Ron and money (kinda Spoilers)

[delwynmarch]

No: HPFGUIDX 114841


OK, it doesn't divulge anything really, but just in case some people
don't want to know about JKR's insights on her website, here goes :
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Dear JKR ! I loved it when I read her comments about Ron and the
Leprechaun gold ! Some posters here have been so tough with Ron for
daring to complain about being poor, but JKR is on his side on that
one. She says that "he cannot imagine how it must be not to notice a
pocketful of gold disappearing", not that he's being jealous or greedy
or anything, he's simply baffled. She even uses the word "poignancy"
to describe the emotions Ron feels during the Niffler scene, and
that's a strong word. She even concludes by saying that she "wanted to
show, through Ron, how hard it is sometimes not to have any money when
other people do". *She* doesn't judge him to be a bad boy for
complaining about money once in a while, in fact she calls him her
"past self".

Oh, and there's her answer about what she's bought with her money, and
she says the best thing that has come out of her wealth is "abscence
of worry". As someone whose mother was always quite tight, I know that
kids feel it when their parents are worried about not having enough
money to pay for things. Obviously, all the Weasley kids are aware of
their parents' sometimes uncomfortable money situation, judging by the
way they react (the Twins open their own shop while still at school,
Ron is always avoiding to point out that his parents don't have much
money, and so on). That could also explain in part Percy's outburst at
his father, if he discovered that getting higher up in the MoM
hierarchy isn't that hard, but that his father refused to take the
necessary steps, and so kept them *all*, wife and kids included, in a
constant state of anxiety, apparently *needlessly* (we know better,
but Percy is only 20 and extremely naive). 

We have to remember that JKR has got *tons* of questions she can
choose to answer to, and yet she chose those 2, about money and what
it means to have some or not. I think it says something about her
opinion of Ron. Couple that to the fact that she states Ron is her
third favourite character, right behind Harry and Hermione, and I
think she's made it quite clear that her view of Ron is very different
from the one some posters here hold (jealous Ron whose greediness will
make him turn evil).

Del, who likes Ron very much, even though he's so clueless about,
well, pretty much everything :-)