[HPforGrownups] Ron Weasley & His Brothers

[Liz Sager]

No: HPFGUIDX 33636

>   While rereading Philosopher's Stone, I have stumbled upon
>some phrase which I think needs some checking. There has
>been a lot of talk in the newsgroup about Ron Weasley being
>the seventh son, and about a possible Ron's older brother.
>Yet while I was reading SS6 ("Platform 9 3/4") Ron says that
>he is *sixth* son in the family.

I was listening to my audio tape of PS, and Ron says he is a sixth son.

However, this doesn't necessarily mean that there wasn't a child between 
Charlie and Percy, or even somewhere else. Let's call him Son X. I have used 
the example that I had an aunt that was still-born, before my dad and uncle 
were born. But my dad says, "I have one brother," not, "I have one brother 
and an older sister who was still-born," and my grandmother says that she 
has two children, rather than three, but one died.

And since this is Ron that we're getting this from, its very possible that:
a-He's in the scenario I mentioned in the above paragraph
b-He knows, but doesn't say anything.
c-He doesn't know about Son X (if there is indeed one).

I believe that any of these three could be very plausible. In a, its very 
easy to not remember about someone that you never really knew, and it can be 
very frustrating. To refer to another source, in the Alice McKinley books by 
Joan Lowery Nixon, Alice's mother died when she was four and her brother was 
about 11. Alice is constantly mixing up her mother with her aunt, and it is 
very frustrating to her that her brother and father can remember her mother, 
but she cannot.

In b, this would be just a matter of wanting to keep something 'swept under 
the rug' so to speak. If Son X had died a particularly violent death, then 
it would not be something that the family would speak of, especially 10 or 
so years after the fact.

In c, he might not even know about Son X. This may even be the case with 
Fred and George, who would have been rather young. If they remembered a 
particular thing that Son X did, it would have been easy to write it off as 
something one of their other older brothers did.

Off to tap class now, please poke holes gently.

Liz

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