Reintroducing myself and a question (second impressions of OoP)

[serenadust]

No: HPFGUIDX 91996

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "sophierom" <sophierom at y...> 
wrote:

> I actually thought Hermione was in less "moral peril" in OotP than 
> in any of the other books.  In the other books, she was more like 
> Percy; she tended to believe in the rules for the rules' sake.  
That 
> can be just as morally dangerous as disregarding the rules 
> altogether.  
> 
> I actually thought it was Ron who was in trouble morally.  He 
> doesn't take much of a stand on anything throughout the book.  For 
> all the problems in Hermione's S.P.E.W. campaign, at least she 
> believes in something and is acting on it.



I'm afraid that I'm baffled by this statement.  After all, it isn't 
Ron who is grimly engaging in blackmail or scheming to put someone 
he doesn't like in mortal danger (Umbridge and the Centaurs).  
Hermione certainly believes in "something" and acts on it, but does 
it not matter what that something is or *how* one acts on it?
I thought that Hermione was skating very close to the edge all 
through OOP, and because she seemed to be right about virtually 
everything, she never had an opportunity to reconsider any of her 
actions.  I really think that JKR is setting her up for a big (and 
well-earned) fall.

<snip>
 
Sophierom wrote:
 
> But Ron? He doesn't really stand for anything, particularly as a 
> prefect.  He's always playing the pure sidekick to Harry. Of 
course, 
> this is part of his function as a character, I guess.  And, he has 
> the problem of the twins.  Don't get me wrong, I like Ron a lot, 
but 
> I think he's by far the weakest of the trio.  If we could condense 
> MWPP into 3, Harry would represent a bit of his father and 
> godfather, Hermione acts most like Lupin, and Ron is Peter 
> Pettigrew.   
 
I generally don't think that generational parallels work too well in 
HP but I'm afraid that I don't see any similarities between Ron and 
Pettigrew.  Ron tells a (he thinks) murderous Sirius Black that 
he'll have to kill him first if he wants to kill Harry.  He never, 
ever fawns over Harry and even goes so far as to have a fight with 
him when he feels betrayed in GoF. I can't quite picture Pettigrew 
doing any of these things. In addition, academically, he's Harry's 
equal, according to Harry, and while Hermione is the intellectual 
support behind Harry, Ron is his main emotional support.

I think that the trio is quite well balanced, overall and I'm 
looking forward to seeing each of them overcome their personal 
challenges as well as helping Harry defeat Voldemort.  Ron is no 
more of a weak link than Hermione, IMO.

Jo Serenadust