I noticed in one thread someone flat out asked why people here don't like Ginny, someone said "Because she came out of nowhere." and no one added to or elaborated that explanation. So assuming this is a very basic reason, do you think JKR could have done more wih Ginny without basically changing her character?

Even I'll admit- and I don't have too much of a problem with Ginny- that she could have done better than hinting at how Ginny is when she's not around Harry("Normally, she never shuts up" in CoS) and then having her suddenly decide to be that way. Just have her slowly come out of her shell with regards to Harry after CoS, a little more each book, then have her a little more involved in GoF towards the end, when she finally has a boyfriend to take her mind off of Harry. Have him take note when she cracks a joke around him. Then, have him start to notice Ginny in that way as things start to go sour with Cho. Let's face it- though many of us don't want to admit it, at that age it doesn't take a lot for a guy to notice a girl

You know, when you look at it, it seems like there's a difference in JKR writing a character her audience would like to go out with rather than one Harry would like to go out with. I personally wouldn't want to date a girl like Ginny- she's too much of a smartass, she's a little arrogant and her sense of humor can be rather mean spirited. I wonder if many people who dislike her think JKR is trying to present her as little Miss PERfect, while her flaws are are very obvious to me. But then again, I'm not Harry. He can like her in that way; the reader doesn't have to. She's obviously kind enough to people like Neville, who I can relate to in a lot of ways. So she has her good side. I think having grown up with six older brothers probably would make her a lot more patient in regards to male bullshit.

To me it seems that people don't like her because her character did a 360 and she's suddenly little miss perfect. Maybe the fact that I wouldn't date a girl like Ginny myself leads me to believe otherwise. So here's the question: could Ginny have been made so that even some DLP members would like her if JKR had revealed her character a little sooner and drawn it out a little more and maybe eschewed the Harry filter a little so we can see her the way I see her?

I don't know- would that work a little better?

BTW- I know JKR assumes we know Ginny now likes Harry for being Harry and not the BWL, but I agree she needs to flat out state it just to be on the safe side.

 

I think it depends on how the author, Rowling or otherwise, writes her. Now I know I'm going to be lynched for saying this, but Ginny can be a likable character.

Before OotP, Ginny was basically a blank slate. She wasn't particularly important nor did she have a memorable personality. If the writer chooses to bring her character back to that point in time, Ginny can be recreated into a potentially interesting character.

As for Ginny being a love interest of Harry's character - not the writer's - I would guess it depends on Harry's psychological profile. I.e., how he reacts in canon to, uh, forceful women. Maybe Petunia psychologically fucked him up more than we know.

Dunno how well I answered your question, but here's my two cents.

 

My post kind of rambled, but I was trying to see if Ginny as she is could be more likeable without changing her character if she was presented differently (with a slow unveil, and making it more obvious she's not a MAry Sue).

 

I agree; I've read quite a few stories where Ginny's not quite so forward; a little bit timid, still, but writen a little like Harry, in that she's not very pushy--and quite passive--until it comes to something that's important, where she seems to come alive.

 

As for that, I think there's an explanation. To be completely honest, I'd say as of now that Ginny is a good character. The only beef I have is that she had no development. As she is now, she's okay for Harry. It's not because Harry's a sub or can't think for himself either. It's because Harry just doesn't care. He's got so much shit to think about, so much stuff on his mind at any given time that he needs a girl who knows what she wants. Not a girl who's forceful, and not a girl who tries to be a dom. As far as that goes, we've seen that Harry is quite forceful, but he doesn't like it when people whine at him, so he doesn't get angry when Hermione or Molly mothers him, because he'd just rather not make it into a problem. Harry doesn't need or want to deal with a girl like Cho who needs constant attention, reassurance, or closure. Ginny is different. She's got her shit together and doesn't nag. Personally, I like a girl who doesn't nag. So does Harry, from what I've seen. So as of now, yeah, Ginny's tolerable, but the fact that she wasn't like that in the first four books is what throws me.

 

To be honest I've read so many abominable fics with Ginny as the main shipper for Harry that it has become almost impossible for me to read a fic with Ginny as a main (or even minor) character. So many authors have written her out to be some veela-like sex goddess who Harry instantly falls in love with...and the rest turn her into a more uppity bitch than even Hermione.

It has gotten to the point now where I find Harry/Ginny fics (or any Ginny fic for that matter) totally intolerable.

Ginny has no redeemable qualities for me -- not even in Canon. Once upon a time I may have found her to be a halfway decent character in HP (book 2) but book 6 shattered all of that..as did badly (read dreadfully) written fanfiction.

*shrugs*

She's a lost cause imo.

Ginny =
That is all.

 

I find that most anything can be redemable, but the one thing a cannot forgive is her name. "Ginny" sounds awful!

 

I have never liked Ginny. I never liked her in any of the books and the fact that JK just had her come out of nowhere was a big turnoff. I at least much like Lady Skittles have read so many horrible stories with her, that she has become a massive turnoff in any story. I did not like her all timid in Pre HBP and Post just made me hate her more.

