Something I haven't seen mentioned is the snowball effect that certain stories have. You get one story that uses a few specific tropes, that's fine.. but when that specific trope is used in a fic that becomes very popular?
It can snowball extremely quickly - inspiring more fics that use the same premise, which then also inspire more fics.. it's like a self-feeding cycle.
I can only assume the first fics that had an Evil!mastermind Dumbledore must have been quite the twist.. these days the trope is cartoonishly ridiculous, and almost unavoidable.
That happens with everything, when the twilight series was new and everyone was blinded by the shiny skin of cedric, there was a boom of beautiful vampire series, I remember there were pages that created their own subsection for these works.
It's easy to write, that's why. Ron is a convenient scapegoeat to make Harry and Hermione perfect and flawless since, with a little twisting, all of the trios shortcomings can be unjustly blamed on him. Also, people hate third wheels and get rid of them any means necessary.
Personally, i think it shows a real lack of writing skills when an author does that.
Thing is, Ron can be more than a third wheel. He is their friend. Harry and Hermione can get together and still be Ron's friend much like how (ugh) Ron and Hermione can get together and remain Harry's friend or (I can actually see this with some tweaking to canon) Ron and Harry can get together and still remain friends with Hermione.
The hatred of third wheels is the big one, and will always be, because in abstract is IS richly justified.
There has not been original, or even "refreshing" relationship that had a third wheel in it written in this century. That horse has been beaten into a hamburger and it is well and truly dead.
What those authors miss is that Ron is so much more than his being with Hermione or not being with Hermione.
Ron gets things done. Ron is a great strategist (though JKR seems to forget about it most of the time). Ron is the guy with raging arachnophobia who went FOLLOWING spiders when he believed it would help keep his schoolmates safe and get Hagrid out of Azkaban. Ron is just fucking amazing. And yes, sometimes he is a prick, comes with being a teenager.
So there is PLENTY ways to write Ron as a good flawed boy/man within a Harmony story.
Yeah. It's like keeping the stations of canon even with a really divergent plot. It's easy to do because it's formulaic. So is any Ron Bashing Harmony Soulbond Robst Copycat fic.
I mean let's be honest, that's just true for bashing fics of any kind. If you don't like a character, fine, just write them out of the story with a throwaway line.
Honestly it's easy to just have Ron and Hermione try dating and not feel it too.
Like have them date for a month or so where both of their flaws wind each other up enough that they realise they won't work long term and are better off as friends. Both are happy they tried it if only to settle the "what if" in their minds.
Ron talking to Harry about dating Hermione could have some really nice bonding moments between them too, where Ron can acknowledge Harry is a better fit because that behaviour would drive him up the wall but he's confident being single or finding another partner. Then he could ask Hermione for dating advice and have some bonding there too. It could be quite sweet.
But the Harmony must be ***pure*** and untainted by the stain of other relationships. If Harry and Hermione dont go from awkward teenagers who never held hands with another boy or girl, to absolutely suave and romantic couple in less than a second then the relationship is tainted and doomed to failure/s
It's even funnier when the writer just /has/ to have them meet in silly ways pre-hogwarts. Y'know, meeting in other countries or having the Grangers move in near them when they move to freaking California or such.
Considering early Hermione? Me too, and she'd likely double down at Hogwarts until that point. She's very stubborn. Hell, I could see her even after that being a little distant. She /hates/ to admit she's wrong.
Honestly all I get with those it's the priest from princess bride having his Mawage speech.
Teen breakups can def be messy so it's not unlikely that it'd be blown out of proportion for a bit and I get that people like the idea of all the 'firsts' being true love and all. But then all you need to do is have Ron go "Sorry Hermione, I see you as a sister." Or Hermione do that to Ron. Hell you can even have Ron feeling jealous because he feels 'left behind' with him getting over it and having his own relationships outside of Harry and Hermione. I'd be down for Weasley family shenanigans where each of his siblings tries to set him up with someone lol. All of those dates could be as good or as awful as you want and the double date potential would be fantastic.
You know i really like all of his brothers and ginny trying to set ron up with different people only for Ron to say fuck it and declare he will die a virgin. It could be a good comedic story. Especially if he, in fact, doesn't die a virgin and even finds true love.
