Does Ron the Seer need glasses?

[ohtoresonate]

No: HPFGUIDX 37363

OTR (me):
> > Hmm...I always thought Fake!Moody stabbed Harry and not Ron.  
> > Really, Ron's guilty of abandoning (not betraying) Harry.

"flower_fairy12" <graceofmyheart at h...>:
> Yes, I never thought of Moody. But I don't exactly think that Harry 
> thought of him as a friend. He was always a little weary of him. 

Yes, by no stretch of the imagination could Fake!Moody be considered 
Harry's friend in the same mode as Ron.  But Fake!Moody had donned a 
mask in the form of the "nurturing teacher" (similar to Lupin's true 
self in PoA) while harboring sinister motives deep, WAAAAYYYYY deep, 
that are completely contrary to his appearance.  Definitely a stab and 
definitely in the back and definitely NOT one of the out-in-the-open 
enemies in the same mode as Snape and Draco.

Digression: Have we, in our attempt to discourage uncivilized 
behavior, encouraged the uncivilized to go underground?  I'm trying to 
convince myself that I don't prefer falsely positive forces to hidden 
negative ones.  I guess that's why people are prone to lap up false 
flattery.

Anyhoo...

OTR (me):
> > As to Ron's overall ability to "see," let's not ignore the times 
> >when 
> > Ron has jumped to the WRONG conclusions.  True, some of his 
> >assertions 

"flower_fairy12" <graceofmyheart at h...>:
> Yes, but I think he has predicted it right, many more times than 
> wrong.

My impression is that he's about even.  If I ever "really break my 
leg," I might have enough time to draw hash marks and REALLY keep 
score...but until then... <shrug>

> So he may have jumped to conclusions on Snape and Draco 
> Malfoy, but then they are two very complex characters. Most readers 
> proably jumped to the same conclusions surrounding their behaviour 
> (eg. Snape trying to *kill* Harry). I know I did. Who would have 
> thought Snape the sarcastic, snide and horrible to Harry, guy would 
> actually try to save him? ;)

That might be the point, actually.  Let's say that Ron is really good 
as extrapolating the forces at work in shaping the events to come.  He 
can then see how the future will be.  (Aside: then Ron should do well 
in arithmancy as taught by Prof. VECTOR).  Sort of like Superman with 
his x-ray vision being privy to info that the rest of us aren't.

But in letting his prejudices against certain people cloud his sight, 
Ron misses important indicators.  Until he lets go of the simplistic 
and ultimately unreliable "rule of thumb" that only bad people do bad 
things and only the good can effect moral turns of events, Ron will 
not reach his full potential.

:) OTR, not interesting in simple labels of complicated people, even 
made-up ones