Anatomy of a Rift (Part 1 of 2) LONG

[naamagatus <naama_gat@hotmail.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 52431

Hi,

I'm responding here to both of Dicentra's posts. To shorten the post, 
I tried to snip as much as I could; I hope I haven't oversnipped but 
I have my suspicions... 


Dicentra:

However, there are a few things that happen around Harry that he 
fails to interpret correctly for the simple reason that he's Harry. 
That's no excuse for us, though. Sometimes we need to question 
Harry's evaluation of events to come to the truth.

Me:

Well, I've always argued that all these cases (where Harry believes 
something that turns out to be not true) are related strictly to the 
mystery plots of the books. E.g., Harry believing that Snape is 
trying to steal the PS. I quite honestly can't think of an example 
that isn't obviously part of the construction of a mystery plot.

 
Dicentra:

<snip>

These and other examples I've seen cite Ron's jealousy as an
established fact, like Neville's forgetfulness or Snape's nastiness.
That's interesting. Because the words "forgetful" and "nasty" are 
used in conjunction with both of those characters on a regular basis, 
but "jealous" in conjunction with Ron? I've not seen it, except in 
one occasion, to be discussed below.

It's also accepted that Ron's jealousy manifests itself most
forcefully in GoF, right after Harry's name is spit out of the 
Goblet. And why shouldn't we believe that? After all, we are *told* 
that Ron isn't speaking to Harry out of jealousy.

"Oh Harry, isn't it obvious?" Hermione said despairingly. "He's
jealous!"

"*Jealous*?" Harry said incredulously. "Jealous of what?[....]"

"Look," said Hermione patiently, "it's always you who gets all
the attention, you know it is[....] I know you don't ask for it... 
but -- well -- you know, Ron's got all those brothers to compete 
against at home, and you're his best friend, and you're really 
famous -- he's always shunted to one side whenever people see you, 
and he puts up with it, and he never mentions it, but I suppose this 
is just one time too many...."

Her explanation is reinforced later by Hagrid's remark that
"everythin' seems ter happen ter you, doesn't it?"

Harry didn't answer. Yes, everything did seem to happen to him
... that was more or less what Hermione had said as they walked 
around the lake, and that was the reason, according to Hermione, that 
Ron was no longer talking to him.

It *is* the obvious answer, isn't it? After all, Hermione says it is.
And yet when we're told the "obvious explanation" it's couched in
terms that tell us we *shouldn't* accept it at face value. Hermione
uses the phrase "I suppose," and the narrator makes it clear that Ron
is upset by Harry's fame "according to Hermione." Those two phrases
fairly demand that we look deeper for the real cause of The Rift
between Harry and Ron.


Me:

I don't think I agree that these two phrases – "I suppose" 
and "according to Hermione" – necessarily indicate that Hermione's 
explanation isn't correct. The "according to Hermione" shows, IMO, 
how hard it is to Harry to accept Hermione's explanation. It 
underlines his doubt, which arises from his well established 
insecurities. It's very hard for Harry to believe anybody could be 
jealous of him. 
The "I suppose" is natural, I think. Hermione believes that Ron is 
jealous. She doesn't know – nobody can know – why the jealousy flares 
up now when he's been quiet under so many provocations in the past. 
But it's natural, isn't it? You can understand human behavior but 
almost always there's a random factor – as much as you can understand 
a person, you generally can't predict exactly when he'll flair up, 
exactly when something will become "the last straw".


Dicentra:

<snip>

Hermione predicates her assumption that Ron is jealous on the fact
that "this is just one time too many." That Ron has been stifling his
feelings of jealousy all this time and finally the last straw touched
the camel's back. But what about this chronic jealousy? Can you find
examples of Ron's jealousy in Books 1-3? Has it been mentioned *at 
all*? 

