Love Those Weasleys [re: Notes on the Weasleys and their Hardships]

[Indigo]

No: HPFGUIDX 21167

>>ARTHUR WEASLEY According to Molly, has been "held back" by being 
>>actually interested in the nowhere job of protecting Muggles. No-
>>one else is particularly interested in >>protecting Muggles or 
>>improving Muggle- wizard relations, so clearly not much money gets 
>>funneled into that branch of the Ministry (although they obviously 
>>have to pay lots of Obliviators to protect *wizards* from 
>>*Muggles*). Arthur is willing to pay the price, and have his family 
>>pay the price, for that interest and integrity, but it doesn't stop 
>>him being tired >>and worried most of the time we see him. 

Interesting.  I also think they like their life in the Burrow and 
think the rich are a bit snobby and shallow.  The Malfoys prove this 
supposition, too. 

>>MOLLY WEASLEY Has a fierce family patriotism. Her practical 
>>ingenuity holds the family's finances together, and her loyalty 
>>makes her a tigress when the sneering Daily Prophet comes to call. 
>>Worries as much as Arthur, but takes it out in energetic work and 
>>chivvying her children. Wants her children to succeed but not to 
compromise the Weasley name. 

She's proud of all her children with the possible exception of the 
twins. She's being a little myopic about them developing their 
natural talents.  She seems to want a houseful of MoM boys,  and is 
not really happy her sons have shown independence to some degree. 

However, her worry does tend to show itself in her temper, too, and 
in her tendency to be impulsive.  She actually believed Rita 
Skeeter's article in Daily Prophet and treated Hermione coolly at 
best until Harry told her Skeeter was just making up nasty stories.  
Considering Ron thinks well of Hermione and Harry does too, even the 
fact that she doesn't know the girl well should not have evoked this 
sort of a negative reaction.  


>>BILL WEASLEY Works for the *bank*. And what the heck is a "charm-
>>breaker" at Gringotts? 

My guess is that it's someone who breaks hexes and charms on money 
that has either been spelled by a wizard who is deceased, or money 
that was stolen and hexed to prevent it being taken back to its 
rightful owners.  

>>He tells Molly that the goblins don't care how he dresses "as long 
>>as he brings home plenty of treasure." Does this mean he's a 
>>forecloser or something? Does "bringing treasure home" 
>>mean bringing it to the bank or bringing it to himself by working 
>>hard at the bank? I suspect it's the former, because of the 
>>word "treasure." 

Same here!  I doubt he's a forecloser.  The Weasley heart is too big 
for something that cruel, if necessary.  Bill seems far too laid back 
in my mind.  

>>But I don't see "cool" Bill Weasley taking up anything in the tax-
>>collecting line. Maybe he raids Egyptian tombs like Indiana Jones. 
>>He's obviously acquired the ponytail and earring since his Hogwarts 
>>days, since Molly tells him his hair's "getting ridiculous". Is 
>>this typical firstborn behavior, to sort of kick loose once he 
>>leaves school? 

Definitely it is!  He's also trying, to some degree, to distance 
himself from Arthur's name.  Yes, he's a Weasley, with Weasley pride, 
but  Arthur is thought of as "that poor Muggle-loving guy," and 
clucked at with a mixture of confusion and pity, often.  

>>Not, I think, in a rebellious way exactly; I think Bill has a good 
>>humor about himself, and doesn't take himself so seriously that his 
>>appearance is an all-important statement. He seems pretty well-
>>adjusted, if that term really means anything. 

>>CHARLIE WEASLEY According to Oliver Wood, he "could have played 
>>Quidditch for England if he hadn't gone off chasing dragons." 

Feh!  Oliver is Quidditch Obsessed.  Charlie, like his brother and 
his father, went into a line of work that called him.  Dragon-tending 
is too dangerous and intense an activity for him to be in that line 
of work if he loved Quidditch so mcuh, or had other opportunities. 
That's a labor of love to my mind.

