JKR's marriage SHIP, Yule Ball

[pippin_999 <foxmoth@qnet.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 50378

I earlier argued:

<<<<<But you've got it just backward!  R/H er's don't see the 
passion created by rows, at least *I* don't.  I see the rows as 
created by passion. Once Ron and Hermione have matured 
enough to express their true feelings, (if ever they do--I expect 
that will take time), they won't need to hide them behind this  
mask of conflict.>>>>>>>

Penny:
>>Are you trying to suggest that they've been secretly attracted to 
each other from the moment they met at age 11?  Because that's 
how long they've been at each other you know.  <<

Well, yeah. In a very latent stage, Calvin and Susie, Tom and 
Becky , "You've got dirt on your nose, " kind of way. Is that a 
foundation for future romance? In itself, of course not, but I don't 
see why it  has to militate against it either. Is there some sort of  
taboo  that no one you considered eligible before the age of 21 is 
eligible afterward? That's hardly feasible in the wizarding world. 
Unless you're going to wind up with a Muggle, a foreigner or 
someone much older or younger than yourself, you know every 
eligible person, at least by name and reputation, by the time 
you're seventeen. 

This is not a world where people go off to college, then  move to 
the big city to make their career. They don't go through the big 
dislocations that people in our society do between eighteen and 
twenty-five.   I think that a wizarding pair who decided they were 
couple material as mature teens (and Ron and Hermione 
certainly haven't decided that yet) wouldn't  be advised to wait on 
account of those two major life changing experiences looming 
ahead of them. Although, of course, Ron and Hermione *do* 
have a major life changing experience ahead of them. And it's 
not going to wait until they're eighteen, more's the pity.  If their 
relationship can grow and blossom in the shadow of what 
Voldemort's going to throw at them, do you really think they'll let 
anything else  tear it apart?

Meanwhile, I think that we R/H'ers are setting a trap for ourselves 
if we expect to find incontrovertible evidence of Hermione 
=======>> Ron in GoF. This is the middle of the story, and we 
all know what happens to the boy who meets the girl at the 
beginning of the story and gets her at the end. That's right. He 
*loses* her. Right on schedule. <g>

I also want to say a word about Ron's male chauvinism in saying 
the girls nobody wants are Trolls. I think, (and I'm not excusing 
him, mind) that most of his comments are projection, and he 
wants a pretty girl  because of what "all the good ones are taken" 
will say about *him,* not because he, personally, considers 
pretty girls the only ones worth dating.  *He's* the one who's 
nervous about his appearance -- in the conversation with Fred 
and George just prior, they insult it several times, once to say 
that his singed eyebrows will go well with his dress robes 
(already a sore subject) call him a "stupid great prat" and then  
tell him to "nose out." Ron gets teased about his nose, as we 
know. 

I'm sure he's had to listen to a lot of "who's hot, who's not" 
conversations between Fred, George, Seamus and Dean. (Why 
do I think the collection of Scarlet Letters magazines, with their 
age restriction charms disabled,  belongs to Fred and George, 
who lend  out  "Weasley  Wizard Wand-Ups" at extortionate rates 
for perusal by the lonely and the curious?)  

Considering himself in meat market fashion, Ron hasn't got 
much to offer. He's sensitive about his looks, his poverty, and 
compared to his two friends, his lack of magical prowess (he 
hasn't figured out yet that it's not what you have, it's how you use 
it.) All he has is his friendship with Harry and his old-family 
descent, and he's too noble to trade on them. IMO, Ron's attitude 
resembles that famous remark of Groucho's, "I wouldn't join any 
club that would have me for a member." Seen in this light, his 
remarks about Neville are really about himself. If he actually had 
such a low opinion of Neville, I'd expect him to object to his 
taking Ginny, but we don't hear a peep about that.

The reason Ron doesn't care whether the girl he ends up with is 
horrible or not is because, considered as potential dates,  they're 
*all* horrible. Ron's concern is not whether he will have a good 
time. It's a given to him that he won't. His concern is that he won't 
look like an idiot, and this comes out over and over again in 
canon "everyone watching", "we're going to look really stupid if 
we haven't got any" "surveyed himself in the mirror with an 
appalled look on his face." His acting-out is the classic reaction 
of a child who's been pushed into a social situation he can't 
handle. Ron would have been much happier if the fourth year 
Gryffs could have treated the Yule Ball as a group date and gone 
in a body, I'm sure.  

Pippin