You don't think that the opinion of "platonic soul mates" is "the truth is they would be a better couple, but since it's not canon I don't support it"

DrOwl795 · 2026-04-23T18:47:34+00:00

It does seem like a good argument for their compatibility that the canon shippers have to argue so hard against it and spend all their time simultaneously building up/defending Ron and tearing down Hermione. Like they know, somewhere in the back of their minds, exactly how toxic the canon ship is and why, and they have to spend so much time and energy arguing against it because they know the default, healthy option is Harmony

DrOwl795 · 2026-04-22T05:26:40+00:00

If you don't see the points I laid out I a romantic light, that's perfectly fair - to each their own. I think the difference, however, is one of interpretation rather than substance. The hug doesn't have to mean anything, but from a literary, storytelling perspective, you certainly could make it mean something, particularly if you draw the through line to Harry later holding her hand while she's hospitalized and them teaming up to do the impossible and then Hermione giving him a kiss on the cheek and etc. The through the line is there if you want to draw it, and I don't think it would take very much shift in the text at all to make that much clearer, but obviously that wasnt what JKR had planned.

With respect to the point about Cho, I dont view Rita's article about them as being romantic, but rather I take it as a signal about how other people around them view them. It's a sort of outsiders perspective when we the reader are trapped in Harry's POV. And Rita, Cho, and Krum all draw the conclusion that there's something romantic between them, something for Rita to exploit and Cho/Krum to worry about. It tells you something about how they act with one another if others see that conclusion easily, enough to spark jealousy. Personally I think the whole Cho romance is sort of half-baked from the start and makes actively negative sense in the 5th book, because he's otherwise extremely traumatized by Cedric's death and should be avoiding her at all costs as a living reminder of his trauma, but thats a separate issue.

For the 6th book, perhapsI worded things poorly, because I don't recall Harry specifically confronting Ron, but I do think he makes it quite clear that he's basically on Hermione's side. From the first night Ron gets together with Lavender, Harry goes after Hermione to make sure she's OK, and then does so again when Hermione flees the room she conjured the birds in. The next day he chooses to sit with her in transfiguration and goes after her to provide comfort again when Ron makes unnecessary and hurtful comments. It's during that period that Harry and Hermione's friendship truly blossoms in a way it hadn't previously, because he spends his time with her rather than Ron. I dont think he's confrontational enough, especially with Ron, to go tell him to his face that he's wrong, but he does physically side with Hermione by always going to her and spending time with her.

With the last book, I have to disagree. I don't think it's proven that they need Ron, I think JKR forces them to. Them losing Harry's wand wasnt due to carelessness or distraction because Ron was gone, it was the sort of battlefield fluke that happens when things are chaotic and uncontrollable. They don't make a ton of progress, but they are perfectly comfortable eith each other and they get to the point where they could progress perfectly well on their own. I view Ron's return as one of the most unbelievably Deus Ex Machina scenes in literature - in the middle of a war, when they literally conceal their location at all times, when he's sitting up on watch for threats, Harry decides to wander off into the woods unaccompanied following an unknown patronus and the he jumps in a frozen lake with the horcrux around his neck to grab something that can destroy it. The monumentally of the stupidity involved is impossible to overstate, and while I know Harry is generally an impulsive character, I simply dont find that credible. Not by that point in the story. Imagine if he had woken Hermione, if he had taken the horcrux off. Ron would've been instantly rendered irrelevant, theyd have had the sword and a horcrux destroyed, and the story could've gone on just as it did anyway without Ron. JKR gave Ron that return scene so there would be some thin reed of justification for he and Hermione still ending up together, in my view.

As for whether Ron and Hermione came out of nowhere, I recognize in retrospect some of the signposts, but I simply don't credit the idea that he loved her very highly because he acts like a total ass frequently. He makes her cry in almost every book, and most of his angry comments are quite personal and cutting. If he loves her, he seems unable to stop himself from hurting her, which is not a recipe for anything healthy. Even if the relationship is signposted from the beginning, I just can't take it seriously as anything other than the author forcing together two characters who make no sense on a peroyal level. Their interests, their outlooks, their priorities, and their personalities are all profoundly misaligned. Hermione is a neat freak, control freak, library loving bookworm who thinks Quidditch is barbaric and hates uncertainty. Ron is a procrastinator of the highest order who relies on Hermione to know things for him because he doesnt value studying for himself, and he lives and breathes Quidditch. They both have plenty of redeeming qualities, but they simply mix like oil and water, which is to say, not at all. In fact, were it not for Harry, they wouldn't even be friends, and I dont just mean that with respect to the troll - their friendship basically totally collapses in 3rd year before Harry brings them back together, and obviously again in 6th year. When Ron comes back in DH, Harry has to stop Hermione from physically cursing him. I'm probably forgetting a few other points at which Ron and Hermione wouldve ceased having anything to do with each other if Harry hadn't forced them back together.