>>Like Arthur, he seems to have pursued his interests regardless of 
>>whether they'll pay off financially, like those of us who sell our 
>>souls to get a post-graduate degree and become a Starving Artist or 
>>Starving Writer. :)

Is Dragon-tending a poor-paying job? I had the impression that it was 
the opposite, due to its high risk nature, and the fact that it 
requires a good many wizards to get a spell to WORK on a dragon's 
magic-resistant hide.  

>> Is Charlie a kind of Jane Goodall, or is he working toward a CoMC 
>>degree of some sort? 

I don't think so.  

>>PERCY WEASLEY Percy seems to me to be the quintessential 
>>Scholarship Boy, what Richard Rodriguez calls a child who plunges 
>>headlong into academia and worships authority so as to escape from 
>>the hardship of his background (in Rodriguez's case, he was from a 
>>working-class Hispanic family).

Molly would be utterly mortified if this were the case. That house 
is full to bursting with love, and Molly makes sure everyone is so 
well looked after.  And it's obvious she encourages her sons to 
follow their hearts, not necessarily their wallets -- even if she's 
not happy with Bill's long hair and earring.

>> Percy seeks to be the Perfect Customer Service Representative with 
>>everyone he deals with, doling out advice and information, teaching 
>>or learning with equal alacrity where it might earn him credit. The 
>>members of Percy Lovers Unite! may have a soft spot for Percy, but 
>>I doubt Percy has a soft spot for himself. At this moment (post-
>>GoF), if he's not sitting in Azkaban for offing BCSr. (whoever 
>>posted that gave me thrills and chills),

YIKES!  Given Fudge would want to cover up that Barty Junior the 
Death Eater, Percy would make a good fall guy, yes.
>> he's probably sitting by the Weasley fireside with his hands 
>>clasped miserably between his knees, his mother dosing him with 
>>cups of chamomile tea and Ginny trying to badger him into a 
>>chess  game.

Hopefully he's learned something about being such a martinet with 
regard to his job.  Strictness is no good by itself, without empathy 
and intuition.
  
Percy does have his human side, though.  We saw it in GoF when Ron 
came up out of the lake, and when he got bashful about his 
girlfriend.  I personally need more scenes like that to become 
anything resembling sympathetic to him. 

>> FRED and GEORGE WEASLEY Fred and George, in a backlash against 
>>Percy's Scholarship-Boyism, have put their considerable wit to work 
>>being the zaniest and most mischievous rascals ever to set foot in 
>>Hogwarts. They earn their mother's wrath for dawdling about their 
>>OWLs, and they plan to become entrepreneurs of joke candies. 
>>However, as many have pointed out, they are always generous when 
>>they have anything to be generous with, and they notice other 
>>people's hardships more than any of the other 
>>characters except perhaps Dumbledore. It's one of the twins who 
>>worries grimly about their parents' being able to afford all those 
>>Lockhart books, and it's usually the twins who notice Harry's 
>>various social plights and lend him a hand. These characteristics 
>>intensify their anger against Ludo Bagman for cheating them, and 
>>test their diplomacy in dealing with him. They also have the 
>>Weasley pride; Harry has to threaten them with a hex 
>>before they'll take the Triwizard winnings off his hands. 

Spot-on.  They also have the Weasley temper, but are quick-burning 
about it as opposed to long-stewing about it like their younger 
brother. 

>>RONALD WEASLEY I've posted a lot on Ron in the last several weeks, 
>>so I won't cover the same ground twice...it's probably obvious by 
>>now that I really like Ron. 

>>Same here, though I've stood on the  "Hey, Ron needs to grow up and 
>>get his act together" platform, I reallly do like and feel for the 
>>kid.  

>>We see that what he tells Harry on their first train trip to 
>>Hogwarts is true: His brothers before him have all run the spectrum 
>>of How To Carry Proudly the Weasley Name, and he's going to have a 
*very* difficult time trying to find his own niche without being 
>>either a cookie-cutter or a loser. 

