Originally posted by: Echo.of.Hope
@popcorn
I get that you are justifying Ron since u ship Romione.
I agree that Draco grew up being told to hate each other's family. That is their family issues. Apart from the Malfoy's Ron doesn't have any first hand experience dealing with Slytherins , he's just heard about their wrong doings. In the first book Ron hating Slytherin might be justified as he being a kid and not knowing better.
Now let's come to later books. Ron has encountered with other. They can't all be bad. Not all Slytherins are bad...take you and me for example... we are cold blood death eaters of any sort. Still Ron generalizes Slytherins to be bad. While Hermione tries to believe that Draco might not be a death eater Ron has fixed his mind that all Slytherins are future death eaters ad nothing more. I hated that about him At least after all those years he could have changed his perception...Draco did...though he couldn't do anything about it.
thank you for agreeing with the leaving part and him have more trust.
now about the insecurities. Everyone has them. Harry was treated worse than Ron could have ever been treated, but it's never mentioned in the book that before Harry found out about his fame, he was filled with insecurities. I know that being the youngest son was tough for Ron but as he grew up he could have learnt to control it. He was the prefect and his mother was proud. He knew hermione loved him...yet he held on to the same old feelings.
I feel they could have made him more confident. I get that being with Harry but make you feel inferior but that could have been toned down.
You said it's the whole Weasley family but only Ron seems to act this bad to all the prejudice and insecurity apart from Percy. Then again...no liked Percy till he apologized.
Ron is a main character. When they had him hate Slytherins all the while, that made many readers hate slytherins too. If readers only erad about Voldemort being in Slytherin they would have disliked the house but with one of the main characters constantly telling how Slytherin is bad, we SLytherins who aren't actually that bad get bashed a lot.
about the neville article...u said you didn't mind the peter comparison...i get the comparison...it's kind of like history repeats but this time the tag along chose the right path. I just dont like that it was neville to peter. I like neville a lot...especially since 5th book where as you said he demanded respect.
I know I'm horribly, horribly, horribly late on responding to this and I'm sorry. I'm not the best with time 😆 Onto your post!
Lekhs, Id have to disagree with your assertion that Ron didn't have any first hand experience in dealing with Slytherin. His family, his mother's family specifically was affected by them directly! Molly's brothers (after whom Fred and George were named after if I'm remembering correctly), were directly killed by Voldemort's followers, most of whom coincidentally were Slytherins (which actually isn't too much of a coincidence LOL -- slytherins are all about siding with the victor/ most advantageous and during Voldemort time, it really looked like he would win so most sided with him). Molly's a direct link to the asshole behaviour of the Slytherins. So a deep dislike of slytherins has been put into the entire family, not just Ron. Even Fred and George hated Slytherins. The entire family was prejudiced. We just hear more about Ron because of the narrative format of the book -- it's in Harry's perspective and the Weasley he hangs out with the most is Ron.
And secondly, again, I'm not saying that Ron was right in being prejudiced against Slytherins, even after he met them. He's completely wrong, but again, I can see why. It's futile, in my opinion, to compare his prejudice towards the Slytherins with Hermione or even Draco. Hermione grew up away from the wizard world. She only received some prejudice from the Slytherins at school. That's it, a few years of it. Compare that to Ron whose probably had YEARS of hearing about how Slytherins were terrible people. It certainly seems like Molly, Fred, George were very anti-Slytherin. And I have a suspicion that Bill was to an extent as well. So well before Ron even attended hogwarts or interacted with Slytherins, he's heard how terrible they are. And then he comes to school and finds that the people who mainly mock him/ his friends ARE Slytherins. The Slytherins themselves reinforced his bias against them. In their first year alone, Ron probably had 8 years (he was 11 at this point) of hearing how Slytherins were horrible people (based off of ranting done by the older Weasley members) compared to Hermione's 1 year of witnessing their horrible behaviour. Not to mention the fact that Ron had first hand experience through his family with Slytherins bring horrible to them. In that light, it's easily understandable why Hermione and Ron have such different perspectives when it came to the Slytherins. And regarding Draco, we have no clear concrete proof that he changed his biases, only guesses. But even then, if Draco had not changed his ways, he wou;d've been an ungrateful fool. The gryfindoors (aka the trio) freaking saved his life during the war. If he still hated them after that, well then there would be no redemption for him. Except for the single instance where Draco refused to recognize Harry when Harry was captured, did any Slytherin ever do anything good/ nice to Ron? I think, when you contextualize the differences (in regards to experiences), the two situations are quite different. Again, I'd like to reiterate, I'm NOT defending Ron's prejudice. Far from it. I admit he's an asshole there. I'm just trying to contextualize it and show how he's a deeper character than what he appears.
