If and when I am kidnapped by aliens, and through a series of unlikely circumstances am asked to write the Harry Potter books for them (as they’ve never read them before, and the kidnapping ray only works once), I’d change some things.
Quidditch – fun premise, but Lordy the scoring breaks down under closer examination. Order of the Phoenix – too bloody long. Make sure to mention Luna Lovegood in passing before the 5th book. Small stuff like that. But, first and foremost, I would want to rework Ronald Weasley, because boy howdy do I think that he’s a missed opportunity.
Now, a few ground rules and observations firstly. Number one, this is definitely book!Ron…..I’m not terribly interested in discussing movie!Ron, or in comparing what differences and similarities the two have. That does bring us to my first observation though, which is that (perhaps more than the other leads) I do suspect that book!Ron may have been influenced by movie!Ron’s portrayal in the later books. The first Potter film was released in 2001, a full two years before the fifth book was published, and Rupert Grint’s awkwardness and elastic face does seem (to me) to come out in the prose of the later books. Whether the former did influence the latter would be a task for another analysis, though.
Secondly, I actually don’t have big problems with Ron overall…..he is generally endearing and likeable, though also humanly flawed and unique. This isn’t some deep think piece about issues with him as a person or anything like that – if he was actually a problematic character, I’d just ditch him and recreate a new best friend for Harry. Rather, what I’m interested in is taking some aspects of Ron that I feel were severely under-utilised by Rowling, and drawing them better into his overall personality. Which brings us nicely to my third and final guideline – as far as I’m concerned, all of these changes I’m about to propose are drawn directly from the text, from things Ron does or says. I just wish that those things were more prevalent in Ron’s character, and feel that he would be both more interesting and more useful if they were.
Right, so! First and foremost, it’s probably worth breaking down Ron as a character, and what he brings to the trio of friends – both in terms of skills, and of personality traits. Harry’s name might be on the front cover of each book, but for the stories to work, we need Ron, Hermoine and Harry to all bring something to the group, to work off each other.
To highlight a similar example, imagine a Star Trek that starred Officer Spock, Captain Spock and Dr “Spock” Spock. It’d be awful. Maybe the premise could work for a single mirror dimension episode or something like that, but as a core trio, it doesn’t work….we need Kirk’s brashness and flair, and Bones’ empathy and moral compass, as well as the skills that each of them bring to the Enterprise. So let’s apply the Star Trek formula, and figure out what each of our leads brings to the halls of Hogwarts.
Harry’s easy. Harry’s the leader, the Kirk of the group in many ways. He routinely shows himself to be intensely loyal, brave and kindhearted, if impulsive and brash. He’s also surprisingly quick-witted, often creatively solving problems in the heat of the moment, though despite this lightning intelligence, he is not especially guileful. He also seems content to rely on his wits, displaying little in the way of studiousness or general knowledge. Despite this, he also seems peculiarly well-suited to being a teacher (which plays back into his empathy and his leadership qualities), and though he is generally an average wizard, he becomes an incredibly skilled duelist, eventually holding his own against wizards and witches much more experienced and much more ruthless. In short, Harry’s the captain and the warrior of the trio.
Hermoine’s also quite straightforward – Hermoine is the scholar and the problem-solver, a curious blend of Spock and Bones (the Star Trek template is flexible, all that matters are how the characters are distinct from and contrasted against each other, not the actual mix of traits and quirks). Studious and academic, Hermoine is also the most inquisitive of the group, making her the most likely to find answers to difficult questions and to remember specialised knowledge. Hermoine’s emotional intelligence is also generally more sophisticated, and she generally shows the most initiative in strategy, in planning and in preparing. Finally, Hermione shows the greatest general skill with magic – though Harry is better in a fight than she is, she is more reliable with non-combat spells, allowing her to aid the three in a variety of clever and well-prepared ways.
Aaaaaand then we have Ron. What is Ron good at? He’s got a rat…..well, for a bit, anyway.
Seriously, what does Ron do or achieve?
Of the three, he’s the most often involved in personal conflicts and arguments – in the third book, him and Hermione have a serious falling out because of Crookshanks. In the fourth, he feuds with Harry when the latter is forced into the Triwizard Tournament, in the sixth he once again turns on Hermione over Quidditch and in the last book, he literally abandons both of them…..admittedly, whilst under the influence of an evil piece of jewellery and he does return, but still.
