I couldn't sleep. My mind is buzzing and keeping me awake...again. And like in the summer, I can't turn it off, and I don't think I will be able to sleep until I get this out. So, dear readers, be prepared, once again, for a bitch-fest of epic proportions.

The particular subject I am writing on has been festering in the back of my mind since July. More specifically July 17th. Know what came out on July 17th? The sixth installment of the Harry Potter movies of course! So here I am at 1:30 in the morning, complete with penguin pajamas, damp hair, and mouth guard that makes me look like a chimp, to do something I promised myself I would never do; blog about a Harry Potter movie.

For those of you rolling your eyes and 2 seconds away from clicking the back button, I don't blame you. In fact I prefer it because this may come off as rather ridiculous. Go on, now...Hello freaks who are still reading! *waves* How's life? What is my rant about you may ask? You are getting impatient you say? You would like to take a used needle to my eyeball you say?

Well due to the fact that used needles in eyeballs sounds particularly ghastly I'll tell you what I will rant about. The Harry Potter movies, and how they treat Ron Weasley. Oh dear, look at all those eyes that just rolled, the faces that just got palmed, and the back buttons clicked; once again, I don't blame you, and I shall continue.

The sixth Harry Potter movie: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, had me leaving the theater biting back a scream of rage. I have raged about the other movies of course, but for very different reasons. I usually rage about all the scenes they skipped and all the nonsense they've included, something I've always accepted as inescapable when dealing with the movie business. But this particular offense I have seen in many forms of media and I believe it needs to stop. Now. The scene that had me fuming was the end scene, where Emma as Hermione takes every single one of Ron's lines, how Rupert as Ron is sitting in the back in near darkness while Hermione professes her loyalty and bravery to Harry in the golden morning light. Rupert as Ron didn't get to say a thing. Not one single thing. In the book, he and Hermione had an equal share in the lines, not so in the movie. That was enough to make me grind my teeth, I told myself to get over it, but the more I tried to get over it the more I realized the movie franchise's short-comings when it comes to the treatment of Ron Weasley.

Ron Weasley is my favorite character of the HP series and one of my all-time favorite characters in the literary world. I am, indeed, prejudiced in his favor. So I asked other fans (none of whom had Ron as a favorite character) whether or not Rupert got a smaller part than either Dan or Emma. They all said yes, he did get a smaller part. I can understand everyone getting a smaller role, I understand Dan being in the spotlight for most of the movie; Harry is the main of the main characters, of course his role needs to be larger. But Hermione getting more screentime in this (and the more I thought, the more I realized, other) HP movie, is really insulting. Harry, Ron, and Hermione are a team of three, not a male lead, a female lead and their sidekick. They should be equal, but they are not. Why?

Most movies seem to have about two main characters, and usually the male lead and female lead get together. HP has three leads, and the female lead does not get together with the male the movie is focused around. It's like the director/screen-writher/whoever have never heard of this magic before and are therefore inept at handling it with grace. They revert back to the old movie stand-by which is focus on the male and female lead...everyone else is comic relief or crazy bitches. In reality, most of the movies treat Ron pretty fairly, he was a badass in the 5th movie, but some of the things just stand out so sharply in my mind that I still believe my argument is valid. Such as Ron turning into a right pansy-ass when Sirius in dog form grabbed him in the 3rd movie. And again in the third movie when Hermione got his line "If you want to kill Harry you'll have to kill us too!" That line speaks volumes of Ron's character and yet they gave it away. It could be argued that they were trying to pay Hermione back for taking away her moment of riddle-solving awesomeness in the 1st movie (which made me a horribly angry 11-year-old by the way), but that whole third movie was a Hermione-fest. Someone once called it "Hermione Granger and the Prisoner of Azkaban" because she was queen of that movie. And then there's the 6th movie where half Ron's awesomeness is taken away and replaced with a crazy girlfriend and sexual innuendos.

Why is this striking such a cord with me? Well, to answer that I will have to tell you why Ron is my favorite character. Ron actually didn't become my favorite until that "You want to kill Harry you'll have to kill us too!" line I was talking about (another reason for my fury). But from then on I couldn't see why he wasn't always my favorite. I get Ron. I understand his extreme insecurity. The horcrux in the 7th book really hit home with me with the line "Second best, always...eternally overshadowed." Take it from someone who has never been the best at anything; not looks, not smarts, not athletics, not writing, not art, not creativity, not humor, not analyzing, not anything...take it from someone who has been second best, has been overshadowed her entire life...that it sucks. It really, fucking sucks. I don't want or need to be the best at anything to be happy, but I think it's perfectly human to want your talents to be acknowledged. 96% of the time, I am happy with who I am, with where I am in life. But that lovely 4% of my life, with those little ankle-biters who make they're way into my mind and make me truly hate myself for doing nothing note-worthy in my 20 years of existence, well those little buggers feed off of this kind of crap.

What is it with people's aversion to "not-so-fantastic"? Why can't people see the extraordinary in the ordinary? There is a line Dumbledore has in the movies, something like, "You have great kindness in you Harry, something not many people appreciate." I laugh at the hypocrisy of it. Not many people appreciate kindness, and not many people appreciate the passion and good humor Ron brings into the Harry Potter trio...and yet you, yes you director/screen-writers, are putting him in the back of the group photo.

Ron, I believe, was given less of a role than Harry or Hermione because he never really had any outstanding talents. He wasn't as book-smart as Hermione, nor as fighter-chic as Harry. That, to me at least, implies that they gave him less screen-time because they deemed him as less important. If you think I'm taking things too personally, then I probably am. But when it was implied that Ron was less important because of his lack of extraordinary talents, it made me feel less important, because I have no extraordinary talents either. When Ron had part of his personality destroyed to make way for "more notable" characters, it was like I was the one being shoved to the side. When Ron received no lines at the end of the 6th movie, it was like I was the one being silenced.

This may come off as over-dramatic...because it is. It may come off like I'm over-tired and I have to be up in 4 hours...because I do. It may come off like I'm stressed because I didn't complete homework for two of my classes tomorrow...because I didn't. It may come off like I am PMSing...because...well...you know.

Either way...thanks for reading.

DRAMA QUEEN OUT!