Ron Weasley, Parslemouth

[Nurvingiel]

In Book Seven, Ron Weasley speaks in Parsletongue (the language of Snakes) solely from copying what he had hear Harry say in the past. (Harry wasn't there.) Up until this point, we were led to believe that Parslemoths were born, not made.

Is Ron the unrecognized greatest wizard of all time or is Parsletongue some kind of deus ex machinae plot device? After all, the intrepid trio needed something to destroy a Horcrux but Harry was already engaged elsewhere in the plot. Ron solves this by doing something no wizard has ever done.

Here is the scene, p.500-501, book seven.

"Where the hell have you been?" Harry shouted.
"Chamber of Secrets," said Ron.
"Chamber - what? said Harry, coming to an unsteady halt before them.
"It was Ron, all Ron's idea!" said Hermione breathlessly. "Wasn't it absolutely brilliant? There we were, after you left, and I said to Ron, even if we find the other one, how are we going to get rid of it? We still hadn't got rid of the cup! And then he thought of it! The Basilisk!"
"What the -?"
"Something to get rid of Hurcruxes," said Ron simply.
Harry's eyes dropped to the objects clutched in Ron and Hermione's arms: great curved fangs torn, he now realized, from the skull of a dead Basilisk.
"But how did you get in there?" he asked, staring from the fangs to Ron. "You need to speak Parsletongue!"
"He did!" whispered Hermione. "Show him Ron!"
Ron made a horrible, strangled hissing noise.
"It's what you did to open the locket," he told Harry apologetically. "I had to have a few goes to get it right, but," he shrugged modestly, "We got there in the end."
"He was amazing!" said Hermione. "Amazing!"


The other weird bit is that Harry does not understand the Parsletongue that Ron speaks (he usually either doesn't realize he's hearing Parsletongue, or understands that he is. He never hears what non-Parslemouths hear).

Odd, all around. I have a feeling that Rowling just didn't know how to deal with Griphook keeping Gryffindor's sword. But I welcome other theories.

[inked]

Nurv, the imitation of a parselmouth speaking would be like me mimic-ing a native Spanich speaker. I might get the sounds correctly ordered but I would not therefore have native comprehension or structure or understanding of the language.

And having heard native Chileans speaking English so strongly accented that I couldn't recognize it and thought they were speaking Spanish, I can sympathize with Harry hearing Ron's parseltongue imitation and not getting it. It read naturally to me and I had not thought of your objection. Plus, note that it took the Chamber several of Ron's attempt to hear him get it right! Voice recognition was not the point but speaking the proper parselmouth word only. (Think Gandalf at the opening to the Dwarf kingdom beside the lake.)

That's my theory and I'm stickin' to it!

[Nurvingiel]

Inked, your post makes a lot of sense. Maybe you don't need to say "Open" to open the Chamber, you just need to say anything in Parslemouth. Ron saying "purple monkey dishwasher" was good enough for the door, because it was Parslemouth.

This still means Ron is an underappreciated genius. :cool:

[Fool_of_a_Took]

Nurvingiel, I agree- Ron is a bit of an under appreciated genius. A bit of a Samwise Gamgee at times, me thinks.

Anyway, while JK made if very clear that Parselmouths had to be made, not born, she never clarifies whether or not one may learn to speak it. While Ron may have believed he was repeating Harry, he may have simply been making nonsense sounds. Because of the extremely fluid subject matter that JK writes about (magic), she leaves many loopholes. My theory is that the Chamber may have simply needed a display of knowledge, uniqueness, and purity (traits which Slytherin revered). In attempting to speak Parseltongue, Ron displayed all of these things. He showed that he had the prior knowledge of how to enter the chamber, that he was unique enough to have heard parseltongue, and that he was pure- usually only pureblood wizards could speak the language of snakes (Harry being an obvious exception).

I think that Inked's theory is pretty good, although I feel that JK herself may not even know the answer, and she leaves us to ponder. Another of the many reasons why I think she's genius.

[ayra]

Yes, remember, Dumbledore was able to understand it, but he could not speak it. So it would all depend on the person.

Yes, Ron is under appreciated.