[HPforGrownups] Re: Ron as prefect?

[Shaun Hately]

No: HPFGUIDX 105891

On 12 Jul 2004 at 23:34, Arya wrote:

> Well, I might ageree with you, Del, if it weren't for JKR telling us
> herself that Ron wasn't the best prefect and didn't even know by the
> end of the year that prefects could dock points. (Referencing her
> website's FAQ page.) I just don't see Ron having taken his
> responsibilities very seriously - and you'd think for someone with such
> ambitions as to be Head Boy one day, he might want to work a bit for
> it.  Taking points seems to be a pretty basic principle in the duty of
> a prefect to enforce rules but, erm, Ron never even *knew* he could or
> should do this.  That doesn't make him look too stellar with any spin
> you might put on it.

OK - JKR, does *not* say Ron isn't the best prefect. From the FAQ.

"Can prefects take points or not? A prefect took points from 
Gryffindor in the Chamber of Secrets, and then there was a 
reference to prefects not being allowed to dock points. What are 
the rules?

Ron got it wrong in 'Phoenix', from which we deduce that he hasn't 
been a very authoritarian prefect thus far; he clearly hasn't been 
taking points from anybody."

What she says is that he is not a 'very authoritarian prefect'. 
That is *very* different from whether or not he's a good or a bad 
one.

When I was a prefect at school, I had disciplinary powers - and I 
used them a lot. I had to, because for me it was the only way I 
could impose my authority on some other students.

The people I would consider though to have been the *best* prefects 
I worked with - some of them virtually never had to use their 
disciplinary powers. They had a knack of being able to get people 
to do what they were supposed to do without punishing them. They'd 
do it when they had to - but they had to very seldom.

Yes, taking points is a prefect's duty at Hogwarts, and it does 
worry me slightly than Ron doesn't even seem to know he has the 
power. But it's possible that he simply hasn't had the need to use 
it. He may be getting results in other ways. We don't really get to 
see much of what he does.


Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
Shaun Hately | www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
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"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one
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