This is the kind of thing that has made the interpretation of Harry Potter as a struggle between old ("good") conservatism vs new ("bad") conservatism really resonate for me. You can think of the wizards as nobility, and muggles as commoners. It's acceptable to buy gifts and stuff for the people who don't really need them, but for the lesser nobility, it would be viewed as a handout and would be really difficult to navigate in a way that allows everyone to save face.
Iirc in the actual lore (not the movies) McGonagall somehow gets access to Harry's Gringotts vault and takes the money for the broom from there. So it's not exactly a gift.
Makes sense. Would also explain why he doesn't ask Harry to buy him a new wand or candy on from the cart. Harry offered to buy all the candy for himself, and then just split some with Ron. But a wand is pretty important in a Wizarding school, someone should have bought him one lol.
I get that Ron’s parents were supposed to basically be Irish Catholics that didn’t believe in birth control (which doesn’t make sense, because why would Wizards believe in God?), but like… they probably shouldn’t have had so many kids if they couldn’t afford to take care of them properly.
Boy, it sure is a shame that Ron doesn’t have any rich friends, especially one who might have not gotten him anything for Christmas last year dispite having received a personal gift from and who might have found ways to share is wealth on the day they met. Sure is a shame he doesn’t know anyone like that./s
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