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Warning: If you haven’t read the last Potter book or haven’t seen the latest film, you might want to wait on reading the post, since it refers to some plot points from Deathly Hallows.
As both a Potterphile and a feminist, I’m Team Hermione Granger for life. I also love how Molly Weasley comes into her own, think Fleur Delacour gets a bum rap just because she’s part veela, and wish we had more Luna Lovegood scenes. But there’s one female Harry Potter character who I absolutely cannot stand: Ginny Weasley.
I love Ron and Hermione together and like the way that their relationship slowly built up over time. It felt realistic and true to the characters. However, Harry and Ginny’s relationship felt much more forced. One minute Harry was in love with Cho Chang, and five minutes later he was in love with Ginny. Ginny doesn’t get much characterization on her own. She’s primarily defined through other people: Ron’s kid sister, Harry’s girlfriend, Molly’s daughter. Ginny in the books is fleshed out a little bit more (she dates Dean Thomas for awhile; she plays an active role in Dumbledore’s Army). But her role in the movies is primarily boiled down to pining after Harry and simpering whenever he’s on screen. Bonnie Wright is game and does what she can with the material, but Ginny is more of a concept than a person.
Since the true secret love between Ron and Harry can’t ever become romantic, Ginny is basically a female stand-in for her brother in Harry’s life. The Weasleys have essentially adopted Harry and consider him a member of the family, so marrying Ginny is just a way to make his family membership official. Harry and Ginny’s pairing almost seems too easy – she’s an good person to slot into the fourth space in the happy ending quadrangle and her recognizability in the Potterverse means that Rowling didn’t have to invent a new character or write an afterword where an adult Harry was married to a stranger the audience wasn’t invested in. After all, Ron and Hermione double-dating with Harry and Ginny for the rest of their lives while their cute redheaded kids have a play date is a nice visual for a happy ending. It’s just not the one I would have written.
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Ginny is one of my favorite characters in JK Rowling’s 5th-6th Harry Potter book. She has a very strong personality and also has unwavering bravery and courage greater than any other character, sometimes even surpassing Harry’s. She also seems to be hot-tempered and easily annoyed…most especially by flirty airhead girls and annoying prats like Zacharias Smith. Her beauty strikes a lot of boys and she is considered a heartthrob at Hogwarts, which makes her brothers (especially Ron and the twins) overly protective, thinking no guy is good enough for her and that she seems to be going down Dating Lane too fast. Ginny is very independent as a human being and very powerful as a witch.
> She has a very strong personality …
The girl who wouldn’t say ‘boo!’ for 4+ years? The girl who, when Harry wanted her to break up with him … broke up with him? When Harry wanted her to stay in the ROR … stayed in the ROR? That girl?
> She … also has unwavering bravery and courage greater than any other character, sometimes even surpassing Harry’s.
That’s not so. Please supply evidence of this.
> She also seems to be hot-tempered and easily annoyed…
And that’s not a good thing, right? That’s a reason to DISLIKE the girl.
> Ginny is very independent as a human being …
The girl whose life revolves around Harry Potter? Who ‘never gave up’ on her crush!hero? Who jumped on top of him in HBP? HA HA HA.
> … and very powerful as a witch.
But that – also – is simply not true. Tell us what Ginny did that proved she is ‘very powerful’. The girl who was almost killed by a death eater at the end of book 6? And then by Voldemort (in a three-on-one battle) at the end of book 7? The girl who – *snigger* – BROKE HER ANKLE (a classic ‘useless girl who slows everyone down’ trope) in the book 5 fight?
I don’t think your Ginny is the same one we read about in the books. The Ginny you like isn’t the real Ginny.
I don’t like Ginny either . Having a life is not all about dating and making out with as many boys as possible . All she seems to care about is the romance part of life . Life is not all about dating and kissing .
And she is totally horrid to poor Ron . He loves her so much . He’s concerned for her . He went into the Chamber of Secrets for her . I just can’t stand the way she treats him – like , just another bother .
She isn’t funny either . Brave yes . Just because someone doesn’t cry doesn’t make them any superior . Some people are brave like hell , but have sensitive tear glands . It doesn’t have anything to do with strength of personality . Even Dumbledore cries .
In the movies i really have to admit that Ginny very much sucks!! BUt half the people who didnt read the book saw the movie. You know how movie are… they swich it all around. But in the book Ginny is my favorite female character. I think she is perfect for harry. (I mean if Hermionie married Harry is would be so normal. Like it happenes in all movies! The main character marries the girl and the boy is left alone. Who else could be with Ron? Luna? NO!!!!) Ginny is brave and she kinda liked Harry from the beggining. GInny was NOMAL. She wasnt Hermoinie who has perfect grades. Or Luna who was kinda loony! She was just a fun loving normal girl and that was what harry needed. Someone to calm him down . his life was HARD!
