Ronald Bilius Weasley

Families

Married

• Spouse: Hermione Jean Granger

Parents

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

Analysis

When you first read the Harry Potter books for the first time, you cannot help but like Ron. In retrospect, the fact that when Harry tells Ron something of the Dursleys, "This seemed to cheer Ron up"¹ is a bit of foreshadowing. Still, the boy was eleven; he was embarrassed by his own (perceived) poverty, that much is normal and understandable in anyone. If Ginny grew up hearing the story of The-Boy-Who-Lived, then so too did Ron - they are only a year apart in age. So when Harry empathises with Ron instead of rejecting him, Ron feels better. Ron expected to be ridiculed, he got sympathy. Feeling better, in this light, is probably fairly normal. It is only sinister foreshadowing because this is a book.

So really, for the first three books, Ron is pretty much the good guy. Yes,his comments about Hermione being a know-it-all were insensitive, but he did immediately felt guilty when he realized she heard them.² Recall that he is only eleven, and all eleven year olds have quite a bit to learn about appropriate behavior. Similarly, he probably ought to be more studious, but honestly, how many of us at that age really cared about our school work as much as we ought? Hogwarts has appalling oversight for the students unless, like at least one of the movies, you add in mandatory study halls that are not present in the books (but are probably more representative of true British public school experience).

It is in fourth year that things start to turn. First Ron decides that Harry not only put his own name in, but then lied about it. Lets be honest here. We know that Harry did not put his name in, but Harry, like Ron, did dream of the "eternal glory" aspect of winning the tournament. If you consider means, motive and opportunity, Ron is correct that Harry has both motive and opportunity.

Ron's jealousy and distrust is not appealing, and I would have trouble forgiving it. Still, we cannot help but applaud when Harry does forgive Ron. Harry has few friends, and when I was first reading the books I was more relieved to see Harry get the support he needed, I was not worried about the deeper implications of what this says about Ron. Also note that what has Ron upset in Goblet of Fire is not Harry's fame (despite that being what Ron talks about most), but rather the one revealing comment "you can tell me the truth."³ He is hurt that he has been left out, but as a particularly immature teen-aged boy, it is easier to be angry about [Harry's] fame than to broach the emotion filled subjected of "I think you betrayed me." Not that this excuses him, our perspective outside the narative means that we know that Harry did not betray Ron, and that Ron's distrust of Harry is all that is actually standing between them.

The anger with which Ron reacts when Hermione goes to the Ball with Krum probably ought to have disturbed me more. I do not expect a fourteen year old boy to be particularly clued in about girls. Ron is now the equivalent of a freshman in high school, if he went to a US school instead of a UK school. Freshmen are just starting to get past standing awkwardly across the room from each other, and starting to group date. So while Ron is perhaps a little on the immature side of things, the Ball has pushed both Ron and Harry far beyond their comfort zone.

It is not the lead up to Ball then that is concerning, it is the anger that comes when he sees Hermione with Krum. He gets into a screaming match with her, insults her, then claims that it is her fault for upsetting him. The older Ron gets, the more his habit of reacting to embarrassment with anger is a concern. Lashing out to hurt those close to you because you cannot handle your own emotions … we will see this again in sixth year when he dates Lavender.

Speaking of whom, come on, really? Dating a girl just because you are jealous of the girl you really like having kissed someone else two years ago? Especially right after she just asked you out? This is not cool. Ron is using Lavender, purposefully hurting Hermione, and in denial about both behaviours. The only excuse for Harry putting up with Ron is that Harry is himself abused and does not really have any models on how to handle relationships of any kind.

But really I probably would have forgiven Ron everything up until the seventh book. That is when I moved to actually disliking the character.

Ron's behaviour at the beginning of the summer when he accuses Harry of messing with Ginny more or less makes sense. If you are going to break up with a girl, then do so. No matter how little Harry wanted to break up with Ginny, doing so then kissing her, if he had initiated it, would have been playing with her emotions. We know that the kiss is Ginny's idea, but I think that never occurred to Ron. In his mind, Ginny is the injured party, so why would she kiss Harry? He (Harry) must have started the kiss.

But somehow Ron decides that Harry broke up with Ginny because he was really secretly attracted to Hermione. Sure the locket horcrux played a role here, and Ron is not solely to blame. The idea however is ludicrous. Harry and Hermione have had ample opportunity to get together if they were going to do so. There was no need for Harry to have ever been secretive about his supposed feelings. At this point Ron is still not admitting that he wants a relationship with Hermione, it is pathetically obvious, but unspoken. Harry sums it up well.

“She’s like my sister,” he went on. “I love her like a sister and I reckon she feels the same way about me. It’s always been like that. I thought you knew.”⁴

It is a bit odd that two teenage boys living in a dorm have not talked about girls at all. It would have been better if this had not remained unspoken for so long. But again, Harry comes from a background of abuse and neglect. He does not know how to verbalise these things. Add in the fact that Harry has been attracted to Ron's sister since at least the summer after fifth year, and perhaps it is not surprising that they have not talked. Harry knows that Ron does not want to hear about Ginny that way, and Harry probably does not want to think about Hermione that way. In fact, Harry probably thinks, that Ron is respecting Harry's feelings the same way Harry is respecting Ron's.

