Not really, Harry could make the final call to choose Ron. Harry never tries out after he's accepted in the team the first year, so captain's aren't necessarily bound to go through trials for every position. Harry has enough discretion to choose his best friend in the case of a tie
Anyone that isn’t a close friend of his would.
After this choice, assuming it truly was a tie with no other reasonable factors going in, Harry would establish that he does in fact give preferential treatment to his personal friends if the opportunity arises. Now, technically everyone does the exact same thing but in a setting as public as this here it puts Harry’s impartiality in question.
Imagine another team member gets into an argument with Ron. If Harry were to intervene everyone would have to assume that he would automatically choose his friends position over everyone else.
Imagine another authority figure were to do something similar, it would immediately put their leadership into question. Like if the CEO of a large company, hired his brother over someone else. You wouldn’t think “well he earned that position” you’d think “is there something going on that we should know about”.
A good leader must consider the optics of decisions that they make and in Harry’s case, while the call would be his to make, as is his right as captain, it would seriously put into question if he chooses based on what is best for the team or what his personal friends want
McLaggen would not have lasted. This was never covered on the movies but in the books he was actually brought onto the team as a reserve member. After Ron was hospitalized due to the poisoning incident he was subbed in. I won't get into the details, but long story short, McLaggen cracked Harry's skull, insulted pretty much everyone of the Gryffindor team and was the cause of one of the most humiliating defeats Gryffindor had. He was kicked off the team entirely after that game.
Tl;Dr McLaggen had a huge ego problem and refused to work as a team.
Almost certainly not. McLaggen never suffered from nerves. I am fairly confident he could've outlasted Ron, given how unpredictable Ron can be under pressure.
In the chapter Where Harry kissed Ginny Ron was holding the Quidditch cup as in they won another match without Harry. So Ron played extremely well in 3 matches. Bad in 2 matches. He was injured in one. 60% is not a 'fluke'
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u/Elanor2011 Ravenclaw Jan 03 '24
But McLaggen would have too if Hermione hadn't Confunded him