I attribute Hermione behaviour to discovering that she has boobs and hormones. Makes more sense to me.

About the Firebolt? Why didn't she try to convince Harry? She basically started with going to the Professors.

 

I think you're confusing her being right, with her ending up being right.

She was right not because of the end result of Sirius Black having sent the broom, but because when a high profile celebrity like Harry gets an extremely expensive gift from an unknown source out of the norm, it is only prudent to check that it hasn't been sent with malicious intent.

Hermionie did talk to Harry about it, and since he didn't listen, it was the right course of action to bring it to the notice of an adult.

 

Harry was being a fucking idiot when it came to that broom.

 

The entire series would be immensely improved if Hermione either never existed or was killed by the Troll in PS.

 

You mean where Harry would likely have no friends (since he'd probably blame Ron for her death), or at best only Ron as a friend?

 

For all her faults, Hermione was and important part of the team. All three had their shining moments. Harry, Ron and Hermione were kind of like rock, paper, scissors.

 

Would have been more dark and interesting.

 

Here is a new one. Harry locked in his cupboard, freezing with only a single blanket. It's a small enclosed space, his body heat would be more than enough to turn it into a furnace. He should be sweating his balls off not shivering.

 

Any recs like this? It would be interesting to see a canonish piece with no Hermione, especially if it started early in canon. I also feel like canon could have been improved without Weasleys, though it would be unthinkably drastic considering they make up 6/10's the story.

 

Personally, I don't particularly hate Hermione, although I do hate how at times she can be a bit of a Mary Sue, especially in the Movies. The fact she's basically Rowling's Self Insert doesn't help matters.

One of my biggest Pet Peeve goes the other direction: turning Ron into a useless idiot at best, and outright Bashing him into a fat, poor, rapist, ginger, greedy, traitorous bigot at worst. I consider it a tragedy there are very few Fics like Mirror, Mirror, which not only makes Ron the main character, but actually develops him into a genuinely interesting and sympathetic character.

 

This. As amusing as it is to imagine Hermione to be a less useful and far more bitchy version of Hogwarts : A History, the trio dynamics is a major reason why the Harry Potter series is so popular.

I do think Hermione deserved a hard punch to the face at several points in the series -- the whole SPEW business, the thing with the Potions book and rubbing it in Harry's face after Dumbledore's death. It's annoying that is rarely called out on her faults, but there's no denying that she's an important part of the series.

 

Well, she is the author's self-insert, after all.

 

I think he means where Harry would actually try to learn things himself instead of using his friend as The Walking Magical Encyclopedia. This might lead him to connect with other people and, frankly, I don't think Ron's bouts of retarded jealousy would be missed by many readers.

But that's just my interpretation.

 

I always hear about his retarded jealousy, but seldom find it in Canon to the degree everyone believes it is there. In GOF, Ron isn't jealous of Harry, he feels betrayed because Harry basically told him how he'd enter the tournament, and then his name comes out of the cauldron. Up until that point, Ron and Harry and done pretty much everything together. Ron even remained civil in the discussion thereafter. It was Harry who snapped at Ron, turned angry, and basically called him stupid. Only after that does Ron take a single cheap shot at Harry about wanting to be up for a photo-call.

The only thing we get is Hermione's quasi-psyche eval of Ron where she says he jealous because he's in his brothers' shadows. Even then, however, she goes out of her way to mention that Ron's always shunted to the side when Harry shows up, and he puts up with it, and he never mentions it." She then supposed it was just one time too many.

Money: Harry was buying him omninoculars and Ron simply said, "No, don't bother." Harry said "You won't be getting anything for Christmas—for about ten years, mind you." To which Ron replied, "Fair enough" with a grin. Not exactly jealousy there, either.

In DH, Ron wasn't only injured (splinched by Hermione's second Apparation), but was deeply affected by the Horcrux, as was Harry, and they began poking at each other.


One area Ron's jealousy does show up is with Krum, and that's because, even though he doesn't admit it, he has feelings for Hermione, which while childish for an adult point of view, is not at all out of the norm for a fourteen year old.

Ron's character is one that is emotion based, rather than logic based for sure (as is Harry's), but the whole jealous!Ron cliche is vastly overblown when seen in canon context.

 

Smart observation. I'd never thought of that before.

---------- Post automerged at 18:58 ---------- Previous post was at 18:33 ----------

@E. C. Scrubb it's true that a lot of fans like to bash Ron until he's a caricature and that's just stupid.