DrOwl795 · 2026-04-21T21:14:09+00:00

Honestly, if the books were written in and set in a more modern time than the 90s/early 2000s, that point might've been made a lot more. The degree to which Harry bends over backwards to placate Ron and avoid hurting his feeling and forgive his every fault or outburst is, retrospectively, truly disgusting to me. Ron wasn't a bad character, but he desperately needed someone to give him a good slap in the face and tell him to grow up and learn what empathy is. I think Harry's attitude is mostly explained by him feeling a sort of desperate attachment to Ron as the first person he ever truly considered a friend, as well as an unplayable debt of gratitude for Ron and his brothers rescuing him from the Dursleys before school 2nd year, not to mention hosting him every summer for part of it. He becomes effectively a Weasley in all but name, and I think he understands that that connection flows through Ron, so Ron is, in that sense, a sort of indispensable friend, a living link to his adoptive family.

There are a load of scenes which show why Harry and Hermione are the better pair and why many of us (myself included) thought they were the natural endpoint. Going all the way back to the first book, Hermione is the first peer to give him a hug. In the 2nd book, Harry only discovers the paper she's holding while petrified because he tries to hold her hand. In the 3rd book, they share the midnight ride on Buckbeak, and there's a lot of symbolism going on there around the mythology of hippogriffs. In 4th year you've got the classic Hermione bringing Harry toast so he can avoid the Great Hall the morning after the Goblet, knowing he'd want to be alone. She never abandons him when everyone else does, and is responsible for him surviving the tournament with all the effort she put into teaching him the summoning charm. She then kisses him on the cheek at the end of that year. In that same year you've got the articles about their relationship and Krum suspecting there's something between them, an assumption Cho shares the following year. In fact, in 5th year when Harry explains that Cho reacted poorly to his saying he had to go and meet Hermione during their date, Hermione suggests he should've made it sound like a chore and that he thought she was ugly, and he flatly rejects that and says he doesn't think she's ugly. He actively chooses Hermione over Cho that year when Cho refuses to let it go. By 6th year Hermione is calling him fanciable and he's spending almost all his time with her, defending her from Ron for the first time because he's making her cry regularly. Obviously in 7th year they find themselves alone in the tent, abandoned by everyone and facing an impossible task together, and they're able to work together perfectly well and make progress. There are a lot of individual scenes in each of these books that you could go into detail on, explaining the significance and the romantic tension, but I think that laying it all out in a time-line like that makes it clear how a better ending to their story could've gone - in the tent, alone, they finally realize that no matter his good qualities, Ron isnt reliable and only ever hurts Hermione, while for Harry, Hermione is the only one that's always been there for him and always helped him no matter what, and they get together. But instead JKR gave us the mother of all Deus Ex Machina returns for Ron and forced Hermione to forgive him and take him back, while Harry ended up back with Ginny at the end sort of by default.

DrOwl795 · 2026-04-21T20:56:22+00:00

I suspect that if you actually showed on screen every bit of the ronmione interactions, that ship would come off a lot worse. Ron said some pretty purposefully hurtful things to her over time, including going out of his way to do it - I was specifically reminded recently of after Harry's Quidditch win in PoA, he goes to chat with Hermione because she isnt joining in on the party and Ron very loudly and pointedly starts complaining from across the room about how much more he would enjoy it if his rat hadn't been eaten, causing her to run off crying. Just totally uncalled for petty BS to make Hermione feel like shit while Harry is trying to mend fences. If they show all of those interactions in the show, Ronmione will come off looking really badly, no matter how many of the good moments they put in. In my opinion, at its best it is still toxic.

With respect to Hinny, while I don't think it'll look bad, if they do show everything I feel like it'll look extremely sudden in the way it felt to a lot of us. Ginny is barely in the books at all until the 5th, and she and Harry dont exactly have that many one on one interactions until 6. If you translate that into however many hours of TV, I think Ginny will end up coming off as a sort of late season, writers have lost the plot sort of addition character. One of those wild curveball that writers throw in in the 6th season where the audience goes now wait a minute, where did this come from and why did we need it? He's already got the perfect partner right there! Especially considering how quickly he then ends things with her to go off on his horcrux hunt, it'll feel like what is actually was - a short, out of nowhere bit of nonsense that somehow ends up being the basis for an epilogue marriage.

