Let's talk about Ron and Hermione

Oh, Ronald. If only there was someone out there who loved you.

Okay. This has been done to death. The internet has screamed its rage, and the dust has settled. Nevertheless, I have Things To Say.

A couple weeks ago, a teaser article was published, in which J.K. Rowling apparently told Emma Watson that Ron and Hermione getting married was a mistake, and that Hermione should have ended up with Harry, instead. This news spread like wildfire. Cue the screaming. I was always more invested in Harry and Ginny, myself, so I never realized how much of a Ron/Hermione fan I was until this teaser article; I did, however, know how much I hated the idea of Harry/Hermione, which has always felt like incest to me. 

I am not going to rehash everyone's arguments about how unclassy it is to renounce major plot threads in your books, because one, that has been done to death, two, I respect Rowling rather more than that, and three, I have since read the full interview. Here is the most relevant passage from the interview:

Rowling: What I will say is that I wrote the Hermione/Ron relationship as a form of wish fulfillment. That’s how it was conceived, really. For reasons that have very little to do with literature and far more to do with me clinging to the plot as I first imagined it, Hermione with Ron.

Watson: Ah.

Rowling: I know, I’m sorry, I can hear the rage and fury it might cause some fans, but if I’m absolutely honest, distance has given me perspective on that. It was a choice I made for very personal reasons, not for reasons of credibility. Am I breaking people’s hearts by saying this? I hope not.

Watson: I don’t know. I think there are fans out there who know that too and who wonder whether Ron would have really been able to make her happy.

Rowling: Yes exactly.

Watson: And vice versa.

Rowling: It was a young relationship. I think the attraction itself is plausible but the combative side of it… I’m not sure you could have got over that in an adult relationship, there was too much fundamental incompatibility. I can’t believe we are saying all of this – this is Potter heresy!

In some ways Hermione and Harry are a better fit, and I’ll tell you something very strange. When I wrote Hallows, I felt this quite strongly when I had Hermione and Harry together in the tent!

Rowling  later goes on to say:

All this says something very powerful about the character of Hermione as well. Hermione was the one that stuck with Harry all the way through that last installment, that very last part of the adventure. It wasn’t Ron, which also says something very powerful about Ron. He was injured in a way, in his self-esteem, from the start of the series. He always knew he came second to fourth best, and then he had to make friends with the hero of it all and that’s a hell of a position to be in, eternally overshadowed. So Ron had to act out in that way at some point.

But Hermione’s always there for Harry. I remember you sent me a note after you read Hallows and before you starting shooting, and said something about that, because it was Hermione’s journey as much as Harry’s at the end.

And then finally, and less damningly:

Oh, maybe she and Ron will be alright with a bit of counseling, you know. I wonder what happens at wizard marriage counseling? They’ll probably be fine. He needs to work on his self-esteem issues and she needs to work on being a little less critical.

What I get from the article is this: Rowling identified a lot with Hermione, so Hermione ended up with Ron, a "funny man." Rowling says, "Just like her creator, [Hermione] has a real weakness for a funny man. These uptight girls, they do like them funny." That's what Rowling means by "wish fulfillment." I... can't argue with that. Us uptight girls, we do like them funny. I just don't think that's a bad thing, nor do I find it impossible that Ron could make Hermione happy – "and vice versa."

So what I don't get from the article: Ron and Hermione's marriage would inevitably end up in a horrible, vicious divorce. Harry and Hermione would indubitably be better. Rowling concedes, though I'm sure at least a little laughingly, that Ron and Hermione would probably work things out with marriage counseling. As for Harry and Hermione, Rowling says only that "in some ways [they] are a better fit." In some ways. There's nothing definite in that phrasing.

(I'm putting the rest under a cut, because it got longer than I'd like, and I guess because there are spoilers if you've been living under a rock.)



Basically, at this point, we can stand with our arms akimbo and shake our heads at Rowling in mild disappointment, but there's no cause to leap forth and scratch her eyes out. However, as many before me have detailed, there are numerous ways in which Rowling overlooks Ron. I will try and keep my rebuttal brief. If you want a more extensive post on the virtues of Ron Weasley, you should probably search through Tumblr, because there are some good ones.

The key point I want to make about Ron addresses this statement by Rowling: "Hermione was the one that stuck with Harry all the way through that last installment, that very last part of the adventure. It wasn’t Ron, which also says something very powerful about Ron."

