More Ginny, Hermione and the Curse of Mary Sue (Was: self-confident Hermione?)

[ladjables <ladjables@yahoo.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 52506

Hi Penny,

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Penny Linsenmayer 
<pennylin at s...> wrote:
<< No, the whole "diary" plot quite clearly belongs to a young girl 
of Ginny's age, IMHO.  Percy would never have fallen prey to *that* 
(he has faults and vulnerabilities, to be sure, but I can't see this 
particular scenario).  And Hermione is much too sensible.  So, maybe 
it really has nothing whatever to do with Ginny other than she's more 
the "type"  -- IOW, maybe she is just a plot device in CoS.  The fact 
that her character has received no further attention or development 
screams that loud & clear to me anyway. >> 

I concur: the diary storyline is more suited to a young girl, but if 
JKR wanted to, she could have made anyone-Susan Bones, Parvati, 
Lavender-fall prey to the diary, if the character were merely 
necessary to engineer the meeting between Riddle and Harry.  Instead, 
she chooses a character that has begun to develop ties to Harry: 
Ginny Weasley, little sister of the Hero's best friend, who has a 
crush on said Hero.  Isn't she really piling on Harry/Ginny 
connections with CoS?  Harry saves Ginny's life, possibly incurring a 
life debt.  So now we have some sort of bond between the two.  And 
let's face it, her crush is hardly likely to go away after that; GoF 
establishes that.  Also, Ginny is now the only other person to 
survive an encounter with Voldemort besides Harry, so that's another 
bond.  

Not to mention we still have no idea what Ginny suffered at the hands 
of Riddle, when he began "pouring some of his soul back into her" 
(sorry, I don't have my copy of CoS with me).  Will Ginny feel 
compelled to repay her life debt to Harry and redeem herself for role 
in the Heir of Slytherin affair?  Egads, that sounds like death!  But 
there's lots of potential for Ginny, because GoF is just the middle 
book of the series.  And JKR has said there is plenty going on in CoS 
that will impact on the later books.  Just speculation on my part, 
but I really don't believe it was all over for Ginny when Harry 
plunged that basilisk fang into the diary.  Just the beginning!  

Ama, who will be horribly disappointed if nothing else comes out of 
Tom Riddle's possession of Ginny