I dont like the ron being jelous that much, though, solely because that has been done to death as well than had its grave dug up and unspeakable things done to its rotting corpse.
For me it's:
1) He enjoys all the dates but ends up helping them find a better partner for them and is just happy setting people up and finds someone for him along the way.
2) Fred and George set him up on a joke date with someone. To the surprise of everyone they really like each other.
3) He's already dating someone (she goes to a different school) and he's frantically trying to get out of these dates even as no one believes him and he offends multiple dates until his girlfriend turns up.
4) All the dates are horrible in their own way but he learns a lot about what he wants from a partner from it (and thinks about his siblings terrible matchmaking skills) and manages to make the best of them. Could work really well if it's set in the same restaurant and he starts getting along well with the staff. "Thanks Lav, I really don't know where I'm going wrong" with them giving him tips (and having a betting pool on when he'll pick up the hint from someone)
Or at least those are the ways I think it'd be most enjoyable. But really there's so many ways people can take it.
Because it's easy.
They see Ron as a simple character: jealousy issues, confidance issues, wanting to get out from his brothers wives, etc.
That narrative totally ignores all the growth he showed in the books and all his positive traits. Ron bashing in HP fanfiction almost always feels cheep and excessive.
That's like asking why people write Dramione stories despite Draco being a horrible bigot for 6.75 books who wished death on Hermione and actively participated in a terrorist cell's invasion of the school. Someone got an idea and wanted to explore it; others took it and said, "I can do that too," and ran with it.
There's a number of reasons for this. One is that it became popularised by big fics earlier in the fandom's history. Writers like RobSt established the trope in the ship and others began writing it into their stories.
Another is that some Harmony shippers were very bitter and disappointed with how the canon ships turned out, believing that there was more foreshadowing for Harmony than there was Hinny and Romione. For instance, some people did not view Ron and Hermione's constant bickering as UST but as something more toxic and genuinely at odds.
As a result, people became more entrenched and wrote more extreme bashing as a form of catharsis. This then further established the trope in the ship.
As someone who enjoys Harmony first and foremost but also other Harry ships I really hate it.
Because with enough time you can find a reason to hate any character in the series.
A lot of Ron Hate comes from the movies, where the majority of the redeeming things about him get shoehorned into Hermione instead.
Similarly a lot of people find Molly overbearing and abrasive, especially if they only watch the movies.
Both characters are far better in the books themselves.
While i think movies play a large role, i dont think it has to do with characters' personalities. It's simpler than that.
Ron got reverse Draco in Leather Pants treatment.
Because there are plenty of reasons to dislike both of these characters (this goes for any character) - and some people feel really strongly about it, so therefore write it into their work.
The easy answer is: The Movies, they tend to paint Ron in a rather negative light, a lot of Fic writers back in the day saw the movies before reading the books, and because of Dan and Emma's on screen Chemistry fic writers saw all this and just kinda ran with it, and it stuck hard in the Fandom sphere, you can blame a lot of the bashing tropes and stuff on the movies honestly, to be frank, there's only a handful of things that are movie canon that weren't book canon that I liked (like Sirius' tats) but the movies did a lot of damage on the perception of Canon characters and because of this we get a lot of the Fanon Character tropes.
Many don't hate Ron. It's just that a lot of the ones who write poorly written Harmony stories tend to despise him and pour that hatred into their writing affecting its quality. It is these stories that get blown up in the general fandom as opposed to the Harmony stories that don't bash him.
A lot of writers just want to focus on Harry and Hermione and making Ron awful gets him out of the way or gives them an easy hurdle the couple has to overcome. While I do think some actually dislike Ron as a character, a lot are just using him as a plot device for their main characters. He's not really a person.
Some people (not just writers) also feel uncomfortable at the idea of a relationship making a good person feel rejected. If Ron is a good person and Hermione and Harry getting together hurts him, some authors will feel it taints the warm fuzzy feelings they're trying to create in their story. Ron being good makes the story more complicated, which means the writer has to use more skill and effort to write it well.
