It's not really reductive imo, much the opposite. The conclusion is binary but that's because the logic behind the moment is quite forcing. The issue isn't with Harry and Malfoy. The issue is really Ron and everyone else (but especially Ron). The entire Malfoy family has invested a lot of time hating the Weasleys. They don't like each other. Lucius shits all over Arthur any chance he gets. Harry and Ron are so close you need a very strong reason to get Harry to even consider Malfoy at all viable. Ron also goes to the ball and finds out he's getting cucked by the biggest sports star in the world right now. He's not going to take Malfoy on top of that without a huge bitch fit. The social sphere around them just won't allow for something like this to be even neutral by that point unless you're doing massive rewrites from book 3 at a minimum but more realistically you might even have to soften things in 2.

⬆ upvote 0