Mind, Harry and Hermione aren’t perfect either, so what does Ron bring to the team? Well, he’s…..not as good at magic as either of them. He’s also generally less mature – to be fair, he grows and develops out of this, but still. He’s likely the funniest and most comic of the group, to his credit…..but on the flip-side, he doesn’t seem terribly willing to be the butt of a joke himself, unlike his older twin brothers.
In thinking about this post, I could only find one thing that Ron is consistently useful for, one positive quality that he has that Harry and Hermione lack, and that is that he was raised in the wizarding world. When an unfamiliar name or idea comes up, it’s often Ron’s job to explain what a Neegerpudder is to Harry and Hermione (and by extension, the reader), as well as to mention its extreme fear of the colour blue. Ron knows of Azkaban and Dementors, he recognises prominent names like Bellatrix Lestrange, and knows old wizard fairy tales and folklore.
This is a valuable role, obviously. But here’s the thing….it’s not a character trait, and it’s barely a skill. Harry’s wit, tenacity and bravery is special. Hermione’s memory, intellect and general skill is special. Ron is no more special than Draco, Seamus or Neville. Ron just happened to grow up in this world, and knows these things in the same way that Harry and Hermione know how to interpret a traffic light, or who Alexander Graham Bell was. Ron’s general knowledge is useful, sure, but it is hardly praiseworthy.
Now, I’ve not been kind to Ron up to this point, which may be distressing for any Ron fans out there – and it’s worth clarifying that I really don’t dislike Ron. He is generally fun to be around, and is mostly a good and loyal friend to Harry, as well as having some interesting character development (more on that later).
I also think it’s worth nothing that there is nothing “wrong” with the idea that Ron might be less brilliant or useful than his friends. Life isn’t fair. Life doesn’t dole out skill points in equal measure. Indeed, the idea of a character who is less “gifted”, and either strives through it or eventually accepts it, can be interesting. Had Rowling committed harder to that concept (I’d argue it is a little present as is), then maybe I’d be less disappointed with Ron as a character.
However, I’d want to take Ron in a different direction, a direction suggested in the first book, before being abandoned completely and utterly for whatever reason. Indeed, in the entire first book, I would argue that Ron, of all the characters, has the greatest, most amazing individual achievement. Ron does something that should be mind-blowing, that should inform his character for the rest of the series.
Harry stops Voldemort and gets the Philosopher’s Stone – yeah, great, good for you Harry. But Harry was literally untouchable for Voldemort at that time, and achieved the latter by simply being a nice bloke – all well and good, but nothing more than that. Hermione’s major contributions in reaching the Stone are to know how to cast spells, and being able to solve the sort of riddle that one might find in an Usborne Puzzle Adventure book.
(Sidebar, what the hell was up with that riddle? If I were Snape, I’d have filled up the seven bottles, told Dumbledore that it was the second from the right or whatever, and that all the others are an incapacitating poison. Why on earth was there a riddle there?)
Erm, anyway.
So, back to Ron, and let’s talk chess. Because Ron, winning that chess game, is frankly amazing. That victory is a hell of an accomplishment. Don’t believe me? Let’s break it down a bit.
We know that Ron is generally good at chess, that much is set up earlier in the book (though we don’t know how good exactly). We also know that that particular obstacle was set up by Professor McGonagall. We are also unsure of how good McGonagall is at chess, but we can reverse engineer that a bit – if McGonagall was bad at chess, it seems out of character for her to select it as her obstacle, she’s far too pragmatic for that. We also don’t know how the magical chess board “thinks”……is it playing as McGonagall would play, or does the spell create a magical AI – and what “difficulty level” is this AI then playing with?
I think we can discard quite a few extremes immediately. As mentioned above, it seems unlikely that McGonagall would make this her obstacle unless she could make it to a competent standard. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure neither McGonagall nor Ron are on the same level as, say, Kasparov or Deep Blue, both of which are dedicated to chess. I think it’d be fair to imagine both are likely somewhere between excellent hobby players, and low-level tournament contestants….maybe even a little lower for McGonagall, given that she may be able to supplement her “AI” magically.
