My hatred of spider's and my love of Ron Weasley

Firstly, I’d like to say that this was painful to write because it forces me to think of, imagine, and, ultimately describe spiders, my bitter foe. Yet I do it gladly for my love of the expertly written character Ron Weasley from the Harry Potter book series. If you know of him at all you know that he and I share that hatred of the eight-legged and eight-eyed, weirdly furry, abominations. (Here I wanted to make sure I was correct about the number of creepy legs and eyes my foe has, and I almost had to look at a picture of them. I was forced to use my hand to cover the screen.) I shudder at the mere sight of my sly nemesis yet the courageous Ronald Bilius Weasley not only faced the furry beasts but ventured into their venomous lair.

I am aware of the fools that say, “Oh but spiders are way smaller than you, why should you be afraid?” And it takes a fool to ignore that this is the sneaky spider’s greatest advantage, their minuscule size. Why just earlier today all I wanted was to sit outside in a chair instead of the baking Texas concrete of my balcony. I grabbed a chair from the storage closet outside and my mind immediately flew to my old foe. I vigorously inspected the chair for webs or any sign of them. I’d be insane not to fear the venom sack and greedy pinchers of the brown recluse were it to crawl into the flowy skirt that I’d worn.

There are two things I know for certain; Ron Weasley is the most courageous Gryffindor, and if I were Harry’s best friend he would have been following those spiders’ into the forest by his damn self. Sadly, the Ron Weasley of the Movie franchise was relegated to a mere wisecracking sidekick, a comic relief. Thus he lost his status as the once fan favorite but I remember, and it’s easy to see why he was the favorite. Ron is everyman. I believe his character was meant to be a sort of stand-in for the reader. His series arc was more grounded and his problems were more closely aligned with that of the everyday teen, petty jealousy, dorky clothes, and being poor. Of Harry (who was famous and muggle raised) and (Hermione who was brilliant and muggle-born) Ron was the normal one. He was our eyes into the everyday life of a, teen wizard and his witty insight into the deeper aspects of wizarding culture made that world come alive.

In regards to the trio he was the lynchpin of the group. He’s smart though often dismissed as dumb which he’s absolutely not and that’s canonical. In book six, after they received their O.W. L scores, professor McGonagall tells Neville Longbottom that he cannot continue her Transfiguration class with only an Acceptable O.W.L score. It’s likely that other classes, (except perhaps Herbology), had similar standards. We also know from book five that Snape required the highest O.W.L score, an Outstanding, to continue his class. That standard was lowered to an Exceptional under Slughorn but Ron was cleared to take Potions, Transfigurations, D.A. D.A, Charms, and more, just the same as Harry. So the book proves that Ron is not dumb, but furthermore, he is the only one of the trio with any emotional intelligence.

That may be a surprise to hear, considering that most of Ron’s arc is about him throwing petty hissy fits but hear me out. Neither Harry nor Hermione have any self-awareness, like none, whatsoever. Ron, on the other hand, is self-aware to the point of being self-conscious. Which makes sense considering his large family. I too come from a large family and the only thing that there’s always plenty of is feedback. You can’t be piled on top of one another and remain shy. We see this with the entire Weasley family, they’re boisterous. The whole clan is hilariously bombastic and they constantly roast each other. (To roast is to jokingly insult) I can say from experience that being outlandish is a requirement in large families.

Otherwise, you will never get a word in and never get your own personal needs met. Ron is one of the least demonstrative people in his family but ironically the most emotive of the famous trio. Ron was actually pretty intuitive in his tantrums. A great example of this is in Book Four, The Goblet of Fire. Ron sulks about Harry’s entrance into the challenge. Because Harry grew up with the Dursleys he has a strong distrust of authority. That’s why he loves Dumbledore so, Dumbledore lets Harry do his own thing. Harry basically had to raise himself. He lived with his bully and his guardians not only encouraged but participated in that bullying. Which is the only reason Harry got a higher score in D.A.D.A than Ron who had not only his parents but several older siblings to look after and seek to protect him. Harry’s instincts were honed since he was a baby to avoid trouble and injury in his very home. Harry never states it but once he learns of his parent's murder and his own true history Harry embarks on a quest to live up to his name. Ron is the only person who sees this. He also sees that Harry does in fact enjoy the attention and praise he gets for his heroics and why wouldn’t harry enjoy attention after being denied affections since he was one year old.

The book gives you Ron’s, the everyday teen wizards, up close perception of Harry. Through their conflict, we are forced to ask whether it’s fair for Harry to get all of the credit when his friends have been a major factor in his success. In fact, in an amazingly meta part of book four, The Goblet of fire, after Harry wastes time-saving Fluer’s sister in the lake challenge Ron actually tells Harry that he has a Hero complex. Yet Ron is still generous with what little he does have and enlists his family to give Harry Christmas gifts, knowing that Harry wasn’t expecting any, (book one, The philosopher’s stone.)

