Harry and Ginny as a couple

[vegablack]

I decided to go out on a limb here and introduce some controversy. Oh no!

I want to begin by saying that I'm a Ginny fan who is all for having Harry and Ginny together, but I have to admit there are many who either don't like the couple or don't like how their relationship is developed in the books. I've given it some thought and have decided to take seriously the argument that their relationship isn't developed enough. The argument goes that we never see them deal with Ginny's experience with Tom Riddle for instance or her grief over George. We see very little of their emotional interplay.

After thinking about this I wondered if there was room in the story for Harry to have a love interest. Harry's life is consumed by his fight with Voldemort.

Much of the series is devoted to Harry's relationship with Dumbledore, Snape, Sirius as father figure and even Draco and Neville as counterparts. It's arguable that the most important relationships in the books for Harry is his with Hermione and Ron, his comrades in the fight with Voldemort and after that with Dumbledore, his mentor, father figure and guide. Those relationships are what the story is really about. That is why the last scenes are of Harry with Ron and Hermione and Harry meeting Dumlbedore's portrait.

There wasn't room in the story to develop Harry's relationship with Ginny. It would have been odd if Harry broke away from his quest to save the world to have some quality time with Ginny. I'm not sure there was sensible space in the plot for it either.

I wonder if it was a mistake for JKR to give Harry a love interest. Not everyone has one at that age and it would be forgiveable for the savior of the world to be to busy to have time for one. She could have put them together in the epilogue and we could have made our own story of how they got together after the fight.

Thoughts?
Feel free to tell me that the Harry/Ginny love story was perfect as written.

[Author By Night]

Gasp! How dare you! Off with your head!

Oh, fine, I'll let it slide just this once.

Actually, I think you make a good point. As you know, I'm actually working on a fanfic that deals with that very issue.

My thing with Harry and Ginny is that I don't really see them as simply a couple. Not in the sense that I think they were deeper than that and meant to be together before there were stars in the sky - but I think in a lot of ways, Harry and Ginny are two halves of a whole, so the disconnect we see is intentional.

Harry and Ginny start out the diary - and both of them narrowly escape death. Furthermore , Harry could have discovered the diary, and decided to use it, been drawn by his similarity to Riddle, so much that he poured his soul... and ended up as Riddle's pawn instead. So we already have that "could have" scenario.

Then there's books five and six; every time Harry could not be Seeker, Ginny replaced him. (Or at least once... I need to re-read the books again!) Ginny was doing what Harry had dreamed of, walking - flying, rather - in his shoes.

Then there was book seven. Ginny, as far as we know, was one of the heads of the DA; she also led her own trio on a mission to get the sword. Doesn't that sound like something Harry would do?

I hope this makes sense... did I answer your question at all?

I do wish that JKR had written some Ginny at the end, I'll give you that - it might have been nice to have seen even a moment of comfort. Still, I just think that Ginny is supposed to be part of Harry's future, part of what he longs to be, not his present.

[birdg]

I think people tend to overestimate things.

People wonder how we're expected to believe Harry and Ginny have this great love when they hardly spend anytime together. Except we're not asked that. While Harry and Ginny do care about each and will eventually marry each other - they never say I love. They make no undying vows to each other, quite the opposite. But that's because, as Author By Night, their relationship isn't about the present. Ginny and his happiness with her, represents the future for Harry. Something he can't have until he deals with Voldemort.

What we're asked to believe in is their potential as the couple.

I wonder if it was a mistake for JKR to give Harry a love interest. Not everyone has one at that age and it would be forgiveable for the savior of the world to be to busy to have time for one. She could have put them together in the epilogue and we could have made our own story of how they got together after the fight.

People would still complain about it "coming out of left field" just like they do now. Still, I wonder the same thing. If she did have the epilogue written first, I wonder if she ever intended to leave it in the background but changed her mind later on. It definitely could have worked.

To be frank, a lot of people's problem with Harry/Ginny has to do with their feelings on Ginny. Some fans adhere more to fanon than canon. They hate Ginny because we're told how smart and kind she was (er... we are?) how she was so much more beautiful than other girls and all the boys loved her (I actually wrote an essay comparing Hermione and Ginny on this score and Hermione does as well if not a little better than Ginny when it comes to attracting boys) and what a Mary Sue she was (the Fleur and Potions book plots disprove this). And, well, when they dislike one half of a pair that much they're not going to like the pairing.

[pigwithhair]

Vegablack,

Interesting topic and very thoughtful introductory post.

I'm torn on this subject. Harry is not my favorite character, but it was important to me that he ended up happy - or as happy as Harry will be able to be, given his experiences.

I liked Ginny in the early books but disliked her later on. I think she was supposed to be a strong personality but she didn't come off that way to me with one big exception: I thought the moment when Harry broke up with her and her response to it was brilliantly done and seemed very like a strong Ginny to me. I wish I had seen more of that Ginny throughout Books 5 and 6; at least she was more likeable to me in Book 7.

It's an interesting question if JKR was doing too much to give Harry a love interest. I think it would be very difficult for Harry to have a successful love relationship. He has a hard time expressing emotion and he holds himself back from people, both very understandable and spot on given his childhood. And he has an anger issue. Was it too much for the series? It may have been, though I was very happy that he did get Ginny in the end and was happy.

