Ginny's development (was: SHIP: Harry and Hermione)

[hickengruendler]

No: HPFGUIDX 92599

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" 
<justcarol67 at y...> wrote:
  
> As far as I can see from that scene, Ginny is both brave and 
fiercely
> loyal. And she's eleven years old at the time. I agree that we see
> early on that Neville is braver than he thinks he is. But I also 
think
> we see just enough of Ginny that we need not judge her as weak just
> because she was chosen by Lucius Malfoy to be Tom Riddle's victim. 

Hickengruendler:
I agree with you that Ginny is both brave and loyal. I never doubted 
this. Nor do I think, she is or was weak. During the time at CoS she 
was a normal 11th year old girl, who was used for something horrible. 
I thought, that her crush on Harry was superficial and silly, but 
then, that's also very human, and Harry's crush on Cho, Ron's crush 
on Fleur or Hermione's on Gilderoy Lockhart, are also just because of 
superficial reasons. This is not the problem I have with Ginny. The 
problem is, that JKR handled her development not very well. I 
normally think she is excellent in characterisations, far better, for 
example, then Tolkien, who has other strengths. But I also think she 
was off with Ginny. 

Carol:
>And
> when she stands up to Harry and points out to him (rather sharply)
> that she can tell him whether he's being possessed or not, we see 
that
> she has learned from that experience, and though it's still painful 
to
> her, she is not afraid to talk about it when it can be useful to
> someone she considers a friend (even a "friend" like Harry who does
> not yet return her affection).

Hickengruendler:
Yes, I liked that scene, too. And I thought it to be believable, 
because that was the Ginny I saw at Flourish and Botts or at the Yule 
Ball scene. A Ginny, who is able to defend herself and speaks her 
opinion, if she is really angry or has a really good reason, too. But 
other than this, I had many problems with her characterisation: At 
the end of book 4, Ginny was basically the same character she was in 
CoS. And then Harry came back after one month (it might have seemed 
to Harry as a very long moth, but it was still only a month) and 
Ginny is suddenly all cool and outgoing and as funny as the twins? 
And later we are told she was always this way. Ginny steals 
broomsticks to train for Quidditch. We didn't saw this but were told 
by Hermione. Her brothers were told about this by Hermione, too, 
which leads to the fact, that I should believe, that Ginny was 
secretly training to fly for years, without Arthur, Molly, Percy, 
Fred, George and Ron noticing. For years. Regularly. Are the Weasleys 
all blind? Harry not noticing such things I have to accept, but all 
the other characters, too? And I wished somehow had made a comment, 
how strong and cool Ginny is, before book 5. Then, all we got was Ron 
telling us, that she normally never shuts up, and now, we should 
believe, that her bad-bogey hexes are famous. It's as if I would read 
about two different characters, who by accident have the same 
name.    

Hickengruendler