Ron Weasley, Prefects and other stuffs

[changclaire5]

I am suddenly struck by a question out of nowhere:  Why was Ron Weasley picked as a Prefect?  As far as I am concerned, even Neville has a better sense of right and wrong than Ron. So why Ron?

Based on my impression of how Albus Dumbledore worked, I am tempted to say this is another case of plain Dumbledore Favoritism. But then, I could be wrong

Comments

Explanation

[changclaire5]

The purpose of this post: To preserve the wonderful and insightful comments to my original post. It'd be a shame if they are lost.

Disclaimer: this is not an accusation in any way of the moderators of this community. I acknowledge their hard work in organizing it, and recognize the importance of following rules (no matter what HP thinks).

However, if I may suggest: for the future posts that stimulate interesting discussions of all things HP, some leeway be made in order to preserve the often insightful and imaginative comments. Ask the OP to moderate their post to fit the rules, or post a big sign on the original post saying it's not allowed to post as such and such, heck, if you feel like it (or if it's deserved), you can even delete the offending content of the original post, but please keep the comments that are related to HP topics and might be useful for later reference.

[changclaire5]

I do believe Ron won out in the end simply because he is Harry's sidekick.

I think you are right here, and I don't think I like it. To be fair, Ron is one of my favorite characters in HP world, his shortcomings are all understandable and sometimes endearing. But he really hasn't shown anything outstanding other than being chosen by Harry to be his best friend.

You said "it was often given to students who showed potential, but needed a little push to get them there." , but what potential dose Ron really have? The more I think about it, the more I think Neville has more potential than Ron (as you probably agree).

Thanks for commenting, it's reassuring to know that teachers don't just randomly pick some boys/girls to bestow responsibility upon :-)

[mad_maudlin]

You know, I also suspect that this was a tactical decision for Dumbledore and not just an educational one. He's fighting a war, after all, and preparing Harry for battle is one of his duties aside from running a school; he knows how close Ron and Harry are, so by pushing Ron to fulfill his potential he's also trying to arm Harry with the best possible ally. Neville is awesome, but between the end of PS and the midpoint of OotP he's not all that close to Harry, and his self-actualization isn't tactically significant. Cold, but true.

[emsoucy]

There are a few reasons why I think Ron was chosen as a prefect

[mad_maudlin]

I think there may have been other additional reasons for not choosing Neville. One, I think, is the possibility that when faced with a situation where he had to exercise his authority, he might just clam up and hide; Ron does this around the twins, but until about the mid-point of OotP I'd say Neville would've done it with everybody. That's the book where Neville starts to gain confidence in himself, and by then the choice is already made. At the beginning of the year, Neville is "nobody special" by his own admission, and it's only about halfway through where I think he started exhibiting signs of the same inner strength that he showed in PS

[nemesister]

He attacts Draco (and Crabbe and Goyle) one against three again, because he will not stand any slights agains his parents.
Compare this to Ron.

Ahem, Ron is the one who attacks Draco (and Crabbe and Goyle) one against three, because he will not stand any slights against his parents. Then Neville helps him.
Neville tries to do the same thing in GoF, if you're talking about this incident, but Ron already did in in PS, so this comparison doesn't really show a big difference, with the exception that we saw that Ron can prove himself in a fistfight, (Draco didn't win.) while we don't have an example for Neville being able to do the same. (In this instance he had no chance of course, because he was faced with Crabbe and Goyle. So this very much proves his bravery but not his ability to deal with the situation.)

[static_pixie]

Hmmm...you know,I love Neville, he's my second favorite character, mainly because his 'Gryffindorishness' is shown in such a different way than everyone else’s. But, honestly, I don't think he would have done well as a Prefect. For a few reasons. Number one; although he did stand up to Ron, Harry, and Hermione that one time, Hermione ultimately defeated him. And I think his being Prefect would have been that experience all over again. Hermione would humor him and, you know, be nice about it, encourage him in doling out small punishments or something. But she's such a control freak, she'd never let him make a really important decision, and he's not the type of person who'd try and shout her down, he's a 'live and let live' sort of guy overall. In fact, she'd probably just undermine him: Neville would try and give a command and the student wouldn't listen and instead of letting him deal with it himself, Hermione would come sweeping in to handle it. Ron, though, has been going up against Hermione since day one and I think that's

[changclaire5]

If the job of a prefect is only to police people, then perhaps you're right, that Neville wouldn't be interested anyway.

But I think (hope, more likely) that prefects also exist to help the younger students. And Neville would be great in that, particularly to the students who are also bullied by their peer. Hermione would be overly patronizing, and Ron simply doesn't care at all.

Ron loves social interaction, he's not a loner, and I think he wants some authority after being beaten on for so many years by his brothers. Neville will take the lead when he has to, but I don't think it necessarily means it's something he proactively wants to seek out.I think you're right here. But that doesn't mean Ron would be a good prefect and Neville wouldn't. Quite the contrary, I think Ron might've abused his power (like in Draco's case, only against Slyths) if not for the unfortunate events discussed in sistermagpie's essay "Ron the Prefect" (see the post for link). While if Neville were to be appointed, even though he doesn't actively

[neville81]

Here via the Snitch.

Like static pixie, I really, really love Neville. In fact, he's probably my favourite character with Snape and McGonagall. But at least until his third year, he couldn't even remember the passwords. That does not make him a choice for a good prefect. Admittingly, he was able to remember the password in OotP, because it was the name of his plant, but couldn't Dumbledore and McGonagall really have known this in advance?

[changclaire5]

Yeah, a few others also raised this point: Neville couldn't even remember the passwords!

But he remembers the names of the plants (very hard to remember too) very easily! So to me, this suggests that Neville was simply not taking remembering passwords seriously.

And to be a bit OT, this whole thing about punishing Neville for writing down the passwords is blown way out of proportion. The entire Hogwarts is supposed to be safe ground, not just the dorms. The passwords are there to ensure no students from other House can go in, that's all. And what is so wrong about writing down passwords and store them IN the dorm that's protected by the passwords anyway? It's not like anyone who's in the dorm doesn't already know them.

If anyone's to be blamed for the whole Sirius in the Gryff Dorm incident, it should be whoever that forgot to protect the tunnel under the Womping Willow.

[neville81]

Oh, I agree that the punishment was blown out of all proportions, particularly because he didn't even really lost the list. As you mentioned, Crookshanks stole it from within the room. But as a Prefect, he must tell the passowrd to others, and therefore he should better remember it. I just think, as much as I adore Neville, there are better choices for a Prefect. Of course the people, who said, that Hermione could help him in the beginning, have a point, and given how unsure Ron himself was in the beginning (particularly around the Twins), she had to do most of the work anyway.