 

There are only a couple of fics I like Ginny's character in, most notably Defying Fate: Journey of the Offworlder, but other than that I can't stand her.

Its not that she's a bad character, she just wasn't there for 90% of the first 5 books.

Just look at her main scenes in the books:

Book 1 - The train scene... That's it.
Book 2 - Elbow in butter dish, getting the diary from Lucius Malfoy, and being found in the Chamber at the end of the book.
Book 3 - Is she even mentioned in here? Wait, I think she was in the train car with the Dementors.
Book 4 - Yule Ball... And possibly mentioned having a boyfriend...
Book 5 - Becomes a properish character, shows a bit of personality (quidditch and the DA) and becomes the Gryffindor seeker after Harry gets booted. Follows Harry to the DoM and gets her ankle broken.
Book 6 - Becomes the highly talented and vivacious girl we all love here on DLP .

If you believe Wikipedia there are subtle hints during GoF and OoTP that Harry has feelings for her, but I think its a load of bull myself.

Aekiel

 

Wikipedia is open to editing. What does that mean? Who are the only people with the time to go change what it might say? Fangirls. Wiki is a lost cause.

 

Oh, I knew from book two that Harry and Ginny would end up together, but the only hints are that Ginny wants Harry, not that Harry wants Ginny. I wish it wasn't true...

 

Let me state right off. I HATE GINNY! I hate both the canon and fanon versions of her with a passion. However, it didn't really start until OotP. Ginny was such a non-entity in CoS that I didn't care about whether she was rescued or not. In fact, she was such a non-entity until the last bits of OotP that I was completely indifferent to her as a canon character. And then, she's suddenly this uber-goddess at quidditch, she has no flaws, AND she gets the hero, all in the space of a book a half and in only a few scenes at that.

The sudden development is what gets my goat. If Rowling would have developed these characteristics more slowly, I might would have liked her more. It would have been relatively simple to just throw in a few more scenes to develop her character/abilities more. For example, in CoS, when Harry was staying at the Burrow, she could have been shown playing quidditch at least a little bit. Maybe have Harry look outside one night and see her practicing or something.

 

Well, initially I didn't think H/G fanfics were that bad (even after HBP), but to be honest, things got more and more annoying the more I read (both rereading the book and fanfiction). I was never a pure H/G shipper (even then, I preferred the more interesting pairings), although I could never quite find H/Hr palatable; they seemed (to me) like relatives. For me, I guess it's just being anti-Ginny, it's that all other pairings seem more interesting.

-J

 

I can honestly say that I rather enjoyed Ginny's character right up until the point where she first kissed Harry. Once she actually came out of her shell, she was lively, spirited, and yet still intelligent. More importantly, she seemed largely unaffected by all the bullshit going on, and it was refreshing to me to read her because she was completely free of melodrama (except, of course, when Bitch!Harry and Schmuck!Ron, found so often in HBP, were thrown into the picture).

All that went to the pooper after that Quidditch game when she and Harry kissed. Sure, there were hints (ahem...flashing neon signs that completely obliterated the concept of foreshadowing) that said Harry liked her, but absolutely nothing to indicate that she reciprocated. She had a different boyfriend every month! Where the flying fuck did this spring from? These days, I can read anything with Ginny in it and not have too much of a problem with it. The only exceptions are Harry/Ginny and Slut!Ginny. The H/G pairing is wrong on so many levels, and I just straight up have no respect for promiscuous girls; they ruin the thrill of the hunt.

 

Way back in the day, back when I first read CoS, I actually thought that H/G was the best choice. This belief continued until the end book 3, when it seemed to me that she was nothing more than a throwaway character, kinda like Charlie, or Millicent Bulstrode. In book 4, I thought H/Hr would be cool, they seemed to fit so well together. This belief never really went away.

Then, while waiting for book 6, back in summer '05, I started reading HP fanfiction. I stumbled upon a Honks fic. I fell in love with the pairing. The sad lack of Honks fics led me to try Fleur, fem!Blaise, and Bellatrix pairings, and I liked them. I still liked H/Hr, until I ran into one of the shittiest fics ever written, Ninja Wizard. That one where Harry is raised by a ninja, becomes a ninja, protects the Dursleys from a burglar, and saves Dudley's life after he suffers a heart attack.

Shitty fics killed any liking I had for such common pairings.

So, I hate Ginny 90% because there are a billion fics with H/G in them, and thus it's too damned common, and most of the fics are exactly the same. The other 10% is because Rowling can't write romance for shit.

Would Ginny be more likable if better written? Probably not. I blame Rowling.

 

To be perfectly honest, I have no problem with Ginny in canon. She is nonexistant and pointless. In fanon, people cum themselves too easily over here. But at the moment, the only way you could turn her into a likeable character is to start at book one and write forward. Canon has fucked her as much as Fanon has now, and its all but impossible.

 

*agrees with Vash*
I hate Fanon!Ginny where she is the little angel who is the only one that understands Harry.
But in the other Fanfictions I don't have any problem with her.