Frankly, no it hasn't, as some list members have observed:

"I also think, while Ron shows some jealousy toward Harry, he's,
in my opinion, amazingly non-jealous for a long time about many
things, or at least doesn't show his jealousy. I don't know if I could
have done it." --Suzanne 44941

"For a character who many think is pathologically jealous, Ron
seems downright saintly in books 1-3." --Jo Serenadust 44968

Me:

Firstly, I agree completely that Ron's jealousy of Harry hasn't been 
properly built up in the first three books. If anything, he comes up 
as particularly supportive, loyal and unjealous. 
However, it is established, in book 1, that he has tendencies towards 
envy (of his brothers). More importantly, the beginning of book 4 
holds several hints which build up, IMO, to Ron's upflare of 
jealousy. One is the Ron's embarassement with his second hand robes. 
In this case, he explicitly refers to Harry's brand new robes (which, 
significantly, were purchased by Molly, Ron's *Mother*). Another 
little hint occurs when Harry buys Ron the Omnioculars. Ron is very 
particular about returning Harry the money he owes him for them. Gold 
is raining from the sky, and Ron's first thought is repaying Harry. 
To me this shows that it really stings Ron to owe him money. It is a  
strong reminder that Ron has pride and that it is a hurt pride in 
many ways. 


Dicentra:

Yeah, he does, doesn't he? Especially if we compare Ron to other
characters whom we *know* to be driven by jealousy. Let's start with
Draco: he's extremely jealous of Harry's fame, and as a result he 
does everything in his power to make Harry look ridiculous; that is, 
when he's not accusing Harry of being a fame-hound. His attitude is 
that if *he* can't have Harry's fame, he's going to spoil it for 
Harry.

And Draco's generational parallel, Snape, has a textbook case of
jealousy of James Potter. (In this case, the textbook is
Merriam-Webster, which tells us that "jealous" means "intolerant of
rivalry" or "hostile toward a rival or one believed to enjoy an
advantage." Its synonym, "Envy" is "painful or resentful awareness of
an advantage enjoyed by another, coupled with a desire to possess the
same advantage.") 


Me:

I don't think that Ron is, in any case, depicted as someone who is 
*driven* by jealousy. As a major *good* character, Ron is "driven" 
mostly by good qualities – courage, loyalty, affection, etc. 

Dicentra:

Jealousy (envy) is not one of the seven deadly sins for nothing: look
at what it's done to Snape -- his envy of James's advantages caused
him to hate James's guts, and he spent his time trying to get James
and his friends expelled. Snape's soul is so badly damaged by his
jealousy that he continues to hate James years after his death -- a
hatred that extends to his son. If Ron is experiencing jealousy 
toward Harry, he should be reacting to Harry's good fortune the same 
way Draco and Snape do, at least in *some* degree.


Me:

To the extent that he is allowed by the author to behave meanly, Ron 
is reacting in similar ways. He stops talking to Harry, he doesn't 
defend him, he doesn't support him. For someone who is a best friend, 
that is pretty severe, don't you think? Draco and Snape are not 
analogues becaue in their case the jealousy and envy is of someone 
who is a rival, not a friend. 

Dicentra:

<snip>

First, let's see if Ron is jealous of Harry's fame. We know that Ron
is a bit, um, "fame-impaired," and that he's not entirely happy about
it. As he tells Harry on the day they first meet:

"I'm the sixth in our family to go to Hogwarts. You could say
I've got a lot to live up to. Bill and Charlie have already left --
Bill was Head Boy and Charlie was captain of Quidditch. Now Percy's a
prefect. Fred and George mess around a lot, but they still get really
good marks and everyone thinks they're really funny. Everyone expects
me to do as well as the others, but if I do, it's no big deal, 
because they did it first."

<snip>
 
So does he resent Harry for getting what he's always wanted? Well, 
let me put it this way: it's one thing for your older brothers to be
"famous"; it's quite another thing if the famous person is your best
friend.

Ron sees his brothers as rivals, as the measuring sticks against 
which he is measured and inevitably found wanting. That's a drag. 

But Harry isn't his rival. Ron isn't *in* Harry's shadow; he *is*
Harry's shadow. He's got Harry's back. He's his right-hand man. He
rides shotgun. He's his second.

<snip>

Frankly, being the second of the Boy Who Lived is no small potatoes.
I'm guessing that Ron wouldn't trade it for all the prefect's badges
and Quidditch cups in the world.


