Ginny Haters

[Ceridwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 152139

Nick:
> Look at all this hate for Ginny!  In my view, Ginny only takes out 
her anger on people who deserve it.  

Ceridwen:
So, in your view, is it all right for anyone to take out their anger 
on people who deserve it?  Or, on people you decide must deserve it, 
without due process?

Nick:
> Ron had no business telling her off and (stopping just short of) 
calling her a slut.  Zacharias Smith had
no business questioning her inclusion on the team and calling it 
favoritism.  

Ceridwen:
Ron, as her brother, will be more critical of her than anyone else.  
His underlying concern will also be more personal than another 
person's - the WW seems like a conservative society where things like 
this is concerned; he is trying to protect her reputation.  True, he 
did it poorly.  But, as you imply yourself, siblings have a special 
relationship.  They will yell when they really only care.

Zacharias Smith has every right to question her inclusion.  No one 
has the duty to give it a second thought.  It raises an issue that a 
lot of students probably thought but didn't dare to say to Harry.  At 
one point, when Harry tags Dean to take Katie Bell's place on the 
team, he knows he'll be criticized for admitting another one of his 
classmates.  I read that as his being criticized by Gryffindor, since 
he felt added pressure to win their first game with Slytherin with 
the substitution in place.  Zacharias is not in Gryffindor, so he is 
just exercising his right to criticize.  It isn't his business, and 
it isn't any skin off his nose if Harry holds trials by checking his 
address book.  But he should have the freedom to express his doubts 
and his snide remarks no matter how stupid and inconsequential they 
may be.  Ginny hexing him, *merely for criticizing* her and her 
inclusion on the team probably lent more credence to what he was 
saying than if she had just called him an idiot and stalked haughtily 
away.

Nick:
> Also let's not forget the haughty disdainful Fleur of GOF in 
deciding whether the chicken of Ginny's dislike came before the egg 
of Fleur's attitude.  Additionally, we know for a fact that she 
sticks up for Luna.  

Ceridwen:
Is that how you saw Fleur?  I had the impression she was in over her 
head, a thoroughly ineffective person, in GoF.  She's sidelined from 
two tasks, after all.  If Ginny is reacting to this sort of character 
(Fleur, Smith) in such over the top ways, she seems to have some 
issues which should be dealt with.

On who Bill decides to marry, Ginny has no business butting in.  She 
can dislike Fleur as much as she wants.  But she will never live 
Bill's life.  Only Bill will do that.  Ginny cannot give an adequate 
replacement for the woman Bill loves.  Ginny certainly can't *be* 
that person!  It's none of her business.  Period.  Any more than it's 
Smith's business how Harry chooses the members of his team.  If 
Harry's hand-picked team lets him down, Smith can feel superior for 
having known it; if Fleur turns out to be the wife from Hades, Ginny 
can get up on her moral high horse and say 'I knew it'.  Yes, I am 
comparing Ginny to Smith and seeing parallels.

She does stick up for Luna.  But she also referrs to her as 'Looney' 
outside of her hearing.  I think she and Luna are true friends.  But 
Ginny has a mean streak, too - maybe she just wants to be part of the 
gang.

Nick:
> She's an instrument of Justice; if you mess with Ginny, you reap 
what you sow.

Ceridwen:
Uh, no.  This is saying that she's a vigilante, and that's fine and 
dandy merely because she's on Harry's side.  Ginny is a fifteen year 
old character.  Fifteen year olds do not have a grasp of the larger 
picture.  They are very black and white in their responses to things -
 according to Mead, they are still in the Game Stage, still learning 
the rules.  An apprentice is not sent out on a master's mission.  
Wreaking righteous vengeance is a master's job, not one meant for 
someone still learning the ropes.  Ginny acts immediately, without 
due consideration.  Is this the sort of justice anybody really 
wants?  Sure, it's fine if you agree with the avenger.  But what if 
it is turned on you, and you lose due process?

Nick:
> I hate to break it to everyone, but we're supposed to LIKE Ginny.  
We're supposed to laugh at her jokes.  We're supposed to approve of 
her behavior.  I, for one, think she's hilarious, ballsy, vivacious, 
and probably extremely hot.  Harry deserves no less.

Ceridwen:
I don't care what we're *supposed* to do.  Ginny comes off as someone 
who has unresolved issues.  Maybe Rowling won't go there.  She only 
has one book in which to wrap things up.  But Ginny as presented in 
HBP does not come across to me as anything other than highly-strung.  
Her jokes are mean-spirited and meant to hurt.  I don't think that's 
funny.  I do not appreciate the author coming out and telling me what 
I ought to feel for a character.  I prefer to let the author's 
writing inform me through the process of the story.  You apparently 
read the character differently than I do.  That's fine, it stimulates 
discussion.

Nick:
> Do y'all have bad experiences with these types of people?

Ceridwen:
Isn't that the point?  We all bring our own backgrounds into reading 
a story.  So, yes, I have seen people like Ginny in life.  And I've 
seen that after a while, people start to dislike the overbearing 
attitude and the insinuation that these people know better for 
everyone's life than the people they criticize.  Often, people like 
this develop a double standard - their friends can get away with 
things because they're young, feeling their oats, only human, and so 
on, while the people they don't particularly care about ought to 
maintain a strict and unflinching behavior and any deviation is to be 
condemned.

Personally, I'm beginning to like Ginny.  But not because she's so 
hateful to the people she doesn't like and sees no problem in 
criticizing them for doing the same things her friends can get away 
with in her opinion.  It's because there seems to be something more 
underneath which might explain her very tense and sneering behavior.  
There seems to be a depth that hasn't been explored, and I do wonder 
if she is still suffering from her brush with Teenage!Tom Riddle.

I snipped your question about having siblings since I addressed it 
earlier in my reply.

Ceridwen.