Yes.  This is one of the reasons I most empathize with Ron.  I dealt 
with the  "Oh, you're ______'s kid sister"  angst in high school. 
During the years when you most need to establish you're YOURSELF and 
that your own personality traits matter,  it hurts to be compared to 
older siblings, especially if they're very successful. 

>>He shares Charlie's love of Quidditch, but like Charlie doesn't 
>>regard it as a career option, and it's not mentioned that he's even 
>>tried out for a spot on the Gryffindor team. 
>>
I'm inclined to think he probably didn't try out for one.  I think he 
enjoys Quidditch; and the mirror of Erised showed him as Head Boy 
with a Quidditch Cup, but I think all of that was just  Ron's 
fantasy. He wants to be as good as ALL his older brothers, which 
would make him better because he'd top Bill, Charlie and Percy, all 
together, not one at a time.  

>>He plays lots of chess with Percy, and seems to have the better 
>>strategical mind, but like Fred and George is irritated by Percy's 
>>obsequiousness. Unlike F&G, however, Ron's wit is too dry to put to 
>>active use playing pranks, and so doesn't have much of a way to let 
>>off his irritation in some good-old-fashioned fun. He'd probably 
>>excel if he acted like Percy, but he can't stand Percy, so he 
>>doesn't work at his studies. 

He also is irritated by Hermione's  constant  "You should study!" 
and "Doesn't anyone ever read  ?" protestations. Ron's one of those 
people who will do the opposite of what is demanded of him, just to 
feel independent.

>>He's very slowly tumbling to the fact that if he's going to find 
>>that niche of his, he's going to have to do it himself; it's not 
>>going to fall into his lap. Ron has a challenge ahead of him; and 
>>I'm really curious to find out what JKR will do with him next. 

He needs to get over his "everything I own is rubbish"  idea first I 
think 

>>GINNY WEASLEY Okay, it's been pretty well-established that Penny 
>>Doesn't Like Ginny <g>, and that the main reason Ginny's fans are 
>>mostly in the closet is that, well, that's where Ginny is most of 
>>the time, too. In my view, she has less of a challenge ahead of her 
>>than Ron; she's a girl, and whatever that means, it most certainly 
>>means that there aren't any other Weasleys who beat her to the 
>>punch in every way.

True. She is the only girl, so that gives her an advantage over Ron. 
She's also the baby, so that's two advantages she has over Ron and 
the others.

>> Tom Riddle mocks her private anguish when he repeats her diary 
>>entries to Harry: "She said her brothers *tease* her, that she had 
>>to come to school with secondhand robes and books, and the good, 
>>great Harry Potter might *never* like her"... If Riddle hadn't 
>>mocked her for us to hear, we might never have known that she has 
>>the Weasley pride too. She loves Hogwarts, has been looking forward 
>>to getting in on the fun all her life. She "never shuts up 
>>normally" -- that is, at home, according to Ron -- but at school, 
>>or at least in Harry's presence, keeps her mouth shut except for 
>>the occasional leap to Harry's defence. She suffers in silence, but 
>>when we get to see her act, she is very practical-minded -- mends 
>>her books with Spellotape whereas Ron lets his fall apart (see FB 
margin notes). 

Again, Ron's got the hangup about all his belongings being trash, 
since he's never had anything that wasn't a hand-me-down except his 
new wand.

>>She seems to have a special relationship with Percy -- at least, 
>>Percy's taken it upon himself to parent her whether she needs it or 
>>not, and I suspect she has an instinct similar to his. We 
>>don't know what kind of student she is. I'm beating on the glass to 
>>see more of her, frankly. 

I don't really care one way or the other about Ginny, sadly.  I think 
the "baby sister of the best friend has a crush on the hero" a tiny 
bit clicheed.

Indigo