SHIP: The Yule Brawl--The Problem With Reading R/H in GoF

Mon Jan 20 02:36:17 UTC 2003

No: HPFGUIDX 50156

(The following two posts are excerpted from an essay originally 
posted at Fictionalley.org, where I serve as a founding Mod along 
with several other cool HP4GU veteran posters.  Far be it from me to 
miss a great ship debate... and I'd love to discuss the points I 
bring up.  --Eb)

All Smoke and No Fire:  The Trouble With R/H in GoF and Beyond

An entire fandom knows that Ronald Weasley, the redheaded loyal best 
friend of Harry Potter, is starting to see their mutual friend, 
bossy, bushy-haired Hermione Granger in another light.

His growing attraction to her is obvious as of GoF.  After his 
epiphany of "Hermione, Neville's right—you are a
girl
" (348) he 
seems acutely aware of what she does and says.  He repeatedly asks 
her who she's going to the ball with (352, 357).  Once he sees
her 
there with Viktor Krum, he is miserable during the Yule Ball and 
makes damned sure that Hermione knows it (360-361, 366-368, 376).  
When he learns that Krum has asked Hermione to visit him over the 
summer, Ron is so bothered that he pounds a pestle onto a table, 
completely unaware of what he's doing (446).

The evidence and case for Ron's interest in Hermione is all but 
indisputable.

The evidence and case for Hermione's interest in Ron has yet to
be 
proven, however
 at least, in the context of GoF.

To prove my point, I plan to examine three signal instances of the 
text in depth here.  I don't want to quibble over isolated lines
that 
can be pulled out of context by either H/H or R/H.  I don't want
to 
argue about semi-colons either; religious wars have been fought over 
those, and honestly, it just "ain't that deep".  I will
quote the 
entire passage first, and then delve into each incident.

The three areas of GoF that I will conduct a close read of are from 
the chapters "The Unexpected Task", "The Yule Ball",
and "Padfoot 
Returns".  Although there are various other isolated incidents of 
R/Hitude throughout GoF, my shipmate QuidditchMom AKA Libbie has 
thoroughly shown an equal dispersal of H/H evidence in the novel.

These are the passages that cannot be negotiated away by my ship so 
easily

well, at least not until now.

THE UNEXPECTED TASK

*********************
"We should get a move on, you know . . . ask someone.  He's
right.  
We don't want to end up with a pair of trolls."

Hermione let out a sputter of indignation.

"A pair of... what, excuse me?"

"Well - you know," said Ron, shrugging.  "I'd rather go alone than 
with - with Eloise Midgen, say."

"Her acne's loads better lately - and she's really nice!"

"Her nose is off-center," said Ron.

"Oh I see," Hermione said, bristling.  "So basically, you're going to 
take the best-looking girl who'll have you, even if she's completely 
horrible?"

"Er - yeah, that sounds about right," said Ron.  

"I'm going to bed,"   Hermione snapped, and she swept off toward the 
girls' staircase without another word.  (GoF, UK paper, p. 344) 
*****************

The following is quoted from HP4GUer Linda McCabe with her express 
written permission:

"Trolls.  You know the twelve foot mountain troll that almost
killed 
Hermione back in book 1?  The nasty, smelly, foul creature who 
terrorized her.  Ron didn't even consider asking Hermione, he was 
concerned about not having to go out with a troll!  Hermione wasn't 
even on his radar screen even though she was supposedly his other 
best friend.  I'd be mighty insulted by that exchange.  He compounded 
his insult by describing Eloise Midgen in very uncomplimentary terms -
 someone who Hermione thinks is "really nice."  Looks are more 
important to him than anything else.  And females, especially
bookish females can feel very insecure about their own looks.  That
conversation wouldn't endear him to me in the least."

I couldn't have said it any better myself.  I also noticed that
this 
is a bit before Ron's epiphany about Hermione, that "you are
a 
girl."  He makes no overt overtures of interest towards Hermione
at 
or up to this point.  I see no Hepburn/Tracy in miniature there.  I 
see Ron being not very nice, and Hermione taking offense.

Sometimes a rose is a rose.

And sometimes, you just have to call a spade a spade.

