Troll comment (was SHIP: The Yule Brawl)

[Amy Z <lupinesque@yahoo.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 50303

My sister lycanthrope wrote:

> *only* reason she has for thinking Ron is an insensitive prat who 
> deserves to have his face rubbed in his romantic failure is 
> that "troll" conversation from a few days before.  

Penny wrote:

> I agree that she was very hurt by the trolls remark, but it may or 
may not have anything to do with personal feelings for Ron.  

Angua again:
 
> <<<<<Of course she doesn't want Ron to ask her.  It's too late now -
 she 
> already has a date.  She *wanted* Ron to ask her before.  Now she 
wants him to suffer for "rejecting" her.  And, again, Hermione has no 
clue that Ron "thinks Neville is beneath him."  
> And, of course, Harry is dateless as well.  Is Hermione delighted 
by 
> that karma too, or does she simply not have any attention to spare 
> for Harry right now?>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Penny again:

> Well, again, it wasn't *Harry* who made the insensitive Trolls 
comment.  Ron also didn't even have the good sense to try & backtrack 
out of the mess he'd made ("Yeah ..... that sounds about right.").  
> 
> If Ron "rejected" Hermione, he did so based on appearances, didn't 
he?  

I have a slightly different take than either of you on the trolls 
comment and Hermione's reaction to it.  Ron was being insensitive to 
Eloise Midgen and to girls in general.  If he has any thought that 
Hermione might be a potential romantic partner, he's being 
insensitive in the extreme to her as well--*but* it seems to me that 
he *isn't* dismissing Hermione as a date because of her looks, but 
because she's his best friend.  *He doesn't think of her as a girl*--
not until a few days later when the pin finally drops.  As JKR says, 
he likes her (the first stirrings are in CS, IMO), but he doesn't 
know it yet.  (Typical boy.)  And I tend to assume that Hermione 
knows this.  Whether or not she has any romantic urges toward Ron, 
she knows that the reason she doesn't register as a Yule Ball date 
until the pool of girls appears to have shrunk to her and his sister 
isn't that she isn't good-looking enough; it's that he thinks of her 
as being almost as ineligible as his sister.

Nor do I see any reason to conclude from this interaction that 
Hermione wanted Ron to ask her to the ball.  Maybe she did, maybe she 
didn't, but I'm not seeing evidence in her reaction to the trolls 
comment.  There's another simple explanation for her angry response:  
Ron's being a sexist cad.  This irritates many young women.

In short, I don't think that Hermione is *hurt* by the trolls 
remark.  Angry, but not hurt.  So why does it make her angry?  
Because it's insulting to girls in general.  Hasn't anyone else ever 
been pissed off by men's rating women on their looks, even if you 
aren't among the women being rated?  Especially if you know you 
aren't considered very good-looking yourself.  I find such remarks 
infuriating, not because anyone is directly or even indirectly saying 
where I go on the scale, but because I know if they put me on the 
scale I wouldn't come out so well.  And because it's shallow and rude 
and stupid.

As for Ron's lack of good sense in not backtracking when he has the 
chance, I think it's funny.  I've had the same conversation with at 
least one man.  Indignant me:  "So you like her even though she's a 
moron, just because she has great legs?"  "Um, yeah."  Even though it 
made me want to smack him, it also made me laugh because he knew 
perfectly well that he was saying something indefensible.

Amy Z