Ginny and the unicorn tapestry

[bookworm857158367]

No: HPFGUIDX 187346

Here's a publicity shot of actress Bonnie Wright in front of the unicorn tapestry:
http://www.snitchseeker.com/harry-potter-news/potter-cast-pose-inside-french-half-blood-prince-train-64892/

It looks to me like a very clear association is being made between Ginny and the queen in the tapestry.

This seems to be the Lady and the Unicorn tapestry from the 16th century rather than the Hunt for the Unicorn tapestry that was used in the Last Unicorn. I think the tapestries also made an appearance in another of the movis. There's a lion in another of the tapestries (symbol of Gryffindor?) and the unicorn has had a traditional place in British heraldry as well as in previous Harry Potter movies. One of the tapestries has the motto À Mon Seul Désir, meaning "according to my desire alone / by my will alone / love desires only beauty of soul / to calm passion," according to Wikipedia. The traditional allegory of the unicorn in medieval stories associates it with both fertility and purity, with the unicorn a Christ symbol and the virgin as the Virgin Mary. 

Here's Wikipedia's description of the tapestries:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lady_and_the_Unicorn 

I'd assume that Harry and Ginny are both still virgins in the scene in the movie, though I've also always assumed that all the references to "snogging" are actually code words for more explicit messing around since JK Rowling could hardly get too sexually explicit with a book intended for pre-teens. 

The scene in the movie is really quite lovely and symbolic and about innocence and discovery, set in an attic filled with old things with the unicorn and lady tapestry as a backdrop.

Bookworm857158367 

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Ceridwen" <ceridwennight at ...> wrote:
>
> Bookworm:
> > I saw the new Harry Potter and the Halfblood Prince last night and I thought the symbolism the director used was interesting. In at least two of the scenes, Ginny is depicted in front of the famous medieval unicorn and woman tapestry. All sorts of parallels could be drawn there. Ginny is really Ginevra, the Italian form of the name Guinevere, and maybe is intended to represent a queen to Harry's king.
> 
> Ceridwen:
> If I recall correctly, the woman in that tapestry is used to distract the unicorn so it can be slain/captured.  It is after this that the unicorn is depicted in its fencing.
> 
> I always thought that giving Ginny the Italian form of Guinevere and then having her as Arthur's daughter re-imagined this part of the legend and got rid of that pesky triangle between Guinevere, Arthur and Lancelot, which erases the unhappy ending of their relationships.
> 
> Bookworm:
> > The unicorn is an allegory for the Christ figure and Harry is arguably a Christ figure in the last book, willingly sacrificing himself. Dumbledore sacrifices himself in this movie. 
> 
> Ceridwen:
> Nice catch.  In the tapestries, the unicorn stops to un-poison a fountain even though it is pursued.
> 
> Bookworm:
> > Or maybe the director just thought it was a really cool backdrop for the Ginny/Harry scenes. 
> 
> Ceridwen:
> Or he might have been thinking about the unicorn in relation to virgins.  Young girls, even these days, are thought of as innocents, virgins or novices to life.  And it does send a subtle message of Ginny as Harry's intended.
> 
> Ceridwen.
>