So this rambling tangent aside, where does this leave us? We have Ron who not only believes that Harry and Hermione are just waiting to stab him in the back; but that Harry is the kind of person who will crush Ginny that way. Ron, instead of confronting the issue, reacts with passive aggressive anger, uselessly sniping at everyone while offering nothing to help the situation they are in. Having promised to see the quest through, having laughed off the talk of hardships, Ron then abandons them, because he is A)hungry and B) jealous of a relationship that does not even exist. It does not speak well of Ron that the I cannot even be sure which came first in his motivations, the hunger or the jealousy.

Ron's reunion with Harry in Deathly Hallows is a pivotal moment for Ron.⁵ It is, as best I can recall, the first time that Ron actually apologies.

I believe Ron's repentance is real, and sincere. Ron is not an evil person. He is however a very very immature one, with severe character flaws. I think this immaturity is actually the root of most of what goes on with Ron. At heart, Ron really cannot picture a world in which Harry does not want/value the same things Ron does, in which Harry is not driven by the same things Ron is. Thus Harry's entrance in the TriWizard Tournament is so hard for Ron because Harry must want the attention just as much as Ron does. Harry's protests about disliking his fame are taken as face saving, meaningless protestations, because who wouldn't like being famous? Harry's money is such an issue because Ron focuses on his own desires for money, but really cannot picture Harry's lack of support structure that gives Harry that money. Similarly Harry must be interested in Hermione that way⁶ because Ron is interested in her that way, and Harry cannot really be interested in Ginny that way because Ron cannot really picture his (Ron's) sister that way.

It is the same thing with the horcrux hunt. Ron, who has never really suffered hardship, blithely dismisses it when the idea is in the future. When it becomes their shared reality however, Harry perseveres - he has suffered all his life, while Ron becomes grumpy and bitter, a child upset that things are not easy, but unwilling to work to change them. I think that, if anything, this insight into Ron makes his return to the hunt a greater show of growth and strength of character than it would be in a more mature Ron. The Ron who returns is one who is now ready to face true hardship, with far fewer self delusions about his own capabilities. His growth may have been forced on him, but he has, at least in part, risen to the challenge.

Ron in Fan Fiction

It would be very very easy to bash Ron in any fan fiction, and very very hard write a fan fiction in which he actually deserves the prefect's badge he gets, or the happy ending of the cannon epilogue. Despite my own positive words about him as he returns to Harry and Hermione in the forest, I think the side comment about confounding the driving examiner shows that Ron still has a ways to go. Thus, I would, if they were real people, worry about his and Hermione's marriage. Ron has shown solid signs of growth over the latter half of the seventh book, but his anger issues are major red flags, and it is hard to feel confident that he has really matured past the jealousies that have up through the seventh book been a core part of his character.

For all my criticism of Ron, there are places where I feel many authors go too far, one way or the other. On one hand, Ron is good at chess, therefor he is a master strategist who, with just a little extra reading (or maybe even with no extra study at all), is a master of military strategy, small unit tactics, and sometimes even related fields. On the other hand, because Hermione berates him for his study habits, Ron is an ignoramus, a buffoon, and at times a poltroon.

Both of these are over simplified caricatures of Ron's true character. Ron gets the same seven owls that Harry gets, albeit with lower grades.⁷ That being said, his grades could not be that much lower. Professor McGonagall does not accept students with "Acceptable" into her N.E.W.T. class,⁸ and we have no reason to think that Professor Flitwick has a differing policy. This means that Ron's grades differ from Harry's by one letter in one class, not counting history, in which Ron might well have done better than Harry.

The problem is that the chess master version of Ron should do better, and the jock version of Ron should not be able to do this much. Military academies teach strategy, analysis of enemy patterns, tactics, and so on. None of these are fields Ron can realistically pick up almost overnight. If he could, then he would be one of those incredibly annoying students, of whom I have run into more than one, who simply do not need to study to effortlessly get top marks. On the other hand, if he is an idiot, no amount of copying Hermione's homework would allow him to get seven O.W.L.s with at least five Exceeds Expectations with a practical portion for many (all?) of the ones he did (relatively) well in. Sure, Ron does not get top marks, but he is expected to be able to at least pass the advanced N.E.W.T classes.

The other place that fan fiction authors do Ron an injustice is his supposed intolerant attitude towards all things Slytherin. In an admittedly cursory review of the first book to review my own impressions, I can find only one biased remark from Ron on the topic, when he discusses his upcoming sorting with Harry while still on the train. He states that he cannot imagine what would become of him if sorted into Slytherin, but he is hardly happier with the thought of Ravenclaw.⁹. Other than that, Ron's comments seem to largely stem from a fairly black and white view of the world and Malfoy's over the top behaviour.