Trio's Auror Skills (WAS: Hermione: Panic Attacks & Tears?)

[elfundeb at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 38982

Penny, on the Trio's Auror skills:

> I still say it's a red flag and that Ron is falling behind the other two.  
> Then again, based on what we know so far about Aurors and what they do, I'd 
> agree with Crouch-as-Moody's assessments: Harry and Hermione do both employ 
> a mix of logic and emotional gut reactions.  Ron employs strictly emotional 
> gut reactions, which are almost always wrong (thus far).  Ron has his 
> moments in the resolution of each book (except POA) .... but he's not been 
> very key to actually *solving* the problems so far other than getting 
> 

I have to agree with everything Pippin said in response to Penny's comments, 
and add my own views on how each member of the Trio solves problems:

Hermione is, as Penny says, a logical thinker, but she applies her logic 
skills primarily to working out abstract problems, such as Snape's potions in 
PS/SS, analyzing the theory behind summoning charms in GoF.  She analyzes 
Crouch Sr.'s disappearance from the Hogwarts grounds in the same 
dispassionate manner.  When it comes to people she knows, however, she relies 
on her feelings and her values.  Thus, for example, in PS/SS she assumes 
Snape can't be trying to steal the stone because he's a professor (she's 
correct, but her reasoning is wrong), in CoS her schoolgirl crush on Lockhart 
and/or status as a professor prevents her from realizing he's a fraud.  In 
PoA, in the Crookshanks affair, she ignored all the evidence and argued that 
Ron's problem was that he was prejudiced against her cat.  

Several times in GoF, she falls back on her value system in assessing how 
others would behave in certain circumstances.  For example, she objects to 
Ron's suggestions that the twins might do something illegal, or that Percy 
might turn in a family member, and is horrified by the idea (confirmed by 
Sirius) that Crouch did the same to his son  based on her assumption that 
they *wouldn't* do such a thing.  She does this with Crouch Sr. only moments 
after believing him capable of conjuring the Dark Mark based solely on his 
treatment of Winky.  I have tended to think that her projection of her values 
(particularly her respect for rules, office and authority) on others in 
assessing how they might act in certain situations, while admirable, may be 
the weak link in her armor that make her susceptible to misjudgment down the 
road.  And I also think the limitations this imposes on her thinking could be 
a serious liability as an Auror.  As Pippin points out, I think she would be 
better off in the department of mysteries where she can use her analytical 
skills.

On to Ron.  Penny said, in a later post:

Well, I can't comment on how much logic is involved in chess, but more than 
once, Ron has commented, "Hush up ... give me some time to think about this" 
when he's playing chess.  So, I'm not so sure that Ron is any more quick on 
his feet than Hermione.  As for the keys puzzle, all Ron did was examine the 
lock & suggest what shape key they were looking for.  I'm not so sure that's 
logic either; not in my book.    

Me:

Ron, IMO, is a very different kind of thinker from Hermione, but I don't 
think he is illogical or applies 'emotional gut reactions' to his decisions.  
I think the difference is in the basis from which each draws conclusions -- 
she uses an abstract logic, while he bases his assessments completely on the 
factual evidence he has before him (and in some cases his own knowledge of 
the WW), and reaches the most logical conclusion in light of those facts.   
That's what he did with the key puzzle.  This is the same skill that he 
employs with great success in chess -- he looks at the situation based on the 
facts before him and acts accordingly.  Many of his conclusions are wrong not 
because he thinks illogically but because he doesn't have all the facts 
before him.  So, for example, in the Crookshanks incident, based on the 
evidence before him Crookshanks appears quite guilty (and Harry agrees with 
Ron).  In another example, his assessments of Percy and the twins are based 
on his own personal observations. For example, Percy loves rules, stays too 
much at the office, and shuts himself up in his room when the rest of the 
family are doing things together, seemingly similar to Sirius' assessment of 
Crouch Sr.; Ron hears the twins talking endlessly about getting money for 
their joke shop and then overhears them arguing about a letter that George 
thinks is blackmail. He also demonstrates skepticism, for example toward 
Snape -- he does not simply accept that Snape is not evil based on the 
explanations to date, and toward Dumbledore -- Ron correctly concludes that 
Dumbledore can be fooled by a clever dark wizard.  This suggests to me that 
he doesn't always accept the obvious answers.

Pippin:

> I am not sure why Ron's intuitiveness  should be thought such a 
> handicap to an Auror. Ron's off the cuff suggestions are 
> sometimes useless but they aren't usually harmful. Sometimes 
> they do suggest the solution, as when he takes Harry's bugging 
> remark  literally.  That's thinking outside the box, IMO. 
> 
Also, throwing out off-the-wall speculation, as Ron does, is IMO a good 
thing.  (Isn't that what some of us do over at T-BAY? <grins>)  And it's not 
necessarily "emotional" thinking. Obviously not all of his ideas will pan 
out.  But some of them do (such as his conclusion that Moaning Myrtle was the 
basilisk's first victim) and his willingness to entertain them -- as Pippin 
says, "think outside the box" -- is exceptionally useful to an Auror.  
Because, as we've seen, in the WW the obvious answers are likely to be wrong.

That's not to say Ron doesn't ever make emotional judgments.  At the Yule 
Ball, that's exactly what he does.  But that's part of my theory on Ron's 
suppression of his desires for himself.  It gets him into trouble sometimes, 
when his jealousy surfaces, because he lets his jealousy control him.  To be 
a really good Auror, he'd have to get better control of these tendencies.  
Though, in the last half of GoF, I did see some improvement there.  His 
reaction in the Niffler scene to the realization that he had not paid Harry 
for the Omnioculars was very muted and quickly over.  And the fact that he 
asked a lot of questions throughout the book, such as at the WWC after the 
Dark Mark was seen, and when they visited Sirius, suggests to me that he's 
using his brains a bit more than before for purposes other than working out 
chess strategies.   

Harry, IMO, is somewhere in between Ron's and Hermione's way of thinking.  He 
has the advantage sometimes in that he's more introspective than either of 
the others.  Thus, he gets to listen to their arguments and often quietly 
reaches his own conclusions based on all of the arguments they have made in 
front of him.  I think he has good Auror skills as well.

Penny:

> But, the fact is: all we know so far about the qualification for an Auror, 
> though admittedly from a source who may not be entirely reliable, is that 
> their minds need to work a certain way.  
> 
I doubt we can, or are intended to, rely on Crouch/Moody for a list of Auror 
qualifications.  But we do know that an Auror's job description includes 
catching Dark wizards; in chess the objective is to capture the opposing 
king.  So I do think chess skills would be very useful to an Auror.

Debbie, who somehow knew that Penny's positive response to her theory on 
Ron's apparent lack of ambition wasn't a request for admission to C.R.A.B. <
grins again>


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