transcendent said:
loyal? he didn't trust harry on lots of occasions.
funny? you mean incompetent and clumsy which leads to humourous situations some more embarassing and humiliating then actually funny.
you can depend in him to be a prat who's more interested in girls which leads to loyalty again as he'll probably chase any skirt that's pretty.
lovely? wtf? in what way?!
i hate kloves!!!! sooo much!!!
by funny i mean he cracks jokes, makes the trio laugh and have fun in the BOOK. which he does on many occasions (some gutter humour like "uranus", admittedly, but other one-liners that just make them crack up and see the funny side). harry doesn't have much fun with hermione alone (GoF) and consistently wants ron there to have fun. (eg - imagining ron's expression hearing hermione talking about wonky faints). harry and ron together have heaps of fun (as seen throughout PoA when they're ignoring hermione) and ron and hermione together have loads of fun (again, see PoA when they go to hogsmeade and look like they'd had the "time of their lives"). ron is the part of the trio that provides the fun! hermione provides the brains and harry the intense courage and nobility. he is only stupid in the movies because they apparently need comic relief - you can't pay out harry the hero and kloves just loves hermione so ron gets shunted with the shit lines.
his loyalty is absolutely clear in PoA, where he tells sirius that he'd have to kill them all if he wanted to kill harry (no, hermione did NOT say these words even though kloves put them in her mouth!!). it's even there in PS when he immediately declares himself harry's "second" in the duel and when he sacrifices himself on the chess game. and at the end of HBP he was the one who told harry that he and hermione would be there with him. where does ron not trust him? apart from the early bit of GoF where his insecurity got the better of him, he was always on harry's side. see OotP - when hermione didn't believe him about sirius in the MoM, ron completely sided with harry. in HBP he didn't believe the malfoy-is-a-death-eater theory, but neither did hermione, mr weasley or lupin. that says nothing about his lack of loyalty - rather it says more about his skepticism of harry's theory and perhaps his overriding trust in dumbledore's judgment. no, ron is a completely loyal friend.
his protectiveness is clear when he defends hermione from malfoy (consistently), often getting punished for it (note harry never really does this, it's always ron who either tries to curse him or punch him) - and also defending harry in front of seamus in ootp. yes he went out with lavender. that was because his sister made him feel inadequate (basically that he was the last to be kissed and was pathetic for it), he was pretty cut to find out that hermione had kissed krum and never said anything and he was also really hurt that hermione had put down his good Keeping ability to the felix potion. but he now knows that there's more to a relationship than a pretty face. he definitely won't chase any more skirts. ron isn't a congenital prat, he only acts like one when goaded.
ron
in the books is a great character. very realistically drawn, i think, with flaws, insecurities and all the trappings of teenage-dom coupled with a brave, fun-loving and caring personality.
ps: sorry about the furious rant, i just love ron very much and it hurts me to see him so maligned...especially in the movies.