For context, speaking as an ok amateur chess player, I can always, always beat most people at chess…..though I usually don’t play most people. In my group of friends, I have some who I beat more often than not, quite a few who I’m evenly matched with, and a couple who I’ve beaten not more than once or twice across dozens of games. Those couple of people are still a solid grade below the lowest rungs of tournament level. My point is that chess is a wide spectrum…..in the chess world, Ron may be nothing special, but he’s already likely in the top 5% of the general population….maybe higher.
Oh, and he’s 11. And he’s playing at a handicap…..next time you sit down and play chess, try and win the match without losing your leftmost rook, knight or bishop. It is not easy. What Ron achieved in that match is nothing short of extraordinary…..and I feel like this accomplishment and this skill should inform his character in the later books.
Obviously, that’s not to say that the penultimate obstacle of each book should be an ever-more-dangerous game of chess, though that would be hilarious.
Rather, it’s to say that Ron’s chess skills could also manifest in more general ways. Ron could be the group’s strategist and planner, the big picture thinker…..a role largely left to Hermione otherwise. Indeed, I’d argue that that would strengthen Hermione’s character as well, as it would establish why the two of them work so well together….Ron’s grander vision needs Hermione to pull it together, while Hermione would easily become lost in the details without Ron.
Ron could remain insecure and immature, needing both Harry and Hermione to ground him, but when a plan needs planning (the battle in the Ministry at the end of book 5 and the Gringotts heist in book 7 spring to mind), Ron would be the primary architect. This could also obviously be shown in smaller ways and moments…..Hermione’s preparation of the TARDIS bag in book 7, for example, could also work if it was Ron’s idea initially, and Hermione did the legwork for it.
Suddenly, Ron has a clear role to fill, without necessarily sacrificing much of his character…..indeed, the stress and insecurity of the character could play into this trait as he constantly questions himself, questions and re-analyses his plans and ideas. His lack of sensitivity would also become darker, as he struggles between what he knows to be right and a tendency to see others as, well, pawns. To me at least, this would establish Ron more fully as a useful member of the trio, and give him more to do than to suffer as surly comic relief.
Nonetheless, I’m not quite done with Ron yet….he now has a useful skill, but I still feel like his actual characterisation could be tweaked a little, to better contrast his friends and inform his own development. And what better way to do that than to turn to Rowling’s own broad character archetypes – the Hogwarts Houses.
The Houses are, from a worldbuilding perspective, a tad odd, raising more questions and problems than they answer. If all the evil people come from the same house, should we maybe realign their core values? How did Peter Pettigrew get into Gryffindor? From a character perspective, though, they’re actually quite useful tools, allowing broad strokes of characterisations, as well as more careful explorations of what it “means” to be in those Houses through less conventional characters who nonetheless embody those archetypes….think of Luna Lovegood, the crazy Ravenclaw or Cedric Diggory, the studious and brave Hufflepuff.
Conveniently, though our three heroes are all definitely Gryffindors, they also embody secondary characteristics from another House. Hermione, clearly, is a 51/49 Gryffindor/Ravenclaw split……no question at all about it. Harry’s also pretty clear. Harry is tenacious, loyal, often stubborn, has a clear sense of right and wrong and of fairness.
…..”but wait” I hear you say, hypothetical reader. “Those traits don’t sound very Slytherin, and the Hat said….”
“THE HAT IS DUMB!” I respond, slamming my fist on the table.
The Hat never saw many Slytherin traits in Harry – how could it? Slytherins are ambitious, cunning, seek superiority….Harry actively plays against many of these. The Hat saw a part of Voldemort’s soul in Harry, and was confused into imagining he might be Slytherin as a result….a Horcrux-less Harry has very few, if any, Slytherin tendencies, he’s much more of a Hufflepuff…..maybe, like, a 70/30 split, but still.
Ron, on the other hand. Ron Weasley would make a great Slytherin.
…..but, this post has run much longer than I intended. So, for the first time, it’s gonna be a To Be Continued, as next time, I explain just why I think Ron would be a better character if he leaned more deliberately into those Slytherin traits, and rework “Deathly Hallows” in order to provide him with a clearer and more satisfying character arc. Till then!
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