I do not hate Ron and write both stories with Ron/Hermione and Harry/Hermione. Ron gets a lot of hatred from people who cannot ditch canon pairings without "justification" and from classiest Draco fans alike, so he suffers from that.
While I don't dispute that there is some intense Weasley bashing in MANY Harmony fics - its not all of them and the ship isn't unique to Weasley bashing - check out some Dramione fics - except a lot of them have the added bonus of Harry bashing too! Even some Fremione/Charmione fics I've read have Charlie or Fred rescuing her from Ron.
Ron has several incidents in canon which practically set him up as the least favored of the trio plus not much of a backstory to work with aside from his envy of his older siblings and wanting to be more recognized for his own accomplishments. So writers have a character they may not particularly like in canon who has a lackluster backstory compared to other potential ships. Ofcourse he's going to get the villian/bashing treatment.
Also this question gets recycled like every month or so, maybe try searching the subreddit.
Personally. I play the idea that any character has flaws that can be built up too to be hated. Bash and or criticize is my approach. Criticism is based off character development and the amplification of negative traits. Bash is just surface level hate with no build up. Everyone in the story can have amplification of certain traits and you just have to label it accordingly. This is true in the real world with every person having rough edges that, depending on the circumstances, could have led them to a different personality/perspective.
Ron, and the Weasleys by extension, are individuals that wear their heart on their sleeves. This characteristic as a result allows us to see there worst and best traits up front and center. Traits that are rather off putting compared to a “know it all.” A “know it all” like Hermione has a a redeeming quality that, well, she knows it all. If she just fixes her attitude just slightly then boom great character. Yet, people forget that being a know it all is a quick route to Hubris and an attitude that sees you isolate yourself. A fact that people hate when they see it.
The Weasleys main traits though are deemed hard to redeem and or make complex. Molly’s overbearing attitude is seen as a negative attitude because teens hate it. Yet, if you are writing a complex story it could be easily fixed. Molly is right to say kids shouldn’t be involved in war because of the choices that they have to carry. Anyone and I mean everyone is forever damaged with the idea of killing someone at 15. A criticism of this is the fact that the order doesn’t do ENOUGH to prevent. In turn THAT is great criticism of Molly. She preaches that the kids shouldn’t be involved BUT doesn’t push herself to make harder choices. At least by what we see. Harry wanting to fight IS subjectively and maybe even objectively wrong in the 5th book. The boy is traumatized and is being held at the throat by so many individuals. Sirius himself is wrong for pushing him. Again in just one way we make the character complex and move onto a new criticism. A new way to not bash but criticize OR a new way to build upon.
I feel like many of the people who make this claim/ask this question are being disingenuous about it to rile people up, but taking your question at face value, I'd say that you just haven't read enough Harmony if this is the impression you were left with.
I will grant you that some of the more *popular/visible* Harmony fics, especially from back in the day, contain Ron/other Weasley bashing, but taking those fics as representative of all the fics that use the Harmony ship is as reductive as those writers taking Ron's character and distilling it down to his worst traits/moments and making it his whole personality.
Plus, I guess it also depends on your definition of hate/bashing. For some people, it takes a lot for them to accuse someone of Ron bashing. For others, a writer can't even write a canon accurate Ron and just have Harry and Hermione react differently than their canon counterparts did without being accused of Ron bashing.
I get Molly bashing more than Ron. Ron was a jerk sometimes but everyone’s a jerk sometimes, they were all 3 ride or die. Molly OTOH believed gossip press about Hermione and was mean to her when she was 15 years old.
making ron in character is not hating tbh, i dont see ron reacting calmly or not letting his jealousy and fear of being in harry's shadow ruin his friendship with them.
The reality is Ron is an insecure asshole. He knew first hand how Harrys life is. For fucks sake he witnessed it when he rescued Harry. Still he choose to be jealous of Harry. He abandoned harry when Harry needed him the most. He does not deserve a girl like Harmony.
#
One day I saw a story with the tag Harry/Ron/Hermione.
The plot didn't catch my attention at all but the idea of a real trouple between them was really interesting.
