You know that scene in the OOTP film where Harry (after Fred and George have had their spectacular escape from Umbridge) suddenly starts having visions of Sirius being tortured.
Now, I know that the film-makers likely compressed these two scenes into one to save time. Which is fair enough, but the problem I have isn’t with that; it’s with the reaction from Ron and Hermione.
Ron and Hermione are standing at roughly the same distance away from Harry. Both of them are staring at Fred and George’s fireworks, and are both looking back at Harry at intervals. But, when Harry starts having his visions about Sirius, Hermione is the only one to notice, and the only one to charge forward to check on him.
Ron doesn’t even notice. There isn’t a single shot of Ron running towards Harry either, or even looking around when he saw Hermione move. For all intents and purposes, he’s virtually nonexistent in the emotional stakes for the scene.
Not only does this imply that Ron is less close to Harry than Hermione is, but it also implies that he’s not even paying attention to Hermione (even the POA film did this better). Considering that (in the books) Ron was incredibly perceptive when it came to the emotions of his friends~despite what JK Rowling would have you believe~, this comes across as a total disregard to the character.
Not only is Ron not Harry’s closest friend in the films, but he doesn’t even have the role of emotional support for his two friends that he had in the books.
The infuriating thing is that I can’t even just chalk this up to Steve Kloves’ usual rubbishy way of writing Ron, because OOTP is the only HP film not written by him. Throughout the majority of this film, Ron actually acts the most like his book counterpart than at anytime since COS. But (at this crucial moment) the film-makers decided to fall into the ‘Hermione is Harry’s emotional support and closest friend’ thing that Kloves had been pushing ever since Chris Columbus left the series inbetween COS and POA.
Do they really expect us to believe Emma Watson’s blank stare is a fair exchange for Rupert Grint’s acting ability? By this point in the series, it was already becoming obvious to the cast and crew that Rupert’s acting was already far beyond many of the other young actors. And yet, the film-makers still pushed him into the background. He wouldn’t have even needed to have any extra lines written; just have him noticing Hermione had moved, and have a shot of him kneeling next to Harry in concern.
Imagine how much of an emotional force it would have been to have both of Harry’s friend rush to his aid; showing their deep personal connection with him, and their desire to help him in any way they could.
But we didn’t get that. Because, once again, Ron Weasley isn’t allowed to be Harry’s best friend.
Fun fact: I read a review of the Ootp movie, which was written by a Harmonian on Livejournal (don’t ask me how I ended up there.) They criticised the Romione scene where Ron told Grawp to stay away from Hermione, saying how OOC everybody was, but gushed about the scene that you’re talking about. Such a hypocrite. How is one non-canon scene better than the other? Now, I really want to send your rant to them.
Headcanonsandmore 