[HPforGrownups] Ron's Envy (was Re: Neville: Memory, History, Legacy

[Sandi Steinberg]

No: HPFGUIDX 38566


>--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Laura Huntley" <huntleyl at m...> wrote:
> >
> > Both the things Ron sees as his "greatest desire" (and it really is
>rather disturbing that these are his greatest desires -- the kid
>really needs some ambition, or at least some imagination) ....

Laura has hit the nail on the head!  Ron is a kid, and his wishes are 
juvenile, but they also reflect a desire to perform at the high benchmark 
established by his older brothers: Percy and Bill were both Head Boys and 
the twins are varsity quidditch bludgers. Let's remember that Ron is all of 
11 years old at this time!  His wishes, however, are true to what he reveals 
about himself early in the first book when he tells Harry about all his 
older brother's outstanding achievements at Hogwarts.

Naama noted that "Ron didn't want to return to the mirror and
>tried to dissuade Harry from doing so. It seems, then, that he was
>much less vulnerable to the mirror's fascination than Harry - which I
>understand to mean that his "deepest, most desperate desire" was a
>lot less desperate than Harry's was.

I think this is an excellent observation.  Ron worries about not measuring 
up to the males in his family, and for a while, Harry's fame and athletic 
success seem to feed Ron's feelings of inadequacy.  However, his friendship 
with and feelings for Harry triumph.  Furthermore, he does not seem to get 
along badly with any of his sibs, although, like the twins, he likes to poke 
fun at Percy's self-righteousness and priggishness.

Also, Ron know he is loved by his parents and sibs (yeah, even if Mom makes 
dry sandwiches, always knits him a maroon sweater, and the family isn't 
wealthy), he has always known who and what he is.

Harry, on the other hand, has led a loveless, cheerless life.  He's been 
victimized by his aunt and uncle, and been bullied by Dudley & Co.

Since his eleventh birthday, his whole life has turned around, magically and 
for the better.  However, a lot of the underpinnings of his life have been 
torn away. Most importantly, he now knows that his parents didn't die in an 
accident, that they were murdered in cold blood, and he is going through a 
lot of emotional turmoil.  He now realizes that the Dursleys were not only 
cruel to him but that they have lied to him all these years about his 
parents' deaths and his own survival.  The visions in Erised give him a lot 
of comfort, and, for the first time, he sees his physical self in his 
father's build and dark hair and in his mother's green eyes, along with 
other relatives, many of whom have a shared resemblance.  Erised has given a 
lonely orphan the sense of self he's never had.  Of course he's more easily 
seduced by the mirror than is Ron.

Realizing this, Dumbledore removes the mirror before Harry is drawn into his 
rapturous but UNreal world at a time that the wizarding world--his tangible 
world--is offering him a real, meaningful future.

Sandi

Being able to see his parents brings not only joy but, I suspect, a sense of 
love and belonging to Harry's life.  Ron has always belonged to a large 
family and can see his corporeal self reflected in his coloring (all the 
Weasley redheads) and tall, lean build (Percy and Bill, esp.).  The first
> >
>
>If it is a foreshadowing, then it is a foreshadowing of Ron *getting
>over* his envy. Remember, Ron didn't want to return to the mirror and
>tried to dissuade Harry from doing so. It seems, then, that he was
>much less vulnerable to the mirror's fascination than Harry - which I
>understand to mean that his "deepest, most desperate desire" was a
>lot less desperate than Harry's was.
>This foreshadowing has, in fact, already been fulfilled. Ron did
>reach an "envy crisis", and, indeed, got over it without great damage
>being done. Isn't it the convention that once a crisis is overcome,
>it doesn't return? That the problem, once it has surfaced and been
>faced, is resolved?
>
>
>Naama
>


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