[HPforGrownups] prejudice in the WW (was: If I had to choose...)

[Penny Linsenmayer]

No: HPFGUIDX 38242

Hi --

Hana said:

<<<I believe that Ron is basically a logical person at heart.  If he has enough positive interactions with giants or werewolves he will change his opinion, othewise I see him making exceptions for Hagrid and Lupin etc. but not for the general population.>>>

Actually, I'd say Ron is the opposite of logical.  He's very emotionally-driven in my mind.  It's Hermione who's logical, but they are opposites in their approaches to problems or situations IMO.  

Making exceptions for Hagrid and Lupin doesn't make him any less prejudiced though.  I think I made that point in some former iteration of this same debate ages ago, but I don't have time to search for it at the moment.  I think that Ron does make an exception for Hagrid pretty clearly.  And, someone mentioned that Ron was willingly shackled to Pettigrew with Lupin as they left the Shack.  This could be interpreted as meaning that he intended to leave behind his prejudices against werewolves *with respect to Lupin* OR it could mean simply that his sense of betrayal by Pettigrew was so great that he was willing to set aside his problems with Lupin for that limited purpose.  In any case though, I don't think Rowling will end up sending a message that it's okay to make individual exceptions but retain an overall sense of bigotry against an entire class of people.  I can't see her implicitly approving of this, so I think we might see more of Ron's struggle with these issues as it seems that he is the logical person to illustrate this type of point.

<<<As for Ron's reaction to Lupin, in all honesty, can you blame him?>>>

I'm not making a judgment so much as simply arguing that it seems to me that it's largely factual issue.  Ron *is* demonstrating prejudiced behavior against werewolves and giants and house elves when last we saw him in GoF.  

Penny  
(who wishes her computer hadn't eaten the rather lengthy response she was creating for several days on the HP as Classics thread ... trying desperately to recreate it before we turn to the next question on Monday)


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]