Look, I can’t stand Ginny. Hermione is my favorite of all time. Boo you for liking Ginny. Oh well, life would stink if we had the same opinions on everything. :) I have a friend that’s really nice at school who says her favorite character is Ginny but we get along just fine. Hermione isn’t really perfect, she just gets good grades and is sort of stuck up. (See, I’ll admit that Hermione has downfalls.) Tell me what you don’t like about Ginny, what you do, what you don’t like about Hermione, and what you do. I mean, if Hermione didn’t get such good grades all the time, she wouldn’t seem so perfect now, would she? I don’t like how Ginny’s sort of full of herself and is dramatic all the time. Like in Half-Blood Prince, she said to Ron and Hermione about Harry as he entered, “How is it that whenever he turns up, he’s always covered in blood?” It ticked me off. I felt like: You know Ginny. Oh well. :) All though Ginny my least fav. it makes her one of my favs., like I want to be like her and have red hair, but as soon as I see her on the screen, she annoys the heck out of me and the flip switches, and suddenly I hate her again. I don’t know, it’s confusing stuff. Well thanks for your time and I hope you write back. :)
She doesn’t get much characterization on her own? I swear everyone has forgotten the books because of the films. I agree that movie!Ginny is bland and boring and I fully blame the movies for giving her absolutely NOTHING TO DO, because dang, she has no personality.
But Ginny in the books? Absolutely my favorite female character. I love that she dates boys and has a life. I love her sense of humor; I love books that let females actually be funny. She makes me laugh, and I love that Harry found peace with her. Not only can she snap Harry out of his dark, emo moods (she’s pretty much the only character who can), she also brings laughter and humor to his life. Harry’s such a dark character himself, he needed someone who was full of life and laughter who could snap him out of his moods and make him happy. There’s a reason why he fell for a girl who loved Quidditch as much as him, because when it all comes down to it, he just wants to be a normal boy and have a fun time with his girlfriend. That’s what Ginny is: normalcy. She’s just a fun loving normal girl.
True, I never thought of it that way. Thanks :) I might like her a little bit more now ;)
Ugh! totally!
http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2011/199/9/b/film_vs__book_by_burdge_bug-d40edko.jpg
You nailed this! Ginny and Harry were totally forced…
(my browser isn’t letting the reply button show, and “meebo” won’t let me copy into a separate browser, so here goes)
Exactly. Everyone can relate to Ginny because she’s Mary Sue, and that is what Mary Sue does: She is perfect in the way we all like to imagine we are. Smart, beautiful, brave, funny, athletic, talented, popular, and just so incredibly nice! The problem is that that is not a real or achievable character – she’s like the Virgin Mary: ideal, but impossible to find in the real world, and she does disservice to the real, flawed women who deserve to be heroines.
Yeah, Fleur’s snobby because she’s gorgeous and alluring – through an accident of birth – but should the fact that she has a character flaw mean that she’s an awful person? No. As I pointed out before, she’s smart, brave, and loyal, but, like real women, she’s not perfect (and she doesn’t buy into the bullshit that society feeds us, i.e. “Pretend you don’t think highly of yourself because other women won’t like you if you do!”) I always thought that, with Fleur, Rowling showed the tendency of women to put down other women because of jealousy. (And I thought she had a strong personality on her own, even though she was definitely a peripheral character)
Maureen, I really agree re: criticizing Rowling here – Harry and Ginny are equals? No. You created Harry, and then you created Ginny for him. She will NEVER be his equal because she exists to be his partner. Hermione and Luna (and Fleur, and McGonagall, and Mrs. Weasley, and even very minor characters like Angelina) are wonderful feminist characters because they are characters for themselves, with personalities that aren’t dependent on men. Ginny isn’t.
I’m not trying to brag but I’m everything that u described her as in the first part except i m a little less brave,but i still am pretty brave. want the proof talk to my friends they’ll tell u i m. i made a list once of things that i like about myself so next time some1 hurts my feelings i look at the list and dont feel sad anymore. smart. i m typing like this cuz i never get to, i m 2 smart and dont want 2 waste it ( once again not trying to brag) they wrote down and told me i forgot 2 write amazing and awesome. it made my heart melt. i luv those guys.
I completely agree, I was kind of hoping that Harry would get with Luna. It would be kind of unexpected but completely magical.
I can’t believe that Rowling gave Hermione to that loser!
http://comixed.memebase.com/2011/07/11/koma-comic-strip-do-a-bro-a-solid-ron/
Ginny’s character was quite good but I really dislike harry/ginny loveteam beacuse I LOVE HARRY TO BE PARIED WITH HERMIONE. sadly, hermione’s heart belongs to ron..:(((
You are so right. Ginny is simply “invisible” in the movies.
The casting is super lame, and the script is horrible.
a few days ago I fell in love with Ginny’s character (from the book of course) just because of this – http://burdge-bug.deviantart.com/gallery/5652956
Credit to the artist.
I disagree here. I like Ginny and her character. They did not develop well the Harry/Ginny love angle. I agree with the first few lines of ‘A respectable writer’:
“You are ignorant fools for thinking Ginny is a weak characterization. She is a completely different level of characterization. She is not the one that can be read, but one that can be felt through her actions and through the minds of the readers. She is a strong, valiant, virtuous young woman.”
Thank goodness, Ginny drives me nuts. excellent observation, Lilit.
