What's interesting is that in re-reading the earlier books as I have been, Ron's really not like that. He's a little snarky and dim at times, but no more so than the others can be. (Hermione's academically smart, but quite clueless and insensitive at times when it comes to interacting with other people.) In fact, he's even the voice of reason a lot of the time, very much the strategist, and even his seemingly insensitive moments are occasionally this if looked at a certain way.
I agree very much - up until GOF, I don't remember Ron being doofy that much. And I would have liked for his unique talents to be used more. For one thing, I imagine Ron must be a lot better at understanding people and social dynamics than either of the other two are. I think that this not being seen has a lot to do with how fandom responded to Hermione - comparing fanon!Hermione to canon!Hermione yields a huge difference in the kind of intelligence you see described. As you say, in the books Hermione is very much research smart, but I don't see her as all that innovative in the way she used that knowledge - even the DA galleons are not on-par with what other smart people of earlier generations did at her age (I think Snape is a better comparison than the Marauders are). And Ron could have been the person who knows how the institutions in the WW work (rather than how they should work) because he knows the office gossip and is good at assessing people...
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2017-05-28 02:34 pm (UTC)I agree very much - up until GOF, I don't remember Ron being doofy that much. And I would have liked for his unique talents to be used more. For one thing, I imagine Ron must be a lot better at understanding people and social dynamics than either of the other two are. I think that this not being seen has a lot to do with how fandom responded to Hermione - comparing fanon!Hermione to canon!Hermione yields a huge difference in the kind of intelligence you see described. As you say, in the books Hermione is very much research smart, but I don't see her as all that innovative in the way she used that knowledge - even the DA galleons are not on-par with what other smart people of earlier generations did at her age (I think Snape is a better comparison than the Marauders are). And Ron could have been the person who knows how the institutions in the WW work (rather than how they should work) because he knows the office gossip and is good at assessing people...