Me:

You know, I completely disagree with you here. I don't think Ron 
feels that being Harry's second is a good thing. He only accepts it 
because it is inherent in the "job" Ron is interested in – being 
Harry's best friend. How can being somebody's shadow feel to be a 
good thing, anyway?
I can see it as reasonably realistic at first, when Ron just met 
Harry, the famous Harry Potter, and possibly still feels traces of 
awe and the distance that comes with it. But later, as they grow more 
intimate? Of course it would start to grate worse and worse – Harry 
being so much more in the center of things than he is. I see it as 
greatly to Ron's credit that he has manged to be as unjealous of 
Harry as he was. 
I don't think anybody with a proper sense pride and self respect 
should be *happy* to be anybody's second. At most, you can come to 
accept it because you love the other person enough – which is pretty 
much where Ron ends at the end of the Rift. 

Another point. If you want to see what JKR thinks of people who are 
happy about being other people's shadow, take a good look at 
Pettigrew. A nice example of the meek, unjealous little friend, isn't 
he? Pettigrew's self effacement is certainly not viewed as a virtue 
by JKR. As a fitting "reward", she makes him spend thirteen years as 
a pet rat; he is not even recognized as a human. Unlike Pettigrew, 
Ron wants recognition and feels he deserves it. And that's the 
natural, right thing to feel. A corollary of that is a certain amount 
of envy of your best - but always in the limelight - friend.

Dicentra:

Jealous? No way. He's ecstatic when Harry succeeds. When Harry makes
the Quidditch team, "Ron was so amazed, so impressed, he just sat and
gaped at Harry." When Harry wins the game, Ron is one of the first to
rush onto the field and dogpile him. Harry takes Ron along on all his
adventures unless Ron is conveniently taken out of commission
(gangrenous dragon bite, sacrificed at the chess game, pile of rocks,
broken leg). He got recognition during the infamous Point Award and 
is credited when Ginny is rescued. He might not be as famous as 
Harry, but "famous Harry Potter" has chosen *him* as a friend--nobody 
else in the world can say that. Especially not his brothers.

No, he's not jealous of Harry's fame; he's basking in it.


Me:

Yes, because Ron is involved in Harry's exploits he gets recognition, 
but it's not merely reflected glory. He is a hero in his own right 
(in the sense of being brave, not that he is the protagonist) and all 
the admiration and attention he gets, he fully deserves. So I don't 
think it's fair to describe him as "basking" in Harry's fame. 
Secondly, I don't think that, psychologically speaking, there's a 
contradiction between enjoying reflected celebrityhood and resenting 
being in your celebrity friend's shadow. 

Dicentra:

<snip> 

You're thinking about times when Ron actually *expressed* jealousy of
Harry's wealth. Specifically, you're thinking about the Niffler 
Scene, when Ron says "Must be nice to have so much money you don't 
notice if a pocketful of Galleons goes missing." And you're thinking 
of it because it sounds for all the world as if Ron were taking a dig 
at Harry, that he's trying to lay some kind of guilt trip on him. 
That he resents him.

But I think you're mistaken. This is why:

It is true that Ron is frustrated by his poverty, and he wishes he 
had more money, but he never directs his frustration *at* Harry. As 
it turns out, the disparity in wealth between Harry and Ron doesn't 
cause resentment, it causes embarrassment. Discomfort. On both sides. 
It embarrasses Harry to extract his gold from his vault in front of 
the Weasleys because he doesn't want them to feel bad about being 
poor, and it really bugs Ron that the flow of material generosity 
always goes from Harry to Ron. He'd really like to reverse that flow 
for once, which is why he was psyched about paying Harry for the
Omnioculars. When he found out that he hadn't, he was terribly
disappointed. 

Me:

He was not only disappointed, he was bitter. Think of what he is 
saying – "Must be nice to have so much money you don't notice if a 
pocketful of Galleons goes missing." What bugs him is that Harry 
didn't even *notice* that the money disappeared. It's significant 
that Ron ties this to Harry's being wealthy, not to forgetfulness or 
negligence. And that's what really bugs him – that Harry is rich and 
he is poor. Which to me sounds exactly like envy.



Dicentra:

<snip>

Now imagine the same situation, only the nature of your relationship
is different. You and the rich girl are always together, and she has 
a "what's mine is yours" attitude about her stuff. As soon as she 
gets something cool, she lets you play with it, even take it home if 
you want. She invites you to go waterskiing and snowskiing all the 
time, and she takes you to Hawaii and Disneyland and all those exotic 
places. 

