There are a lot of hatred towards Ron in HP fandom. I dislike fics which features Ron bashing or where they make him into a evil git. Personally he is one of my favourite characters. What are your feelings towards him?

 

I am super pumped for another Alexx question!

I think Ron has his flaws but at the end of the day hes's a good friend who has made some mistakes. He had a lot of growing to do and I think people over-blow his desertion in book 7. He was being magically manipulated by one of the most evil magical constructs ever to be created and he tried to come back immediately.

He isn't my favorite character or anything but I definitely think the general Ron bashing or evil git stories aren't canon accurate but its fan-fiction and people can write what they want. I think most people tend not to read those kinds of stories anymore not because of any particular love for Ron but because an unbelievable character that is just there to get shit on isn't a very deep or complex one and it is an indicator of poor writing and character building overall.

 

I don't like him. Even without what he did in GoF and DH, I'm not a fan of his character. He has his moments but, in my increasingly fuzzy memory of canon, I felt they were few and far between. I don't mind his presence in fanfiction provided his positive traits are shown to outweigh his negative traits or if he's at least portrayed as a good best friend to have.

 

Ron gets an underserved bad rep in the HP fanfic world, because he's an easy target. Exaggerate one of his fuck ups caused by a real human flaw and bam, instant villain. Worse than that, he's a casualty of other bashing, a go-to staple that fits the mould of whatever else the author is writing because they want a thousand reviews and not to actually improve their writing or whatever. You hate Ginny and want to bash her because your story has Hermione as Harry's true wuv? Throw in some Ron bashing too, because hey, it clears Hermione from liking him! You want Harry to bone Daphne? It's easy drama to make Ron's bit of Slytherin hate even worse, to irrational levels even if Daphne was a neat chick who loves the Cannons and bakes bitchin' pies, and canon!Ron would come around pretty quickly to that (And if you're pairing Harry with Malfoy, add in homophobia, why not! Make your readers instantly hate Ron for it! Win win). Is Dumbledore being evil and manipulating Harry and feeding him love potions?!!1one? Then Ron's being paid to be Harry's best friend, of course, and his family's natural traits of being hotheaded and loyal of course means they're irrational and blinded by Dumbledore. It's all circular, and tacking on Ron bashing is the easiest path to take.

But man, I like Ron. As a character summed up by his story arc and a character summed up by his personality. He's a bro. He's loyal. Yeah he has his dick moments, but Harry and Hermione weren't perfect either, and Ron redeems himself just as they do. Every fic I write I like having Ron as a constant, a friend, and someone Harry can trust. His arc in my fic Incorruptible became my second-favourite because I just let him be him, and threw in some grief and increased his bond with Harry over that grief. I'm not proud of everything in that story, but I am proud of Ron.

So yeah. There needs to be more fics with a good Ron in them. There are a bunch, of course, and all my statements above don't apply to a good number of stories, but in a general sense, the circular bashing stuff needs to just be over with. Bashing as a whole is just eh to me, especially ten years after the post-OoTP Indy!Harry stuff began. If you don't like Ron, just don't write him. Same with Hermione, Ginny, Dumbledore, the Weasleys, whoever. If you hate Ron because of his actions and personality in canon and are planning to write a fic with him in it, I challenge you to write him as he is and not as an easy target, because as an author you'll have to write characters that are complex enough to be hated or loved at the drop of a hat, and if you hate them yourself, all the better. Because if you're serious about writing and are writing fanfic to train yourself up, there's a good practice in writing a character you don't like without being a dick about it and letting your personal feelings get in the way of what the main character is feeling about them, and how the story needs them to explore its themes and arcs. Think before you write. Boom.

/drops mic, leaves.

 

Ron is the only one of the trio that I think I would hang out with.

 

Ron certainly had his dickish moments, but to me, he's the most normal character.

He also put himself between Harry and Sirius Black, who everyone thought at the time was Voldemort's right hand man, and said 'thou shalt not pass'.

I'm cool with Ron.

 

I think Cheddar has the right idea.

I've never been overly fond of Ron Weasley, but at the same time he's a central character in my current story and arguably the main character in another story that I'm plotting out. In both those stories I've altered him majorly - in one he is nothing but unlikeable when the story starts, but I found myself enjoying his scenes more and more as the story and character grew, and in the other I've consciously gone against convention and made him the most hard-boiled and badass character.

I disliked DH for all the usual reasons, and the re-run of Ron running out on Harry was one of the major factors that made me feel like the books lacked proper character development. But I also agree with MattSilver about bashing, as I assume/hope that most people would. I don't like the Ron of canon all that much, but I've enjoyed attempting a sort of anti-bashing by challenging myself to change him into someone I'd enjoy reading (without losing the core of the character). Simplifying and tearing down canon is bad - expanding and building new worlds is good.

Anyway, I find him appealing as a concept, though the execution in canon was not as compelling. Similar to Cho Chang, in that way.

 

I think I touched upon this in the last Ron thread. He's not my absolute favorite, but like him or not, Ron is a really good character, not to mention extraordinarily well-developed. We know everything about him: his fears, his flaws, his strengths, his homelife, his family. He is the everyman, the jealous best friend, the comic relief, and Hermione's polar opposite.

