Ginny ,what we don't know for sure(Was:H/G and other unobvious SHIP alternatives

Sat Feb 15 16:27:46 UTC 2003

No: HPFGUIDX 52289

Penny wrote:
<snip>
>>What it boils down to for me in some respects is that we have two 
very obvious one-way crushes going on here. Ron -----> Hermione, and 
Ginny ------------> Harry. Harry very obviously could care less 
about Ginny at this point, but, as Rowling says, he's only 14 and 
has plenty of time to change his mind. <snip>
 if Ginny is to be that person, (for Harry)I don't think Rowling has 
put the foundation in place. She'll have to play catch-up, and it 
would, IMHO, have been far more effective to have H/G
foreshadowed subtly all along, if it is to happen..<<

Angua answered:
<snip>
>> 
I do say that H/G is the "obvious" destiny for Harry -- whether they 
both live, both die, one or the other dies, or whatever. It's been 
foreshadowed -- oh, yes, it's been foreshadowed, in all the classic 
JKR ways! We've been given full knowledge of Ginny's background and 
family, we know of the major trauma in her life, and we have a large 
variety of little "bits and pieces" clues as to what she's like. 

Me:  What *full knowledge* is that, may I ask?  We know more 
background about Bill and Charlie than Ginny.  

Ginny resembles someone we all know and perhaps for females, someone 
we once were. Our minds are very busy whenever we see Ginny -- 
supplying all the missing details.  We have a picture of her that is 
based almost entirely on supposition.  When we stand back a bit from 
the story, is becomes obvious how little we really know.

As for myself, (profound apologies to all Ginny fans) I have some 
major, major problems accepting the simplistic view of her being 
Harry's ideal and his destiny:

The most obvious thing is the basis of her crush on him.  It is 
based entirely on his celebrity and his looks rather than anything 
more substantive. Even after she has gotten to hang around him for a 
while, there is no canon evidence that she can actually see him as 
anything other than a hero.  She does not seem to consider his 
humanity at all:
In CoS in Flourish and Blotts, she confronts Draco Malfoy for 
teasing Harry about the scene with Gilderoy Lockhart.  We, the 
readers say, `good for her, she has a bit of spunk and perception.'
But then, later, when Harry has to endure being taunted by nearly 
the entire school who believe him to be the Heir of Slytherin, she 
calls further negative attention to him by sending him a singing-- 
SINGING valentine. (I realize this was a device to get Harry to drop 
his books and smash his ink bottle)  But, the contents of the 
valentine again emphasize his looks and his celebrity as her reasons 
for caring for him.  It would have been too, too easy for JKR to 
have tossed in a bit of H/G foreshadowing by having Ginny write an 
equally childish verse that pointed out his spirit and his courage 
or reminded everyone how he'd faced down Voldmort/Quirrell to save 
the Philosopher's Stone.  She could have rhapsodized on his good 
manners--ANYTHING that showed she knew him beyond the superficial.  
Ginny is teased by her brothers, she knows that teasing hurts.  How 
could she not know that he'd be teased and tormented further for 
having received a singing valentine?

Oh, and for those who think Fred and George might have sent the 
card, Ginny does it again in PoA/Ch 10. She brings Harry a get-well 
card that sings so shrilly, he has to keep it closed under his fruit 
bowl.  This would have been a perfect occasion for her to toss him a 
bit of encouragement about the Dementors, (after all, one had 
frightened her nearly out of her wits on the Hogwarts Express. She 
knows their effect) but again, there is nothing.  Not a hint of what 
she knows about Harry.

