Ginny & the Platform Scene (with lit theory and post-canon SHIP)

[selah_1977]

No: HPFGUIDX 33100

Happy Hump Day!

Quick musings before class tonight--

David wrote:

"What interests me about this exchange is the nature of the arguments 
deployed. Pippin's argument is very clinical: each segment of text 
serves a purpose..."

I read your post with interest, Dave.  However, I'm not sure that 
this can be applied to only the Ginny and the Platform scene 
thread.   If we apply structural criticism to the Harry Potter canon, 
I'd like to see it applied across the board.

A year ago I took a stab at psychoanalytic criticism of the potential 
romance subplot of HP.  The largest issue I ran into was the fact 
that canon isn't closed... it would be like trying to apply Lacan's 
theories to only the first half of *Frankenstein*, you know.  So I 
have the draft of the paper still on my hard drive, waiting for 
whenever canon closes.

While I applaud the thought that went into the analysis and see where 
you're coming from, I don't think we can say that Pip is applying a 
specific critical theory until we can look "back" from a vantage 
point in canon where H/G occurs in some form.

Katze:
"I don't think anything more will happen with Cho and Harry because 
it's tainted now. Cho does not blame Harry, but Harry still blames 
himself. I think they might have a fling (very low percentage in my 
opinion), but it won't last. I don't think we've been introduced to 
Harry's future love (how do we know that he doesn't become a loner?). 
If any ship does happen, I hope it's with Ron and Hermione, but 
*after* Hogwarts."

I agree with most of the above.  Harry/Cho is tainted, although 
perhaps not for good.  

I also do feel that Harry's fate in the next few books and in the 
near future immediately following canon is as a loner.  He's been 
alone for most of his life.  He is still in a sense "alone" 
throughout Books 1-4 because there are parts of his quest that even 
his closest friends cannot share.  I'm almost certain he'll have to 
face more peril all alone before canon is over.  And after canon, I 
see him pulling a Frodo and leaving the wizarding world--either 
voluntarily or through some sacrifice.

I don't *like* the idea of Harry being alone, but I think it's 
necessary.  So I am not sure that he's going to have any lasting 
romance in canon.

And as for Ron/Hermione post-Hogwarts, I think the idea is a 
prescription for disaster.  I like Ron as a character (surprise!) and 
I love Hermione, but I do not like them together for long stretches 
of time.  Teenage sweethearts, maybe (and that "maybe" is thin IMO).  
Anything in adulthood or long-term, absolutely no way.


Jo wrote:

"I think that Ginny seems immature to many of us who are used to the 
usual American/suburban girls of this age (dressing like Britney 
Spears, watching MTV).  When I lived in the UK a few years ago (in 
Hampshire, NOT London), the children seemed refreshingly 
unsophisticated compared to the children in the Washington DC 'burbs 
where I now live."

You know, I can't say for sure, because I'm not British, but one of 
the things that made me laugh to myself most this summer was how much 
more similar British kids and adolescents are to their American 
counterparts than they are different.  I visited ten schools while in 
the UK, none of them in London... and the conclusion I drew was that 
kids are kids are kids.  There are cultural differences, but we're 
all human... more alike than different. 

"Why do so many people seem a bit hostile to Ginny. It doesn't seem 
to me that we've seen her do anything distasteful. The only crying 
she seems to do is in COS, when she has been taken to the chamber to 
die.  In contrast, Hermione has cried a fair bit, and has never been 
in any real personal danger except in POA (and not really very much 
even there), but nobody seems to think that this shows weakness on 
her part."

And thank goodness Hermione *does* cry... if she didn't, her 
detractors would say she was cold and unfeeling.  ^_^

I do like Ginny very much as a character.  Just not with Harry.  
She's cute and sweet and the bit we've seen of her reminds me of my 
own baby sister.  I think that the "independent streak" Pippin 
mentioned would be better served by her not dating a guy that her 
mother just may soon have mentally dressed and trussed for her.  
(Which is yet another thing that nags me about OBHWF (R/H and H/G 
combined--the sneaking suspicion that neither Harry nor Hermione were 
consulted first in this arrangement.)

I love Ginny so much that I enthusiastically ride an extracanonical 
Ginny ship--Redeemed!Draco/Feisty!Ginny, but that's another story for 
another day.

--Ebony AKA AngieJ