Here's a fan theory.
Ron is Dumbledore.
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So the problem with fan theories in worlds
where magic plays a major role is that, after not long,
our rolling fan theory stone has picked up all of the moss.
In the way Hannah Arendt wrote "The Fox and the Trap"
about famed German metaphysician Martin Heidegger
trapping himself inside a theoretical prison
of his own construction, once, as fans,
we begin theorizing in, around, and with the story devices
involving magic, we run the risk of building just such a prison.
We explain magic with magic, and justify the presence of magic
with more magic, and our theories become not much else
than stating things are the case because I said so.
Except over the course of umpteen wordy diatribes
and countless treatises.
Now, because I said so is a fine starting point,
but not a good ending point for any theory, philosophical,
scientific, fan or otherwise.
In the absence of any authority, because here,
talking about fan theories, it is rare
that the creator of a work will comment on them,
and also arguable that they have any right
to in the first place.
But more on that later.
Much, much more on that later.
In the absence of authority, we have
to justify the conclusions of our theorizing somehow.
And we do that by manufacturing and then defending coherence,
much like what we talked about in the "pics or it didn't
happen" episode.
Fan theories live and die by the presence or lack
of coherence within them, not necessarily by the relationship
that that coherence has to confirmation by authority.
Such is how we'll frame the creator-spurned discussion
about whether or not it's possible to say
that Ron Weasley, beloved and arguably most
lovable ginger of the Harry Potter universe,
is in fact-- did not turn into, was not magicked and suddenly
became, but rather truly in fact is Albus Dumbledore,
headmaster and master wizard of Hogwarts and all-around
seemingly great guy.
Very lovable, that Dumbledore.
Ah, the first of many similarities.
The theory goes thusly.
First, based upon JK Rowling's physical descriptions-- nose,
hair color, big hands, long fingers, potentially eye color
and the same busted leg-- there is lots of evidence
to support Dumbledore generally looking
like an older Ron Weasley.
How did Harry Potter not notice this?
Well, the theory suggests that Harry,
while a brilliant wizard, may not
be the most observant of eyeball-havers.
Two, both Ron and Dumbledore like sweets.
But not just sweets-- there's evidence
which may conclude that they both have a fondness
for cockroach clusters.
Three, Dumbledore has the uncanny ability
of knowing pretty much everything
that's going to go down before it does.
The list of situations where his preparedness or foresight
defied belief is too long to list here,
but I hope it suffices to say that this theory forwards
the observation that it's almost like Dumbledore
has done this before.
And four, a long list of passages-- Draco
singing "Ron is our king" among them--
can be seen to presage the idea that Ron eventually
somehow becomes Dumbledore.
Source, if you want to read it in all of its glorious detail,
here.
So, as is often the case with theories of any kind,
there are some holes here, perhaps
as an effect of this fan theory being written in 2004, long
before the conclusion of the series.
First, if Ron is a time-traveling
Dumbledore, why doesn't he prevent Fred's death?
Speaking of which, how do we explain that each character
has a different family?
Why doesn't the Marauder's Map show Ron as Dumbledore,
or vice versa?
And maybe most importantly, why and how?
Through what magic or necessity does it
come to pass that Ron and Dumbledore co-exist and are,
in fact, each other?
Does Ron grow old and become the actual headmaster
of Hogwarts under an assumed name, and then time travel
back to his youth to shepherd himself and his closest
friends through their trials because, in his experience
of things, the whole ordeal goes far further
south than it should have?
Is there an alternate timeline where
Snape doesn't kill Dumbledore, thus
breaking the facade of his allegiance
to Voldemort so Dumbledore, knowing
he's got to die by Snape's hand because of reasons,
takes Harry out of the castle to find the first horcrux so Ron
can secretly fix the vanishing cabinet Draco was struggling
with, thus allowing the Death Eaters to enter
the castle, which causes the battle with the Order
of the Phoenix and sets up Snape to kill
everyone's favorite beardy wizard headmaster?
I don't know.
Or maybe Ron has to pull a "primer", or "primmer"--
I have heard it pronounced both ways,
we can all be friends here-- and effectively clone himself via
time travel.
While Ron prime exists at present,
Ron himself could exist some dozens of years earlier,
thus owing to the simultaneous existence of Ron
and Dumbledore, the same person up to a point,
but also different people due to their different histories
in the Harry Potter story as we know it,
though this would make Dumbledore's
seeming foreknowledge of events harder to explain.
