Ginny VS Harry / And Remus/Tonks

[kiricat4001]

No: HPFGUIDX 136261


> Hickengruendler:
> 
> But I don't think this is true. Even if we exclude the internal 
> dialogue, and I might add that we got internal dialogue about 
several 
> things in course of the series, including Quidditch, that does not 
> explain why we didn't got any *external* dialogue between Harry 
and 
> Ginny. Why don't we see them talking with each other? Or Harry 
> confiding in her? Or them simply eating chocolate frogs together, 
> enjoying their time? (see, it doesn't even have to be deep 
> conversation. I just want to see them interacting with each 
other). 
> Taking all the books together (before the Spiderman scene in the 
> end), there is exactly one scene, where Harry and Ginny have a 
> conversation without anyone else present, namely the one in the 
> library in book 5. Heck, Harry had more pagetime alone with 
*Tonks* 
> than with Ginny, at least they had two scenes together without 
anyone 
> else present. And in one of them Tonks did not much more than 
telling 
> Harry about her metamorphmagus powers and that she thinks that the 
> Dursley house is a bit too clean. And yet this is a very lively 
and 
> interesting scene.
> 
> There is nothing in the books that suggest that Ginny is anything 
> more than the object of Harry's teen lust. And the thing is, I 
> wouldn't have minded this, since I find it pretty realistic and 
since 
> it still has the opportunity to develop into more. But the problem 
> is, that JKR obviously wants us to believe, that there is already 
> more, as the last scene clearly suggests. And this is where she 
IMO 
> failed. In the last scene Harry and Ginny talk, as if they were 
> deeply in love, caring for each other on a level that goes way 
> beneath the surface and that they are obviously soulmates. But I 
do 
> not find this obvious at all, because there is no emotional 
> investment leading to this. There is no bond between Harry and 
Ginny. 
> I see a stronger bond (of course in a non-shippy way) between 
Harry 
> and Neville or Harry and Luna or Harry and Remus, because of the 
> times we see them interact. What I see is a teenage boy who lusted 
> after a pretty girl, and a teenage girl, who is happy because her 
> childhood-crush finally acknowledged her. Really, the relationship 
> between them seems as "deep" to me as the one between Fleur 
Delacour 
> and Roger Davies after the Yule Ball.
> 
> You are saying that romance doesn't have as much room in such a 
> story, but this can't explain why the romance between Ron and 
> Lavender got more screentime than the one Harry had with his 
> supposed "ideal" girl. And if JKR really wants to include such a 
> noble hero scene like the one in the end, than she should make the 
> reader care about this ship, so that the scene feels earned. And I 
> can't say that I care about the H/G ship, or about Ginny as a 
> character, very much.

Marianne: 

I understand the points that others have made - that romance is not 
the main plot of the books, that readers can between the lines and 
supply their own interpretation to whatever happened offscreen with 
H/G, that, since JKR obviously feels that H/G *is* the true ship for 
these two, then that's enough for us and we should simply view it as 
a given that the two are happy, make each other happy, and what's 
not to like about that?

I'm firmly with Del and Hickengruendler on this issue. All the above 
may be true, but it still leaves some of us with an empty feeling 
about the pairing. It's much more fun and interesting if the reader 
is actually taken along for the ride and can see the couple 
interact, and not simply be told that, wow they had a great couple 
of weeks.  

I feel the same emptiness with what I felt was the sudden springing 
on the readership of Remus/Tonks.  Yes, they are minor players in 
the story as a whole, so of course JKR is not going to devote entire 
chapters to the "Ballad of Remus and Tonks," but the whole 
impassioned Tonks speech in the hospital, and Remus' unenthusiastic 
response did not strike me as a couple really in love, either. Yes, 
one can read the glimpses of Tonks as the Pining Woman that we got 
through the book as evidence of her crushing disappointment in a 
lack of progress on the Remus front, but, as I think Magda stated a 
day or two ago, Remus' response to her in the hospital wing struck 
me, too, as "What part of 'I'm not interested' don't you understand?"

People can see this as a plausble Remus response because he is 
naturally reticent in showing his feelings and doesn't believe he's 
truly worthy of love, and that he's wary of doing anything that 
might cause himself more pain if he were to love and lose Tonks. 

Or people can read it as someone who has been trying to let Tonks 
down as easily as possible over the year without making her feel 
bad.  So, he will say the blame lies with him and his issues, not 
that he's rejecting her love. 

And, it comes back again to everything happening offscreen. We see 
Tonks generally upset and not herself.  We see Remus staring into 
the fire. Then we get the revelation that Tonks has been hammering 
at Remus for apparently a long while that she's in love with him and 
doesn't care about his reasons for holding her off. It felt liked 
something tacked on to the story, as if any available unattached 
adults who have had speaking parts in at least two books had to be 
paired up. It might be a nice subplot, but there's no resonance in 
it for me.

Marianne