On to one of the most pivotal scenes in this chapter
 Ron's
epiphany.

**************
Entering the common room, Harry looked around, and to his surprise he 
saw Ron sitting ashen-faced in a distant corner.  Ginny was sitting 
with him, talking to him in what seemed to be a low, soothing voice.

"What's up, Ron?" said Harry, joining them.

Ron looked up at Harry, a sort of blind horror in his face.

"Why did I do it?" he said wildly.  "I don't know what made me do it!

"What?" said Harry.

"He - er - just asked Fleur Delacour to go to the ball with him," 
said Ginny.  She looked as though she was fighting back a smile, but 
she kept patting Ron's arm sympathetically.

"You what?' said Harry.

"I don't know what made me do it!"  Ron gasped again.  "What was I 
playing at? There were people - all around - I've gone mad - everyone 
watching!  I was just walking past her in the entrance hall - she was 
standing there talking to Diggory - and it sort of came over me - and 
I asked her!"

Ron moaned and put his face in his hands.  He kept talking, though 
the words were barely distinguishable.

"She looked at me like I was a sea slug or something.  Didn't even 
answer.  And then - I dunno - I just sort of came to my senses and 
ran for it."

"She's part veela," said Harry.  "You were right - her grandmother 
was one.  It wasn't your fault, I bet you just walked past when she 
was turning on the old charm for Diggory and got a blast of it - but 
she was wasting her time.  He's going with Cho Chang."

Ron looked up.

"I asked her to go with me just now," Harry said dully, "and she told 
me."

Ginny had suddenly stopped smiling.  (GoF, UK paper, p. 347-348) 
********************

Lots and lots going on here.  We see Harry's preoccupation with
his 
rejection by Cho, completely one-sided H/G (although Gin seems to be 
handling it okay, but then again, am not here to debate the demerits 
or lack thereof in H/G), and a Ron who is totally upset by his 
rejection by Fleur.  

Ron who called poor Eloise Midgen a "troll", with one glance
from a 
pretty girl, feels quite a bit like a sea-slug.  He is
"ashen-faced", 
there is a sort of "blind horror in his face", and he moans.  
Obviously not a happy camper.  Upon first read, I felt rather sorry 
for him.  It couldn't have been pleasant to go through all that
in 
public.

One would hope this would reform the laddie
 that after rejection
by 
Fleur, he would learn to be a bit nicer when it came to issues like 
this.  However, the reason why I quoted the scene above was as a 
pretext for the crucial scene that is oft-quoted by the good ship.  
I'll pick it up right where I left off—as I've said
before, I don't 
intend for any hocus-pocus mumbo jumbo.  The text says what it says, 
but a contrapuntal reading
 the "hidden foundation" of
the text

reveals why there is a dissenting minority who is not accepting R/H-
without-trouble.

Whole quote follows (apologies for the length, but it's necessary to 
look at the scene *in context*), then in-depth analysis. 

******************
"This is mad," said Ron.  "We're the only ones left who haven't got 
anyone - well, except Neville.  Hey - guess who he asked?  Hermione!"

"What?" said Harry, completely distracted by this startling news.

"Yeah, I know!"  said Ron, some of the color coming back into his 
face as he started to laugh.  "He told me after Potions!  Said she's 
always been really nice, helping him out with work and stuff- but she 
told him she was already going with someone.  Ha!  As if!  She just 
didn't want to go with Neville ... I mean, who would?"

"Don't!" said Ginny, annoyed. "Don't laugh -"

Just then Hermione climbed in through the portrait hole.

"Why weren't you two at dinner?"  she said, coming over to join them.

"Because - oh shut up laughing, you two - because they've both just 
been turned down by girls they asked to the ball!"  said Ginny.

That shut Harry and Ron up.

"Thanks a bunch, Ginny," said Ron sourly.

"All the good-looking ones taken, Ron?"  said Hermione 
loftily.  "Eloise Midgen starting to look quite pretty now, is she?  
Well, I'm sure you'll find someone somewhere who'll have you."

But Ron was staring at Hermione as though suddenly seeing her in a 
whole new light.
"Hermione, Neville's right - you are a girl. . . ."

