On the Subject of Whether Ron and Arthur are Canonical

I get a lot of comments regarding whether characters in Blood of Mud, Wing of Bat seem consistent with established canon. One of my favorite things about the Harry Potter universe is that the characters are not one-dimensional, and I celebrate that in Blood of Mud, Wing of Bat by having fun with both the good and bad points of each character. And for the most part I get positive comments on this, the vast majority of readers are quite pleased.

But there are certain characters that receive occasional negative comments for canon compliance, most often Ron and Arthur. I think there is a tendency for some fans to want to idealize these two characters because of the positions they hold in the books. Ron is Harry and Hermione's friend, but he is also their brother since neither of them has a real one. Likewise he takes the spot of their boy/girlfriend until one of them ultimately gets a real one. Arthur is father to them both: he provides refuge in the summer, and is their Wizarding father since Harry's real one is dead and Hermione's can't help her with everything because he is a Muggle.

I don't mean this literally of course. But I'm just saying. These are roles they occupy and the slot the reader is encouraged to store them in mentally. And nobody really wants to think that the "good guy dad" is corrupt or the "good guy friend/brother" is insecure and jealous.

But the fact is, Rowling gives these two nice guys just as many warts and blemishes as she gives everybody else. I personally enjoy those just as much as I enjoy Draco's and Hermione's, but some other people just don't seem to want to see them.

For example I have gotten at least two letters complaining about the line where Hermione tells Jude he inherited his father's temper, just as Ron inherited it from Arthur. The people who wrote these letters thought it was a gross error and claimed that Arthur was the nicest, sweetest man and that this was an out of character portrayal of him. But who could forget the scene where Arthur physically attacked someone in a public bookstore? Put yourself in the situation and imagine you were at a public bookstore at the mall with your friends, and your friend's dad leaped over the counter and tried to strangle a rude clerk or something. It would be shocking behavior wouldn't it? And certainly reveals a far more violent temper than most possess.

One reader pointed out, and rightly so, that Molly has a heck of a temper too. But Molly's temper is a good deal different than Arthur's. Molly can be scary any time any day, and her fury is very mother-like. Misbehavior by her kids, foolish risk-taking on the part of the people she loves, and threats to her family will all set it off. Arthur, by contrast, is mild-mannered in general and not such of a stickler for the family rules and such, but he can be provoked to violence by things that Molly would probably consider not worthy of that type of response: the incident with Lucius Malfoy at the bookstore is an example which really oughtn't be overlooked. I see Jude's temper as being more like Arthur's than like his mother's, which is why Hermione talked about Arthur in her letter to her son. Jude is a nice kid, but when put into a situation where someone could run rings around him and his little sister verbally, he "solved" the problem by pushing the aggressor down the stairs.

Anyway, since Arthur and Ron's canonicity has come up a few different times I thought I'd explain how I see the two characters. I don't know that it'll make much of a difference to those who've complained, but I find it an interesting topic nonetheless.

Ron:
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In the books, Ron is a great friend, fiercely loyal and full of energy and his morals fall right along regular student norms making him an easy friend to be around on a day-to-day basis.

But Ron is also extremely insecure about his family's position and lack of wealth. Of all the Weasley kids he seems to display the most violent reaction to being teased about it, and he's awfully prickly about it even with his best friends. It's an upsetting topic for him. This is very interesting to me as I grew up below the poverty line too, but I've always been perfectly comfortable with that fact. It would be inconvenient to go back to that situation now, but I don't have that deep seated defensiveness about it that he has. So I noticed it right away, and it fascinates me. I'd say it's a fundamental character trait of Ron's, one upon which all his niceness and loyalty and such must depend whether anybody realizes it or not. There are numerous examples throughout the books of his friendships and school/Quidditch performance being shaken when those people or situations unknowingly tweaked his insecurity.

In Blood of Mud, Wing of Bat, Ron is not a critical element except in the role he plays, that of Hermione's current spouse. It could have been Krum instead, or even an OC. If Ron dies in Book 7 I could easily rework the story to be just as effective without him, using a different male and replacing the familial connection to the Weasleys with a purely political one.

However, I think Ron is the ideal and preferred character in many ways. He would have been a default spouse for Hermione based upon how a relationship between them has been hinted at or teased about in the books, and I wanted someone who wouldn't be as easy to dismiss from the mind as an original character would be. Krum would be a fine replacement except that Krum has no canonical internal conflicts that would be powerful enough to threaten to rip apart a marriage. They'd have to be created from whole cloth just as I'd have to do for an OC. But Ron already has this jealousy, this defensiveness. He has a deep need to prove himself and yet a defensiveness and a fundamental fear of inadequacy that can really get in the way.

Translate his book-self forward 20 years, as Ron is entering mid-life and finally has the fame and resources to get the best, and is it any wonder that there is a conflict between what his gut level tells him he needs, and what he's always had to make do with? To put it crudely, how much money would he have if he wasn't helping to support 5 kids? How much more fun would he have if he had a wife who loved Quidditch as much as he did and even travels to see him? Being gifted with the Burrow, the ancestral home, was an honor but it's also a tremendous burden. Does he actually want that now, when he doesn't even live there? Whether Ron actually cheats or not, he's in a life situation that many would find unbearable.

