Ron WAS: Re: DH reread CH 4-5

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 186280

> Montavilla47:
 
> I guess the thing is that I felt through the series that I was expected to keep 
> cheering every time Ron made these type of breakthroughs (starting with him 
> winning the 50 points in book 1), only to have those breakthroughs have no 
> positive effect on him.  Because he kept going two steps back, he ended up seeing 
> less mature at the end of the series than he did at the beginning.  I really *liked* 
> that kid back in PS/SS who dreamed about being Head Boy and Quidditch Captain.  
> Where did that kid go?

Magpie:
I think it's important to remember that pretty much everybody in this universe stays the same, at heart, though some people just need time to uncover who they were or wind up having to go down the wrong road to rediscover themselves. For an obvious example, I remember pre-OotP people would complain about Marauder-era fanfics that showed Peter being obviously the rat he turned out to be. Then in OotP there he is being really obviously the rat he turned out to be. But this had always been the case: when Sirius faces him in PoA he completely sees that Peter was what he was all along. Once he got the right piece of info, everything fell into place. (JKR's very fond of this sort of thing and she does it well.)

Neville changes superficially--he's no longer bursting into tears or getting so flustered he forgets things or blows things up. I'd say his mirror here is a bit of Draco Malfoy, who by the later books is no longer cocky and antagonistic. But in both these cases, what we're seeing is the outside of the person coming to match the inside that was there all along, not a major change in who they were. 

We cheer when Neville stands up to the DEs and attacks Nagini, but this isn't new for the Neville. In PS/SS he stood up to the Trio and attacked Crabbe and Goyle. Neville is basically doing the same thing, in a pinch and when his metal was tested, as he always did. (Both Draco and Neville are even basically living up to their names the way they act.)

Ron we know better than Neville, so like Hermione there really are no surprises and we've already memorized his patterns. His interaction with Hermione is the same in the epilogue as it is in earlier books. I've no doubt he continues to have periodic blow ups, just as I have no doubt Ginny and Hermione's little spat in HBP is a foreshadowing of sister-in-law spats to come. It's just more annoying sometimes with Ron--not, I don't think, only because people want him to develop but because it leads to the same dang story that's too easily recognized. Particularly in HBP with Quidditch, a lot of which book's plot was treading water until the plot blew up. 

I think there's probably an upside to this; it's part of what makes the characters memorable and there's probably a comfort to seeing them do the same things again and again. But with Ron it gets a little too much. And maybe it also gets a little depressing. Because when you go back and read earlier books Ron really does seem to devolve as a person. I wouldn't have guessed from PS/SS that he'd have such a defeatist quality to him that I see in him later on. I wind up feeling a bit like he decided to play down to otehrs' low expectations and set himself up to have all his insecurities validated over and over. Even his career choice seems designed to make himself miserable--becoming a probably mediocre auror to Harry's star head of the department before he's 30? Yipes. (Course there's the alternate scenario where he works at WWW, but that's just as bad--he's taking Fred's place with none of Fred's talents.)

-m