[HPforGrownups] Pansy Parkinson

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 150643

> kchuplis:
>
> To me, that is just generalization though. Our focus is through Harry
> and Harry hangs with Hermione and Ron, but I in no way see that as an
> aspersion that "girls with giggly gangs" are all necessarily shallow.
> IMO, there just isn't proof of that. I hung out with several boys
> through out high school. I also had two good girl friends. But, we
> didn't all hang out together. My point is that I don't believe there
> is enough information to extrapolate this.

Magpie:
I didn't say they were, I was just saying that I think Betsy is talking 
about the impression she gets from the giggling girl thing.  It is a 
generalization and a shorthand for Cho and Pansy having girlfriends that JKR 
chose to include as part of the characterization of these minor characters, 
whom we see through Harry's eyes.

>> Magpie:
>> She doesn't seem to have girlfriends because we don't see them.
>
> kchuplis:
>
> See the above. Because WE don't see her hanging out with them does
> not mean they don't exist.

Magpie:
Yes, I see what you mean and I assumed you would say it, but for me I have 
to say that no, I see no reason to assume they exist.  I of course assume 
that Ginny has a life outside of when we see her, but given the amount I 
have seen her and what I hear her say, I find it hard to imagine that she's 
got this group of girlfriends or a best friend.  I suspect JKR just didn't 
feel the need to imagine actual girls for Ginny, but it leads to my feeling 
I know the really important people in Ginny's life and I don't need to 
imagine a group of girlfriends for her any more than I should be imagining 
them for Hermione or Neville.

> kchuplis:
> "Her boyfriend" I assume we mean Harry? Well, since that all happened
> within one month or so of the end of HBP, probably not. Young new
> love with half of Harry's free time being spent with Snape isn't
> going to leave her hanging with the girls all the time. I guess it is
> only my experience, but when I fell in love, particularly in the
> beginning, I was pretty one track minded. It doesn't mean they didn't
> talk about it, but is JKR going to spend a bunch of dialogue talking
> about Ginny's girl friends? (Although there was the tatoo thing, does
> that count?)  Not sure exactly what you mean about Cho and Pansy.
> Sorry, guess I am thick.

Magpie:
As I said, it could just be a bi-product of JKR not wanting to spend time 
creating these girlfriends for Ginny, which is fine with me.  But the fact 
remains that as a reader I feel like I've gotten plenty of lines about how 
Ginny spends her time, and enough focus on her by Harry that I don't feel 
any need to make up a girlfriend(s) for her that she must have.  I think if 
JKR had come up with them we'd have seen them naturally by now, even in 
passing.  You're free to imagine that they exist, and anyone is free to 
create them in fanfic, but to me the character seems fairly complete the way 
she is. Just as I feel no need to imagine more boyfriends for her that we 
haven't seen.

>
> kchuplis:
> I'll pay more attention to this aspect next time through, but I
> simply don't have that impression. It sounds like Ginny is a back
> biting little .... well... I never got that impression.

Magpie:
I didn't think I was giving an impression.  I was saying what what I 
remember of Ginny's lines from the book.  I was talking about what we know 
about Ginny and thinking about signs of other people she knows outside the 
main characters, and while we don't follow her around we do hear her make 
references to other people.  They're often negative.  I'll have to re-read 
the book to be completely accurate, but off the top of my head that's pretty 
much what comes to mind, Ginny talking about people she doesn't like, not 
making references to friends. You mentioned the tattoo comment earlier and 
no, I didn't see that as Ginny talking about her girlfriend. I thought she 
and Ginny weren't really friends and they were having a laugh over her 
obsession with Harry.  It's not something Ginny needs to be defended over, I 
was just saying that yes, I remembered Ginny shown to know people on her 
own, but no, I couldn't remember any particular lines that indicated any of 
these people being great friends of hers.  Often they were just random 
people.

kchuplis:
Ah, like Jennifer Warner's "friend" in 13 Going on 30. Cute movie.  But, 
honestly, isn't that a little pedestrian? Pansy is a mean girl  but not a 
"mean girl". I missed that distinction. I see more and more  how I just am 
not very scholarly in my reading.

Magpie:
I don't think being scholarly or pedestrian has anything to do with it (it's 
not like JKR is allergic to the kind of stuff you'd see in a "cute movie"). 
I didn't think Betsy was saying that JKR had gotten Pansy wrong by not 
having her fulfill this role, she was just saying that there were things 
about her that made her think maybe she was going to be that character, but 
she wasn't.

Karen:
She's
> pleasant enough with Luna whom everyone else seems to dislike. I
> can't believe that is the only other person that she is pleasant with
> other than Hermione.

Magpie:
I didn't say she wasn't ever pleasant to anyone else, I said I don't imagine 
her having a best friend or good girlfriends that are important in her life.

Karen:
I guess I am a shallow reader. And, yes,
> there is also the fact that Ginny was raised with 6 brothers. It
> probably does tend to make her more naturally comfortable with boys
> than girls. But for some reason, I am beginning to get the feeling
> this is seen as some kind of writing flaw by JKR in her presentation
> of character. I just don't agree with that.

Magpie:
I don't think it has to be a flaw.  If it is a flaw I don't think saying the 
reader is supposed to fix it in their heads would solve it.  I'm just saying 
what I see in the books, that I don't see any sign that JKR has come up with 
a network of important girlfriends or a good girlfriend for Ginny outside 
Hermione.  I think if she had we'd have had a couple of references to her 
that just came naturally--we do have one reference to Ginny being "hailed" 
by fellow fourth-years once in OotP.  So there we see evidence that she's 
known and spoken to by other people in her year, we also get references to 
the boys she's dating.

> kchuplis:
> To be quite honest, I think in the statement about Pansy, JKR just
> picked ONE of the unpleasant female personalities to use as an
> example. I don't think she meant, "my character Pansy P is the most
> vile personification of a feminine jerk and I'd rather be Hermione."
> It's got to be hard to be JKR when every statement is picked to
> atoms.

Magpie:
I'm sure it is difficult but let's face it, on this list it doesn't take 
much to inspire a detailed character analysis discussion. I thought she was 
just using Pansy and Hermione for shorthand to say "I hope my girls are 
smart girls instead of stupid girls."

Karen:
But I also think Pansy is sure getting a bit of a free pass
> here! She's a little twit and toady and very unpleasant. Marietta is
> indeed worse (or at least the consequences of her transgression were
> worse), but oh yes, she was a victim of that malicious Hermione also.

Magpie:
I like both Pansy and Hermione (but no, I don't likethe sneak hex) without, 
imo, giving Pansy a free pass.  I can like her as a character in lots of 
ways without approving of what she does.  I try to avoid pitting characters 
against each other, though I don't always succeed.  In fact, one of the 
things about what JKR is saying that strikes me is that she's saying she 
wants her girls to be "Hermiones" rather than "Pansies" when I think many 
times they exist in the same girl. At least how I think of the types in my 
head.

Karen:
> I know, I'm being too sarcastic but honestly! it seems like the good
> guys in these books need some defending at times! I've never known
> protagonists to be so .... well..... picked on!

Magpie:
I tend to pull everybody apart the same way, characters I like and 
characters I don't.  I rarely come up with characters I think are 100% 
awful, even ones that I personally have a really negative reaction to--that 
way lies character wars. But in general this to me is just regular fandom 
stuff.  In this particular fandom some of my favorite characters are totally 
hated by many (in HP fandom every character has fans and people who hate 
his/her guts) so I may have built up a tolerance. More than once I've been 
accused of picking on a character that I actually loved, so the way I show 
my love may just be rough.

-m