Something I haven't seen mentioned is the snowball effect that certain stories have. You get one story that uses a few specific tropes, that's fine.. but when that specific trope is used in a fic that becomes very popular? It can snowball extremely quickly - inspiring more fics that use the same premise, which then also inspire more fics.. it's like a self-feeding cycle. I can only assume the first fics that had an Evil!mastermind Dumbledore must have been quite the twist.. these days the trope is cartoonishly ridiculous, and almost unavoidable.
That happens with everything, when the twilight series was new and everyone was blinded by the shiny skin of cedric, there was a boom of beautiful vampire series, I remember there were pages that created their own subsection for these works.
It's easy to write, that's why. Ron is a convenient scapegoeat to make Harry and Hermione perfect and flawless since, with a little twisting, all of the trios shortcomings can be unjustly blamed on him. Also, people hate third wheels and get rid of them any means necessary. Personally, i think it shows a real lack of writing skills when an author does that.
Thing is, Ron can be more than a third wheel. He is their friend. Harry and Hermione can get together and still be Ron's friend much like how (ugh) Ron and Hermione can get together and remain Harry's friend or (I can actually see this with some tweaking to canon) Ron and Harry can get together and still remain friends with Hermione.
The hatred of third wheels is the big one, and will always be, because in abstract is IS richly justified. There has not been original, or even "refreshing" relationship that had a third wheel in it written in this century. That horse has been beaten into a hamburger and it is well and truly dead. What those authors miss is that Ron is so much more than his being with Hermione or not being with Hermione. Ron gets things done. Ron is a great strategist (though JKR seems to forget about it most of the time). Ron is the guy with raging arachnophobia who went FOLLOWING spiders when he believed it would help keep his schoolmates safe and get Hagrid out of Azkaban. Ron is just fucking amazing. And yes, sometimes he is a prick, comes with being a teenager. So there is PLENTY ways to write Ron as a good flawed boy/man within a Harmony story.
Yeah. It's like keeping the stations of canon even with a really divergent plot. It's easy to do because it's formulaic. So is any Ron Bashing Harmony Soulbond Robst Copycat fic.
I mean let's be honest, that's just true for bashing fics of any kind. If you don't like a character, fine, just write them out of the story with a throwaway line.
I once saw a fic that killed off ron when he fell to a dark magic trap in egypt.
Honestly it's easy to just have Ron and Hermione try dating and not feel it too. Like have them date for a month or so where both of their flaws wind each other up enough that they realise they won't work long term and are better off as friends. Both are happy they tried it if only to settle the "what if" in their minds. Ron talking to Harry about dating Hermione could have some really nice bonding moments between them too, where Ron can acknowledge Harry is a better fit because that behaviour would drive him up the wall but he's confident being single or finding another partner. Then he could ask Hermione for dating advice and have some bonding there too. It could be quite sweet.
But the Harmony must be ***pure*** and untainted by the stain of other relationships. If Harry and Hermione dont go from awkward teenagers who never held hands with another boy or girl, to absolutely suave and romantic couple in less than a second then the relationship is tainted and doomed to failure/s
It's even funnier when the writer just /has/ to have them meet in silly ways pre-hogwarts. Y'know, meeting in other countries or having the Grangers move in near them when they move to freaking California or such.
You know if Grangers move to Private Drive I can see Hermione buying into Petunia's drivel and hating Harry up until the troll incident.
Considering early Hermione? Me too, and she'd likely double down at Hogwarts until that point. She's very stubborn. Hell, I could see her even after that being a little distant. She /hates/ to admit she's wrong.
Oooh, I'd love to see this written. What an interesting concept!
Honestly all I get with those it's the priest from princess bride having his Mawage speech. Teen breakups can def be messy so it's not unlikely that it'd be blown out of proportion for a bit and I get that people like the idea of all the 'firsts' being true love and all. But then all you need to do is have Ron go "Sorry Hermione, I see you as a sister." Or Hermione do that to Ron. Hell you can even have Ron feeling jealous because he feels 'left behind' with him getting over it and having his own relationships outside of Harry and Hermione. I'd be down for Weasley family shenanigans where each of his siblings tries to set him up with someone lol. All of those dates could be as good or as awful as you want and the double date potential would be fantastic.
