This is Rowling we're talking about.

You know, the woman who self-inserted herself into both Hermione and Ginny, to certain extents?

She can't write a semi-realistic relationship to save her life - heck, I've read fanfiction pieces that have better relationship development.

 

I completely agree with this. She can't write teenage relationships for beans.

 

That is true. What I recall from one of her very early interviews was her saying Hermione was apparently the teenage version of her. Ron was based on one of her best friends. In one of her post DH interviews though, she said she had dated quite a few guys like Ron in the past and referred to him as a loyal friend but unpleasant to date and she had married her Harry in RL.

 

So...why in God's holy whore did she pawn off her 'teenaged-self' to her 'unpleasant to date, best friend?'

Wouldn't it have made more sense to draw parallels to her current life, with Hermione marrying Harry?

 

Yep. The only way she seems able to do it is by almost totally relying on jealousy, a horribly negative and ugly way to render what should be so much better. Hey, Ron's attacking Hermione Krum and McLaggen, he's jealous, it must be love! Hermione attacked Ron and drew blood with her jealous canary attack, it must be love! The whole Ron/Hr stupidity of book 6 was over Ron's jealousy of Hermione having kissed another boy, it must be love! Every second appearance by Ginny in the very last book has her being jealous of anything female that might compete for Harry - even when Harry's desperately trying to work out a way to beat the dark lord and survive little Ginny's sole contribution is to BLOCK an ex-girlfriend from helping him! It must be love!

Pfah.

But that's all Rowling could do on the emotional level.

 

So what exactly is your point here? Are you saying it would have made more sense if they were jealous because they didn't like each other? Or are you just once again repeating that Rowling isn't great at romance, which only makes me wonder why you're still surprised by the Ron/Hermione pairing when Rowling had been hinting at that from at least book four.

Really? Did you miss the part where Ginny was one of the leaders of the resistance in a school run by Death Eaters? Or the part were she insisted on standing by her family in a battle that could have very well cost her her life even though she had every chance to flee? Or the part where, even though she apparantly is just a jealous little bitch, she knew Harry was going to go out and risk his life for the greater good, but never tried to stop him or complain about the fact that he was going to spent a lot of time with the girl that a lot of people believed was his real 'one true love'.

I mean, come on. If you don't like certain characters or pairings, then that's fine. But don't be an idiot about it. And bashing characters for things that never happened is just stupid.

 

I should have typed slower, that might have helped you get my point.

I'm *supporting* Richardc269's statement that Rowling couldn't write romance. Or if she could, it was a flat one-note rendition - jealousy, jealousy, jealousy. Which makes for very ugly and nasty relationships that aren't much fun to read. At least not for adults, IMO.

Yes, really. That's why I said her 'every second appearance'. Ginny had good qualities - if only generic traits shared by any Weasley or Gryffindor - and when she wasn't threatened by a potential girlfriend Ginny's jealousy abated and she was less loathsome.

Actually Ginny totally *forgot* that Harry was going to "go out and risk his life", even though just a couple of months earlier, in the farcical break-up scene at the end of HBP, she told Harry that "maybe that's why I like you so much". You can chalk that up to lousy writing or Ginny being a lousy girl(friend).

As to how Hermione was the only girl exempt from Ginny's jealousy ... more bad writing? We're supposed to accept that Harry and Hermione getting together was one of Ron's greatest fears, everyone else in the wizarding world expected the two muggle-raised to get together - Ron, Krum, Skeeter, movie!Dumbledore - but not little Ginny. Too difficult for Rowling to write, maybe. Also, the more she focused on H/Hr, the harder to justify the official Weasley pairings that Rowling wanted?

It's canon that Ginny engaged Hermione as her consultant as to the way to Harry's heart, so maybe that's why the youngest Weasley turned off her jealousy in that one instance. Hermione had instructed Ginny on how to gain Harry's favour and be noticed by her crush!target, so she knew Hermione was 'safe'.

The only stupidity I see is in your words. Everything I said 'happened'. You've come along and mentioned *other* scenes, but they don't invalidate the existence of my own examples. No 'idiocy' there, sorry.