"Oh well spotted," she said acidly.

"Well - you can come with one of us!"

"No, I can't," snapped Hermione.

"Oh come on," he said impatiently, "we need partners, we're going to 
look really stupid if we haven't got any, everyone else has . . ."

"I can't come with you," said Hermione, now blushing, "because I'm 
already going with someone."

"No, you're not!"  said Ron. "You just said that to get rid of 
Neville!"

"Oh did I?" said Hermione, and her eyes flashed dangerously.  "Just 
because it's taken you three years to notice, Ron, doesn't mean no 
one else has spotted I'm a girl!"

Ron stared at her. Then he grinned again."Okay, okay, we know you're 
a girl," he said.  "That do?  Will you come now?"

"I've already told you!"  Hermione said very angrily.  "I'm going 
with someone else!"

And she stormed off toward the girls' dormitories again.

"She's lying," said Ron flatly, watching her go.

"She's not," said Ginny quietly.

"Who is it then?"  said Ron sharply.

"I'm not telling you, it's her business," said Ginny.

"Right," said Ron, who looked extremely put out, "this is getting 
stupid.  Ginny, you can go with Harry, and I'll just -"

"I can't," said Ginny, and she went scarlet too. "I'm going with - 
with Neville.  He asked me when Hermione said no, and I thought. . . 
well. . . I'm not going to be able to go otherwise, I'm not in fourth 
year."  She looked extremely miserable.  "I think I'll go and have 
dinner," she said, and she got up and walked off to the portrait 
hole, her head bowed.

Ron goggled at Harry.

"What's got into them?"  he demanded. (GoF, UK paper, p. 348-349)
************************

*rubs hands together*

This is how we H/Hers read this scene.  

Ron's "Hey - guess who he asked?  Hermione!" and "She
told him she 
was already going with someone.  Ha!  As if!  She just didn't want to 
go with Neville ... I mean, who would?" doesn't sound very
nice to 
me.  First of all, Neville has been nothing but kind towards Ron.  I 
thought they were friends of a sort.  But here Ron is admitting that 
he really thinks Neville is a loser.  Ginny (whom I love whenever we 
glimpse her in GoF) expresses my own annoyance when she admonishes 
him not to laugh.

As a teacher of fourteen year olds, the assertion that Ron is a 
typical fourteen year old boy annoys me so much that it makes my 
teeth hurt.  Ron is one *kind* of fourteen year old boy.  He is not 
representative of the entire species.  In 2.5 years of fandom,
I've 
heard that argument from all sides and it simply isn't true.  I
don't 
make allowances for my students because "after all, they're
only 
fourteen."  I don't care if one is fourteen or forty-four,
that gives 
them no right to act out without apology or regret.  Fans are always 
quick to defend Ron
 but what about Hermione's feelings here?

Hermione rightly calls Ron out on this.  She is completely 
unsympathetic about his plight, and who can blame her?

"All the good-looking ones taken, Ron?"  said Hermione 
loftily.  "Eloise Midgen starting to look quite pretty now, is she?  
Well, I'm sure you'll find someone somewhere who'll have you."

I emphatically do not think this implies that Hermione wants Ron to 
ask her.  We have additional knowledge to contextualize her thoughts 
in this scene.  We know that Krum, one of the most sought-after guys 
at school that year because of his celebrity, has already asked her 
to the ball.  We know that Hermione is sympathetic to the plight of 
the underdog—Neville, house-elves, Eloise—and is used to
being teased 
and shunned herself.  So I don't think her remarks are a come-on.
 I 
think she's expressing how sweet karma really is
 Hermione
has 
treated people well and come out of the Yule Ball scramble like a 
champ, while Ron, who thinks that people like Eloise and Neville are 
beneath him, is the dateless one after all.

Let's look at Ron's behavior now.  First, he laughs at the
notion 
that Hermione's got a date... and suggests she's lying.  ("No, you're 
not!"  said Ron. "You just said that to get rid of Neville!")   
Towards the end of the scene, he implies that she is being less than 
truthful again.  ("As if! She just didn't want to go with Neville... 
I mean, who would?")  *Totally* uncalled for
 first, he implies
that 
Harry was keeping his illegal Triwizard entry from him, and now he 
seems to think Hermione is lying about really having a date
 I
mean, 
why in the world does the boy think his two best friends would be 
anything other than truthful towards him?  