Is there room for jealousy in such a relationship? No, there really
isn't. And the nature of Ron and Harry's relationship is the same.
Harry's got a "what's mine is yours" attitude about his good fortune.
He shares *everything* with Ron.


Me:

It might work at a relatively young age, but as you grow up I think 
you'd get more and more uncomfortable with the situation. I know that 
my sensitivity to receiving things from friends heightened with the 
years. That's why it makes really good sense to me that Ron is shown 
as more sensitive to the economic differences between him and Harry 
at 14 than at 11.


Dicentra:

So. Back to The Rift. What *is* the cause of that, if not jealousy?

The clues, as usual, are in the text, hidden as background noise. If
we look at the events between the time the Tournament is announced 
and when Harry's name comes out of the Goblet, something interesting 
shows up.

<snip dialogue between Ron and Harry regarding possiblity of entering 
the Tournament> 

So here we see that Ron is gung-ho about entering, but Harry doesn't
seem to be. We know from Harry's thoughts that he wouldn't mind
winning, but from Ron's PoV, Harry isn't up for it. 

Or is he? The day after the Durmstrang and Beauxbatons students
arrive, the Trio see the Goblet inside its Age Line. Ron asks a
third-year girl if the other students have put their names in yet. 
She says the Durmstrangs have, but no one from Hogwarts.

"Bet some of them put it in last night after we'd all gone to
bed," said Harry. "I would've if it had been me ... wouldn't have
wanted everyone watching. What if the goblet just gobbed you right
back out again."

Then the twins and Lee Jordan show up, having taken a drop of Aging
Potion each. 

"We're going to split the thousand Galleons between the three of
us if one of us wins," said Lee, grinning broadly.

And so here we have another set of friends that are almost as
inseparable as Harry and Ron. They've made a pact to try to enter the
tournament anyway and split the winnings among themselves. They fail,
of course, but what the hey. They gave it a try.

This is the context in which The Rift begins: Ron interested in 
trying to get into the tournament, Harry not appearing to share Ron's
enthusiasm, and Fred, George, and Lee working together to get in so
they can split the winnings.

And so Harry's name comes out of the Goblet, inexplicably. Right out
of the blue. Harry is of course stunned, but so is Ron, along with
everyone else. 

"I didn't put my name in," Harry said, blankly. "You know I didn't."

[Ron and Hermione] stared back just as blankly.

What is Ron supposed to think at this point? How could Harry's name
come out of the Goblet unless Harry put it there? Ron must have gone
back over the events leading up to that moment, just as we have, to
try to make sense of it all. He might not have noticed Harry's lack 
of enthusiasm, but he does know that Harry never proposed a plan for
fooling the Goblet. Not to him, anyway. Not the way the twins and Lee
did. The only conclusion that makes sense to him is that Harry was
planning to go for it all along, and he deliberately cut Ron out of
his plans.

Suddenly, Harry must have seemed like a very different person to Ron.
Harry had *never* left Ron out of *anything* before. Mugre y uñas,
remember? And yet the "evidence" that Harry ditched Ron this time is
right there in his face. Is Ron feeling *jealous* of Harry because
"everything happens to him"? I doubt it. Instead, he has to be 
feeling deeply betrayed. And given what he and Harry have been 
through together, that's gotta be a serious knife twist to the heart.


Me:

Impressive though it is, I don't think this explanation makes 
psychological sense. Firstly, we must remember that it was *not* 
impossible to believe that Harry's name came out of the goblet 
without him putting it there. Both Hermione and Hagrid immediately 
believed Harry. Therefore, it is not a statement that's inherently 
unbelieveable. Ron knows Harry as well as Hermione does and has had 
no personal experience with Harry that should predispose him to doubt 
Harry's word.
So, why on earth should Ron disbelieve Harry in this instance? After 
all, the only reason Ron is feeling hurt (according to your theory) 
is because he feels betrayed. But this alleged betrayal has no other 
basis than the belief that Harry is lying. Why on earth would Ron 
believe something that causes him a lot of pain and is completely 
unsubstantiated? 
I don't know if I'm being clear here. I'm trying to point out that 
Ron's reaction as you describe it does not agree with inherent human 
tendencies. People have high resistance to painful facts. We go to 
great lengths, expend large amounts of mental energy to not accept 
painful facts, even when they are fairly well substantiated. Ron, on 
the other hand, *chooses* to believe something that causes him pain. 
It just doesn't make sense. He has no reason to disbelieve Harry; his 
knowledge of Harry makes believing him more rational than 
disbelieving him, then why not simply believe that Harry didn't 
betray him and stop feeling all that pain? 

