JKR and the boys (and girls)

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 161594

> Phoenixgod2000:  
> 
> A bad job of writing Ginny? I'm shocked.  Shocked I say :)

Magpie:
Heh--half of these examples I feel like saying, "But remember that 
was Ginny 1. Ginny 1 and Ginny 2 are two different people, so she 
and Hermione had different friendships."

Phoenixgod:

> Frankly I think they are that different. I think Harry, Ron, and 
> Draco--if they could get past Draco's assery--would have more in 
> common with each other than Hermione and Ginny do.  I can't 
imagine 
> what they would even talk about aside from Harry. 

Magpie:
Well, JKR pretty much always falls back on boy machinations when it 
comes to their relationship so I don't know that she can either.:-) 
Personally, I really find they feel like sisters-in-law to me. 
They're family, or will be--Hermione already practically lives at 
the house. That especially clicked in HBP when Ginny puts Hermione 
down to defend her man's curse. That was pretty much what I imagine 
them like as adults, women who talk about their husbands all the 
time to each other, but when it comes down to it the men have a more 
independent friendship with each other while the women fight if the 
men fight, if that makes sense.  It's the type of thing you see a 
lot on certain kinds of sitcoms, and it goes well with the general 
views of romance in the books, imo.  I also automatically imagine 
that Hermione and Ginny will presumably also raise children 
together, but probably privately judge the other's methods of child-
raising.

Phoenixgod:

> I don't know about Miles but it is what I am missing in the story. 
It 
> is one thing to say that that stuff happens offscreen but Harry 
> demonstrates again and again that is isn't happening at all.  He 
is 
> too ignorant of others in the school for Harry to be goofing 
around 
> with them offscreen. and regardless of how insular harry is, that 
> just isn't plausible.  When I was in school, I was hardly a big 
man 
> on campus in a much bigger school than Hogwarts and I could have 
> named every student in my class and said something about them. 

Magpie:
It's funny because it would be just as easy for the narrator to just 
tell us who people are with the assumption Harry would know. Instead 
we're more often told that yes, Harry really has no idea.

phoenixgod:
> She does seem to have the dating scene sown up but I actually do 
find 
> that out of character.  This is the girl who in her first year had 
> almost no friends and barely knew how to act around the ones who 
were 
> her friends.  she got better over the years, but I have known a 
lot 
> of students in my years as a teacher just like Hermione (male and 
> female both) and I can tell you they are no good at dating except 
> inside their head. Get them in a real situation and without fail 
they 
> fall apart.  For her to be somehow antisocial and an uberdater 
cool 
> chick strikes me as inconsistent writing and a cheap way of 
showing 
> up the guys and making them look pathetic.

Magpie:
I admit, that's how I've always taken it. (Even in GoF it's a little 
wonky describing Harry and Hermione hanging out together alone.) The 
Yule Ball is obviously a little Cinderella fantasy, beginning with 
the sports star happening to fall for Hermione just from watching 
her read in the library. Not that it couldn't ever happen, but I 
think I'd actually like Hermione more (not that I really dislike the 
character, but she never seems to have any vulnerability that makes 
me care about her or makes her seem real to me) if we saw how it was 
sometimes painful to be the smart girl who's friends with two boys 
who have other interests. She seemed like a chaperone at the Yule 
ball to me; I had more warmth for Pansy in her pink ruffles than 
Hermione in her mature, powder-blue dress with a French twist that 
made her sound 35 to me.  Even the "I see no difference" seems more 
a plot thing to get Hermione's teeth fixed for her transformation 
rather than something that makes me feel badly for her.  She makes 
other girls look pathetic too.

Likewise, while I can see why R/Hr is much more economical for the 
plot, I would have believed Ron honestly preferring Lavender.  But 
as it is of course it's not contest: Ron's an idiot who can't help 
but really love Hermione, and Lavender is just as ridiculous as she 
seems and doesn't really like Ron the way Hermione can.  So anyway, 
yes, I didn't really connect anything to Hermione's character in the 
Yule ball.  It just seemed like as much of a "Hermione's good at 
everything" as the random knowledge she has about the WW that we 
assume she gets through books.  I sometimes wish Ron were the one to 
start dating first. In the books it seems always assumed that Ron's 
always got to be worse than Harry and Hermione at everything, but I 
wouldn't be surprised if girls started liking Ron early on.

Err...of course now I'd love to hear your rant on gender.:-)

-m