Linda puts this very well.  "This is taken to a new level before
the 
ball when Ron thought that Hermione lied to Neville because no one 
would want to go with him the ball.  Ron couldn't bring himself to 
believe that anyone else had even considered asking Hermione.  Why is 
that? Because she didn't even rank high enough on the good looks 
scale for him."

So much for Ron, the Affable Average Teenage Guy.  And a lot of this 
snark is at Neville's expense, behind his back. What did Neville
ever 
do to him?  Is his mere existence enough to annoy Ron?  Quite ironic, 
considering the fact that his own sister has just agreed to go with 
the poor boy!

Okay, this is the part that my shipmates and I just adore.  Brace 
yourselves.

When Ron utters the famous "Hermione, Neville's right--you are a 
girl..." line... in which he cites NEVILLE as an authority

the same 
character that Ron disparages just a few paragraphs up and throughout 
the scene

Hermione doesn't blush or flinch at all!

If she does like Ron, I find it very strange that she doesn't quail 
under Ron's very appraising look, followed by a grin.  Don't you?

Then... look at this sequence:

******************
"Hermione, Neville's right--you are a girl."

"Oh, well spotted," she said acidly.

"Well, you can come with one of us."

"No, I can't," snapped Hermione.
******************

Ha!  She's *still* got an attitude with him here. It's all very "Ron, 
you are an idiot" IMO.  I just don't get any "I like you" vibes on 
her part.  (We have seen Hermione in "like" mode before with 
Lockhart
 refer to CoS.  Yes, I know that was merely a crush and
Ron 
is True Love, but still.  *grin*)

But then... notice the shift after Ron's next statement.

"Oh, come on," he said impatiently, "we need partners, we're going to 
look really stupid if we haven't got any, everyone else has..." 

"I can't come with you," said Hermione, *now blushing*...

Uh-oh.  

Okay.  Why does she only blush then
 and not along with the "Well 
spotted" comment?  And Ron's very thorough appraisal?  Why the 180 
degree turnaround?

Has the H/H reading faltered?  Has the HMS Pumpkin Pie ship sprung a 
leak?  

*evil grin*

Well, no.

Let's look at that statement again.

"Oh come on," he said impatiently, "*we* need partners, *we're* going 
to look really stupid if *we* haven't got any, everyone else 
has . . ."

Oh, this is *too* rich.

When Ron says, "Well, you can come with one of us,"
Hermione's cross 
for an obvious reason
 Ron's just insulted her!  But when Ron
pleads 
(impatiently, might I add), he re-emphasizes the "we" *three
times*

You see, my shipmates and I speculate that it occurs to Hermione that 
Harry is included in those "we" statements.  Because Ron says
we, 
Harry is implied as well.  And after all, Harry is Hermione's
focus 
for large portions of the first four books that cannot be
ignored

and Harry is the one who *needs* a partner for the ball.  Ron, being 
a fourth year, *can go alone*.  But Harry can't
 he is
required to 
find a partner.  I am certain that Hermione is aware of this.

And she *blushes*.  

Squee!

Gotta love it.

Another thing I noticed as I read this time around, when asked to do 
the R/H in GoF essay, is something that I'd never noticed before.
 In 
this whole exchange, from the time that Hermione descends upon the 
three (Ron, Harry, and Ginny) there is no H/H interaction *at all*.  
It's a R/H conversation that Harry happens to witness.  Harry doesn't 
interject and Hermione doesn't ask him a single thing.  About his 
rejection, about who he might be taking to the ball, about *anything*.

While R/Hr-ers tend to take this sort of thing as total lack of 
interest in anything Hermione does-feels-says-or-thinks on Harry's 
part, I see it as JKR perhaps trying to keep things under the radar.  
For a full two pages we have no interiority of Harry's
 which is 
strange, as we usually have a *lot* Harry's interior thought, as
he 
is the focalizer.  Not until the man of action decides that enough is 
enough and corrals Lavender and Parvati to find a solution to his 
problem.  

