When I first watched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, I was so angry. When Harry tells Ron and Hermione that he has to die, Hermione throws herself at him in a hug while telling him that she’d go with him so he is not alone. Ron just stands there watching. This really bothered me for the longest time. Ron was Harry’s first friend… His first true bit of family. During the TWT, he was the person Harry would miss most. How could someone so important just stare at him and not hug him or say goodbye? I was so angry.
It’s four years later, and I understand now. Ron understood Harry. He understood how hard it was for Harry to leave his whole life and give up everything to defeat Voldemort. But Harry did it because he knew he had to. And Ron knew how hard it was for him. So instead of throwing himself at his best friend and hugging him and crying and making it harder for him to leave (because Ron knew Harry hated making his friends upset), Ron just stood silently and watched as his best friend walked to his death – no matter how hard it was to keep from protesting.
Ron did it because he understood Harry in a much different way than Hermione. They both loved him, but Ron understood Harry needed Ron to give him strength.
And that’s so important in my opinion because it was just a sign of how strong their friendship was.
This is great!
I’ve always thought it was because the director of the films is a harmione shipper
@headcanonsandmore what do you think? 🙈
Whilst I think this is what David Yates was going for when they shot the scene, I don’t think Steve Kloves wrote it that way. You’ll notice that, in all the Kloves-penned scripts, Hermione is virtually the only person who is repeatedly physically-affectionate to Harry. Heck, Ginny and Cho (who Harry canonically dated) are shown to be less consistently physically affectionate with him in the film series.
David Yates (for all his faults) was pretty much the only Romione shipper in any position of authority during the later films. After all, he did bring us OOTP; pretty much the only HP film that actually showed Ron and Hermione being attracted to each-other (yes, I include DH 1&2 in that as well, since the Romione scenes in those films were often botched or handled clumsily). And he was able to do that in OOTP because the script-writer (Michael Goldenberg) wasn’t Steve Kloves. Kloves would go out of his way to avoid Romione moments whenever possible, whereas Goldenberg actually wrote lots of them into OOTP because he knew it reflected the book characters’ relationship.
I’m not saying that this was OOC for Hermione (she was physically affectionate to Harry in the books too), and it is admirable that their sibling-like relationship is shown to be close. HOWEVER, the way that it was framed in the Kloves-penned films was that Hermione was Harry’s closest friend at the expense of Ron. The character who wore his heart on his sleeve, and was ‘the person Harry would miss most’.
The whole reason Harry avoided talking to Ron and Hermione before he went to meet Voldemort was because he knew it would be too painful for all of them. Having Harry talk to them one last time just undercuts the emotional weight of the scene (which is still good, don’t get me wrong; but it could have been better if Harry didn’t try to talk to them).
It also doesn’t make sense from a character standpoint. Ron is far more emotionally open that Hermione is. He’s not going to be standing stoically at a distance whilst Hermione gives Harry a teary ‘goodbye’ hug. I think it also plays into the ‘no homo’ thing Hollywood impresses onto cinema (a rather futile move, considering that Ron gave Harry a running bear-hug in the previous film). Ron isn’t allowed to show Harry physical affection, because that would take focus away from Harry and Hermione’s relationship (which I think Kloves was very aware of when he wrote this scene).
It’s the same problem that POA had in that scene where Harry’s crying after discovering that Sirius (allegedly) was the one who betrayed Harry’s parents. Hermione goes to comfort Harry, but Ron tries to hold her back, and doesn’t go anywhere near Harry. It’s the complete antithesis of what the character of Ron was about.
From a film-making perspective, it seems great. But I don’t think it really fits the characters. What would have made more sense character-wise is Ron giving Hermione and Harry a massive hug and cradling them both in his arms, because Ron Weasley cares so much for both of them, and didn’t want to let Harry go.
That’s just my two cents on the matter, though. Thanks for the tag, @fullyunabashedpeach!
Headcanonsandmore 