She makes some excellent points.

http://funnyfeminist.com/2011/07/25/ginny-weasley-the-exceptional-woman/

 

Like the article, I think it clearly lays out why a lot of people on here don't like Ginny, but I disagree with the author on one point

I had the exact opposite reaction about this moment, because their separate possessions where the exact opposite. Ginny passed out for periods of time and suffered memory loss. Harry suffered mind crushing pain while fighting for control of his own body. Not that her experience is any less traumatic (especially since she was an 11 year old girl) but because they were so different.

 

I really enjoyed that article. It made me want to read a GOOD story featuring Ginny as a well rounded character. Sadly, I don't see that happening.

 

Good essay; it does a nice job of really summing up what's wrong with the character. Namely, that she really doesn't have much development or purpose beyond being Harry's designated love interest.

However, I did come across one problem with the essay:

LIES!

 

What I really liked about the article was when the writer mentions that the problem of Ginny is her Suedom and lack of characterisation. Seriously, the article hit the nail on the head when it mentioned that Ginny's problem is not because she's a "slut" but because she's "perfect", without facets beyond being Harry's love interest.

Even in DLP, the Gin-slut comments make me sad. Really? Just because she dated more than one boy? I know tonnes of girls like that in real life, and I would never call them slags/sluts/whores. Refusing to wait around for Harry to grow a pair? Good for you! It doesn't matter if you still have some lingering feelings for somebody else; if the other person isn't likely to man-up soon, you might as well try to move on with your life.

The sad thing is Ginny had tonnes of potential as a character. Rowling could have really done something special with the girl, other than making her the Sue-ish love interest. I agreed with the article when it said that the most interesting parts of Ginny was when she alluded to her experience with the Diary (e.g. when she told off Harry in OotP and when the Prince's book scared her in HBP)

Surely that Eldritch horror would have affected the girl. If Harry's terrible experiences with possession are any indication, the Diary wouldn't have been a cake walk for sure. It pisses me off that Rowling kinda brushes over the CoS incident in PoA. We never see any side-effects/trauma on Ginny, except a stray reference to a Dementor affecting her more than the usual. If Harry didn't follow up what had happened, Arthur and Molly would have.

Exploiting the Tom/Ginny connection would her given her interesting character development, without making her a Sue or a boringly 2D character. The one advantage that H/G has over other Harry couples is the commonality and common ground of Voldemort Possession, after all.

And PotBottom, Riddles implies in the Chamber that after Ginny retrieved the diary from Harry, he put her through pain. Or at least she was aware of what was happening from that point forth. The word Riddle used was "punishment", I think. I can't remember, but there was a comment in CoS that Ginny knew what she was putting up on the wall was her own obituary. And she tried to actively resist the final possession (the one taking her to the Chamber), but Riddle obviously overcame. That would have resulted in some "mind-crushing pain".

 

I agree wholeheartedly with the article. When I first read the books, I wasn't thinking about too much in depth (I was only 10 when I read the first three) but later, right around when I was re-reading the books and waiting for OotP to come out, I realized how much potential there was for Ginny's character. That later turned to disgust when I saw how poorly she was written by 99% of people, JKR herself included. That, in turn, led me here.

I actually wrote a short one-shot that dealt with this several years ago. I haven't really looked at it in a while, so it's probably crap, but I might go back to it and clean it up a bit if people are interested in reading something like that.

 

I completely concur.

I did see a fic once that briefly went over the 'after effects' of the possession, but ever so briefly. It's still not even something I really see in fandom much - though that could also be because I haven't really tried many Ginny-centric fics for a long time.

Would it have led her to have the more typical traumatic symptoms - scared, withdrawn and depressed? Or could Tom's conversations have left an impact on her own thoughts - have her seeing things in different ways? Or maybe even, some insight into Tom himself?

As you said, in Book 3 we pretty much forget it ever happened when it had the potential to be so cool. She could have had some very interesting conversations with Harry about his enemy. Or Rowling could have even had scenes like, in a fit of anger she repeats something Tom would be more inclined to say.

It was a shame she turned out the way she did.

 

Yeah, I agree with the article too. God, Ginny was such a fucking slut.

 

The problem is, with all the set-up Ginny got in CoS, it did seem like she could be a main character. Obviously, she doesn't appear much in CoS, being controlled by Tom and all, but she appears more than all the other non-trio characters besides maybe Malfoy. It seems like such a waste to set up a character with all the emotional and psychological baggage that Ginny has to have after being possessed, then only use that baggage in one or two scenes over the next 5 books.

 

What coleam said.

Just because the fic is about Harry Potter and his two friends doesn't mean you have to completely ignore every other character, especially when there's good potential there.

Ginny becomes a bit more of a major character from OotP onwards.

Why not use her in PoA too? She doesn't need to become the focus of the whole book. Sesc, you make it sound like an all or nothing.

Despite each book covering a different arc, the whole series should be viewed as one story, and asuch if a character is going to be reused in major plot points, they shouldn't be completely forgotten. You can put in a scene here and there throughout the book, along with all the other side plots that don't directly affect Sirius, Remus and the Dementors.

I mean look at Draco Malfoy. He got continuous development through interactions with Harry the whole series. It built him up well for HBP/DH. Imagine if instead of Draco, all his parts were given to say, Blaise Zabini?

 

Pers had a good post not too long ago about Ginny. As he said, her character suffered somewhat from the Harry-pespective of the story, first in that he didn't notice her, and then he was too smitten for us to get a non-biased view.

I'm hoping that we'll get to fill in some of her black spots through that Pottermore site, eventually.

 

Filling in her black spots is something I leave to potter porn.

But I totally agree with the article. Some of her replies to the comments are really interesting too. All it would have taken is a cutting comment from Luna to open up just occassional sections of character development rather than having her seem to switch overnight from fan girl to super girl