Well.  Why not have Ron and Hermione fade into the background, while 
Harry licks his emotional wounds over being rejected by Cho?  Why not 
have Harry notice Ginny, who's sitting right there
 what she
looks 
like, what he thinks she might be thinking?

Perhaps she is not telling us what Harry's thinking because she 
doesn't want us to know yet
 because perhaps even Harry
doesn't know 
himself.

All we know is that Harry is "completely distracted" by 
the "startling news" that Neville has asked Hermione to the
ball.  A 
few lines up, he's moping over Cho's rejection.  Then
he's distracted 
by Ron's startling news about Hermione
 and we have *no more 
interiority from him for over two pages*.

(Sidenote that's slightly snarky:  at the beginning of this
scene, 
Ginny says "they've both just been turned down by girls they
asked to 
the ball!"
 she makes it clear that both of the boys asked girls
to 
the ball, but it is Ron whose case Hermione jumps all over.  For a 
girl who supposedly has such motherly interest where Harry's 
concerned, she does not address him at all.  She doesn't say a
word 
to Harry during the entire scene either
 and usually Harry and 
Hermione are pretty well tuned into one another, as every other canon 
brief posted before me has shown.  These are the things that make us 
H/Hers go "hmm
"  I know, I know.  It's probably
nothing.  But I'm 
just sayin'.)

Okay, on to the "passionate" Yule Ball scenes.

THE YULE BRAWL

Over at FictionAlley, on the Trio boards, my shipmate Libbie analyzed 
all the nice proto-H/H moments from GoF in detail... and found 69 
such places in the text of the fourth book.  Some of them are in his 
chapter, and they make me grin.  I just love the way Harry's jaw 
drops!  I love how he notices Hermione throughout dinner, and how she 
catches Harry's eye after teaching Krum how to say her name 
correctly.  

And when Ron and Hermione finally do interact, I think they make my 
case for me.

(All quotes during the ball itself can be found on pp. 366-368, UK 
trade paper edition.)

********************
Hermione came over and sat down in Parvati's empty chair. She was a 
bit pink in the face from dancing.

"Hi," said Harry. Ron didn't say anything.

"It's hot, isn't it?" said Hermione, fanning herself with her 
hand.  "Viktor's just gone to get some drinks."

Ron gave her a withering look. "Viktor?" he said. "Hasn't he asked 
you to call him Vicky yet?"

Hermione looked at him in surprise. "What's up with you?" she said.

"If you don't know," said Ron scathingly, "I'm not going to tell you."

Hermione stared at him, then at Harry, who shrugged.
*********************
*********************

I mean, really.  All attraction aside, Hermione is supposed to be his 
best friend.  She's obviously having a great time, and so
Ron's 
remark stops her in her tracks.  She has no idea of what's going
on, 
and neither does stupid-and-clueless Harry.

*********************
"Ron, what - ?"

"He's from Durmstrang!" spat Ron. "He's competing against Harry!  
Against Hogwarts! You - you're -"  Ron was obviously casting around 
for words strong enough to describe Hermione's crime, "fraternizing 
with the enemy, that's what you're doing!"

Hermione's mouth fell open.

"Don't be so stupid!" she said after a moment. "The enemy!  Honestly -
 who was the one who was all excited when they saw him arrive?  Who 
was the one who wanted his autograph?  Who's got a model of him up in 
their dormitory?"

Ron chose to ignore this. "I s'pose he asked you to come with him 
while you were both in the library?"

"Yes, he did," said Hermione, the pink patches on her cheeks glowing 
more brightly. "So what?"

"What happened - trying to get him to join spew, were you?"

"No, I wasn't!  If you really want to know, he - he said he'd been 
coming up to the library every day to try and talk to me, but he 
hadn't been able to pluck up the courage!"

Hermione said this very quickly, and blushed so deeply that she was 
the same color as Parvati's robes.
********************
********************

Oh, so Hermione only blushes because she likes Ron?  Seems to me 
she's blushing about Krum's interest in *her*, bookworm
Hermione who 
no one at Hogwarts sees as anything other than a brain.  I'm not 
saying that Ron doesn't like Hermione—he so obviously
does—but I 
think her thoughts are very much elsewhere.  