Dicentra:

<snip>
 
Because we see the scene from Harry's point of view, it's easy to see
Ron as the jerk and Harry as the victim, but we have to be careful
when assigning Ron his motives based on what Harry thinks. Or on what
Hermione thinks for that matter.

Let's go back to Hermione for a minute.

The sequence of events the next morning are that Ron goes down to
breakfast before Harry wakes up and so does Hermione. She has a
conversation with Ron. She might have asked him where Harry was. We
don't know exactly what Ron said, but I'll bet the farm he didn't say
"I'm not speaking to Harry because he hurt my ickle feelings." As
b_boy observed, 

"The wound, the pain, in my opinion, were all inflicted by his
perceived betrayal, but Ron isn't going to talk about his deep
emotional wound, so externally it is expressed as statements of
jealously and anger." --43919

No, Ron's not going to articulate his hurt in so many words, is he?
But I wouldn't put it past him to say something like, "Harry's
upstairs getting his beauty rest. Gotta look good for all those
photos, you know" or "I wouldn't know; champions don't interact with
low-lifes like me." In a bitter tone of voice, of course. What choice
did she have but to interpret his remarks as evidence of jealousy? 
How Hermione responded to Ron is unknown, but it appears that he made 
it clear to her that he wasn't kidding about Harry not being his 
friend anymore. 

Me:

I think that what Hermione is trying to interpret is not these things 
at all. What demands explication is that Ron persists in disbelieving 
Harry. I don't believe that Ron made "statements of jealousy" to 
Hermione. I see the dialogue between them consisting in Hermione 
trying to convince him that Harry didn't put his name in the goblet 
(which means that someone is out to get him, and that's Hermione's 
main concern) and Ron refusing to believe that. Like me, Hermione 
sees Ron's attitude as irrational, and therefore is looking to the 
underlying emotional causes that make Ron so obdurate. 
Ron needs to hold on to his belief in Harry's betrayal and Harry's 
overall shoddy behaviour because he needs to justify the resentment 
and anger that he feels for different reasons (of which he is 
ashamed). Classic rationalization.



Dicentra: 

<snip>

<snip description of scene at the dormitory, after talk with Sirius>

Harry seized one of the POTTER REALLY STINKS badges off the table
and chucked it, as hard as he could, across the room. It hit Ron in
the forehead and bounced off.

"There you go," Harry said. "Something for you to wear on
Tuesday. You might even have a scar now, if you're lucky ... That's
what you want, isn't it?"

He strode across the room toward the stairs; he half expected Ron
to stop him, he would even have liked Ron to throw a punch at him, 
but Ron just stood there in his too-small pajamas, and Harry, having
stormed upstairs, lay awake in bed fuming for a long time afterward
and didn't hear him come up to bed.

Ron just stood there. Ron. Hot-tempered, easily-provoked,
always-have-to-grab-his-robes-to-hold-him-back Ron. Harry has just
vented a significant amount of wrath his way, including a physical
attack, but Ron just stands there. 

Why?
<snip>

Harry was already angry enough at Ron, but now he's stopped Sirius
from telling him how to deal with dragons. He goes volcanic all over
Ron, who gets defensive and lobs back another "fame-boy" accusation.
And then Harry chucks the badge and accuses Ron of wanting to be
famous, too. Of wanting to be *him*. 

I don't know for sure what Ron thought of that. It's the first time
that Harry has voiced his suspicions about Ron's motives. (I don't
know that Hermione said "Oh Ron, you're just being jealous," because
he probably would have defended himself in such a way as to let
Hermione know that he wasn't. He might have told her the real reason
he was mad, or at least alluded to it. Or not.) 

