologize to 
Hermione.
> He had every reason to think that his beloved pet had been eaten by 
> Hermione's cat even after she had been repeatedly warned of the 
> danger. In this case Ron was 100% in the right Hermione 100% in the 
> wrong.

I noted your concern, but hoped you'd scan my original post again for 
the answer--it's #16324 or something around there.  Anyway in brief, 
it wasn't Ron's *anger* I objected to, it was his *vindictiveness* 
that bothered me.  Was I saying Ron should have generously sacrificed 
his rat to Hermione's cat?  No, that's ridiculous and you're quite 
right.  But it's one thing to be angry with your friend and quite 
another to threaten to end your friendship unless your friend 
apologizes on your terms and on your terms only.

Having had to undertake large tasks of forgiveness on my own account, 
I would add that the act of forgiveness is not so much saying that 
what the other person did wasn't so bad after all.  It's more like 
acknowledging the evil as what it is (no more and no less) and then 
bearing the cost of it.  After all, if it was done to *me*, nobody 
but me can bear that cost, right?  No, it's not fair, but nobody said 
forgiveness was fair, whatever Voldemort asserts ("I want thirteen 
years before I forgive you"--how ridiculous).  :)  And, if I refuse 
to forgive a thing, I may be hurting my friend, but I'm hurting 
myself the most, because it's just sitting there on *my* plate not 
going anywhere and making me miserable, while the person who actually 
did the thing has some moments of respite.  Ron's effort to give 
Hermione as few moments of respite as possible is not, as I see it, 
either a healthy or a just way of dealing with the problem.

Lisa