Notice she doesn't blush until Viktor is mentioned.  I keep
saying 
that it's not because she likes him that she is blushing

being the 
singular subject of intense male attention does make you blush.  It 
doesn't mean you are head over heels with the guy in question. 
Ask 
Anne Shirley when it comes to Roy Gardiner.  Ask Jo March when it 
comes to Laurie.  Male attention is very flattering and it's 
femininity-affirming
 something that Hermione really needs.

Viktor, despite his surliness and introspective nature, is a guy that 
a lot of girls want.  I don't think people can relate to Hermione
in 
this context unless they've been there
 it is a total triumph
when 
you are the girl no one wants and then suddenly a guy from the A-list 
recognizes your inner worth
 and digs you.  Hermione's not so
much 
embarrassed to admit this to Ron as she is embarrassed to admit it, 
period.  I think she'd blush if she were telling Lavender or 
Dumbledore or her parents.  ;-)

The difference between Ron and Hermione?  You might be thinking that 
it was totally wrong of Hermione to use Viktor like that.  I
don't 
see it as using, though
 he wanted to take her and she agreed. 
She 
was also very nice to him, but that's to be expected.  This is 
Hermione we're referring to.

More on Miss Granger and blushing-about-Viktor later. 

******************
"Yeah, well - that's his story," said Ron nastily.

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

"Obvious, isn't it?  He's Karkaroff's student, isn't he?  He knows 
who you hang around with. . . . He's just trying to get closer to 
Harry - get inside information on him - or get near enough to jinx 
him -"

Hermione looked as though Ron had slapped her.  When she spoke, her 
voice quivered.
******************
*****************

*raises hand in obnoxious Hermione-fashion*

Ooh, I know exactly why she did that!  Ron's just insulted her on
two 
levels, hasn't he?  Let's take a closer look.

Harry has been a great deal of Hermione's *raison d'etre* for
four 
long years... and yes, Ron's too.  Remember in PoA, during the 
Shrieking Shack incident with Remus, Sirius, and Peter (as well as 
Snape)?  Their friendship went to a whole different level at the end 
of that book, didn't it?  When they realized they would both die
for 
Harry? Just like Ron, she's sacrificed a lot for his sake.  

For Ron to say that she'd jeopardize her friendship with Harry
and 
even his chances to win in such a haphazard fashion is positively 
insulting.

Even worse is Ron's casting aspersions on Krum's motive for
dating 
her in the first place!  Of course Krum didn't notice that she
was a 
kind person and beautiful inside and not a troll on the outside, 
either.  The only valuable thing about Hermione Granger is her 
friendship with Harry Potter, of course
 that's all Krum
sees.  Of 
course.

Again, yes
 I know that Ron likes Hermione.  However, I don't
see 
many reasons why any of  this would cause Hermione to develop a 
sudden romantic attachment to Ron.  Quite the contrary, actually.  
Only look at how he's treating her. This sort of blatant and 
Neanderthal disregard might turn some women on.  I posit that it does 
very little for Hermione.

We see exactly how insulted Hermione really is in her response.  Does 
she blush at Ron's accusations.  No.  *She looks as if Ron had 
slapped her.*

So is she secretly in love with him?  Or even in like?  Or even on 
the same page as those who foresee R/H romance upcoming in OotP?

Riiiiiiight.

************
"For your information, he hasn't asked me one single thing about 
Harry, not one -"

Ron changed tack at the speed of light.

"Then he's hoping you'll help him find out what his egg means! I 
suppose you've been putting your heads together during those cozy 
little library sessions -"

"I'd never help him work out that egg!" said Hermione, looking 
outraged. "Never.  How could you say something like that - I want 
Harry to win the tournament.  Harry knows that, don't you, Harry?"

"You've got a funny way of showing it," sneered Ron.
************
************

Hypocritical much, Ron?  Who's been more faithful to Harry in
GoF, 
Ron or Hermione?

Just to show that I don't spare Harry my criticism, Harry should
have 
spoken up a moment sooner, instead of letting Ron respond.  Hermione 
is constantly putting herself out there for Harry's sake, and it 
isn't reciprocated much.  Yes, I know he's going through a
lot, but I 
think his deal in GoF Hermioneward is that he just takes her for 
granted.   For after all, hasn't she always been there for him? 
And 
won't she always?