You are ignorant fools for thinking Ginny is a weak characterization. She is a completely different level of characterizations. She is not the one that can be read, but one that can be felt through her actions and through the minds of the readers. She is a strong, valiant, virtuous young women. And you’ve completely overlooked the human mind. How many times have you seen girls change their minds about liking one guy one minute and another the next? Guys are human as well, and can also change their mind. They are raised by their mothers as well as their fathers. So long as you are blind to the human mind and the human emotion spectrum, you will never understand characters such as Ginny and forever hate many people because they relate closely to this character type. Remember this is just fiction, but out there, there are thousands of people that relate in some way or another to her. Are you going to say those people should just not exist? You are pathetic for targeting something you don’t truly understand.
Whoa totally unnecessary!
While I disagree with Lilit, and happen to like Ginny, (to clarify, I like book Ginny. Movie Ginny is barely a character) you are blowing her stance way out of proportion. As you have proven, people can have different opinions, that’s where discussions come from. Also, she didn’t say Ginny shouldn’t exist, she said if she had written the book she would not have had Ginny end up with Harry. She also didn’t say that no one should relate to Ginny. I’m not really sure where you are getting any of this from. It seemed like you just really wanted to argue about something.
Calm down with a nice butterbeer.
You just said what I have been complaining about for the past few years. THANK YOU.
I’m sick of feminists saying that they like Ginny because oh, isn’t it nice that the sexual and unashamed girl gets the guy? (I think this was Jezebel last summer, but I could be wrong) No, that would be Fleur, but of course she gets treated like crap by all the other female characters and Rowling never fairly addresses this fact. So she’s aware that she’s beautiful – she IS beautiful; she’s allowed to be a bit vain! She’s also intelligent and brave and loyal, but no one gives her any credit for that except Harry. (Ron doesn’t count because he’s always goggle-eyed)
Who the fuck is Ginny? In a given scenario, how does Ginny react? We don’t know, because her character isn’t, well, real: She is the way that Harry becomes a member of the Weasley family. Even in the books, we don’t know much about Ginny. She plays Chaser. She’s funny. She’s pretty. She’s popular. She’s brave. She is Mary Sue. She sucks. And I love you so so much more than I already did for saying this.
Thank you for this post, I’ve been saying this for years. I agree with Eileen’s point about Fleur. And if I remember correctly, Ginny was one of the most hostile to Fleur when Fleur and Bill became a couple. I feel some androcentrism comes out here: Ginny being sexual and confident is okay because she isn’t feminine like Fleur.
Ginny’s development never felt real to me, and when i read her wiki I realized why: she is designed to be Harry’s ideal woman. Rowling said this:
“The plan was, which I really hope I fulfilled, is that the reader, like Harry, would gradually discover Ginny as pretty much the ideal girl for Harry. She’s tough, not in an unpleasant way, but she’s gutsy. He needs to be with someone who can stand the demands of being with Harry Potter, because he’s a scary boyfriend in a lot of ways. He’s a marked man. I think she’s funny, and I think that she’s very warm and compassionate. These are all things that Harry requires in his ideal woman. But, I felt — and I’m talking years ago when all this was planned — initially, she’s terrified by his image. I mean, he’s a bit of a rock god to her when she sees him first, at 10 or 11, and he’s this famous boy. So Ginny had to go through a journey as well… I feel that Ginny and Harry, in this book, they are total equals. They are worthy of each other. They’ve both gone through a big emotional journey, and they’ve really got over a lot of delusions, to use your word, together. So, I enjoyed writing that. I really like Ginny as a character.”[18]“The plan was, which I really hope I fulfilled, is that the reader, like Harry, would gradually discover Ginny as pretty much the ideal girl for Harry. She’s tough, not in an unpleasant way, but she’s gutsy. He needs to be with someone who can stand the demands of being with Harry Potter, because he’s a scary boyfriend in a lot of ways. He’s a marked man. I think she’s funny, and I think that she’s very warm and compassionate. These are all things that Harry requires in his ideal woman. But, I felt — and I’m talking years ago when all this was planned — initially, she’s terrified by his image. I mean, he’s a bit of a rock god to her when she sees him first, at 10 or 11, and he’s this famous boy. So Ginny had to go through a journey as well… I feel that Ginny and Harry, in this book, they are total equals. They are worthy of each other. They’ve both gone through a big emotional journey, and they’ve really got over a lot of delusions, to use your word, together. So, I enjoyed writing that. I really like Ginny as a character.”
I love the books, and that Rowling created characters like Hermione and Luna, but as a feminist I am critical to creating a character with this goal in mind. No wonder she became a perfect Mary Sue overnight. She has qualities that are good and people can identify with, but because she is designed to fulfill another’s desires, not her own, she remains for me an assemblage of traits and not a strong developed character in her own right.
I disagree. Fleur isn’t like that because of any personal attributes. She’s part veela, so every guy who sees her falls head over heels for her (which is why the other girls don’t like her, and I bet you’d feel the same way). As herself, she always came across as a bit snobby to me. Plus, she’s really only vaguely discussed, so she definitely doesn’t have much personality.
I completely agree!