Let us turn to Deathly Hallows. As you know if you are reading this article, our Trio has been trekking about the British countryside, carrying a Horcrux in the form of a locket, which has almost the exact same effect on its wearer as the One Ring does on Frodo. It turns you nasty. It's a heavy burden. Ron cracks, and in a huff of rage, leaves Harry and Hermione to deal with the Horcruxes on their own. After some time, Ron comes back, saves Harry, and destroys that same Horcrux which nearly ruined everything. 

Obviously, broken-hearted and enraged Hermione isn't going to take Ron's return demurely. So then Ron shouts, "I wanted to come back the minute I'd Disapparated, but I walked straight into a gang of Snatchers, Hermione, and I couldn't go anywhere!" (381). He continues, explaining, "Snatchers.... They're everywhere – gangs trying to earn gold by rounding up Muggle-borns and blood traitors, there's a reward from the Ministry for everyone captured. I was on my own and I look like I might be school age; they got really excited, though I was a Muggle-born in hiding. I had to talk fast to get out of being dragged to the Ministry" (382).

Basically, after he storms off, he wants to come back, but he gets waylaid, and by the time he can try and return to his friends, well, they've moved along on the quest. He spends the rest of the time trying to make his way back to them. Almost as soon as the poisonous influence of the Horcrux is gone, Ron wants to come back. The only reason he doesn't stick with Harry through the whole journey is because he can't bloody find him. Because not only is Hermione very expert at hiding the Chosen One, but the wizarding world is a dangerous place for eighteen-year-old blood traitors.

But the most important defense for Ron comes several pages later:

"I dunno," said Ron. "Sometimes I've thought, when I've been a bit hacked off, [Dumbledore] was having a laugh, or – or he just wanted to make it more difficult. But I don't think so, not anymore. He knew what he was doing when he gave me the Deluminator, didn't he? He – well," Ron's ears turned bright red and he became engrossed in a tuft of grass at his feet, which he prodded with his toe, "he must've known I'd run out on you."

"No," Harry corrected him. "He must've known you'd always want to come back" (391).

And there it is. Ron chooses to come back, which shows both loyalty and growth. It's the same reason the Prodigal Son is special, isn't it? He messes up and leaves, and then he chooses to come back, asking for forgiveness. I mean, here's a quote from the Bible story: "'My son,' the father said, 'you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found'" (Luke 15: 31-32).

I am not trying to force religious parallels, but rather show that the idea that someone like Ron can be redeemed is thousands of years old. In her interview, Rowling focuses on the fact that Ron leaves, ignoring the point that she herself makes in the book: Ron comes back. Dumbledore himself has such faith in Ron that he bequeaths in his will an object that will allow Ron to redeem himself; because he knows that once Ron does come back, and is forgiven and redeemed, the Trio will be stronger for it. Harry can't defeat Voldemort with just Hermione; they all three need to be together. 

I know this has turned into more of a defense of Ron, rather than a defense of Ron/Hermione. So. Briefly. (I try.) Ron says to Hermione, "...I heard you coming out of my pocket. Your voice... came out of [the Deluminator]" (383). On a literal level, Hermione's voice comes out of the Deluminator because she's the first person to speak Ron's name after he leaves, and so that's why it's her he hears. But come on. That's no coincidence on a literary level. Even though he's wanted to come back ever since he left, it's Hermione that finally allows him to do so, to become a better person. Rowling says Ron needs to "work on his self-esteem issues," well. I think getting the girl will help tremendously with that.

As for Ron not being able to make Hermione happy? Two things here. First, a lot of people have argued that Ron is too stupid for Hermione. Let me remind those people that Ron is an insurmountable chess player. He may not be a big reader, and may blunder about a lot, but he's not an idiot when you come down to it. 

Second, let's close at the open, eh?

But from that moment on, Hermione Granger became their friend. There are some things you can't share without ending up liking each other, and knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll is one of them (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, page 179).

Another of them, presumably, is spending seven years saving the world together. I know that argument leaves as much room for Harry/Hermione as Ron/Hermione. However, I choose instead for that passage to leave me with the hope that Ron and Hermione can overcome such "fundamental incompatibility," because they have faced so much worse, and survived. Danger brought them together; I can't imagine that with all they've been through, peace would tear them apart.