IMO, Harry needs to be soundly bapped.  How rude.  How 
unappreciative.  

And they say that Ron is the only one who's allowed to be a 14-year 
old boy.  ;-)

**************
"This whole tournament's supposed to be about getting to know foreign 
wizards and making friends with them!"  said Hermione hotly.

"No it isn't!" shouted Ron.  "It's about winning!"

People were starting to stare at them.

"Ron," said Harry quietly, "I haven't got a problem with Hermione 
coming with Krum -"

But Ron ignored Harry too.
**************
**************

All right, Casanova!  Ron really needs to straighten his
priorities

even if he's not aware that he likes Hermione yet, he could have
at 
least been civil to her as she is first and foremost his friend.  
Instead he is letting his temper get the better of him
 yet again.

**************
"Why don't you go and find Vicky, he'll be wondering where you are," 
said Ron.

"Don't call him Vicky!"

Hermione jumped to her feet and stormed off across the dance floor, 
disappearing into the crowd.  Ron watched her go with a mixture of 
anger and satisfaction on his face.

"Are you going to ask me to dance at all?" Padma asked him.

"No," said Ron, still glaring after Hermione.

"Fine," snapped Padma, and she got up and went to join Parvati and 
the Beauxbatons boy, who conjured up one of his friends to join them 
so fast that Harry could have sworn he had zoomed him there by a 
Summoning Charm.
**************
**************

Not only is Ron extremely impolite and rude to Hermione, now Padma is 
subject to his vitriol as well.  Eloise
 Neville
 and now
Padma?  I 
don't care if they're just minor characters, Ron just
isn't treating 
them very kindly.  Can you imagine Hermione falling for a guy who 
thumbs his nose at others whenever he's in a bad mood?  If so,
then 
you obviously detect a cruel streak in her character that I do not.  

Having fun is one thing.  Pure meanness is quite another.  And if I 
felt sorry for Ron before mid-GoF (which I did), I lost a lot of my 
empathy for him after reading this book.   Having problems in your 
own life is not an excuse to be nasty to others.  I have no idea how 
even the most rabid Ron fan can defend the mean things he says 
before, during, and after the Yule Ball.  They are totally 
indefensible IMO.  Sure, Hermione is willing to let bygones be 
bygones post-Yule Ball, just as Harry forgave him after the Goblet of 
Fire spat, but really
 I don't think these are just isolated 
incidents we'll never see in canon again.  

I really am a bit nervous about what will happen to the Trio's 
friendship in the future.  I think that it will endure, but I don't 
think the time of testing is over.  I think it's just begun.

It literally broke my heart to read Ron's characterization in
GoF.  
Pre-PoA, I adored Ron to pieces and liked him even better than 
Hermione.  He was one of my favorites.  In PoA, Ron and Hermione were 
about even
 before reading GoF, I was more understanding of both
PoVs 
in the Crookshanks incident.  But after GoF, when I re-read PoA, I 
saw this building continuum of occasional not-so-niceness in
Ron's 
behavior.  And when I came into the fandom, and said I was bothered 
by this pattern I was starting to observe in Ron, I got jumped all 
over!  Needless to say, the more I got jumped on, the more my heart 
hardened towards Ron's character.  

I grow very wary whenever I witness someone in RL, in canon, or in 
fandom get overly defensive.  As I tell my students, the unusually 
defensive usually are hiding something, methinks.  If the accusations 
are ridiculous, then why get so defensive?  I mean, if one accused 
Hermione of being a tart, or Harry of being a coward, or Sirius or 
Dumbledore of being a double-agent for Voldemort, or Hagrid of 
eventually doing something that would hurt Harry, I wouldn't get 
angry at all
 and those are my favorite characters in the novels!
 I 
would ignore the argument precisely because I'd think that canon 
rendered it invalid.  

All of these arguments have been made at one point or another in this 
fandom.  I haven't blinked, or jumped down the person's
throat who 
said them.

