GoF fight between Harry and Ron/On perfection of moral virtues

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 168935

Pippin wrote:
> > 
> > "Listen," said Harry. "I didn't put my name in that goblet.
Someone else must've done it."
> > 
> > Ron raised his eyebrows.
> > 
> > "What would they do that for?"
> > "I dunno," said Harry. He felt it would sound very melodramatic to
say, "To kill me."
> > 
> > Harry thinks he *does* know. He says he doesn't. He's not hiding
the truth from a curious stranger, he's hiding it from his best
friend, and not even giving him a reason for it. <SNIP>
> 
Alla responded:
> 
> And I disagree that Harry thinks he **does** know. I believe that 
based on the quote I brought Harry is **not** sure at all. So, no I 
do not think he is **hiding the truth** from Ron. I believe he is not
giving him all information he has, but I do not think he is sure  that
this is the truth.
> 
> 
> Pippin:  
> > But if Harry thought Ron didn't need to know why someone had put
Harry's name in the goblet or that knowing this would endanger Ron,
then he should've been happy that Ron got the wrong end of the stick.
But he wasn't. He  withheld his faith from Ron and still expected Ron
to have faith in him.
> > That wasn't fair.
> 
> Alla:
> 
> IMO Harry had faith in Ron and Ron did not rise up to it at that
moment anyways. I believe that Harry was not sure that Moody is right
and indeed afraid to sound melodramatic.
> 
> I do not believe that to have faith in Harry Ron needed to hear 
that somebody is trying to kill him. <snip>
> 
> I found it to be very dissapointing.

Carol responds:
As I see it, neither boy had sufficient faith in the other. We all
agree that Ron should have believed Harry, but he did have reasons not
to. He knows Harry, who is always breaking rules, going places he's
not supposed to go, getting into danger, doing the impossible (such as
being two places at once). If anyone can get past the Age Line to
enter a dangerous tournament, it's Harry.

But Harry, too, is showing lack of faith in a friend who has braved
terrible dangers with him. Does he think Ron will laugh at him for
being melodramatic if he says "To kill me?" If so, he really doesn't
know Ron, who has risked his own death just by being Harry's best
friend. Do I really need to list the perils he's faced just because he
was loyal to Harry, including his own worst fear, gigantic spiders?

*Of course* someone is trying to kill Harry. Someone is *always*
trying to kill Harry, or appears to be. Did Ron laugh the previous
year when Sirius Black was supposedly out to murder Harry? No, he did
not, even before his own bedcurtains were slashed with a twelve-inch
knife. Nor did he laugh when Harry wanted to enter the third-floor
corridor to face "Snape" and keep the Philosopher's Stone from
Voldemort. He entered it with him. He's not going to think that Harry
is being melodramatic if Harry tells him that putting his name in the
Goblet of Fire might be part of a plot to kill him.

But even if Harry hesitates to present that possibility, how about his
other thought--to make a fool of him. An older Slytherin could have
put his name in the cup just to be mean. (A classmate of mine once ran
an ad campaign consisting of a few handwritten signs running me for
Junior Varsity--cheerleader. Now *that* would have been humiliating,
considering that I couldn't even stand on my head, much less do a
cartwheel.)

But Harry, having gone through all the thoughts you quoted in his
head, seems to think that Ron has gone through the same thought
process. Ron, however, has been wondering how Harry could have gotten
past the age line and why Harry didn't invite him along as he's always
done. They're starting from two different positions, and neither is
responding to the other's thoughts. Ron at least *presents* his
position, whereas Harry just says that someone else must have done it
but he doesn't know why.

Had he presented any plausible reason, they could have had a
discussion as they do about Snape in SS/PS and Draco in CoS. But to
keep his thoughts to himself in this instance is self-defeating. Ron
is not a mind reader. *Of course* he thinks that Harry put his own
name in the cup. So does everyone else in the school. It's not just
Slytherins who wear the "Support Cedric Diggory" badges.

It's exactly like CoS when Harry doesn't trust Dumbledore enough to
tell him that he hears a voice in the walls hissing about blood and
killing. And exactly like his thinking that he didn't need to mention
the dream in his message to Sirius Black. He *really* needs to stop
withholding information from his friends for fear that they'll think
he's being weak or melodramatic or that something's wrong with him.

If Harry had told Ron what he had heard Fake!Moody say, Ron would have
immediately believed that Harry didn't put his own name in the GoF. As
it is, his own version of events seemed more plausible, and Harry's
implication that he was stupid for thinking what everyone else thought
must have seemed like insult added to injury.

Harry had the information to prevent the argument from happening. Ron
didn't.

Carol, who is not calling "I dunno" a lie, exactly, but does think
that had Harry followed it up with plausible reasons and Fake!Moody's
speculations, the fight would not have happened