I've always seen Ron as a jealous prat with an inferiority complex. He abandons Harry after the Goblet of Fire incident and during the Horcrux Hunt for extremely shallow and stupid reasons. I know he's a complex character and has good characteristics as well as his flaws, but his flaws just completely overwhelm his character in my opinion. To be honest, I feel like the only reason Harry even remained friends with him was because he was his first friend and didn't want to let him go. The Ron and Hermione relationship makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. The two are just completely incompatible with each other. I have no idea what Hermione sees in him.

 

...Note to self, come up with a proper essay on Ron, so I can refer to that instead of constantly writing and re-writing the same arguments.

1. In the Goblet of Fire incident, let's look at it. Despite repeated warnings from Dumbledore, all anyone can talk about is how the Tournament is a chance for Gold and Glory. Since no one would seriously think someone would try to kill Harry with it, it only makes sense that he would have entered somehow. Why, he even claimed he 'would have' entered at night when no one was around.

So, when they were in the privacy of their Dorm, and only then, does Ron ask Harry if he entered. And quite politely too, at that. Harry, who at that point was pissed off at everyone, lashed out at Ron and started that fight (instead of repeating what Dumbledore said about how dangerous it is and all). So they have their spat, which lasts for what, about a month of so?

And then came the Dragons. You know, the first time anyone had a chance to fully appreciate just how dangerous the damn Tournament actually was? When Ron finally realizes that maybe someone is trying to kill Harry, what does he do? He apologizes to Harry the first chance he gets. And accepts he was a git. In full view of the Entire House.

2. Again, let's actually think about Ron leaving in the Deathly Hallows. The Trio's been wandering Britain for months, with absolutely no real plan whatsoever. Ron has to constantly worry about his family, in ways neither Harry nor Hermione ever had to do. And it wasn't just paranoia: his father and brother worked in the Ministry (his father was already being monitored), and before he left he outright heard about how his sister still in Hogwarts started up a little rebellion that put her safety at risk. Teenage Hormones are making him a little jealous about Hermione and Harry. And during all that, the Locket is whispering poison in his ear, right up to him finally leaving in that fight.

And what's Ron's very first thought when he does leave? He immediately realizes he made a mistake and resolves to go back to them. Yes, it would have been insanely awkward, to put it mildly. But he would have done it, because he realized he still abandoned his friends. And the only reason he didn't go back right then was because those Snatchers distracted him too long, and he had no idea where they were now.

But when the Put-Outer Ex Machina gave him the chance to go back to them, he took it. And more importantly, he saved Harry from drowning, destroyed his literal demons and the Locket, and accepted every bit of abuse (verbal and otherwise) Hermione flung at him because he knew he deserved it.

3. I love how every time someone wants to say what a bad friend Ron is, they can only point out those two instances. Two fights, over the course of seven years of friendship. I don't know what kind of friends you have, but in most friendships it's perfectly natural for stupid fights to break out, the friends 'break up' for a while', and then make up and be friends again.

4. For comparison, let's look at the rest of their friendship. Ron constantly sticks up for Harry, like when Draco 'challenged' him to a duel. They are repeatedly shown playing games and just hanging out. They have a lot of shared interests, like Quidditch.

5. And more importantly, how about the Spiders in Chamber of Secrets? We know spiders are his greatest fear, one that came from a genuinely traumatic moment when he was a child. And now he's being asked to follow them, which it turns out leads to giant spiders that want to eat him and Harry. Even the Movie captured Ron in that moment, what with his voice cracking when he says why they had to follow the spiders.

But follow them he did. And what drove him to face up against his greatest fear? The fact Hermione was petrified already, and he had to do something to help him. The Power of Friendship helped Ron, a 12/13 year old boy, to do something plenty of grown men would have at least hesitated to do. Hell, Hermione herself couldn't face up against her fear in Prisoner of Azkaban, when she was older, knew she was in a test, knew what a boggart was, and quite frankly wasn't even a fear as traumatizing as a teddy bear turning into a spider!

6. If anything, do you know who was a bad friend among them? Hermione. When all the evidence pointed to Hermione's pet trying (and eventually succeeding) to eat Ron's pet, she simply didn't care. If anything, Ron is the one who apologized to her, even though it was Hermione in the wrong.

Or how about her entire character in Half Blood Prince. She hated the Prince book for no better reason than it let Harry be better at Potions than her. She obsessively tried to figure out who wrote it just to somehow prove it was written by a bad person. And when she did find out it was written by Snape, she tells Harry, right after Dumbledore died, by Snape's hand.

