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DISLIKING GINNY
“Au revoir,” said Fleur throatily, kissing him good-bye. Ron hurried forward, looking hopeful, but Ginny stuck out her foot and Ron fell, sprauling in the dust at Feur’s feet. Furious, red-faced and dirt splattered, he hurried into the car without saying good-by"
Half-BLood Prince page 132
I really honestly cant stand her and its entirely Ron’s fault. Because Ginnys interaction with most other people are fine, if a little eye rolly. But every interaction she has with Ron from big to small is so cringe worthy, she’s just so unpleasant to him. I can find maybe two instances where shes neutral or nice to Ron in the whole god damn series.
Thats why when i write Ron centric and people question why Ginny is out of character i dont bother saying anything personal, i just take out this long list of quotes from the books and copy and paste with a small tag stating… maybe if i was writing from a different view point than Ron’s but…
And every time i get radio silence.
As the oldest of six children, if any of them had done that to me it would be out right war, you dont fucking do that kind of shit to your family. You watch each others backs and if their doing something bad you let them get their just deserts, then you help them up again and explain how what they did was wrong. You snipe and say hurtful things i. Private but out in public? You’re a wall of steel. You dont let others hurt your sibs and you dont humiliate them unless its Gentle Teasing. Thats family for better or worse and the things Ginny does just… it always crosses lines. And those are just the things Harry sees.
I dont know… i mean, i guess i can see how people like her, if you ignore her treatment of her family. Entirely. And only focus on the Harry Ginny and Luna Ginny stuff. Thats pretty positive. And there are some pretty nice moments between the Twins and Ginny at least.
To each their own. A part of me also feels the twat did these things specifically in front of Harry because of some squewed attempt to look cool. And it worked, which really bothered me and felt out of character for Harrry in the books because if ANYONE else did the shit Ginny did Harry would lose his shit.
Ginny just… i can see the fierce girl people see, but as an older sibling and as someone whose been in Ron’s place…. i can’t stand her.
Interesting. Thoughts, everyone? And please it civil; I don’t want to start a fandom war over this.
Okay, so I’m going to lay out my perspective as a giant Ginny stan right away. Please keep in mind that I am hella biased here.
That said, a lot of the way Ginny behaves in HBP is straight-up out of line. I’m calling out HBP specifically, because she seems to have a much better relationship with her family in all of the other books. Everyone is a little off-model in HBP; everyone acts like a complete jacka** way too much. (And I say that even though HBP is my favorite HP book. I think it’s a combination of relief after OotP and… well, I just really enjoy Young Tom Riddle.)
So in order to continue to like Ginny, we need to examine her behavior in HBP, where it comes from, what’s going on in her life… and what we can do about it without contradicting canon. It’s a totally valid reading to see her personality in HBP as who she really is, though, and not like her for it–we don’t really see enough of her in the other books to say with certainty.
So like… what’s going on with Ginny in HBP? Where did we last see her?
Oh, yeah, at the Battle of the Department of Mysteries. What happened there?
First, the Death Eaters assume Ginny is helpless, in need of protection, a liability to the rest of the party. (“Let him watch while we torture the little girl.”) Then, the group gets separated, Ginny gets grabbed and breaks her ankle, and Ron takes a curse for her. She’s mostly out of commission for the rest of the fight with a stupid f***ing broken ankle. It turns out she is a liability in need of protection. Meanwhile Hermione, at this point Ginny’s best female friend (Ginny and Luna only become close later), very nearly dies. Ron very nearly dies because of the curse he took for her and Luna. Luna, who’s trying to help Ginny, nearly dies. Harry gets taken over by Voldemort, which is kinda a thing Ginny is sensitive about. And there is f***-all Ginny can do to help with any of this. Certainly from her perspective she’s every bit as useless at the Department of Mysteries as the Death Eaters thought she was.
So, going into HBP, what’s going on in Ginny’s head?
She’s mad at Ron for almost dying. I honestly think that’s the main reason she’s so awful to him that entire year. He almost died to protect her and she is so mad, because she absolutely hates that she needed protecting.
Ron, and the rest of her family, insist on acting like she’s some sort of child. Ginny is every bit as upset about that as Harry was about the same sort of behavior in OotP. Ron bears the brunt of it, because he’s the only sibling still at Hogwarts, but we see her behaving badly with Molly and with the twins as well.
It’s important to remember, in connection to Ginny not wanting to be treated like a child, that she’s very much the youngest of the big 6. She’s six months younger than Luna, a full year younger than Harry and Neville, a year and a half younger than Ron, and nearly two years younger than Hermione. That’s still a big deal when you’re 15 and desperate not to be relegated back to baby sister/dependent status. And Ginny really doesn’t want to be sidelined, no matter how badly she f***ed up at the Department of Mysteries. She’s a Weasley and a Gryffindor and she wants to stand and fight, d**n it.
So she’s acting out in order to look big and powerful, because she feels small and weak. What else is going on in Ginny’s head?
Remember when the twins told her she was going through boys pretty fast, and she snapped at them? Keep in mind they told her that a little before her 15th birthday, if my timeline for that summer was correct. Two boyfriends (or three, if you count Neville? We never learn how far they went post-Yule-Ball) serious enough to be making out with them really is a lot for a girl not yet 15. I’m not saying that in a slut-shaming sense, I’m saying that in the sense of, “Honey, what’s going on in your life?” If I had a sister or a daughter (or brother or son) Ginny’s age who was making out with boys (or girls), especially if she had some sort of major childhood trauma involving a loss of bodily autonomy, I’d be worried about her. I’d want to talk about whether she was safe and comfortable and needed someone to talk to. (If I were Ron, I might be really interested in fixing her up with my best friend that I knew wouldn’t hurt her, but that’s a digreassion.) Ron’s and the twins’ concern comes from a good place, but they filter it through patriarchy, apply some vocabulary they acquired from their mother (“scarlet woman,” Molly, really?) and do a heck of a lot more harm than good.
The reason Ginny is all over anyone who calls her out on her string of boyfriends is that they really aren’t coming from a very healthy place, and she’s f***ing defensive about it.
And then she’s got this big stupid infatuation with the boy who came down into the dark and saved her. Who needs her help, but she can’t help him, because he thinks of her as a little kid. She got him to actually see that she could be helpful for a hot minute, and then she blew it at the DoM. (I don’t think Ginny realized how much of an impression she made on Harry when she called him on his bulls*** at Christmas in OotP.) I think a lot of her posturing in HBP is explicitly for Harry’s benefit–she might not be as mean to Ron when he isn’t watching–because she’s trying to show him that she’s big and fierce and tough and can still be part of his inner circle, even if he doesn’t like her that way. (With that in mind, we’d expect to see her at her absolute worst when Harry’s just walked in on her and Dean.)
So, yeah. HBP was definitely Ginny’s book to put ranks in a**hole. She’s got some s*** going on. It seems likely that her prior relationship with her brothers was better, and even that it improved later (she and Ron seem closer again at the beginning of DH, in fact). But the behavior OP is calling out is definitely out of line.
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