I am not so sure that the problem is that he has weaknesses. To me it seems that the problem is that he doesn’t seem significantly more mature after everything he went through. Sure, he has some character development, but not as much as he could have got.

It is made clear as early as in the first book that Ron feels inferior and sometimes behaves like an asshole because of it, but the problem still exists in the later books. To see it repeated so many times gets boring and annoying. I suppose that some people, when they saw Ron’s behaviour in DH, thought something like that ‘here we go again’.

To cap it all, the author basically says in an interview that it didn’t change once he became an adult by telling that he still needs to work on his self-esteem.

This is what I meant when I said that Rowling isn’t good with character development. The series was labeled as a coming of age story and Rowling clearly tried to show the difficulties of growing up, so when the result is not so good, it is easy to see why people may be disappointed/annoyed.

However, to be just, she didn’t do a good job with Harry, so it is not like Ron is the only character. I think it is just more visible in Ron’s case.

 

Lol, someone almost word for word copied Rhaegars rant here - https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-greatest-weasley-harry-potter.493927/

 

Of course he is an asshole but so are most people. My problem was how long it took for him to realize he was being in an asshole. On the other hand few people are willing to admit they are wrong and it takes a while for people to do so. Still I never liked him as a persona and would not want to have been his friend. Hermione and Harry tended to do more for the team then Ron Weasley. Unless we give Ron credit for the achievements of the other Weasleys as well.

 

On one hand, good for him for spreading the word of what Ron's really like.

On the other hand, he really did copy a lot of what I said. Yeah, he added some stuff and polished it up, but there is a lot of stuff clearly from my rant. And he didn't even credit me.

 

I think it's a combination of all of these, but mostly the movies. Not Grint's version of him so much as Watson's puberty transformation and the fact that the early movies seemed to hint at a Harry/Hermione pairing and when that didn't happen, Ron was the scapegoat for all the haters. Also, a lot of Ron's moments (and so many other characters') were given to Hermione and a lot of Hermione's faults were sort of just glossed over. This article does a great job of explaining this.

 

Okay, in all fairness, I'm not sure how much of that was 'genuine concern' for house elves and how much was Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches telling him that if he feigned interest in something a girl is passionate about, she'd give up the goods.

Then again, he'd just recently watched Dobby die, so I suppose I could give him the benefit of the doubt.

Thereby proving she'd been hitting the 'potions' a little too hard.

She probably declared it canon because people bitched about it online and she decided to spite them. It's not like she really needs anyone's money at this point. The play is a rolling dumpster fire that contradicts canon left and right, and reads like bottom of the barrel fan fiction.

 

I find the question itself already quite stupid, as if assholeness is a defining character trait. As we already do, it would be better to speak about the traits that could make him appear to be an asshole and question wether these things are understandeable and/or accapteable.

But what might be even more important is the question not IF but rather WHEN. I mean we see him grow over 7 years and people change over time, Ron might a few moments where he most certainly is not 'full of respect' for the other but really nothing that makes him an asshole.

If we disregard him fleeing in DH (due to the horcrux effect) that leaves us with his „betrayl” in GoF and here, Harry dosent make it easy to belive him consindering he leashes out at Ron pretty fast. And yet, Ron sees and acknowledge his mistakes and appologize, not the go to asshole move..

 

Okay. I said this once and will say this again. Ron is jealous of an ABUSED ORPHAN.

Somebody please understand what is wrong with that.

 

He's a teenager, of course he is. Most teenagers are dramatic brats that eventually grow up, like Ron does in the Deathly Hallows.

 

I never understood the "he's a teenager and thus a dramatic asshole hormone-bomb" trope, My teenage years are not that far, and neither I, my brother, my four cousins, or the vast majority of the people I knew in high school exhibited the "typical teenage behavior".

My problem with Ron isn't that he is an asshole in general (he kinda is with anyone that isn't a griffindor or has red hair), it's that he is an asshole to his best friends on a regular basis. Well, that and the fact that his "redeeming qualities" are loyalty and courage; it's just so desperately cliche, and the fact that he is quite slow in the head make even those redeeming traits look more like stupidity than anything else (he is the Crabbe/Goyle to Harry's Malfoy).

 

The thing is he still has those traits in Cursed Child so he never grew up.

 

Cursed Child contradicts many a thing from what I hear, so it's not exactly the best evidence for a canon argument.

 

I really don't recall anything from the books to indicate that Ron was "slow in the head." Sure, he wasn't as smart as Hermoine, but Hermoine was repeatedly called out as the smartest and most academically inclined student in Hogwarts, so that's hardly a fair comparison.

Honestly, the worst point I can see against him is that he occasionally acted childishly ... while he was a child.

 

He's not an asshole on a regular basis to Harry. He has his moments just as Harry has his own when he's angry or frustrated. And Hermione gives as good as she gets throughout the series. For every argument or insulting thing Ron has said I can match with one from Hermione.

And there's nothing in the books to suggest Ron is slow. He had more or less the same grades as Harry. I've always thought it was JKR's bad that Ron didn't answer more of Harry's Wizarding World questions.

 

I kinda of agree that it's has more to do with JKR's not giving him a time to shine in the books. I don't think he's dumb but does seem pretty unmotaived at some parts in the story, and most of that idea comes from him asking Hermione to do his homework for him. I think he's just has average intelligence.

 

Yeah, his tendency to put off doing his homework and/or ask Hermoine to do it for him seems more like laziness than a lack of intelligence. Nothing unusual about a teenager not being too wild about doing homework.

His OWL grades don't seem like they came from someone stupid. E's in most of his subjects, and the only two classes he failed were Divination and History of Magic, which both had pretty terrible teachers.

 

A knut for my thoughts

Is not an idiot is only immature his emotions dominate him, he feels constantly less than his family for being the last one, if when someone offends him quickly makes him his enemy, when someone feels him lower he attacks him the way he can And when you feel inadequate stop trying to take the easy way. I must say thanks to your friends grow as a person.


____________________________________________

You pretend you do not care, but sometimes some actions kill you from the inside.

 

If we're going to cite Cursed Child as a source, then Harry is a much bigger asshole than Ron ever was. Ron does some regrettable things, but telling your son you wish they were never born crosses a line.

The chapter in OotP when the prefect badges arrive explains Ron's character pretty well. The scene, at least from Ron's perspective, shows that even his own friends and family think of him as little more than Harry's sidekick. He's not jealous of an abused orphan, he's jealous of his rich, famous, friend who has the exact things that he's always wanted. Most of the time he keeps these feelings under control, but every once in a while they boil up to the surface. He has makes two big, undeniable mistakes (leaving in GoF and DH) next to half a dozen instances of real heroism (sacrificing himself in the chess game, standing between Harry and Sirius, going into the Forbidden Forest in CoS, etc.) and literally hundreds of friendship with Harry and Hermione, during which his feelings aren't ever really an issue.

Ron isn't an asshole, but sometimes he acts like an asshole. And at the end of the day, who hasn't?

 

A lot of people are putting Harry on a pedestal, but I disagree. Ron might be an asshole but Harry is also unreasonable and moody for most of OOTP and throughout the books. However, both characters pull through in tight situations.