You bring up a good point with Harry's confrontation with Ron in GoF. The BWL shares a lot of blame for driving Ron away, but to be fair the ginger was already quite angry with Harry by the time he got clear of the congratulatory crowd in the common room. Ron was looking for a fight by the time Harry arrived. Harry didn't do enough to diffuse the situation.

Hermione's assessment doesn't really make sense to me either. PS showed us through the Mirror of Erised that Ron is motivated by the desire to win accolades and prestigious titles. Things Harry had already won before he could walk unaided. In the Firebolt chapter of PoA, Ron accuses Hermione of being jealous over the monetary cost of the broom. Does that sound like her? More likely, he's projecting his own insecurity from being constantly poor onto her.

Even if Ron's jealous behaviour is greatly exaggerated by his detractors, there are enough instances of him having selfish motivations that it disqualifies him from being the friend Harry deserves. In some ways, Ron is the most human character because he displays very human-like faults in a more consistent manner. Unfortunately, he doesn't live in a vacuum and must be judged according to the standards of his universe. Harry never whinged to others overmuch about having hand-me-down clothes, only wanted to be surrounded by family, and never cared for his fame due to an almost Gary-Stu level of humility. It's an extremely high standard, but Ron falls far short. It's not that he's below average, he just can't really measure up to Harry's or Hermione's abilities or motivations. Without Harry Potter, Ron might be an interesting character. As it is, though, Ron is almost wholly defined by his deficiencies.

 

Everyone's selfish at some point or another though. Or all the time... I don't think it's a major character flaw.

 

@E. C. Scrubb, there are actually many more examples of Ron's jealousy, and I don't think you present the events in the same light they were given. Ron has to be extremely stupid, or have completely no understanding of his "best mate", in order for him to think that Harry inserted his name in the Goblet. Those flaws might seem minor to some readers, but Ron's 'periods' were always my most hated part of the books, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who shares this sentiment.

Anyway, here's another peeve. Fics full of long passages that tell us shit we already know, and introduce entire concepts and places that we already read about in the books. It's one rare example where "show, don't tell" should actually be inverted. Of course, they might be seen differently from another Harry's point of view, but when Harry is introduced to those concepts, you can simply write "X explained to Harry so and so..." instead of actually showing what X tells Harry. I don't mind it in small quantities, but I'm currently reading a fic which is full of it, and it's utterly frustrating.

 

I never got this. Do the writers really think people who have never read the books before are going to try to read their fic? Even from their point of view it seems awfully tedious to rewrite crap from the books the way they do (instead of straight copy and pasting if they really felt the need to include that stuff for some reason).

 

Personally, I've often read fanfiction that I'd never watched/read the source material for. For example, Fate/stay night, Zero no Tsukaima, A Song of Ice and Fire etc...

 

I think your vastly reading into the text in many places. No where in the text does it say Ron was angry. We get the impression he wasn't happy, but even so, if you reread it, he was trying to engage Harry in normal conversation, and then ask him questions. It was Harry that got angry, yelled, and pushed Ron away. Not the opposite. And, I think that's an important fact because it feeds in to Harry's fifth year. His darker emo self wasn't out of the blue. We see it a bit in second year, but we definitely see it here, where Harry assumes things and pushes people away when he doesn't need to.

As for money, yes. He dislikes being poor and is insecure about it when it is pointed out to him, meaningfully or accidentally. But he seldom makes a big deal out of it.

As for selfish motivations, I think you're slipping into fanon, at least, for selfish motivations over and above anyone else in the book, including Harry. Harry is a prick quite a few times towards both Ron and Hermione. But because he's beloved Harry Potter, I think many people ignore those parts. But reading the books again and looking at the relationships, they're pretty equal outside the Horcrux hunt, and again, I place that about 90 percent on the Horcrux itself driving Ron away. Matter of fact, as soon as he got away from the Horcrux's influence, he immediately turned back.

We also forget about Ron facing down his greatest fear in his second year, literally sacrificing himself his first year, throwing himself on a murderer (even with a broken leg) his third year, riding off with Harry to face Death Eaters and possibly Voldemort his fifth year, and teaming up with Hermione not to let Harry hunt Horcruxes alone his last year. I'm not sure that's selfish by any stretch of the imagination. On top of that, he's the one who breaks the ice between him and Harry fourth year after they fought, and stands up to Seamus fifth year even though it may have been a very unpopular thing to do in their own house.

THis is not to say that he didn't have his issues. He certainly did. But the subtle way Ron's character is exposed so often missed that it gets rather annoying (in general. I'm not saying you're doing it here).