I genuinely feel for her in a lot of ways, but she's kind of an annoying person and a terrible friend. The only reason everyone loves her so much is because of Emma Watson making her awesome in the Movies (which relied on giving her Ron's better moments), and FanFics making the obsession over her worse in a feedback loop (since many FanFic writers were/are teenage girls using Hermione as an SI for themselves, which makes sense since Canon Hermione was a little bit of an SI for Rowling).

7. And as for why Ron/Hermione might make sense, maybe it's because they had a lot of shared experiences together. Maybe they complimented each other fairly well (she could push him to do better, he could ground her in reality a bit more). Maybe she even came to see that in a lot of ways he's actually MATURED and GROWN as a person/character (she only kissed him after he showed concern for the House Elves).

So yeah, that was yet another Defense of Ronald Bilius Weasley, who is, in all honesty, My King.

 

Onehundred and sixty- three posts for "Is Ron an asshole" it seems like a pointless discussion, but I suppose I ought to add my two cents.

Ron can be an asshole at times in the series I'll grant that. However I've found that on the whole he has less of an asshole personality and is mostly a decent kid who basically always tried to do the right thing.

Case in point he went into the forbidden forest to help Harry even though he was terrified. He also went back for Malfoy and his friends even though they were his mortal enemies.

Personally I always thought Ron was an example of what true Gryfindors strove to be even more so than Harry at times.

 

People seem to forget that Harry and Hermione are both assholes, too.

 

I think everyone in the HP series was an asshole at some point.

 

False. Say what you will, Daphne Greengrass didn't do anything but show up and take her OWLs at the allotted time.

 

Didn't she hang out with Pansy Parkinson at one point? So an asshole by association.

Edit: Dobby was never an asshole since he was the Elf Lord.

 

Fuck you. Luna is a goddamn saint.

 

She did yank the Quibbler roughly away from Harry in their first meeting. Of course that was in response to Hermione being an asshole.

 

Neville was never an asshole.

 

He punched Crabb Goyle and Malfoy in his first year. Total dick move.

 

Okay but other than Daphne, Dobby, Luna, Neville, Flitwick, the Carrow twinz, Mark Evans, and Lady Hogwarts... what have the Romans ever done for us!?

 

This is an excellent point that shows how many readers tend to give a free pass to the point of view protagonist.

Yes, this confirmed once and for all how your delusional hatred for a fictional character prevents you from seeing the truth. Did you remember how miserable Harry was when Ron was not around as an example among other things? I have no idea how a friend who you only put up with can make you so miserable if he wasn’t around. By the way Harry’s very first friend is actually Hagrid, not Ron.

Rhaeger already explained those two cases (which IMO actually didn’t even include his worst behaviour) so I wouldn’t bother touching on them again.

Really could you elaborate then? Obviously canon does not agree with you and the same goes for Hermione. Just letting you know, in real life there are tonnes of different types of relationships and none of them are necessarily more “compatible” than the other if their fundamental moral beliefs are the same. It all depends on the people in question and what they want. It’s been discussed in extensive details in the Ron/Hermione thread in the forum so I wouldn’t go into details here.


Also why is it that Ron bashers keep bringing up his relationship with Hermione into the discussion about his character? Could it be that they are just angry that Ron “got the girl” in a way?

 

I think it's mostly because the Ron haters are just looking for something to hate and so they blow it all out of proportion.

 

Most of the people who dislike Ron/Hermione are actually girls.

They live vicariously through Hermione, and fantasized about marrying the Hero/Head Auror/Head DMLE Rich Harry Potter, rather than the sidekick.

At least that's what I've gathered.

 

With regards to Emma Watson I think there’s another reason explaining how overlooked Ron was; did you notice how Watson has a tendency to downplay and dismiss Ron and promote Hermione in her interviews? Considering how admired she is in the fandom (a sentiment I do not share obviously), people just accept them as gospel truth unfortunately.
In February this year she went on about how Ron was just along for the ride in those adventures and how Hermione was the leader (that’s Harry) and the heart of the trio (that’s Ron), so she was making these nonsensical statements about the trio and very few people question her.

You are right absolutely. A lot of people do just blow things way out of proportion and create some kind of fantasy to justify their hate. I already mentioned it in an earlier post reasons why Ron is hated:
https://forums.darklordpotter.net/showthread.php?p=980904

Well I never thought “getting the girl” was the only reason. It was a realisation I had after seeing hate posts (not just on this forum) all talking about what a horrible person he was and then going on about how Hermione could do better or allocate her like a prize to another man that makes me suspect this is at least part of the reason.