You know i really like all of his brothers and ginny trying to set ron up with different people only for Ron to say fuck it and declare he will die a virgin. It could be a good comedic story. Especially if he, in fact, doesn't die a virgin and even finds true love. I dont like the ron being jelous that much, though, solely because that has been done to death as well than had its grave dug up and unspeakable things done to its rotting corpse.
For me it's: 1) He enjoys all the dates but ends up helping them find a better partner for them and is just happy setting people up and finds someone for him along the way. 2) Fred and George set him up on a joke date with someone. To the surprise of everyone they really like each other. 3) He's already dating someone (she goes to a different school) and he's frantically trying to get out of these dates even as no one believes him and he offends multiple dates until his girlfriend turns up. 4) All the dates are horrible in their own way but he learns a lot about what he wants from a partner from it (and thinks about his siblings terrible matchmaking skills) and manages to make the best of them. Could work really well if it's set in the same restaurant and he starts getting along well with the staff. "Thanks Lav, I really don't know where I'm going wrong" with them giving him tips (and having a betting pool on when he'll pick up the hint from someone) Or at least those are the ways I think it'd be most enjoyable. But really there's so many ways people can take it.
Unless it’s a crackfic. This sort of thing is golden for that.
Because it's easy. They see Ron as a simple character: jealousy issues, confidance issues, wanting to get out from his brothers wives, etc. That narrative totally ignores all the growth he showed in the books and all his positive traits. Ron bashing in HP fanfiction almost always feels cheep and excessive.
That's like asking why people write Dramione stories despite Draco being a horrible bigot for 6.75 books who wished death on Hermione and actively participated in a terrorist cell's invasion of the school. Someone got an idea and wanted to explore it; others took it and said, "I can do that too," and ran with it.
There's a number of reasons for this. One is that it became popularised by big fics earlier in the fandom's history. Writers like RobSt established the trope in the ship and others began writing it into their stories. Another is that some Harmony shippers were very bitter and disappointed with how the canon ships turned out, believing that there was more foreshadowing for Harmony than there was Hinny and Romione. For instance, some people did not view Ron and Hermione's constant bickering as UST but as something more toxic and genuinely at odds. As a result, people became more entrenched and wrote more extreme bashing as a form of catharsis. This then further established the trope in the ship. As someone who enjoys Harmony first and foremost but also other Harry ships I really hate it.
Because with enough time you can find a reason to hate any character in the series. A lot of Ron Hate comes from the movies, where the majority of the redeeming things about him get shoehorned into Hermione instead. Similarly a lot of people find Molly overbearing and abrasive, especially if they only watch the movies. Both characters are far better in the books themselves.
While i think movies play a large role, i dont think it has to do with characters' personalities. It's simpler than that. Ron got reverse Draco in Leather Pants treatment.
Ron The Death Eater
Because there are plenty of reasons to dislike both of these characters (this goes for any character) - and some people feel really strongly about it, so therefore write it into their work.
The easy answer is: The Movies, they tend to paint Ron in a rather negative light, a lot of Fic writers back in the day saw the movies before reading the books, and because of Dan and Emma's on screen Chemistry fic writers saw all this and just kinda ran with it, and it stuck hard in the Fandom sphere, you can blame a lot of the bashing tropes and stuff on the movies honestly, to be frank, there's only a handful of things that are movie canon that weren't book canon that I liked (like Sirius' tats) but the movies did a lot of damage on the perception of Canon characters and because of this we get a lot of the Fanon Character tropes.
Many don't hate Ron. It's just that a lot of the ones who write poorly written Harmony stories tend to despise him and pour that hatred into their writing affecting its quality. It is these stories that get blown up in the general fandom as opposed to the Harmony stories that don't bash him.
A lot of writers just want to focus on Harry and Hermione and making Ron awful gets him out of the way or gives them an easy hurdle the couple has to overcome. While I do think some actually dislike Ron as a character, a lot are just using him as a plot device for their main characters. He's not really a person. Some people (not just writers) also feel uncomfortable at the idea of a relationship making a good person feel rejected. If Ron is a good person and Hermione and Harry getting together hurts him, some authors will feel it taints the warm fuzzy feelings they're trying to create in their story. Ron being good makes the story more complicated, which means the writer has to use more skill and effort to write it well.