I was surprised that Ginny didn't play a much bigger part in DH, though I agree with you completely that the series was really about Harry and how he needed those around him, particularly Ron and Hermione and Dumbledore even with their flaws.

It may have helped if there had at least been more incidents during DH where Harry pulled out the map and looked for Ginny (I think there was only one or two) or even better, tried to think of what Ginny would say about such-and-such or thought of holding Ginny.

From what we saw of Harry's mind, she wasn't there much. I'd think he would need a minute here or there to let himself escape his real situation and simply think about her before getting back to business.

It seemed to me by the end of DH that Harry and Ginny would need some time to rebuild things between them, even though Harry thinks of talking to her - he doesn't go to do so immediately, which also struck me. And I agree with your observation that it may have helped to see more of Ginny's reactions to Fred's death and if she could have heard his discussion with Hermione and Ron.

I'm glad he was happy, but I just didn't see what I expected to see or thought should have been there between them, so it didn't really work for me.

[Ilene Bones]

Well, I also think the H/G relationship was underdeveloped. I just wrote in the Ginny topic about how it seemed the H/G ship in HBP and DH seemed to consist mostly of physical attraction, not anything deep. Of course, I understand the reasoning that it is unrealistic to expect a couple of teenagers to have a deep, meaningful relationship that goes beyond hormones. Certainly, when I was a teenager my relationships weren't that developed.

Now, I know RL couples who met, or even actually married, at fairly young ages (and by this I mean high school or college, as I think most college students are not that mature compared to where the Hogwarts teens are in DH). So it's not that a "high school sweetheart" type relationship never lasts. It's just that the nature of the relationship changes as it matures. I think immature relationships tend to be selfish; you like someone because they make you feel good, and this doesn't mean just physically, I mean you feel good and have a sense of emotional well-being in their overall presence. It seems Ginny does fulfill this purpose for Harry in the text of the books. The problem is that I don't really see Harry giving back to Ginny. Protecting her, yes, but that can be a selfish act too. As others have noted, I found it very telling that Harry does not feel comfortable comforting Ginny when she is mourning Fred. I liked the Lucky You scene in OotP a lot because it had Ginny standing up for herself while also giving Harry reassurance that he wasn't possessed. However, this occured before Harry saw Ginny in a romantic light. Perhaps exploring the parallels between Harry and Ginny's experiences with Voldemort a bit more would have made the ship more believable.

The overall problem I have is that I feel that I am being asked by the author to accept that H/G evolved from a rather immature, selfish "like" to a successful long-term relationship, marriage, and child-raising partnership, without evidence that there was enough potential for that to happen. Though I suppose you could argue that just because we see Ginny and Harry as a couple 19 years later doesn't mean they are a totally happy couple. We don't see enough of them in the Epilogue to really tell. It also seemed that Ginny had no input into the naming of their children, and again that seemed to underscore for me how Ginny was always the one to accomodate and support Harry, not the other way around. Which to me does not an equal partnership make.

Of course, some of this is personal opinion based on my bias that romantic relationships should be egalitarian, and also that people should be able to define themselves as more than a mate for someone else. I feel Ginny was ultimately defined by her status as Harry's Love Interest, not a character who could stand up by herself. It seems that this often happens to women, that their identity becomes "Mrs-So-and-So" beyond anything else. I knew a girl like that in HS, who dated a very popular guy and was known best as "Mr. Popular's Girl" more than being her own self with her own identity. And I've seen it happen to guys too, though not as often. Somewhat like how Movie!Ron seems to have become in relation to Hermione, a L.I., but not a main character with his own worth.

And while I could chalk all this up to Jo Rowling being a poor romance writer, it's not that she does a bad job with other ships, such as Ron and Hermione. By the time R/H gets together we have had boatloads of evidence (or should I say shiploads) that there is much more to the relationship than just their surface dynamics of bickering and UST.

[vegablack]

First let me say that Queenie has a very interesting discussion on the House thread that I wish this wouldn't bury. (I hate the way threads get buried on this board, but it can't be helped.)

I've been thinking about how JKR developed the Harry/Ginny relationship and I found some of her choices strange. Harry is the pov character so we should easily see Ginny interacting with him through his eyes. We should witness their relationship, but we don't. Ginny remains elusive. We never see them alone sharing thoughts, not about what he enjoys or being seeker or really anything. All we see is a little gentle sexual banter over tattoos, that tells us nothing about them and what they share with each other.


We don't know what if anything about his fight with Voldemort Harry has told her. We don't even see a moment where Harry feels torn over deciding what to share with Ginny. Is she as well informed as Ron and Hermione are? Has he discussed Tom Riddle with her? Has he ever asked for her perception of Riddle from her time possessed? It would be a logical thing to do and would have give Ginny an important moment in the sun tying her early role with her current one. These conversations exist in fanon, why not in the original book?

In some ways JKR seems to have Harry wanting to keep his love of Ginny separate from his fight with Voldemort. The way of Victorian kept his home life free from the taint of his outside struggles. (I'm not making the analogies to belittle Ginny.)

She plays an important role in the fight at Hogwarts, one she would have had even if she hadn't dated Harry. (All the Weasleys knew about the sword.) And in a way I'm glad of that. It makes her an independent person acting on her own convictions, but why not have Harry seek her opinions, knowledge or just talk to her about his responsibilities?

Even teenagers share with their friends and girl-friends.