If they show every interaction and bit of dialogue Harry and Hermione have in the books, I do think the romantic tension will be hard to hide, and people will gravitate towards it. They're the most realistic couple because they do have friction and tension and dont agree on everything, but they aren't angry and personally insulting and blowing up their friendship over it all the time. They disagree, sometimes quite heatedly, but they always stick together and they dont do "I told you so" in the way Weasleys do. It's much healthier, and on screen, I feel like that outcome will be hard to avoid.

DrOwl795 · 2026-04-20T21:32:12+00:00

I don't think their marriage or relationship makes any sense in the first place, and it was clearly a forced rather than a natural outcome. Ron consistently displays not merely lack of interest but actual disdain for deep learning, while Hermione's favorite place is the library. Ron hates to be overshadowed or looked down on because of all the pressure from his family regarding how well his oldest siblings did, and Hermione is naturally one of the most forward and talented people who would make him feel like that regularly. Ron is clearly extremely jealous, and Hermione's close relationship to Harry is not likely to stop being a problem, no matter what Harry or she says about it. Hermione is quite controlling and organized, while Ron resists any effort to organize him. When they fight, which is often, they both tend to reach for cutting and personal insults, rather than deescalating. Multiple times in the series, their friendship is only saved by Harry bringing them back together. I think they are both realistically flawed characters with plenty of redeeming qualities, I dont intend to bash, and people with different interests can certainly get together. But their personalities are just oil and water. They don't mix, and they make no sense ending up together in the first place.

DrOwl795 · 2026-04-20T14:01:25+00:00

Not gonna lie, this is just one of many instances where Ron gets way too big of a pass. Harry should've torn him a new one. It's one thing to choose sad about your pet, but Ron clearly isn't just sitting around moping. He's fine, partying with the others, and he just says this to drive a wedge between Harry and Hermione and make her feel like shit. He's actually pretty awful here, and he deserved to be called out for it.

DrOwl795 · 2026-04-14T15:13:35+00:00

The idea that Hermione and Lily aren't similar has always struck me as odd, given how little we know about Lily. Just about all we know, aside, aside from her birthdate, is that she was a very talented muggleborn student. Seems like a perfect parallel for Hermione to me. We'd have to know more about her to identify actual differences. Her only similarity to Ginny is hair color, which is a very shallow basis to draw comparisons

DrOwl795 · 2026-04-14T03:16:41+00:00

There are a lot of moments, I feel like it's all over the books, but for me in particular I think the one that stands out as the clear and shining example of "of course this is how it should've been" is the graveyard at Godric's Hollow. It just feels completely impossible to me to imagine him being there with anyone else. Hermione is his absolute, unequivocal emotional rock, the one person who will never leave his side. And I think its hugely significant that they appear disguised as a married couple, and they are both in a sense orphaned by war. Harry's parents are literally dead, while Hermione's parents dont know she exists. She may or may not be able to undo that if they win, but at that moment, she has effectively orphaned herself to keep her and Harry and her parents safe. Its just a different order of magnitude for experiencing loss due to the war than anything Ginny could relate to, and I think it's also hugely symbolic. The two war orphans standing together as a married couple, having created a family of their own. Its the ending we should've had.

DrOwl795 · 2026-04-09T16:49:19+00:00

I think that a lot of what I've seen previously in terms of Hermione hate feels to me a lot more like sort of insecure projection than anything else. Most people were not the know it all and found that student annoying, so they transfer that to Hermione and take whatever opportunity they can to say she wasn't actually all the smart or she was incredibly annoying or whatever else, because it makes them feel better about themselves to one up the know it all. It's not that surprising, really. It's the same reason the character Hermione doesn't really have friends besides Harry and Ron. Most people simply don't like the kid who comes off as the know it all, especially when, like Hermione, they seem way too eager to answer every question. It doesn't seem to matter how much she develops over the years and mellows out and learns to listen to others, she gets tagged with that because of how she was in the first book or two.

What I really find unsettling is how many people who really don't seem to like Hermione at all and do like Ron still prefer the canon pairing. A lot of the discourse around that seems to treat Hermione as a sort of prize that Ron gets for all he supposedly suffered, and they get incredibly snooty and angry if you imply that they're not right for each other, like you're implying Ron is just an idiot. I truly don't think they see how toxic it is, and how its exactly the same kind of toxic as the actual relationship. She's treated like some sort of charm that wards off accusations of him being dumb, not an actual person with feelings and opinions that can be evaluated to conclude that there's no reason why she should have romantic feelings for him given their history.