Unless the time travel cloning happened
after the conclusion of the story,
and Dumbledore cast a spell so that-- OK, nope,
I can feel myself bricking up the exits.
Let's not get trapped here.
Now I believe we are prepared to talk
about the effect the word of the author god has or doesn't
on the veracity of Ron equals Dumbledore, which Rowling
has said explicitly is a, quote, false theory.
And so attempting to ride coherent on the fan theory
road, trying to place all of these pieces
one right after the other such that the path to Ron
equals Dumbledore is clear, we confront
the following obstacle, the following war
rig of authority-- the role of authorship in fan theories.
We may fairly question JK Rowling's ability
to amend her own stories.
Does she have the authority to speak up
about what's not made explicit in the work she originally
penned?
Are authored works always in progress, so to speak?
Maybe no, maybe yes, maybe yes but the author's input
doesn't matter after a certain point,
and maybe that point is different
for different authors.
Furthermore, we may also be led to ask
if there are certain authorial proclamations we will or will
not accept based solely upon their convenience.
If we accept Rowling's statements about Dumbledore's
sexuality, must we accept those about Ron not being Dumbledore,
or about Dumbledore being Death from the Tale of the Three
Brothers?
Think about it.
He has the wand and the stone, gives Harry
the cloak of invisibility, it totally works out.
Anyway, yeah.
Is it a package deal?
I don't know.
I can't shake a feeling that using author commentary
for theory verification traps ourselves
in that theoretical framework of our own making,
excusing magic with magic.
Except the magic doing the excusing here
isn't focused by a wand, it isn't of the story universe,
it's of ours.
It's a because I said so spell, foregoing coherence
for the magic of intent.
Luckily, it's rare that creators comment
on their own works in such a manner after the fact.
Rarer still that they comment directly
on fan theories specifically.
But in the event they do, I think
it's worth wondering what those comments do for fan theorizers.
If we're looking for fan theories
to be correct, that we hold correctness
to be the holy goblet of fire, that's fine.
But it also means that the vast majority of fan theories
will never reach their final form.
Sad emoji.
If the point of a fan theory is to find new meaning
in old works by reinterpreting their elements,
by making them in some sense more fluid or mutable,
expressions of authorial intent or confirmation
can re-solidify those elements.
Turning coherence to fact may be great vindication
for the authors of the affected fan theory,
but celebrating that transition to fact
as the arrival, the pinnacle of said theory,
strikes me as odd since I don't think of fan theories
as aiming for that goal.
I see them as the audience assuming authority,
unconcerned with what the powers that be may have to say.
But hey, maybe you feel differently.
Either way, we all know that Hermione, not
Ron slash Dumbledore, is the time traveler.
Oh.
Unless after the battle at Hogwarts,
Hermione gave Ron the Time-Turner,
and he spends most of his future--
slash Dumbledore's past-- tinkering with its magic
to make it safer to travel further than a few hours
into the past, thus mitigating the potential magic danger
visited upon the caster--
What do you guys think?
Is it possible that Ron and Dumbledore are the same person?
And what is the role of authorial intent or author
comments in fan theories?
Is it important in any way that they
are confirmed as being true?
I'm in a hotel room.
Let us know what you think in the comments,
and I will respond to some of them
in next week's comment response video.
In this week's comment response video,
we talk about your thoughts regarding ad blockers.
If you want to watch that one, you can click right here,
or find a link in the doobly doo.
And hey, in case you were wondering,
this episode of Idea Channel was brought to you by Dropbox.
If you're designing, presenting, writing, or building,
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Dropbox.
All yours.
This week's episode was brought to you
by the hard work of these time-traveling Ron Weasleys.
We have a Facebook, an IRC, and a subreddit links
in the doobly doo.
And two tweets of the week.
This week, the first from Kel Mateo,
who points us towards a piece about the Oxford dictionary's
word of the year, which is the crying
face while smiling emoji, which, I mean,
there's all kinds of discussion to be had about that.
The place that I immediately go is emojis are words?
What?
And then the second tweet of the week
comes from Nick Frymet, who points us towards contributor,
which is a way for you to pay a consistent amount of money
and, instead of Google AdWords, get a thank you.
Huh.
Had no idea this existed.