There are at least a dozen conspicuouly incongruent character 
questions I have about the CoS Ginny, but the most glaring is her 
response to Harry after he kills the basilisk.  Ginny is obviously 
distraught, but she has enough presence of mind to explain to Harry 
that she was the one opening the Chamber, etc.  What is glaringly 
missing is Ginny's recognition of the terror Harry had to go through 
to kill the thing.  She asks, of course, in a flurry of 
questions, `how did you ever kill that thing?' but there is no 
reference to Harry's blood-soaked robes—not even a passing `are you 
all right?'  Kloves wrote the `are you O.K.?' question into the 
movie, because it seems so obvious, but it is not in the book.  She 
doesn't even make a passing remark about Harry's efforts, even when 
she is safe with her mother.  It seems her mind has assessed that 
*Harry's the hero, so of course he's all right.*  What she does 
obsess about is being expelled from Hogwarts.  We are led to believe 
that she wouldn't tell Harry about the diary in front of Percy for 
fear of being expelled.  I'm certain Ginny fans would ascribe her 
torrent of tears after her confession in the chamber to nerves, but 
I can't buy it. She cries all the way back to where Ron is waiting. 
When she is safe and back in Hogwarts and with her mother, she's 
crying.  Then, when it's obvious Dumbledore knows Riddle has 
enchanted her, and Harry has told about the diary, and Ginny is 
finally making her confession, what does she do? Oh, right, cry a 
bit more.
We never catch more than a passing glance at her.  She obviously 
likes Fred and George's antics and giggles with Hermione over 
a `love potion' Mrs. Weasley had made as a young girl. (PoA) We 
glimpse her with Hermione, see her comforting Ron over the debacle 
with Fleur, and ovserve her stand up for Hermione's right to keep 
her choice for the Yule Ball secret in GoF, Ch 22. Readers see her 
as more mature here, but really, when you think about it, it is no 
more than she did back in CoS when she stood up to Malfoy.

There are myriads of background things we don't know about Ginny:  
We don't know her full name.  The obvious guess is `Virginia,' but 
we don't know that.  It's only supposition. She could have an 
obscure medieval name.  We are not even allowed to see her sorting.  
We don't know what subjects are her favorites, or even if she has a 
favorite subject.  We know she is not good at creative composition 
or enchanting get-well cards.  We don't know who her friends are, or 
if she's made any.  We don't know what her wand is made of or if 
she's using a hand-me-down as Ron first did.  We don't know if she'd 
like a pet or who her favorite teacher is.  These little tidbits 
would tell us a great deal about her.  The truth of the matter is we 
don't know much of anything about Ginny.

Angua

Me:
Oh, we're going to wonder that alright unless JKR performs a 
plotting miracle and transforms Ginny into something more than a 
weepy little willowand.  She has managed for four books to keep 
Harry and Hermione apart, and Ron and Hermione apart and to keep 
ardent SHIPPERS guessing and arguing over who likes whom.  A writer 
as skillful as JKR could manage perfectly well to keep Harry and 
Ginny "apart" without keeping us totally in the dark about Ginny's 
background.

Angua:
<<I think that JKR has worked hard to keep her H/G intentions from 
being too obvious, but it is possible to see her sleight of hand at 
work. The aesthetic requirements of a unified series require that 
Harry's eventual heroine come upon the scene quite early in Book 1 
(check),>> 
Me:
I totally agree with this.

Angua:
<<be a character of major importance to the plot (check),>>

Me: 
She is of importance in CoS but nearly invisible the rest of the 
time. Peeves has more page time.  [JKR has indicated that Ginny is 
going to play a more important role in OoP, let's hope part of that 
development and reason for being is a revelation of something other 
than her infatuation with Harry.  Obsession can be a slippery slope  
to evil and I could see where this could lead to terrible 
consequences and complications.]

Angua: 
<<...be sympathetic and capable of being found to have all sorts of 
virtues and graces (check)>>

Me:
We simply don't know enough about her to know of any virtues and 
graces other than the ones I've cited.

Angua:
<<JKR's very faithfulness to the "rules" of mystery and 
romance make it impossible for her to fool us completely. No other 
female in the Potterworld, except for Hermione, meets these 
aesthetic.>> <snip>

Me:
There are `rules???'  Jane Austen, JKR's professed *favorite 
author,* has written various romances that could be models for any 
of the major SHIP theories: H/Hr, R/Hr, H/G and even D/G (if the boy 
crosses over from the dark side) The only fundamental and pervasive 
requirement in Jane Austen romances is friendship and mutual 
respect.  We have no reason to think that JKR will require less of 
her characters.  Friendship and respect, of course can be developed, 
as they are in the Austen novels, but between Harry and Ginny it has 
not even been hinted at anywhere in the HP septology except in PoA, 
Ch 5 when Harry and Ginny catch each other's eye over Percy's antics 
on Platform 9 3/4.

Ginny has been variously represented by essayists and scholars as 
the "alchemic ideal of virtue and purity," a "symbol of Harry's 
innocence," a "secret agent of Lord Voldemort" and "Lord Voldemort 
himself in disguise."  The fact of the matter is we don't know who 
Ginny Weasley is.  She is, as one poster described her `a wild 
card.'  Ginny is an intriguing enigma, but the bigger question is 
why all the secrecy around her?  What is JKR hiding?  I think we 
won't know that until OoP and maybe beyond.
--Judy