[HPforGrownups] SHIP Ron/ Hermione /Re:Prefect Ron

[elfundeb]

No: HPFGUIDX 151579

 SSSusan steps out into the light, after a long period in darkest
Lurkerdom, to say:

<Ooooh, Betsy, I'll bite on this one!  Can you give me an example or
two of why you think Hermione has a hard time reading people
emotionally?  I'm thinking of the insight she gave to Ron & Harry
that time in OoP on what girls want, as well as her comment to Ron
that he had the emotional range of a teaspoon, as examples that she
might not be totally clueless there.>

Debbie, emerging from much deeper lurkdom and deserving of a Bat-Bogey Hex
for barging in like this to answer a question directed to someone else, but
since I agree with Betsy . . . .

Hermione accuses Ron of having the emotional range of a teaspoon, I
think, because she treats emotions, like anything else, as something to be
analyzed and dissected.  In addition to Betsy's own examples, take Cho.
 Hermione has put together a detailed laundry list of all of the events
in Cho's life that are making her an emotional mess.  (The fact that she is
an emotional mess should be obvious to anyone who is paying attention.)
This an analytical response to Cho, not an emotional one.  And to take
Betsy's examples, in PoA, Hermione unhelpfully attempted to defuse
Lavender's grief over her rabbit by analyzing the circumstances
of Trelawney's supposed prediction and poor Binky's death.

Ron, OTOH, actually offers real comfort, as in Betsy's GoF example where he
suggests a pickup game of Quidditch to ease Harry's mind.  And I'll add my
favorite:  in PoA (erm, I think it's PoA) the Trio visit Hagrid while he's
distraught over something.  While Hermione (and to some extent Harry) offer
practical advice, he does not calm down until Ron brings him a steaming mug
of tea.  Only then, after he has been comforted, can he listen to Hermione's
opinions.

As for Ron's emotional range, I must confess that I do not see a wide
emotional range in his responses to emotional distress.  He has one
response:  offer comfort.  But he's good at it, much better than Hermione.
And that's because he trusts his emotional read of a situation.  Hermione
does not.  (In Myers-Briggs terms, this is a thinker-feeler dichotomy.)

Betsy:
> Actually, I think that's where JKR is going when she sees Ron and
> Hermione as a couple.  She provides the cold calculation, he
> provides the heart, and together they're unstoppable.


SSSusan:
<<Interesting!  I see what you mean about Hermione's "cold calculation"
at times, such as with the entire DA setup, but is she coldy
calculating in her expressed concern for house elves and in the
creation of S.P.E.W.?  Is that not partly out of genuine emotional
concern for the house elves and their well-being?>>

Debbie:
Hermione's concern about the house elves is genuine.  But it's also not
wholly an emotional response, as the received wisdom of Hermione's muggle
cultural background tells her that slavery is wrong.  She simply applies
that received wisdom to the house elves, without any significant real-life
contact with them.  Her response is very calculated -- she has a detailed
plan for raising awareness of the house elves' plight.

Ron, OTOH, subconsciously synthesizes his observations of the house elves at
Hogwarts and reaches a different, emotionally-based, conclusion: they are
happy so let's not be so quick to upset the apple-cart.  Nowhere does Ron
endorse the Malfoys' treatment of Dobby.  As for Kreacher, Ron's response
has little to do with his being a house-elf and everything to do with his
fanatical devotion to the memory of Mrs. Black and her pure-blood mania.

SSSusan:
<<I don't doubt that Ron has a big heart, but he can be blunt and
almost heartless at times in his remarks, too.  Maybe I'm
interpreting "cold calculation" and "heart" differently than I should
be, though, or thinking of them in different contexts than you are?>>

Debbie:
Ron is not a calculating kind of guy -- rather, he is thoughtless, and his
off-the-cuff remarks can be hurtful.  But when he speaks, he says what he
means.  We do not get guile from him.  WYSIWIG.  I think this is one reason
Ron is an appealing character for many readers despite his lack of judgment
and tact.

Hermione, OTOH, calculates everything, even to the point of being willing to
go on a date with that colossal jerk Cormac MacLaggen, just to infuriate
Ron.  With Ron, I doubt any thinking at all went into his hooking up with
Lavender; at that point, what Ron needed emotionally (after a year and a
half of Hermione expressing doubt about his abilities) was to feel wanted,
and Lavender provided that for him.

Betsy HP:
<<But with Ron and Hermione, they fight because they really *are*
different.  They have completely different ways of approaching
problems, and completely different goals.  Their differences aren't
a falsehood that needs to be destroyed so they can finally get
together.  The differences are real and won't go away.>>

Debbie:
They may approach problems differently, but that could be a strength if each
learns to trust the validity of the other's methods and when each approach
is the right one.  IMO, their goals are not as different as they seem.  Ron
wants to succeed (IMO, as much as Hermione does), but he's afraid to try.

Shaun:
<<I really don't
think Hermione needs to do as much study as she does to perform
well, but being a perfectionist, she does a lot more than she needs
to (one of the two ways perfectionism most often expresses itself -
the other is in not studying at all, because if you don't try, you
have an excuse for failure).>>

Debbie:
People who have been on this list for a *very* long time may remember that I
once wrote a post
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/38730) claiming
that Ron was plenty smart (I didn't use gifted terminology) but that for a
host of reasons including the Weasley family dynamic and his fear of
becoming another Percy subjected to merciless abuse from the twins, Ron
purposely does not try.  In fact, this is almost the first thing he tells
Harry on the Hogwarts Exress in PS/SS ("I'm the sixth in our family to go to
Hogwarts.  You could say I've got a lot to live up to.  . . . Everyone
expects me to do as well as the others, but if I do, it's no big deal,
because they did it first.")  That's a lot of expectations he thinks he's
carrying, and as Shaun says, if he doesn't try, he can't fail.

Ron is frequently derided as not in Hermione's class intellectually.  I
won't repeat all the evidence that Ron's smarter than your average wizard
(regardless of how much Idiot!Movie!Ron may have influenced JKR; however,
the fact that Ron manages to garner a significant number of O.W.L.s just by
cramming in the few weeks before the exam suggests to me that he's not so
dumb after all.  A little mutual respect would go a long way toward fixing
what seems wrong with this pairing.  And that comes with maturity.

Debbie
who analyzes *everything* just like Hermione and probably has the emotional
range of a demitasse spoon


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]