If Rowling really wanted to denigrate Ron, why did she make it clear that he matters more to Harry than Hermione does? And he's not dumb--Harry, in OOTP: "I'm better at Quidditch, but not at anything else."

When you lay them out like that, they're pretty much balanced; it skews toward Hermione, but Ron does his bit. (Also, he comes up with and executes the plan of getting into the Chamber of Secrets to destroy the Cup.)

Just finished Goblet in my pre-marathon re-read of the whole series. I had completely forgotten Ludo Bagman existed. Now all I can think of is that he should've been in the film and played by Stephen Fry.