As you get older, there start being questions that have no easy answers. And simply saying "well that shouldn't even be a question" is not realistic. Real human beings who think with their heads and feel with their hearts will always have to struggle with such questions and when dealing with issues stretching all the way back to Day 1 the less self-analytical people will have a tough time knowing even why they feel like they're going mad.

The Representation of Ron's Point of View

While Ron and Draco are not actually opposites in that Ron isn't a prime protagonist in the story, they do naturally oppose one another in that the reader will percieve them as competitors for Hermione's attention and the single Draco is, heh, a possibility of sorts if one were to entertain the notion of Hermione looking elsewhere besides Ron.

Because Ron is a naturally sympathetic character and Draco for many people is not, I had to concentrate upon presenting Draco's situation first and rendering him a bit more universally sympathetic early on in the story to maintain a balance. This has regrettably meant that Ron's point of view won't get a full treatment until he and Hermione really have it out. I'm sorry that for some people this translates into a belief that I have't thought out Ron's character and situation pretty thoroughly but all I can say is... trust whippy.

Arthur:

It's obvious that, in the books, Arthur is a good guy. Unlike Snape, the Minister, and the various DADA teachers, who one could never quite trust, there's no niggling fear that Arthur will turn on the kids or develop into a monster ever in the 7 books.

Arthur does have his warts though. For me, the defining moment of Arthur's character is when he's more interested in how well the flying car flew than the staggering career implications of having broken laws he himself wrote. It's just a funny little line in one scene in one book, but that kernel of truth about him is quietly echoed dozens of times throughout the rest of the books.

Arthur is a very important character to Blood of Mud, Wing of Bat. His dual nature, that seemingly seamless blend between the fun loving bad boy and the Order of the Phoenix vigilante on the one hand, and the responsible father and law-drafting law-enforcing Ministry official on the other, directly reflects the main theme of Blood of Mud, Wing of Bat. If Arthur were to get killed in Book 7 I'd have a very difficult time replacing him with another canon character because of that underlying connection.

Chapter 44 (not yet posted) is an interview between Rita Skeeter and another ex-partner of Rudeo Nesbitt's, this one still in the employ of Special Ops. This fellow, who chooses to remain anonymous, characterizes Arthur as essentially anti-Ministry and asserts that he holds his appointment as Director of Auror Affairs for that very reason: he is a person high up in Ministry employ who still mistrusts the Ministry enough that the common people can trust him to oversee the Aurors with the common people's rights in mind.

This is a position of incredible importance in the story, though I'm not sure it's been well enough defined in the posted chapters yet for people to really get a firm grasp on why that is and exactly what he is. Recently the story was Niffled again on Fiction Alley and the Niffler refered to Arthur as the Minister of Magic. That he is not, but the fact that someone got that impression underscores the importance of the position he does hold. Especially from the point of view of Special Ops and the people who they pursue.

(As an aside, Auror Affairs is an oversight body rather equivalent to an investigative committee in Congress or Parliament. The people who belong to it, including Arthur as its head, all have real positions elsewhere in the Ministry as well as their Auror Affairs responsibilities. I imagine Arthur has held various positions in the Ministry in the 22 years since the end of Book 7, including possibly the Minister of Magic position itself. However those details are not particularly relevant to Blood of Mud, Wing of Bat so much as the fact that he has made a life career of Ministry work and was politically the right choice for Director of Auror Affairs at this time.)

Arthur's Moral Choices and What they Mean for Hermione

In the story, Arthur represents a choice for Hermione. That choice is to work with the Ministry despite its very evident shortcomings, and to break what laws one needs to, or take vigilante action if all else fails. That's what Arthur does, and it's clear there are other friendly Ministry employees in the books (Kingsley Shacklebolt for example) who do the same. It wouldn't be possible if Arthur and these other people weren't a little corrupt, but it's also the only way to make sure certain problems get handled. After all, if everybody played by the rules would the Order of the Phoenix have been in a position to protect Sirius Black or prevent disaster at the Department of Mysteries?

Another choice, of course, is to operate entirely outside of the law but it becomes a little more difficult to justify one's actions then, especially for a habitual rulebooker like Hermione. There reaches a point in that case where denial isn't enough to cover up the ugly facts. This touches on Hermione's internal conflict which is of course fundamental to the story. If you're interested in more about this, my LJ post of May 20, 2004 about the "Conflict Line" discusses Hermione's internal conflict and talks about what a conflict line is and why it is so critical to a story's success. I don't want to reveal Draco's conflict in detail until the story is completely posted but the clever reader might be able to put it together after reading that post.

Anyway, with regards to Arthur, I just want to make it clear that he is neither disregarded or glossed over in Blood of Mud, Wing of Bat. None of his traits as expressed in the story are without specific scene backup from the books. I actually like Arthur quite a bit, and find his two-sidedness fascinating, particularly as it reflects life. Everybody needs to open their eyes and really see their parents' true bad points sooner or later, or they'll never fully understand themselves.

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