JKR uses Ron as an authority on all things normal in the wizarding world. She needs his character to remain relatively static throughout the books because his air of normalcy contributes to the realism.

On an unrelated note,

Accio Doublestuff.

 

Honestly?

I don't like him, for the same reasons many people have stated in their own posts.

If I ever did write a major AU or pre-PS divergence story, I'd most likely cut him - and by extension most of the other Weasleys - out of it. That, or I'd give him/them a relatively minor role in the story altogether.

 

Ron's best moment was in Prisoner of Azkaban when he put himself in front of Sirius and told him he'd have to kill him to get to Harry. That was a pretty damn awesome moment for Ron. It was all downhill from there though.

I understand jealousy. I've been jealous before, though hardly to the extent Ron was in GoF. I would've been much happier with Ron's character if he'd come to his senses and apologised before the First Task. Sadly, he didn't. He'd spent three years with Harry and couldn't possibly not how he felt about his fame and wealth. But one slip up? Yeah, that's alright. The trio can't always be smooth sailing so this was inevitable anyway. But it got worse.

He's often deliberately cruel to Hermione, someone he claims to be a friend, in ways designed to hurt her the most. This is evident in most books, and almost always for completely unjustified reasons. The Crookshanks seemingly killing Scabbers incident is the only time I can think of off the top of my head that I felt Ron's treatment was justified, to an extent. I don't really have any friends with dynamics like that I can liken to Ron and Hermione, but I can't see how I'd put up with that year after year.

He's prejudiced, but I attribute that to his upbringing and simply not knowing any better. I think he'd have grown out of that if canon extended beyond 18 years of age.

So, prior to DH I was mixed. Ron had his moments early in the series, but has done a lot of crappy things over the years. Then he abandoned his friends in a situation where solidarity would've been of more importance than ever.

I wanted Ron to be more than 'the ordinary guy'. I wanted him to develop into more than that. Having been walked out on by a close friend when I was in a really horrible patch around the release of DH, Ron's walking out on Harry and Hermione hit rather close to home. I disagree with what Harry said after Ron saved him. I don't think it was more important that he came back. I think it was more important that he left in the first place.

I fully recognise that my view is likely tainted by my crappy experience. However, I cannot see how I'd be anything more than ambivalent toward him if I hadn't had that experience. It was a lousy thing for Ron to do in GoF. I was never a fan of how he treated Hermione. But I was okay with him as a character until that moment.

I'm generally okay with Ron when written to actually grown up from what he experiences in the first five books (since most fics I read are still post OotP). More often than not when he's written well he isn't jealous anymore, having actually taken a hint and understood that Harry has what he has at an enormous price, and he isn't cruel to Hermion, though of course they still bicker. I can get behind a Ron like that.

But as a purely canon character, I'm not a fan.

 

Arousal.

<filler>

 

I despise Ron bashing, mainly because it shows the immaturity of the writer, and often times ends up being a Freudian projection of the writer's own adolescent issues. I don't get paid to deal with that stuff anymore.

As far as the character goes, I wonder how much Ron was supposed to be the measuring stick by which Harry could be understood.

X is what a typical person in this world does, see Ron.
Y is what Harry does.

Every other character that played a recurring role in Harry's life had a specific purpose and couldn't be the "normal" kid.

Draco - minor antagonist role, caused the conflict that kept you reading.
Hermione - as others have said, the expositional character.
Neville - what Harry could have been if Voldemort made the other choice.
Twins - comic relief/ability to produce things like the Mauraders Map without fans screaming "Deus Ex Machina." You just expected the twins to have something like that.
etc. etc.

So Ron becomes the Other by which we know the Self, which is Harry. The only problem is, JKR forgot to make the Other three-dimensional.

 

In a single phrase, out of place. Harry's the prophesied saviour of the wizarding world with inexplicable magical talent whenever the plot requires. Hermione's an obsessed genius that'll probably be either running or revolutionizing the wizarding world once she gets a little older and wiser.

Ron's just this guy, you know?

He's just a stupid teenager, if you'll forgive the tautology, that sticks by his bros sometimes but lets his base emotions cause conflict with them other times. The thing is, in any normal circumstances the conflict would be things like 'used the rent money to buy pot' instead of 'abandoned his friend during a nation-wide manhunt by the fascist, genocidal dictatorship that had seized control of the government'.

He doesn't belong in an epic-length fantasy showdown between good and evil. He belongs as the minor screw-up of a best mate in a sit-com. He should be Joey in Friends or George in Seinfeld or JD in Scrubs, where he could shine as dim but mostly loyal and funny. Instead he's been drafted as the Samwise Gamgee in Lord of the Rings and he's just not up for the role. And it's hard to blame him for that, since, y'know, who is?

 

@Tehan discusses it brilliantly, but I think that Ron main role is to make sure the other characters don't get themselves fucked. He keeps them on the normality, something that both Harry amd Hermione really need. Without him they would either freak out or do something suicidal.