 

The fact that Ginny says during her breakup that she "never really gave up on Harry" and that she became more outgoing and dated 2 other guys so that Harry would notice her indicates she saw Harry as the BWL. For me the Godric's Hollow scene sums it up perfectly where ideally it should be Ginny who should be there where Harry becomes vulnerable and teary, its Hermione whom he draws comfort from. It makes Rowling's H/G ship even more pathetic.

Personally what I don't get is why Hermione is attracted to Ron and Ron who clearly likes girls who make him feel wanted, feels attracted to Hermione.There is no mutual respect between them. If books 1-5 Hermione! who clearly pays more attention to Harry than Ron, actually starts dating Ron and still continues to worry over Harry the way she does in canon , I would always see Ron's jealousy flaring up time and again. I did find it weird in the epilogue that Harry & Hermione don't talk to each other.

As it has already been discussed before ,H/Hr without their personalities being butchered, especially Hermione's in HBP would have been the canon pairing that would have worked. But Rowling in order to promote her "Ginny sue being Harry's ideal girl" nonsense and OBHWF completely screwed up.

 

I find mself wondering if Rowling, upon seeing the backlash that her 'perfect ending' recieved a few years down the line, has any regrets about how she plotted out the last two books?

 

If you refer to the "happy world" scenario, I doubt it . But then again ,she has said in interviews that the epilogue was written in the middle of book 1 or by the end of it. It does have a PS feel to it.

If you are referring to her pairings, the stuff she says to justify them like "R/Hr like bickering" or "H/G are soulmates" only exists in her own mind.Its not justified anywhere in the books.

 

As ViolentRed suggested, there's an awful lot of silly reasons for not liking the H/G pairing in this thread. DLP has almost certainly discussed this issue more thoroughly already. There's at least several good, well-reasoned arguments for not liking H/G, but I'm not really seeing them here (and I don't dislike the pairing, myself).

But take the following paragraph:

Literally the only thing in this paragraph with any relevance is "Ron feared Harry/Hermione." Ron was insecure, and feared any boy getting too close to her. He thought he wasn't good enough. In other words, Ron is Ron. Ron is not Ginny. Sometimes different characters have different hangups, fears, and flaws.

I have to assume that the rest of the paragraph was an attempt at wit, instead of an actual justification for your position. Viktor Krum thought they were together? I don't remember the context of that, but why would Viktor Krum be expected to have any meaningful knowledge about the relationships of Harry Potter?

Rita Skeeter can of course be tossed right out. She's a parody of the stupidity of tabloid journalism, for crissakes. And with her you can toss out most of the rest of the Wizarding world, because most of them were fed by Rita.

And movie!Dumbledore? You might as well have said that Steve Kloves thought Harry and Hermione should've gotten together, which is just a small step above saying that your favorite fanfiction author thought they should've gotten together.

 

You forgot to mention the other really, really dumbass line she said to Harry.

"The only way you'll be really happy is hunting down Voldemort"...seriously? Sorry, but if some girl said that shit to me, she really doesn't know me at all. And she obviously doesn't know Harry very well, either. Rowling just can't write teens. At all!

The other instance is Book 5, where Harry forgives Ron and Hermione because they would rather listen to a Headmaster of a school rather than write their best friend. If that were any of us, would any of us even want to be their friend anymore? I sure as hell wouldn't.

Edit: Rowling also admitted that she was bad at math as well. She also screwed up the conversion maths for the Galleon's to pounds and the opposite. Galleon's are pure fucking gold! It's worth a whole crapton in regular currency. It's a few hundred dollars per ounce in the states.

 

It still sounded fricken retarded to me. It sounded like to me that she said Harry wouldn't be happy with her and wanted to hunt down Voldemort instead of being with her. Just sounded "iffy" to me.

 

Add in the quote when Harry says he should have dated her earlier so that they could have had months & years together, Ginny 's response is "But you were too busy saving the wizarding world." That does seem hero worship to me.

 

More likely because she still did.

 

Or possibly a simple statement of fact...

 

I think there is a line after where she said, "I can't say I am surprised." The breakup scene had far too many things making it difficult to count it as anything but hero worship. She never gave up on Harry, moved around ,tried dating 2 other guys but didn't work out.
I don't think Harry actively went around trying to save the WW.Ginny's words implied that he did so actively and hence the word "hunting" is used.

Isn't that what Rowling was trying to portray him as? A reluctant hero?