Is Ginny's Sudden Personality Change Believeable?

[Sydney]

No: HPFGUIDX 76103


> Buttercup's original message:
> 
> >I'm wondering if Ginny's 180 degree personality change
> >is plausible. She goes from being pretty much
> >unnoticeable to being almost a female version of
> >Harry. In reality, which I know fiction is not, it
> >takes time for humans to change parts of their
> >personality they want to improve. And the
> >transformation is usually gradual and may take years.
> >I think it would be quite hard for a timid person to
> >all of a sudden be brassy.
> 
Steve B replies:
> 
> I agree that Ginny's personality has changed drastically, but I disagree
> that it is unbelievable. First of all, we barely even see her in
books 3 and
> 4, so its been 3 years. Nobody's personality changes faster than a young
> teenage girl. 

I agree with Steve.  I'm not an expert on much, but I AM an expert on
otherwise outgoing teenage girls who turn into dithering ninnies in
the presence of their crush!  I often cringed to think of what
impression I must be leaving the Boy of My Dreams with.  The best I
could hope for would be Harry's (and consequently the readers')
pre-OoP impression of Ginny:  timid, uninteresting, and a bit odd. I
don't think that was ever the 'real' Ginny.

Having suffered from Crush-Induced Brain-Cloud syndrome, I badly
wanted to see Ginny come into her own.  I wish it hadn't been quite so
abrupt-- it could have snuck up on Harry a bit more, maybe-- but, no,
I don't have the slightest problem in seeing her character as
consistent with a normal teenage girl age 11-14.

Sydney