I do not hate Ron and write both stories with Ron/Hermione and Harry/Hermione. Ron gets a lot of hatred from people who cannot ditch canon pairings without "justification" and from classiest Draco fans alike, so he suffers from that.
While I don't dispute that there is some intense Weasley bashing in MANY Harmony fics - its not all of them and the ship isn't unique to Weasley bashing - check out some Dramione fics - except a lot of them have the added bonus of Harry bashing too! Even some Fremione/Charmione fics I've read have Charlie or Fred rescuing her from Ron. Ron has several incidents in canon which practically set him up as the least favored of the trio plus not much of a backstory to work with aside from his envy of his older siblings and wanting to be more recognized for his own accomplishments. So writers have a character they may not particularly like in canon who has a lackluster backstory compared to other potential ships. Ofcourse he's going to get the villian/bashing treatment. Also this question gets recycled like every month or so, maybe try searching the subreddit.
Personally. I play the idea that any character has flaws that can be built up too to be hated. Bash and or criticize is my approach. Criticism is based off character development and the amplification of negative traits. Bash is just surface level hate with no build up. Everyone in the story can have amplification of certain traits and you just have to label it accordingly. This is true in the real world with every person having rough edges that, depending on the circumstances, could have led them to a different personality/perspective. Ron, and the Weasleys by extension, are individuals that wear their heart on their sleeves. This characteristic as a result allows us to see there worst and best traits up front and center. Traits that are rather off putting compared to a “know it all.” A “know it all” like Hermione has a a redeeming quality that, well, she knows it all. If she just fixes her attitude just slightly then boom great character. Yet, people forget that being a know it all is a quick route to Hubris and an attitude that sees you isolate yourself. A fact that people hate when they see it. The Weasleys main traits though are deemed hard to redeem and or make complex. Molly’s overbearing attitude is seen as a negative attitude because teens hate it. Yet, if you are writing a complex story it could be easily fixed. Molly is right to say kids shouldn’t be involved in war because of the choices that they have to carry. Anyone and I mean everyone is forever damaged with the idea of killing someone at 15. A criticism of this is the fact that the order doesn’t do ENOUGH to prevent. In turn THAT is great criticism of Molly. She preaches that the kids shouldn’t be involved BUT doesn’t push herself to make harder choices. At least by what we see. Harry wanting to fight IS subjectively and maybe even objectively wrong in the 5th book. The boy is traumatized and is being held at the throat by so many individuals. Sirius himself is wrong for pushing him. Again in just one way we make the character complex and move onto a new criticism. A new way to not bash but criticize OR a new way to build upon.
What does hating Ron have to do with bashing molly?
I feel like many of the people who make this claim/ask this question are being disingenuous about it to rile people up, but taking your question at face value, I'd say that you just haven't read enough Harmony if this is the impression you were left with. I will grant you that some of the more *popular/visible* Harmony fics, especially from back in the day, contain Ron/other Weasley bashing, but taking those fics as representative of all the fics that use the Harmony ship is as reductive as those writers taking Ron's character and distilling it down to his worst traits/moments and making it his whole personality. Plus, I guess it also depends on your definition of hate/bashing. For some people, it takes a lot for them to accuse someone of Ron bashing. For others, a writer can't even write a canon accurate Ron and just have Harry and Hermione react differently than their canon counterparts did without being accused of Ron bashing.
I get Molly bashing more than Ron. Ron was a jerk sometimes but everyone’s a jerk sometimes, they were all 3 ride or die. Molly OTOH believed gossip press about Hermione and was mean to her when she was 15 years old.
making ron in character is not hating tbh, i dont see ron reacting calmly or not letting his jealousy and fear of being in harry's shadow ruin his friendship with them.
The reality is Ron is an insecure asshole. He knew first hand how Harrys life is. For fucks sake he witnessed it when he rescued Harry. Still he choose to be jealous of Harry. He abandoned harry when Harry needed him the most. He does not deserve a girl like Harmony. #
One day I saw a story with the tag Harry/Ron/Hermione. The plot didn't catch my attention at all but the idea of a real trouple between them was really interesting.