SHIP: Problems with the concept of G/H

[heiditandy]

No: HPFGUIDX 35073

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "uilnslcoap" <devin.smither at y...> wrote:
> Now, onto my favorite pet topic of Ginny, the girl who will in 
fact 
> be at Harry's side, probably starting in Book VI (though it might 
> start to show up in Book V) through Book VII if he dies, and after 
> book VII married to him if he lives.  

Two things - one elfish, one completely personal:
1. Please don't say "in fact" unless you've managed to read either 
Book 5 or JKR's private notebooks - please say IMHO, because that's 
what it is. Or say "I Hope." Not "I know," as you don't.
2. Married? Can I borrow the Ewwww acronym for this? Can we get an 
acronym which covers the issue of Why 16 Year Old Girls Should Not 
Be Married Or Even Engaged Even in the WIzarding World - Ron's 
birthday is March 1. Unless witches gestate for shorter periods of 
time than Muggles, Ginny's birthday really can't be earlier than 
February - you think it's a good idea for a girl who's barely 17, at 
most, and more likely 16, to be married or engaged to a 17 year old, 
just because when she was 11 she was posessed by the same Dark 
wizard who tried to kill him when he was 15 months old? How is that 
a basis for a relationship?

Perhaps my problem with this is that I am presupposing that the 
posession ended completely when Harry stabbed the Diary. IN other 
words, Ginny may still be affected by her memories, but she's not 
still got a bit of Riddle in her. If there was, it would've been 
something *he* left in there on purpose, in which case I find her to 
be completely untrustworthy. 

Furthermore, the workings of curses, which in backfiring placed a 
bit of Riddle into Harry when he was 15 months old (with a very 
undeveloped brain compared to an 11 year old) seem to be very 
different than the workings of the posession Riddle had over Ginny. 
In rereading CoS, it sounds more like he used Imperio, and for only 
very brief periods, when he needed her to do something. The pages 
may've been treated - by him or by Lucius (aside: wouldn't it be 
wonderful if it had been a potion created by Snape?) to compel 
anyone who picked it up to read it, flip through the pages, try and 
write in it. That's not the same as a curse which seems to rip out 
someone's essence, which is what AK is. 

> My basic point of take-off for the H/G ship is in their common 
bond 
> in having encountered Riddle/Voldemort.  I note that it is not at 
all 
> the same thing to encounter Riddle as it is to encounter V.  Yet, 
I 
> say, the same person is certainly responsible for the worst 
portions 
> of each of their lives, and only they have come face-to-face with 
> dear old R/V and lived to tell the tale recently.  
Erm, no. 
: points to Draco in the Forrest in Book 1. He saw Voldemort, 
through Quirrell, drinking the blood of the unicorn - and he is 
still alive and kicking. And of course a lot of death eaters saw him 
as well, but I presume you're only including people who you presume 
to be "good"?

Of course, there's also a whole school of thought that is convinced 
that Ginny isn't really Ginny anymore, and has been mostly-Riddle 
since the diary was destroyed. An interesting concept, IMHO, 
although not one I'm sure I can accept as canonical - the likelihood 
of JKR having Riddle "regrowing up" as a Weasley is just a little 
too weird. But, maybe.

> I feel that their survival of these encounters 
> shows a similar kind of fundamental strength, and a root in 
> unbelievable stamina and kindness.  I was only more convinced of 
this 
> when I was reminded by Uncmark that Ginny both attempted to throw 
> away the diary AND cough up the truth (under the duress of being 
> controlled by the Darkest wizard of them all).  
But what if she threw the diary away *because* she was controlled by 
Riddle? Let me elaborate...
Riddle says (p. 312, US edition) that "[f]or many months now, my new 
target has been -- you." In other words, he'd set his eye on getting 
to know Harry, getting access to Harry. Ginny had told him a lot 
about Harry, and he wanted to meet him. 

The chronology we know is all from Riddle - Ginny stopped trusting 
the diary and threw it away - and Harry, of course, picked it up. 
This wouldn't've been very hard for Riddle to engineer when Ginny 
started not trusting the diary - he could've told her to throw him 
away, and then released his hold on her at a time and place where it 
was possible that Harry Potter, who Riddle already knew to be 
a "mystery solver" (Cos, p.313, US edition) would find him. But as I 
said above, I only think that Riddle invoked Imperio, or a variation 
of it, on Ginny when she was actually writing, and when the diary 
was closed, she had more resistance to it. It would've been very 
dangerous to have her under the compulsion to read it all the time - 
too easy to get confiscated if she was using it in class. 

> I feel that for Harry's and Ginny's mutual 
> benefit, their ship is best.  Only they will REALLY be able to 
> comfort/soothe/understand each other when it comes to old Voldie.
Why do you think Harry is capable of being comforting or soothing to 
someone? He hasn't really done it in canon, although arguably his 
entreaties to Ron to go out in search of Ginny are comforting in a 
way - he's not especially good at empathy, IMHO. Furthermore, why 
should a relationship be based on being able to comfort and soothe 
your partner? Shouldn't it have a basis my matched temperments, 
mutual interests, common goals?

> We need to see more development 
> in her personally and character.  
I agree completely - I do hope she grows as a character, but NOT to 
be married off at 16ish! No offense to anyone who was married at 
that age (and merely then dating the person you eventually married 
doesn't count) but I think that especially where wizarding lifespans 
seem to be about 75% longer than Muggle, this is a Bad Idea.


heidi
http://www.fictionalley.org