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

[Judy <penumbra10@yahoo.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 52332

"Pippin" wrote:
> [re: CoS singing valentine]
>  If Ginny had sent a gushy valentine, Harry would have been 
> utterly mortified, and Draco would probably have accused him of 
> writing it to himself. As it is, Harry's only mortified until he
> hears what the valentine says. Then he's able to laugh about it, 
> and even puts up with  hearing "His eyes are as green" more 
> than once before he gets tired of it and goes to bed. 
> 
> Me:  I never suggested that the card Ginny send Harry be "gushy" 
in any way.  My point was that it focused exclusively on his looks 
and his fame and that she could have written about something other 
than those two qualities--they are superficial and created precisely 
the kind of attention he abhors.  He was highly embarrassed in front 
of everyone in the corridor and in the Gryffindor common room as well
with Fred and George finding the lines so amusing as to repeat them 
over and over and over...  
My point was that even though she seemed to understand his 
embarrassment in Flourish and Blotts, the valentine extolling only 
his looks and fame demonstrated that she was in actuality quite 
unaware of how much this type of attention truly bothered him.  I 
also mentioned had JKR wanted to, she could have easily shown that 
Ginny had at least a tiny bit of perception about him by having her 
focus on anything other than his looks and his celebrity in her 
little card.  IMO The Valentine's card scene was a perfect place to 
introduce a bit of H/G foreshadowing and it could have been 
disguised as raucous humor to keep it from being too obvious, had 
she wanted to.  Instead, we still see the little girl who 
shouted "There he is, Mum, there he is, look!" in PS/SS.  The scene 
gives us no further clues or insights into her fascination with 
him.  That is all I was trying to say.  :-)


> Pippin on the Chamber of Secrets:
> 
> There came a faint moan from the end of the Chamber. Ginny 
> was stirring. As Harry hurried twoard her, she sat up. Her 
> bemused eyes traveled from the huge form of the dead basilisk, 
> over Harry, in his blood-soaked robes, then to the diary in his 
> hand. She drew a great, shuddering gasp and tears began to 
> pour down her face. CoS ch. 17
> ***
> I do stand corrected as to when she actually began crying, but my 
point was she had enough presence of mind to explain that she had 
been behind the Chamber mystery.  Were this a story about a normal 
little girl thrust into such a nightmare, we could fully understand 
her "emotional collapse," but we have already read PS/SS and have 
seen another little girl, exactly Ginny's same age (Hermione) face a 
similarly traumatic adventure.  Hermione kept her head while being 
personally attacked by a mountain troll and managed to thank the 
boys afterward for her rescue. PS/SS Ch 10.  Ginny was unconscious 
during the Basilisk confrontation, she wakes up crying with not a 
hint of the legendary Griffindor pluck.

"Pippin" wrote:

> Ginny's in no shape to assess anybody's situation. Her tears 
> begin at once. She goes from confusion to emotional collapse. 
<snip> 
> Ginny has her cute and spunky moments. But here she's a   
> child who's just been made to suffer terribly. "I made Ginny write 
> her own farewell on the wall and come down here to wait. She 
> struggled and cried and became *very* boring." Ginny's ordeal 
> prefigures Harry's at the Graveyard. 

Me:
 My point was not that she hadn't suffered in this situation.  My 
point was that her reaction conflicted with what we've been lead to 
believe are the fundamental qualitities of a Gryffindor--bravery, 
being prime among them.  For her to babble on between intermmitent 
tears about being expelled and not even bother to ask a blood-soaked 
Harry if he'd been hurt or have the presence of mind to have a look 
about to see how they might get out, is either a big lapse in JKR's 
plotting continuity or a deliberate clue to Ginny's character.  In 
either case, she is helpless.  And in so doing becomes here one of 
the worst kinds of female stereotype.  She offers no help to Harry 
in leaving the Chamber, She cries all the way back to where Ron is 
then Ron has to pull her through the gap in the rocks (now, by the 
way "crying harder than ever")  The only thing she manages to do is 
hold Ron's hand as Fawkes takes them back up through the tunnels. 

We were, remember, not allowed to see her sorting, we don't know how 
she came to be in Gryffindor--whether it took the hat an 
inordinately long period of time to sort her or whether she begged 
to be put into Gryffindor with her brothers.  We just don't know 
about her--she still remains a unknown quantity no matter how much 
we like her or wish it were not so.   JKR simply has not given us 
enough information.  We don't know what purpose she is to serve the
series--at least, not yet.  We are kept nearly entirely in the dark 
about Ginny and I know it is not just neglect on JKR's part.  She 
has a definite role to play and OoP should help us all flesh her out 
a bit more, I should think. ;-)
--Judy