SHIP:Re: Harry and Ginny's romance:

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 136460

> 
> Del replies:
> Why? Because it is in the WAY two people interact that you can
> determine what kind of relationship they have and whether they are
> happy together.
> 
> I'll be blunt: many beaten wives claim to be happy, they claim to
have a beautiful relationship (and very often they even *think* it),
they can have an apparently very intimate and loving marriage.
Sometimes they do show signs in public that something is not quite 
right, but it's most often what happens when they are ALONE with
their partner that determines whether things are all right or not.


Pippin:
Ginny may have been able to hide her interest in Quidditch, but she
wasn't able to hide her misery when she was in an exploitative 
relationship.  Everyone noticed how pale, silent and unhappy she was
in CoS. If she were acting like that now, I might need reassurance.
Fortunately she isn't.

I have to agree with Grindieloe that many of JKR's readers aren't
interested in the mushy stuff for its own sake, and are perfectly
happy to accept true love depicted as it is in fairy tales, without
the gory details-- and by that I mean the gory details of handholding 
and cooing to one another, not sexual explicitness. As in many a
tale, one kiss is enough. That's a stylized way of depicting a
relationship, but as long as we know it's stylized, so what?

The blazing look, I think, was Ginny's one test of Harry. She'd
just cut across his proudest achievement, upstaging him as Seeker.
A lot of young men would have been put out by that. Harry isn't.

Ginny knows what it is to be in an exploitative relationship,
remember, and we also know that she's  alert now to the dangers of
following instructions without knowing what they really mean, because 
she warns Harry about blindly following his potions book. I don't
think we really need to fear that Harry is exploiting her, or that she
would let him. If he was going to do that, he could have done it ages
ago.

We also know that Harry and Ginny spent a happy uneventful summer
getting to be friends; we don't need to be  told about it because,
face it, that's not what most of us read a Harry Potter book for. 

Maybe you are looking for a different kind of love story than JKR is
interested in telling. Harry, like it or not, has been cast in the
role of an epic hero. The fate of an entire civilization now rests on
his still-skinny sixteen year old shoulders. That's an absurd,
fantastical premise, but once you accept it, then Ginny can't be the
most important thing in his life, or he in hers. As Rick told Ilsa in
'Casablanca', the problems of two little people don't amount to a
hill of beans in this world. If Harry and Ginny  have to sacrifice  
personal happiness for the greater good, they will. That's what makes 
them heroes.

.As far as showing rather than telling, if Harry needs
Ginny at his side, then Jo has to show us that by having him fail
without her. Meanwhile, Ginny's  an *underage* girl. It would be
wrong to have her run off with Harry or tie herself to a young man who
isn't even going to be around for a while and who, unlike Krum, is 
going into peril. 

Harry's worries about Ron's reaction are meant to be comical, IMO. 
Subconsciously of course Ron has been shipping H/G for a while -- it's
supposed to be funny that he doesn't realize it and Harry doesn't
either. Emotional breadth of a teaspoon and all that.


I agree that we aren't quite supposed to see H/G as lovers yet.
 Jo has a number of plot threads to manage and they all have to 
climax at the same time if the reader isn't to feel cheated. If Harry
and Ginny's relationship peaks now, there won't 
be anywhere to take it in Book Seven.

Del:
> 16.9. "Maybe that's why I like you so much." The hero-worship is
still there. Ginny likes Harry because Harry is a knight in shining
armour. I don't consider *that* to be a sign of deep and mature love.

Pippin:
Except that now Harry really is a hero. He's not just famous for being
famous any more. Ginny likes being with him even when he's not
doing the hero thing,  but she understands that the hero thing is 
more important than she is. It really can't be any other way. If she 
had doubts about him, they would only make her look petty and
untrusting, because we know that Harry is  a knight in 
shining armor indeed. We just have to accept that Ginny is perceptive
enough to recognize Harry's true worth and has been all along.

Pippin