Cutting Ron A Break...; Baldrick

[dfrankiswork at netscape.net]

No: HPFGUIDX 26605

Cutting Ron a break...

and other schabby stuff

When this debate opened up again I had a quick look at Neil's Ron FAQ.  Reading between the lines, it looks as if the pro- and anti-Ron debate was almost as intense - and as unsatisfactory in its conclusion - as the original argument between Harry and Ron.

I think the issues arise because of a) the point of view we bring to the debate and to a lesser extent  b) how we see ourselves in that POV.

I would suggest four main points of view on Harry and Ron's argument in GOF:

1. Harry's
2. Ron's
3. A judge adjudicating right and wrong between the two
4. A detached observer of human behaviour (my favoured POV, most of the time)

POV 4 tends not to get into the debate (except as it provides interesting material for detached observation of HPfGU listies, but that's another story) as the justice of the situation is not the prime concern.

As to the others:

Harry's POV.  If you adopt this (the most natural, thanks to JKR's skills), there are two main responses:

i) I have high standards for my own behaviour, and Harry isn't doing everything I would try to do in the situation to help Ron find a way out of the corner he has painted himself into, and 

ii) I feel for Harry, and angry with Ron for being so unfair.

Ron's POV.  I think broadly the symmetrically opposite responses apply.  But it takes more work to get into Ron's POV, for the obvious narrative reasons, so those who have achieved it feel their efforts should be respected.

The judge POV.  This POV tends to find some absolute way of evaluating their behaviour - Ron accused Harry of lying, for example, and this is a bad way to behave.  The fact that I personally dislike this POV doesn't prevent me sometimes adopting it.

In our discussions the problems arise when people come from different POV.  Someone who takes the Harry (i) view above will tend to criticise Harry, while a Judge will probably find more wrong with Ron.  The statements that each makes will seem to make sense in the POV of the other, but there will be no actual meeting of minds.  Each will be right in the answers they give to the questions they implicitly pose, but they are answering different questions: What could Harry have done better? and Who is in the right?

I believe (without being exactly sure how) that something similar leads to the IMO rather strange view that if you are pro-Ron you must somehow be anti-Hermione.  Not a view that any of the trio themselves would understand.

I realise that once all this brushwood has been cleared away there is still an issue for some listies about the way Ron's character is developing - is he going to take umbrage every time he's put in a situation he doesn't like?  Personally, I find the last chapter of GOF encouraging: Ron struggles, with partial success, to overcome his gut reactions to Fleur and Krum.  Also (putting myself in the POV of a non-existent close friend of the trio), I trust Hermione's judgement that she wants to remain a friend of Ron's.

A final question: one POV missing from the above is Hermione's.  Is there anything she could have done to help, other than what she did do? Or do you think she was too soft on the boys, and that people who behave badly should be treated to the cold shoulder?

Combining posts...

Rita: 
>Dumbledore COULD change it to a baldrick because what the Mirror shows doesn't have to be true.

Now *there's* a crossover waiting to be written!  "My Lord Voldemort, I have a Cunning Plan" "Wormtail, if it's like the last one it'll be as about as useful as a styptic pencil at a gathering of vampires.  All right, let's have it then."  "We could find a faithful death eater, get him to Hogwarts in disguise, get him to kidnap Harry Potter in the middle of the third Triwizard Task, and use Potter to revive you." "Wormtail, of all the stupid ideas you have had, I think that if you were to enter that idea for the Grand Stupid Prize of Stupiditistan, it would knock all the other entries into bits so tiny you would have to get your little microscope out to find them." and so on

David


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