Ron also enlists the twins to rescue Harry in a flying car, book two, The chamber of secrets. We know these things are Ron’s idea because he is the only member of his family to send and receive regular owls with Harry. He was also willing to die with Harry in book three, The prisoner of Azkaban, but that line was given to Hermione in the Movie. So we know that Ron is generous, empathetic, a man of action, and brave but there are certain people that overlook all of his great qualities and focus only on his worst, his jealousy. However, those people fail to realize that Ron only seems like the jealous one in the trio because he is demonstrative, thanks to his large family, but both Harry and Hermione are equally jealous. They just have fewer reasons to be jealous of Ron and are less vocal in general.

An example of Harry’s Jealousy can be found in book five, the Order of the phoenix. When he finds out that Ron has been made a prefect he is forced to ask himself whether he was actually better than Ron at anything. (He could think of only Quidditch) and laughs to himself about the twins insulting Ron. Earlier in that same book Harry was Jealous of both Ron and Hermione for being at the Order of the phoenix headquarters. He actually ruminates on all the things they all faced together but gives himself the credit by saying that he was the one who faced Voldemort twice. (Keep in mind he had just witnessed Cedric’s death in the previous book and was traumatized). He never voices these thoughts and later feels guilty about them but it shows that Harry experiences jealousy just like Ron and just like everyone else.

I mean seriously neither Harry nor Ron deserved to be prefects. Hermione is the only one who actually bothers to enforce rules on her peers and has done so since book one. This brings us to Hermione’s Jealousy. Hers comes from her innate competitiveness. When we’re first introduced to her on the train, one of the first things that she does is demand to see Ron perform magic, then she simultaneously criticizes him and brags about herself. “Are you sure that’s a real spell?” said the girl. “Well, it’s not very good, is it? I’ve tried a few simple spells just for practice and it’s all worked for me.” And later in Charms class Hermione once again tries to use Ron as a prop to bring positive attention to herself. While I love Hermione one of her character traits is that she is unlikable that’s cannon, Ron called her out for not having any friends and it was true. No one went to comfort her as she cried in the bathroom and Harry didn’t like her either, going so far as to call her a bossy know it all and was happy when she wasn’t talking to him in book one. So she was purposely written as unlikable and had no friends. Of course that’s part and parcel if you aspire to become a prefect, someone who has to enforce rules on their peers. No one likes the boss and they’re not supposed to. If you know anything about Hermione, you know that she’s been gunning for prefect from day one having read about them in Hogwarts’s a history.

In that charms class she tells Ron, “You’re saying it wrong,” Harry heard Hermione snap. “It’s Wing-gardium Levi-o-sa, make the ‘gar’ nice and long,” she was not offering sincere helpful criticism. She was once again bragging. In book three her competitiveness and aversion to being criticized herself causes her to take her pettiness to new heights. When Lavender Brown is crying about her dead pet rabbit who was just a baby Hermione thought it was appropriate to use the details of the pet’s death to criticize Lavender’s favorite subject, Divinations. All because Hermione did not like the subject and the teacher criticized her. In book six she was so threatened by the half-blood prince being better at potions than her that she had to point out that she was right about him all along, this was after Dumbledore died.

“no, actually, it’s about…well, Snape.” She looked nervous even saying the name again. “What about him?” asked Harry heavily, slumping back in his chair. “Well, it’s just that I was sort of right about the Half-Blood Prince business,” she said tentatively. “D’you have to rub it in, Hermione? How do you think I feel about that now?” “No — no — Harry, I didn’t mean that!” she said hastily, looking around to check that they were not being overheard. “It’s just that I was right about Eileen Prince once owning the book. You see…she was Snape’s mother!”

In addition, Hermione has also displayed some traditional jealousy. We all recall Ron being a bit mean to Hermione, (He gets this from his family btw, look how the Weasleys talk to one another), because he’s jealous about her kissing Viktor Krum, but Hermione is so jealous at the sight of Ron kissing Lavender that she physically attacks him with magic birds that pecked and clawed him. Then she stopped speaking to him for months. My point is that the entire trio is flawed and their characters are all the richer for it. Hell Hermione actually maimed one of her fifteen-year-old classmates in book five. The girl was Cho Chang’s friend, Miriam, and Cho drug her along to the D.A. meeting. Hermione had everyone sign a document without telling them she’d enchanted it. When Miriam, whose mother worked for the ministry, squealed on their gathering she broke out in angry, red, pustules, across her nose spelling SNEAK.

The next year the girl was wearing a baklava to cover the boils on her face and that’s the last we see or hear of her. That means Hermione seemingly scarred this girl for life, literally. Over a decision Miriam made to comply with school rules and listen to her mother. It wasn’t an act of jealousy but it was definitely pretty harsh and puts in perspective that Ron is often thought of as the mean one because of the things he says. Yet when Ron does make fun of someone he does it out of love. That’s how he’s been taught to relate to people by his family. Fred and George insult, ridicule and belittle Ron constantly. It’s also emotionally mature to say what you think and feel. Besides it was Ron’s outspoken dislike of Hermione that was the catalyst in bringing the group together in the first place. This, among many others, is the main reason Ron Weasley is truly the lynch pin of the trio and the perfect mate for Hermione. They challenge each other to be the best versions of themselves.

Ron is very aware of Hermione and she him. Harry and Hermione have no romantic chemistry what so ever and anyone shipping them is just being a star fucker lol. I’ll end on that super classy note but remember to check for spiders. We evolved to fear them for a reason.