I like Ron better than Hermione, bossy know it all characters always annoys me. I think that both his "treason" moments were a little, out of the blue. The one in the 7th book for me was OOC, major OOC, why? Because backtracks all of his character development.

 

He's my least favorite of the main trio, but I hardly hate him. I guess I just wish he could be more competent at something rather than filling an "average guy" role. Being a good friend to Harry (at least most of the time, two notable instances aside) is great and all, but I think he should have had a real skill to bring to the table too.

 

I agree with what was said about him being an average guy. Did I hate him during his arsehole moments? Sure. Did I like the character more because his arsehole moments made it easier to empathise with him? Definitely.

I think JKR's characterisation of Ron went downhill as the series progressed, she just didn't really have him grow as a character.

I find it amusing that a lot of fanfic writers bash Ron for abandoning Harry during GoF but conveniently ignore that Harry and Ron abandoned Hermione over a broom in PoA, especially since she turned out to be right about the broom being sent Sirius, even if she wasn't right about his intentions.

 

I like Ron a fuck ton more than I like Hermione, I can say that for damn certain.

Now, granted, I've got long-standing issues with Hermione's character (most of which stems from terrible H/Hr fanfiction and the fact Rowling revealed her as an author surrogate), but I still prefer Ron to her because, as said above, he's more human. He's the kind of person I can see existing in the ordinary world - maybe not all that successful, but as the average guy he is. And I think part of the problem is that because he's generally average and visibly flawed, the fanbase turned on him in comparison to Harry and Hermione.

If anything, I think fanon has done a great disservice to Ron's character, as he's seldom written well and more often than not strawmanned like no tomorrow (or worse yet, set up as the 'other guy' in too many terrible fanfics). And frankly, this strikes me as rather lazy - there's plenty of great character development to be had in dealing with Ron's underlying insecurity complex. And thus I'm completely unsurprised that so few fanfics have ever delved into this beyond the superficial. There's a lot of potential in delving into the ways such a character might overcome his insecurities and his jealousy, which Rowling attempted to do with Deathly Hallows to middling results. There's huge potential for an arc with Ron's character in a way I don't quite see in the same way as, for instance, Hermione.

So while I don't think Ron is the best character Rowling ever created, I think the series would be poorer for his absence - and strangely enough, I feel the same about most fanfic.

 

Ron ditched Harry because of his own insecurities and instead of believing his friend he decided he was actually a glory hog and that Harry was lying to his face, despite all evidence to the contrary.

They ditched Hermoine because he went behind their backs and told the Professor on them even when they made it clear they didn't want her to, a clear violation of trust despite any good morale intentions.

Yeah, those are totally equivalent...



I've never really liked Ron or any of the trio really. Harry is only saved via being the protagonist. Ron fills a specific role. He's the average guy best friend character. He's got a very realistic personality filled wtih various problems. The biggest problem I have with him is that JKR gave him a flaw, that of big jealous insecurity, that directly conflicts with being best friends with a supremely famous person.

I was thinking about the topic question and I imagined what would happen if Harry was friends with Hermoine before Ron, instead of vice versa as per canon. It's pretty obvious how lucky Ron was that he was Harry's first friend.

Ron is a pretty decent friend to Harry. But he's an absolute shitty one to Hermoine throughout the series (exceptions being when the unite against Slytherins.) If Harry was friends with Hermoine first, and Ron tried to come into their group dynamic with his attitude towards Hermoine I think Harry would of totally rejected him. Sort of similar to how he outright rejected Malfoy on the train, even though he already didn't like him.

As per bailing during GoF and during the Horcrux hunt; I think JKR seriously missed an opportunity here. Both events are fairly understandable. The 1st time Ron left, he did so over a sort of petty reason. Friends have fights over things, and the stakes of the tournament weren't very high. (That of a school competition, considering that they didn't know about the Voldemort plot).

Now the 2nd time he leaves over the Horcrux Hunt. Again, its totally understandable that he left. It's what most people would of done, especially with the locket twisting up his mind. But it was a serious missed opportunity for growth. It would of been a nice contrast for Ron to have left during a silly ournament, then later in the series when the stakes were high, to be able to have strength of character to set that aside for the big picture.

But he doesn't...an its understandable just a seriously missed opportunity for Ron to do something that lets him shine.



Then of course people bring up the end of 3rd year stuff. I think almost any best friend in that situation tries to cover for Harry. If someone kidnapped my best friend and held him at gun point I'd try my best to save him. I think you could of had most characters do that, not just Ron.


I've always found Neville to be better "bestest friend" material for Harry. He doesn't really stand up for himself, but he's the type of person who would muster up the courage only to stand up for others. Plus he doesn't like attention at all and being Harry's friend would direct that away from him.

Course everyone tries to write like Neville like the 7th movie, where they have Harry boost his confidence and soon we are reading about the snarky uber man-hero Neville. I like when he's low key.

...and obviously, fannon Ron is absolutely awful. Ron should be a more fleshed out Seamus or Dean. If people wrote Dean acting like Fanon Ron, people would be wondering wtf was wrong with that author.