George Weasley

Families

Parents

• Family: Married
  • Birth Father: Arthur Weasley
  • Birth Mother: Molly Prewett

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Analysis

Speculation

Like the rest of the Weasley family, we want George to be a good person. The problem is that Fred and George could at times be quite insensitive, and in fact borderline cruel. Compounding this, we do not want to speak ill of the dead. What then do you make of George, particularly after the war when trying to deal with him as an individual? We need to avoid the temptation to paint either twin as “the good twin” and to ascribe to either of them either all the good that the pair did or all the bad that the pair did. Each was a complex and fully human person who, despite the fact that the book gives us limited visibility into them, must have done much to be proud of and much to regret.

• George must be skilled with charms, potions, or, most likely, both. The joke shop cannot have been dependant on the magic of just one of the two of them.
  • I take it as a given that the twins could have done quite well in school had they cared to.
  • I have seen authors represent that the twins split the load between them, one focusing on charms and the other on potions. This might be possible, but seems unlikely.
    1. All of the human transformational pranks except the invisibility hats seem to be potions based.
    2. The charms based ones still have a physical trigger, they seem to be more enchanting things to store spells rather than simply charming them to exhibit the effects of spells. We have no clear definition of enchanting in the book, and no example of studying anything remotely like this in the six years of schooling we observe. This suggests it is an extracurricular study the twins have picked up and may represent a hybrid multidisciplinary endeavour.
• It is quite common for authors to represent George struggling to keep the shop running after the war.
  • I believe that this might well be true, but that the struggle would be an emotional one, not a technical one. See the above point for technical ability.
  • While I believe it to have been an emotional difficulty, I do not believe that the joke shop was “Fred’s idea” and that George was merely carried along for the ride. I cannot believe that George was that passive in his own life.