[FONT=&quot]I think you’re right here that these fangirls do imagine themselves as Hermione and then assign themselves to the man of their dreams. They don’t just do it to the hero though, but also to the “bad boys” in the series like Malfoy, Snape, etc. I do think not everyone is like this but there is no denying a significant number of them are.[/FONT]

 

Ron definitely isn't an asshole, even though he can be a prick at times. He's the kind of good guy who occasionally gets defeated by his insecurities. Understandable, even if it's often not very appealing. He always realises when he's been a dick, and by the end he's matured a bit.

 

Am I the only that notices how all the anti-Ron people are all 'Squibs', or people who only opened up an account here recently. Is that because they haven't been here long enough to see the Light of DLP, or they weren't obsessive enough to read through a thread where I specifically and repeatedly point out the problems with their issues with Ron?

In this case, let's talk about Ron leaving in DH:

1. While Harry doesn't really care about the Dursleys and Hermione's parents are in Australia, Ron's family (which he does care about a lot) are all still in Britain, none of them even hiding. He also has a father and brother who work right in the Ministry, and he knows his father is already being monitored. And not only is his sister still in Hogwarts, right in Snape's grasp, he found out right before he left she was leading a student rebellion and was already receiving punishments for it.

2. They are wandering Britain, with absolutely no plan whatsoever. They aren't finding more Horcruxes or destroying the one they have, they aren't fighting the Death Eaters or organizing a resistance against them. All they're doing at this point is Apparating their way to one hiding spot or another. Stuff like that isn't exactly good for morale.

3. Because God forbid they steal food from a grocery store, they keep getting terrible food, and not even that much of it. And let's be honest, most people here would get more than a bit cranky in that kind of situation, especially at that age.

4. Teenage Hormones are making Ron jealous of Harry and Hermione. Yeah, you can argue that it makes him stupid, but that's kind of what Teenage Hormones do. If you are now or ever were a teenage boy who has not done/thought something very irrational and stupid because of those Teenage Hormones, please go to a doctor to be sure there's nothing wrong with you.

5. During all this time, the Locket's been whispering poison into his ears, One Ring of Power style. It's been feeding off of his worst insecurities, and he was wearing the damned thing during that fight.

But just what did Ron do almost immediately after he left, after all those fairly logical reasons pushed him to abandon them? He regretted his decision, realized he was being a git, and resolved to go back and join them. And if it weren't for those damned Snatchers, he would have returned in a heartbeat, regardless of how awkward and harsh it would be for him.

In fact, when he got a chance to go back and join them thanks to the Put-Outer Ex Machina, he took it. And in rapid succession, he managed to save Harry from drowning, defeat his literal demons and the Horcrux, and accept all the verbal and physical abuse Hermione flung at him because he knew damn well he deserved it.

Wow, doesn't that all sound just like a terrible friend.

If you want a better example of Ron as a friend, look no further than the Spiders in COS. The Book already established he has a major phobia of spiders, and one that came from a genuinely traumatizing childhood moment at that. And now he was being asked to follow the damned things, which as it turns out leads to giant man-eating spiders. Even the Movie captured Ron's fear pretty well with it, like the way his voiced cracked when he said he had to follow them.

But follow them he did. He, a 12-13 year old boy (I forgot how old he was at the time), faced up to his great fear. And why? Because Hogwarts, Hagrid, and Hermione were all in danger, and he needed to help save them all from danger.

That, my friend, takes balls. The kind of balls most people would probably not have when put in that kind of situation, especially at that age.

Just for comparison, let's look at Hermione, a person way too many people glorify, and how she reacts to her biggest fear. When she faced the Boggart in the end of POA. She was older than Ron, knew what a Boggart was, knew she was in the middle of a test, and her greatest fear doesn't have the same punch to it as your teddy bear turning into a spider, and she still broke down crying at the damn thing!

P.S. Does anyone think I should just write a single, clear Essay defending Ron and refer to that every time someone wants to rehash the same lazy arguments against him? I'm a very lazy person, but maybe it would be easier to write the one really good essay as opposed to just a million repetitive ones.

 

Mate, at this point all you need to do is copy and paste half the stuff you've already written... I'm starting to wonder why this thread is still even open. I don't think anything productive has come out of it for a couple of pages now. It's my morbid curiosity that's kept me checking up on the thread.

 

That's basically what Taure does for Magical Cores, I think.