Ron the Death Eater and Unintentionally Unsympathetic

Once again, not the point, but you are misremembering the books. Hermione is misguided because she's freeing house elves, believing that they want to be free. She's wrong, they like being slaves. I can't really say anything else other than that you are wrong about the content of the books.

Edited by TheMountainKing on Oct 10th 2021 at 6:05:52 AM

There is a scene in the last book where Hermione gives a speech about how house elves don't actually like being slaves, they just pretend to avoid punishment. She isn't challenged and the narrative portrays her as right. So to say Ron has some ignorant views and supports slavery isn't RTDE. It's the Canon portrayal of the character. Now if fans say he directly abuses house elves or pretend his views didn't change, that would be RTDE because that goes against canon.

Edited by RustBeard on Oct 11th 2021 at 7:19:59 AM

Ron's belief that owning house elves is okay does not change. He suggests evacuating them so they don't die, but after the battle the Hogwarts elves presumably go right back to the kitchens. They are not freed. In book 4, Hagrid expresses the same views as Ron, that house elves like being slaves and Dobby is a "weirdo" for not liking it. He has no moment similar to Ron's in book 7. So is the intended, canon reading of Hagrid "unrepentant slavery apologist"?

Can you point me to that chapter where Hermione's speech is? Also, if the books conclude that owning house elves is wrong, why does Harry still own one at the end of the book (after any excuses about protecting the Order from Voldemort are gone because Voldemort and most of the order are dead)? One of the last lines before the epilogue is Harry wondering what he'll get Kreacher to make for dinner.

Edited by TheMountainKing on Oct 11th 2021 at 12:42:19 PM

Okay, uh, gonna side-step the debate and attempt to answer the actual question.

For me it depends on if that portrayal escalates and how common it becomes. Ron supporting slavery to an extent might very well be canon, but in canon it only goes so far as him supporting a system the house elves appear to be happy with (at least at the time of his commentary). If, say, fans began to portray Ron as being an abusive slave owner with an army of house elf slaves, that's Ron the Death Eater since it takes the well-intentioned character and demonizes him over a stance that, while a bit unsavory in a real-life context, isn't actually considered evil in-universe.

In the actual argument he might be Unintentionally Unsympathetic (or Hermione is Unintentionally Sympathetic), but it's not Ron the Death Eater to point out that his argument doesn't make him look good. Actually portraying him in a negative light on a wide-spread scale is Ron the Death Eater.

I do think the corruptions need to be a little extreme in order to work, otherwise it's more just people not liking a character. He doesn't have to go so far as becoming the next Voldemort, but it should at least portray him as villainous rather than just irritating or wrong. Hence why it's about demonization and not just any negative portrayal or stance.

So to recap: I do think that if fans portrayed Ron as being a slave owner and portrayed that fact as him being evil, it's Ron the Death Eater. If they just call him out for being wrong, it's not.

Edited by WarJay77 on Oct 11th 2021 at 2:11:51 PM

So RTDE has to be an absurd demonization with no basis in canon, not just an alternate reading of canon? I'm somewhat confused by what making someone a villain means when the trope is expanded to fan discussions. I get what it means in fanfic, but that would just be Adaptational Villainy. How do you draw the line between a fan saying "I think this character sucks and is unsympathetic" and "demonizing" a character?

You found the thing. TV Tropes used to have a lot of tropes that were just things that happened in fandom. So Ron the Death Eater IS Adaptational Villainy but applied to fanfics only. ONE good distinction it may have is if there is word of god from the fanfic author that they intended to make the character evil regardless of how the canon handles things.

That's not true anymore. It was changed to be about fandom trends. Adaptational Villainy covers the specific examples now.

Simply saying "this characters sucks" is pure complaining and shouldn't be listed anywhere on this site, period.

Ron the Death Eater is when fans invent reasons to bash the characters by making them say and do horrible stuffs they have never and would never do in Canon. Unintentionally Unsympathetic is when fans interprets a character's Canon actions/viewpoints in a more negative light than what the writer intends.

In terms of subjective distinction, UU is more like fans looking at a character that is meant to be attractive and call them ugly, while RTDE has fans scribbling on the character's face and then call the resulting defacement ugly.

Admittedly, I've rarely come across RTDE in casual fan discussions; DILP is a lot more common.

True; even if it allows fan discussions, it's not a very common place for it to manifest.

Obviously no one should be using this site to express personal opinions on a character. I meant how differentiate the two statements in general fan discourse.

But the allowing for fan perceptions about a character and not just fanfic portrayals is what makes the trope distinct from Adaptational Villainy. If all that's needed for RTDE is a lot of fics where the character has Adaptational Villainy, that seems like casting aspersions on people who write the character that way, accessing them if hating the canon version of the character for made up reasons, when maybe they don't.

I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that RTDE has as a basic assumption in its definition that it is a bad thing. That's pretty clear from the fact that the definitions offered here involve demonizing characters for made up reasons. Having a trope for "some people believe this and are wrong" is what allows it to get used for the kinds of strawmanning/complaining we've found in the clean up thread.

Edited by TheMountainKing on Oct 12th 2021 at 3:35:43 PM

It's not so much "some people think this and are wrong" and more "a character is consistently portrayed as committing heinous acts that they never did in canon".

What does "portrayed as" mean when we aren't talking about specific fanfics?

Edited by TheMountainKing on Oct 13th 2021 at 3:08:38 PM

Well, the pattern of multiple fanfics, fanart, discussions, etc. Basically, the forest, not the trees.