Either way, Ron's reaction to this particular bit of Harry's vitriol
isn't defensiveness; it seems more like *shock*. Harry's earlier 
angry words would have fit in with the "I've ditched you" paradigm, 
because he's telling Ron to butt out. Yet "here, have a scar; that's 
what you want" might have come out of nowhere from Ron's perspective, 
and he's too stunned to react.

Me:

I think he doesn't react because Harry *hit a nerve*. If you're 
accused of something that you're really innocent of, that really is 
unconnected with you, I don't think you react with shock or that you 
become so stunned. I think if the accusation was completely foreign 
to Ron, he would have flung back the badge at Harry and said 
something like "you've gone completely bonkers, Harry, you know that? 
Maybe the photo shoot flashes have gone to your head." 


 
Dicentra:

<snip>

I don't know if the Badge Chuck did anything toward changing Ron's
beliefs, but it's possible it did, given that Ron reacts positively 
to Harry for a moment. I tend to believe that Ron altered his 
perspective on the situation slowly, not suddenly during the First 
Task. Hermione must have told Ron that Harry thought someone was 
trying to kill him, and given Harry's propensity for attracting that 
kind of danger, Ron had to at least put it in the back of his mind as 
a possibility. He might even have been *entertaining* the idea that 
Harry was telling the truth. But if he was, why did Harry refuse to 
speak to him, too? Why didn't Harry try further to persuade him? 


Me:

He knows perfectly well why Harry isn't talking to him at this stage –
 because he, Ron, has stopped talking to *him*. And again, why didn't 
Ron immediately believe Harry? Why does he need to be persuaded in 
something that rationally he had no reason to disbelieve in the first 
place?


Dicentra:

<snip>

I imagine that Ron pretty much knew that Harry had been telling the
truth: he was privy to how much "fun" Harry was having with his
"glory," and it was exactly the same amount of "fun" Harry always had
-- none. Yet he was still waiting for Harry to apologize because from
his perspective, Harry had still been acting beastly towards him. 


Me:

I don't understand. If Ron "pretty much knew that Harry had been 
telling the truth" (i.e., Harry *didn't* put his name in the goblet) 
then how has Harry "behaved beastly towards him"? On the other hand, 
if Harry didn't put his name in the goblet then Ron most certainly 
owes him an apology for falsely accusing him of being a liar, of 
betraying his best friend, etc. 


Dicentra:

<snip>

Nothing like risking losing someone through death to make you set
aside all your differences, is there? How many TV movies rely on this
principle? Parent argues with child, child gets into danger, parent
nearly loses child, parent anguishes that the last words between them
were harsh, parent gains new appreciation for child, and the old
argument is forgotten.

I think this is what happens with Ron. During the First Task, he
doesn't suddenly realize that Harry was telling the truth; he 
realizes that he could *lose* Harry, and the hurt that would result 
from *that* would exceed his current hurt tenfold. It just wasn't 
worth it anymore for Ron to perpetuate the silence. It wasn't worth 
it to see Harry every day and have that stupid tension pass between 
them. It wasn't worth it to not be the best friend of Harry Potter 
any more.


Me:

I think certainly seeing Harry in danger brought home to Ron how 
important Harry is to him. But as I see it, this shock weakened the 
defense mechanism Ron has built to prevent him from acknowledging his 
envy of Harry. It forces him into realizing that Harry is not the 
kind of person who would go glory hunting at the expense of his best 
friend, and most certainly that he wouldn't lie to his best friend. 
Once forced into realizing what he really knew but refused to 
acknowledge all this time, of course he had to apologize for being 
such a bad friend.


<snip> 
 
It's funny, though. Harry never does learn the real reason why Ron 
was upset. After the Second Task, the narrator, using Harry's 
thoughts as fodder, says:

One of the best things about the aftermath of the second task was
that everybody was very keen to hear details of what had happened 
down in the lake, which meant that Ron was getting to share Harry's
limelight for once.


Me:

Funny? Well, not in the sense of odd. What it says to me, loud and 
clear, is that the narrator completely agrees with Hermione's 
interpretation. <g>



Naama