Coming to insecurities. I don't think Harry had too many insecurities. He was definitely bullied by the Dursley's but I don't think that resulted in insecurities? He obviously thought of himself better than Dudley, even when Dudley picked on him. Harry had no desire to be like Dudley. Not to mention, when Harry arrived in the wizard world, he was LOADED with money (to the point where he'd probably never have to work again), everyone wanted to be friends with the boy who lived, and he excelled in defense against the dark arts. Again, this is not to say that Harry didn't have insecurities, he definitely did. But he also had extraordinary aspects that made him feel better than others.
Let's compare this to Ron. Within his own family, Ron is the dark sheep. His older brother Bill was the first child, super well liked, super smart, super successful, etc. The second brother Charlie was even more well liked, probably excelled at Care of Magical Creatures, and was just generally cool and smart. The third brother Percy, was not as popular as his older brothers, but even he had the distinction of being the smartest family member. The twins, by all account there were not smart, but they were extremely funny, witty, and well liked. And then finally Ginny, the lone much wanted girl in a family of all boys and an amazing quidditch player to boot. Where does this leave Ron? The mediocre middle child. He;s not the smartest, not the funniest, not the most well liked, not the best in any class, he's not the coolest, not the much wanted girl child, etc. He's just there. His insecurity issues were well established in the first book itself -- when he looked into the mirror of erised and saw himself as prefect (smart), as quidditch captain (cool), and just generally excelling at stuff. Even within the trio, Harry is the brawn, Hermione is the brain, and Ron is the heart. Compared to brawn and brain, heart doesn't seem like much. He's just all around mediocre with insecurities over how average he really was. Not to mention, who are his friends: the boy who lived and the smartest witch of her generation. ANY normal person would feel horrible to be next to them -- esp if they weren't as talented.
I admit that Ron could've definitely been more secure and loose his insecurity as the series went on. But at the same time, I think his insecurites were a large part of his character. When my best friend read the books for the first time, she was instantly captivated by Ron because he was so easy to relate too -- he's not the best at anything, he's surrounded by prodigies, but he still continues on and tries to do his best.
Regarding Percy, it wasn't so much about insecurity as it was about his family. Percy was definitely insecure of his family's standing in society, but he was also extremely hurt and angry when none of them appreciated him or his smarts. The twins (I know everyone likes them a lot but I think they were some of the biggest assholes in the books) teased him mercilessly. So Percy leaving and working for the gov't against his family wasn't just about insecurity. It was also about proving himself to his family. His plan was to show them how he was better than them.
And I actually don't think Ron's hate of Slytherins reflected badly on Slytherins. I think it reflected more badly on him? Slytherins are seen as bad because Harry sees them as bad and because JK Rowling sucks when it comes to providing context for Slytherin behaviour. The Slytherin house DID behave asshole-ish to the other houses. There's no question about that. BUT, the other houses were just as prejudiced to Slytherin and treated them just as bad. It was a cycle. Slytherin was just responding to the way it was always ostracized. But JK never highlighted this. An illuminating example can be seen with the final battle. In the books, it was told how all the Slytherins left and did not fight the battle. Said and seen that way, the Slytherins come across as horrible horrible people with no care for others. But, when you think about the fact, who was it that made up most of Voldemort's army? It was in fact the family members of many Slytherins themselves! In that context, it wasn't just Slytherin students being horrible people, it was also them trying to not have to fight against their own family members. So in theory, you could've been a Slytherin student who was against Voldemort, but also refuse to fight in the war because if you fought against Voldemort, the possibility of you killing your dad or mom would be extremely high. The Slytherins were in a hard place and they chose the way in which they wouldn't be harmed (i.e. wouldn't live with the guilt of killing their family members). It's actually the fault of JK Rowling because she suffered from bias as well -- she could never make the Slytherins seem as good as the Gryfindoor (that's another reason why Gryfindoor is so beloved -- the downfalls of that house are never discussed).
Anyways, very sorry again for the delayed response LOL!
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