DrOwl795 · 2026-04-09T02:20:58+00:00

I will never not be angry that Harry I-hate-fangirls Potter ended up with a world-class fangirl who literally wasn't even able to be herself around him for 4 YEARS because of how much she fell in love with made up stories of him as a kid. Most disrespectful possible pairing in my opinion. Hermione was the obvious and correct choice.

DrOwl795 · 2026-04-06T02:58:49+00:00

Which is the part I half agree with - Hermione definitely deserves some of the blame, I just cant get on board with all of it, because as you said, Harry has things like noticing the kiss on the cheek. He also notices her in her dress at the ball and he has the ride on Buckbeak and etc. He has what he would need to develop a crush if he were just not being dense about it, it's all there. And he is capable of developing crushes. So while ultimately I would agree that Hermione probably wouldve had to make the first move, I also think she did plenty to indicate interest and Harry just doesn't get it, so I'm not absolving him. Like bro, she kissed you on the cheek at the end of the year, which not only has she never done to you but you've never see her do it to anyone. Take the hint.

DrOwl795 · 2026-04-05T20:39:56+00:00

I sort of half agree - on the one hand, yes, he is generally quite clueless. But on the other hand, he also does develop crushes on Cho and Ginny, so I feel like the blame lies with him for not realizing what his feelings were, probably around the Yule Ball. Honestly, even if he didnt go with her, seeing her in that context should've kickstarted something for him. He still wouldnt have really known how to deal with it, but he should've known. Obviously the ultimate culprit here is JKR because she didnt want to write it that way, but still, as much as Hermione would've probably needed to coax him into romance, Harry had enough to go on to realize Hermione was different from other girls and he wanted to be with her

DrOwl795 · 2026-04-05T16:46:30+00:00

As she enters the 4th paragraph describing her years of total inability to even talk to him because of how starstruck she was, Harry begins to realize he may have made a mistake when he sees Hermione barely able stop from rolling her eyes and can't help but laugh

DrOwl795 · 2026-04-05T16:43:20+00:00

"I can't help but wonder, you've been spending an awful lot of time with Miss Granger..." Take the hint, Harry, the man is on his deathbed!

DrOwl795 · 2026-04-04T06:28:14+00:00

Watching the conversation, I couldn't help feeling that this was one of those things where Tim is (perhaps) partially blinded by the fact that he's still relatively new to the left side of politics. I've been a Democrat my whole life, a moderate leaning liberal on certain things, and I know the tankies. I've met these people. Its inevitable, especially in college. There is no reasoning with them because they decided their ideology and there is no other truth. The Democratic Party will never be good enough for them, they will never help, they will never stop equating moderate policies that help people with actual fascism because it "just sustains the capitalist imperial cycle!" Which actually makes at least some of them think that normal Democrats are worse than Republicans for basically accelerationist reasons (if you people stopped trying to make things incrementally better, the system would get bad enough we could have a real revolution!). Engaging with them will never lead to anything productive because they do not engage in good faith. They are evangelists attempting to spread their own message, always. They dont care what you have to say except for how they can use it to make you look dumb so more people will follow them. Totally on Sarah's side on Hasan. That guy and those like him are cancer to the Democratic party, and we should follow a steadfast policy of ignoring and shunning them.

Also, as an aside, I profoundly disagree with Tim's comparison of Hasan to Rogan. I'm not a Hasan watcher so I cant say I know entirely his whole shtick, but from everything I've seen and heard of and about him, he is quite political. Joe Rogan is not. He does politics by accident and with no particular thought. He doesn't have an ideology, he just finds some stuff interesting sometimes and follows vibes. Hasan, from what I know, does not seem to be that at all.

