Ron splitting with Harry and Hermione

[blpurdom]

No: HPFGUIDX 38575

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Heidi Rugg" <heidi at b...> wrote:
> I believe that JKR is deliberately setting up Ron so that he can 
> go "either way" (meaning good or bad).  What fun would it be if we 
> **really** knew which way it would turn out?  

Now, it does seem possible that JKR may WANT us to think for a time 
that Ron has turned bad, or at the very least, inadvertantly helped 
Voldemort/The Death Eaters/Someone Really Bad.  Then we'll find out 
that Ron was in fact foiling said Capitalized Villain and all will 
be well.  While many of us will say to ourselves, "Oh, it'll be all 
right--Ron can't turn out to be bad," no doubt many who always 
suspected that youngest Weasley boy was going to turn out bad will 
feel vindicated for a while.  <g>  

However, we already have Hagrid as the Inadvertant Helper Of Evil 
(telling Quirrell about how to get past Fluffy) so somehow it would 
seem redundant to cast Ron in that role as well.  Neville COULD be 
viewed as someone who had also played this role (when he left his 
Gryffindor Tower passwords lying around and Crookshanks stole them 
for Sirius) but since Crookshanks and Sirius were technically good 
guys, Neville only APPEARED to inadvertantly assist an evil 
Capitalized Villain.  (JKR does like her twists, doesn't she?)

> I think we also need to take a look at the Polyjuice 
> problem...sometimes people are **literally** not who they seem to 
> be!  I had no clue that Mad-Eye was Crouch.  What if Ron tries to 
> frame Neville?  Or Neville Ron?  I can see all these possibilities 
> are very possible and it's maddening!

Actually, Polyjuice is not the usual way that people are not what 
they seem.  Quirrell's turban hid Voldemort; the Trio just assumed 
Malfoy was the heir of Slytherin and Hagrid had opened the Chamber 
fifty years earlier; as soon as Lupin admits he's a werewolf and 
embraces Sirius the Trio assumes he's evil, though he's not; Sirius 
was assumed to be a traitor and murderer and Rita Skeeter, like 
Sirius, was an unregistered Animagus (as was Peter Pettigrew) who 
was able to gather her information that way.  

In fact, the Villain Who Isn't is actually JKR's most prevalent 
theme, it seems to me, with red herrings usually outnumbering true 
culprits, and the ubiquitous unregistered Animagus starting to 
become a little overused.  (After having two of them in PoA, I think 
that's why we were blindsided by Rita.  "She's using that AGAIN?" I 
found myself thinking near the end of GoF.)  Which means, of course, 
that having introduced Polyjuice Potion on CoS and a villain making 
use of it in GoF--none of that means she's above using it again 
already in book 5.  Clearly, one can't assume about these things.  

However, I do think it would require Ron to have a major personality 
transplant to turn traitor because of his so-called "ambition" when 
that ambition did not pull him back to the mirror, as Harry's mirror 
vision did, and when he was volunteering himself to be killed in 
PoA.  In fact, if Ron were less brave and more hard working he'd 
probably be considered loyal enough for Hufflepuff (hey, that 
rhymes; people who consider themselves Hufflepuffs may feel free to 
use that).  Their brief split before the first task in GoF is 
clearly an aberration, and once Ron saw how perilous the first task 
was he wanted to apologize (Harry wouldn't let him, remember) and 
make up.  

Which doesn't mean that Ron's always been consistent.  I mean, he 
had the nerve to try to accuse Hermione of not being loyal to Harry 
because she went to the ball with Krum, but he asked another 
champion, Fleur, to the ball.  (Of course, "loyalty" wasn't really 
the reason he was attacking her, but I'm surprised that she didn't 
throw back in his face that he also asked a champion to the ball.  
IMO, that was an opportunity JKR missed to score Hermione a point.)

--Barb

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