In defense of Ginny <again> and such

[Penny & Bryce Linsenmayer]

No: HPFGUIDX 11180

Hi --

moongirlk at yahoo.com wrote:

> She was, however, conscious while corresponding with him for nearly a
> whole school year.  I think she'd have had the chance to learn
> *something* about him.  Especially when his plan was for her not to
> survive - it's a classic evil overloard thing to do - give something
> away when you're planning to kill the person, only for the person to
> escape.  So far Voldemort's main weaknesses have involved pride, in my
>
> view.

Well, these are all good points.  <g>  But, I do take her later account
of events as basically saying that she was very victimized by Riddle.  I
had the impression that he more or less "took control" of her, in which
case she may not have conscious memories of anything he might have let
slip.  But, you do make a good point about their correspondence and the
fact that he intended she would die in the Chamber eventually.

> I think the point was just that she's a little bit more
> than a throw-away character used as a polt device in CoS, and probably
>
> at least as useful as Buckbeak to the story as a whole.  She's got the
>
> potential to be a real part of the fight, and to show Harry and the
> reader that she's more than just a giggling redheaded child (although
> I quite liked her even when that's all she was).  If the other
> characters get to grow and evolve, then Ginny probably will too,
> provided she's not killed off on page 1 of book 5.

Oh, I don't disagree that she has *potential*.  But, lots of people
predicted a much larger role for Ginny in GoF, and it didn't come to
pass.  So, I'm not sure that she isn't a "red herring" (a character who
appears to be potentially important but really will serve no major
purpose in the plot).  I wouldn't mind seeing her developed more -- It'd
be especially interesting to see how she would compare to her fanfic
self.  :--)

> Agreed - Harry saved her life.  I don't really see that changing the
> fact that she might be useful.  Harry and Ron saved Hermione's life
> when the troll had her cornered, and Hermione wasn't exactly
> displaying her character strengths at the time, while cowering in the
> corner.  She's sure proven quite useful since then, however, and has
> plenty of strenght of character that was not displayed at that time,
> but showed up immediately after.  Surely you agree with that? :)

Someone (not Kimberly) had asserted that Harry didn't necessarily save
her (or that was what I took away from that post).  That was what
prompted that comment in my message.  I definitely don't dispute that
having had her life saved by Harry doesn't prevent her from being an
important strong character at some point later.   I was merely trying to
clarify that her life was saved by Harry in CoS - it seems indisputable
to me that she would have eventually died down there.

> I'm of the opinion that he did confide something - I'm not talking
> deep dark secrets, necessarily.  He showed Harry a pretty vulnerable
> moment in his life (begging the headmaster not to send him back to the
>
> orphanage) in just the short encounter they had.  Granted he showed
> that to manipulate Harry, but that's exactly why I think he may have
> told Ginny other things - to manipulate her into his trust.  I just
> think that in all those months Ginny must have learned something, even
>
> if she doesn't recognize it's significance yet.

Another good point.

> Everyone has vulnerabilities - I don't believe for a minute that the
> 16 year old Tom Riddle was invulnerable - if he were, he'd never have
> made the mistakes he did later on.

No, I wasn't arguing that he was invulnerable.  I was really just saying
that I have my doubts that he was revealing those vulnerabilities to
Ginny that year.  But, who knows?  Maybe you'll turn out to be right.

> I believe that Ginny is going to have significance in the stories in
> the future, and that it may be in this way.  I also believe that CoS
> must have had some significance to the growth of the Story as a whole,
>
> and that Ginny would never have been made a plot device and nothing
> more.  If JKR didn't have any further use for her, she could have just
>
> let her die down there.

Well, letting her live served several purposes for CoS.  But, Ginny
hasn't exactly been a front-lines player since then.  I'm not positive
but I would wager that she had about equal time in PoA and GoF (which
was double the length of PoA).  The Trio also actively cut her out of
their activities in GoF, which doesn't bode well for her being a really
active member of the action in later books.  They hushed up about Sirius
when she was around (Hermione threw Ron a look to keep him quiet), and
Harry purposefully waited until Hermione finished breakfast with Ginny
one morning before dragging Hermione off on a walk, alone.  I just have
a hard time picturing her becoming all that important.  I know JKR has
said we'll learn more about her (or something along those lines), but I
guess I picture more what we learned about Bill & Charlie in GoF.  We
learned more about each of them, but neither was integral to the plot.

Penny


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