I Hate Ginny Weasley!!!! Mass Response

[delemtri]

No: HPFGUIDX 122591


> Hickengruendler:
> However, JKR decided to tell the story from Harry's point of view.
> And in doing so, she IMO also has to live with the problems, this way
> of storytelling has. She, as the author, has to make the character
> development believable for the readers, even if we don't know more
> about the characters than the protagonist does. And Ginny is the only
> character, with whom she failed for me. I know that she's the hardest
> to write, since she has a Crush on Harry and therefore acts shyer
> around him than she ususally does. But nonetheless the presentataion
> of her "new" personality does not really convince me, and IMO even
> very minor characters like Ernie MacMillan had a much more convincing
> development.

Oliver:
I'm really not sure what's unconvincing about it. There's so many
possible explanations... She could have grown out of the crush. She
could have grown *into* the crush, learning to deal with it and
trying to make it work. And she could have made a real decision to
act differently around Harry.

But I'm pandering to your view of the situation. I'd like to point
out that the two huge objections to Ginny's character are
contradictory. First of all, people say that they don't buy Ginny
becoming a major character from a minor one; then they say they don't
buy Ginny's change in character. The fact is that *we didn't know
much about Ginny until OOTP.* The few flashes we have involve Ginny's
crush, a burning desire to attend Hogwarts, a strong bond with her
entire family, and a *strong* personality (as early as PS/SS; then in
COS we have Ron saying Ginny talks all the time, and Ginny standing
up to Lucius Malfoy; and in GOF we have her calling Ron an idiot or
some such and being, in all honesty, much less awkward around Harry).
What happened in OOTP is that we learned a lot about her character.

So really I don't think your objection can be that OOTP Ginny and pre-
OOTP Ginny are incommensurable. I think all you can really say is
that we learned more about her in one book than we really ought to
have. I suppose that's a matter of opinion, but I disagree entirely.

Oliver