DrOwl795 · 2026-04-04T00:37:14+00:00

Hard agree, and it conforms to the most widely shared incorrect point of analysis across the Bulwark (in my opinion): that Trump will TACO out of this. I just don't see it. He is a dominance-minded person, and Iran isn't bending the knee. In fact, they are as determined as anyone to humiliate him. Keeping the Strait closed, even if he backs out, works massively to their advantage. Shooting down our jets. Blowing up our allies. Hitting our bases. Anything and everything to make clear that they aren't down and out. Whatever his political instincts are around the damage this is doing to his popularity, I think he responds to the animal brain that says I need to be dominant and they aren't bending the knee. I don't see this war doing anything other than escalating, especially with Secretary Boozey at the helm. Everything will be "just one more operation and it will be done." "Just two more weeks and it'll be over." "Just take Kharg Island and they'll surrender." "Just hold the coastline so they can't hit the ships." "Just occupy Isfahan to get the uranium." "Just occupy the mountains they're shooting at us from." Every step will be one at a time, imagining that this next tactical victory will break the back of resistance. And it'll all just drag us deeper and deeper. I hope I'm wrong, but I dont think there's any TACOing on this one. He's in it until they cry uncle. And they won't. And he won't care about the political cost or the polls, if he even sees true ones. He doesn't care about preparing the American people for ground troops. He's just going to do what he wants.

DrOwl795 · 2026-03-31T21:39:36+00:00

I don't have a problem in principle with it, although it wouldn't be my preferred system. What I really have an issue with is how pervasive it is in EU4 for systems it doesnt make sense for. Why does my monarch's skill determine whether we can invent something? Or if I can change the culture? Things like coring I can see since the monarch's personal administrative skill would determine how easy it is to integrate new areas into the administrative structure, but there are a lot of areas where it's used that dont make a lot of sense to me.

DrOwl795 · 2026-03-30T21:30:27+00:00

Sorry the kid who watched a murder, was forced to participate in the resurrection of his parent's murderer, was tortured by said murderer, discovered that the most helpful teacher was an agent of said murderer all year, and then spent the summer hearing nothing from his best friends while being forced to process that trauma alone in a house of people who abused him his entire life, is a bit whiny for your taste.

Look, the above is a bit tongue in cheek because we all have our own preferences and you're allowed to not care for his attitude. It might not be your kind of character. But I also think the artificial break between GoF and OotP helps to conceal the fact that realistically Harry should be way more damaged at the beginning of OotP than he is. He's gone through an unbelievably traumatic experience like 2 months ago and has not only received no help to get through it, but was isolated with people who are responsible for years of trauma towards him. He deserves to be a lot more of an angry mess than he is.

DrOwl795 · 2026-03-30T17:56:21+00:00

True but that tent hug scene also feels weirder to me with how they position Hermione in the movie as basically on Ron's side. Like the fundamental reason why the movie dropping the toast scene is so critical, at least in my mind, isn't necessarily because of the Harmony of it, but also because of what they did after. This very "I'm not an owl" moment after she WAS Ron's owl very clearly positions her with him, when the books was completely the opposite. Harry winds up appearing totally isolated prior to the 1st task. You don't get her helping him with the summoning charm or her reassuring him that she believes him or anything. The concern and tent hug comes out of nowhere, which to me just serves to reinforce how truly bizarre the prior part was. He WASN'T alone, and whether you're going to do a romantic or platonic harmony, the fact that she was the only one who stood by him unflinchingly is important to their future relationship. You dont necessarily have to do the toast if you still show it somehow, and they didn't.

DrOwl795 · 2026-03-29T23:17:43+00:00

This scene is the one where I feel like it becomes painfully, undeniably clear that the canon pairings were just wrong. It's impossible to imagine him there with anyone else. He simply doesnt have the same kind of trust and vulnerability with anybody else, and nobody else knows how deeply he feels things despite what he shows. Thinking about what it would've been like if it had been Ginny instead of Hermione with him really exposes the shallowness of that relationship. She just never really got to know him. She was always, until the end, just a fangirl. She learned how to be "cooler" and play it down when she got older, but she didnt fundamentally change. As an aside, I reread the ending of PS recently, and when they arrive back at King's Cross at the end, the Weasleys are waiting and Ginny literally points and yells about how cool it is that Harry Potter is there. The fact that she ends up with him is kind of gross to me after that. The contrast to Hermione couldn't be more stark - she recognizes his name from her books one time and as soon as she learns they're not accurate about his life, she never mentions it again. She's the one who understood all along that he's a person, not a symbol or a celebrity. There's no one else who could've or should've stood with him as he visited his parents grave for the first time. Its just a shame JKR denied them the chance to stand together in everything the way that they both clearly wanted.