I confess to being mystified about the level of defensiveness, when 
the evidence speaks for itself.  All of the quotes I've
highlighted 
above point to Ron having an occasional mean streak when he's
angry.  
I did not say this made him a horrible person or one who is unworthy 
of friendship with Harry and Hermione.  I do not feel that way.  I 
just really think that in GoF, he "showed out" a bit more
than I 
liked, especially given the contexts.

H/H shippers have repeatedly conceded both Harry *and* Hermione's 
personality flaws.  Rarely do we receive reciprocation on Ron's 
part.  I know personally of a few R/H shippers have conceded some of 
our points about Ron's character, but the reason why many of the
more 
astute H/Hers refuse to debate ship anymore is because we are often 
confronted with this extreme irrationality when it comes to Ron.  And 
what is a debate, if it does not have reason as its basis?

Okay, here comes the lovely sequence that I always get tossed into my 
face whenever I ask for proof that Hermione likes Ron:

******************
The Fat Lady and her friend Vi were snoozing in the picture over the 
portrait hole. Harry had to yell "Fairy lights!" before he woke them 
up, and when he did, they were extremely irritated.  

He climbed into the common room and found Ron and Hermione having a 
blazing row.  Standing ten feet apart, they were bellowing at each 
other, each scarlet in the face.

"Well, if you don't like it, you know what the solution is, don't 
you?"  yelled Hermione; her hair was coming down out of its elegant 
bun now, and her face was screwed up in anger.

"Oh yeah?" Ron yelled back. "What's that?"

"Next time there's a ball, ask me before someone else does, and not 
as a last resort!"

Ron mouthed soundlessly like a goldfish out of water as Hermione 
turned on her heel and stormed up the girls' staircase to bed. Ron 
turned to look at Harry.

"Well," he sputtered, looking thunderstruck, "well - that just 
proves - completely missed the point -"

Harry didn't say anything.  He liked being back on speaking terms 
with Ron too much to speak his mind right now - but he somehow 
thought that Hermione had gotten the point much better than Ron had.
****************
****************

In my humble opinion, Penny explains away this bit of the chapter far 
better than anyone else in the entire fandom.  H/Hers, after *putting 
this scene in its context*, just do not think that Hermione's
shout 
of "not as a last resort" is a deliberate come-on. 

Here's why.

First of all, we wonder why JKR had Harry walk in *towards the end of 
this debate*.  We just don't understand the point of it, if JKR
was 
meaning to be transparent.  As I have proven earlier, our wonderful 
author has no problem with having Harry witness entire Ron-and-
Hermione scenes
 so what's up now?

"Well, if you don't like it, you know what the solution is, don't 
you?"

What specifically is "it", Hermione?  Why did JKR put that
pronoun in 
your mouth?  What can't we know?

We simply don't know what "it" is, because we walked in
along with 
Harry at the end of the conversation.  So we, like Harry, end up 
making a lot of assumptions.  

"He somehow thought that Hermione had gotten the point much
better 
than Ron had.

What point, Harry?

Going back to Hermione's famous statement:  "Next time there's a 
ball, ask me before someone else does, and not as a last resort!", we 
wonder if Hermione is really issuing a real invitation to Ron, after 
an honest read of the two chapters that led up to her frustrated 
remark.  She's seen what qualities Ron values in girls. 
She's seen 
how he treated his date that evening.  She's been repeatedly
insulted 
by him for no good reason at all.

As Linda says:  "Maybe she did want Ron to ask her out and not as
a 
last resort.  I don't know.  But after the troll crack and the 
doubting that anyone else besides Neville would ask her out - I'd be 
damned pissed at him.  I'd also be re-evaluating any attraction I 
felt towards him."

Amen.  Note also that her shout gives no indication that she'd 
say "yes" to him if he did ask.  Judging from the two
chapters that 
just passed--I'd say not.

All we know from this scene is that Ron does like Hermione--his 
gaping after her once she drops this bomb is a case in point.

However, we knew that before.

But as my analysis shows, the fundamental question of "does Hermione 
like Ron as more than a friend?", a question that was posed to JKR 
during a spring 2001 interview, has not been answered satisfactorily 
in the #1 instance of the text cited to prove the case.