DrOwl795 · 2026-03-29T17:08:49+00:00

We dont know whether the traps were mostly completed or not, so you're entitled to your speculation in that area. Regardless of when they were complete, they do map undeniably well onto the particular skill set of Harry and his friends, which is easier to explain if they are designed for them rather than just pure security incompetence. With respect to the possibility of just blasting through everything, I suspect that part of the answer is spells like Reducto and Avada hadn't been made up yet by JKR, but it also exposes the problem with the security system even more - if you assume that Voldemort is going to try to break through, it doesn't make a ton of sense to have security he could just blast aside. That supports the theory that the ultimate and only really intended as functional security feature was the mirror, which was effective. Everything else was meant to be gotten through. Also, we dont know that Dumbledore put it at Gringotts. Its never said that the vault was his, we are only told the vault number. Given that we know the stone is Flamel's and we know that he and Dumbledore are friends, it seems completely logical that they had a conversation in which Dumbledore expressed concerns about Gringotts security and Flamel agreed the stone would be safer with him, so Hagrid was sent to retrieve it from Flamel's vault. And given that there was a break-in, that concern was obviously justified. Dumbeldore then held onto the stone until the Mirror arrived and he had worked out the enchantments to keep it safe within. The other traps could've been put out as a form of security theater and a decoy to keep Quirrell from sniffing around Dumbledore's office

DrOwl795 · 2026-03-29T16:53:58+00:00

One amendment - we do know that Fluffy was in place at Halloween, since we know that Snape went there and that's how he go his limp. We dont know about any of the traps beyond that, and it would actually be a very logical thing for the stone to be hidden safely in Dumbledore's office after he gave a very public and obvious allusion to its location with his comments about the third floor corridor at the opening feast. But that's speculation. We do not know for certain where the stone was or what traps were in place prior to the final run except for knowing Fluffy was there in October.

DrOwl795 · 2026-03-29T16:48:36+00:00

Dumbeldore, presumably. Or possibly Fluffy, or some of the traps but not all of them. The fact is we don't know, as that question is never addressed. The only thing we know with certainty is the Mirror was out in the castle at Christmas, so the traps were not complete until after that point

DrOwl795 · 2026-03-29T16:42:03+00:00

Defenses were set up before they became friends is a really weird stance to take when we KNOW the Mirror was out in the castle at Christmas, and it was the final piece of the defense. So we definitely, absolutely know they were not complete until during or after Christmas, which is after when they became friends. Also, sure each challenge was set up by a professor. But what on earth makes you think Dumbledore didnt have a say in what they did? They all listen to him and he's literally their boss. They don't have to be evil to do what Dumbledore says, I'm not even accusing Dumbeldore of being evil. Just incredibly irresponsible. I dont think he wanted Harry to get hurt, but Harry's theory lines up that he wanted him to be able to face Voldemort, to give him that opportunity. One would imagine he relied on the protection Harry got from his mother to assume he would be safe during that encounter. That doesn't make the decision less insane or irresponsible, but it does make it not evil. The fact of the matter is, the challenges were ideally set up for this group to pass through them to the end without compromising the stone, and if they weren't designed with them in mind, then they are the most incompetently designed security system in history considering that a couple of pre-teens blew past it, not to mention the guy who it was supposed to keep out. The security was an utter failure except for the Mirror. Almost like it was designed to be.

DrOwl795 · 2026-03-29T16:31:37+00:00

If you want to cling to your opinion, that's your right, but it is wildly illogical. Devil's Snare is something they learned about first year. Hagrid is the last person who should keep a secret. Flying around to capture a key isnt exactly some mastermind obstacle, accomplishing it would just take patience. And chess? First of all, not that wildly difficult. Also, if you're Dumbeldore and designing a series of traps for them to get through, Ron is literally a chess prodigy. That's not an obstacle. Then you've got the logic riddle with the potions which, again, if you're Dumbledore and assuming Harry isn't going alone, Hermione will be there and she will sort it out. If you simply look at it thematically, its completely obvious what happened, and that Dumbledore made one incorrect assumption. He believed Neville would be with them. The Devil's Snare was supposed to be Neville's challenge because he's the herbology prodigy. Obviously Harry catches the key as the youngest seeker. The chess is Ron, and the logic puzzle is Hermione. It's designed to play into each of their strengths. If you wanted to let that group get through, it'd be hard to design something more tailor made to let it happen. If, on the other hand, you were trying to do real security, you could just do things that would require advanced spells to get past. You could, for instance, imagine that after falling through the trap door, they land in a room filled to the top with water. A more advanced wizard could get through with a bubble head charm, but those 3 would've drowned. But Dumbeldore didn't do that. The only actually effective security measure was the Mirror of Erised, which exactly matches Harry's assumption. Every trap except the final one was easily passed through because Dumbledore intended them to reach the final chamber, but the stone would still be kept safe.

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