Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
discussion
Anyone else not like Ginny?

I didn't really like her in the movies much. I don't think they really got her character right. Plus they completely scre..."
Yeahright. It doesn't even shown in the movie that Ginny was really in love with Potter ever since. As for the movie, it was good, yes, if one viewed it without reading the book, but if he/she read the book before seeing it in a moving picture like that, he/she will be disappointed by the omitted scenes and the changed events.



I don't agree.

For some reason, I thought Hermione and Harry had the deepest friendship and connection. But Hermione's love for Ron was way, WAY too strong to interfere with.
I also agree with the comments that Ginny's character was awful in the movies. She is much, much more awesome in the books!

Agreed. :)

-Ginny was featured exactly the amound of time she needed, to be built as a strong female character(her skills and unbending will) and a love interest for Harry(the moments with her boyfriends were needed to make Harry jealous)
-It really is a great sign of Jo Rowling's great author's status, because she didn't immerse into unnecessary details about their great love story, but kept the story on track, reminding us that this is why exactly we should keep fighting.

I don't know if I'd say that it was a really smart move. Having a relatively flat love interest that a main character can fight for is pretty common. It didn't really bother me, but it wouldn't have hurt to give Ginny a bit more of a personality.
Also, I really hate when characters like Ginny are called strong female characters, because they almost always aren't.

(she joins the D.A., fights in the battle in the Ministry, she doesn't let herself be bullied by dumbasses in Hogwards and is a leader of the revolt group in Hogwards in the 7th book). She's also kind and open-minded( see who are her best friends). In my opinion these are all admirable qualities =)
Although I have to agree that we don't see much of Harry/Ginny's relationship.

Ginny shows exceptional strength and bravery when faced with physical danger and standing up to opposing authority. The last books shows her faithfulness to Harry, though he is swept away in his own adventure and dismayal when trying to find Horcruxes.

(she joins the D.A., fights in the battle in the Ministry, she doesn't let herself be bullied by dumbasses in Hogwards and is a leader of the ..."
It's not so much that those things don't make for a strong person, because they do. You're right, they're definitely admirable traits.
It mostly bothers me because Ginny is essentially pretty flat and those traits are basically all she has. She's basically just built up to be perfect for Harry, rather than given any real personality of her own, and I dislike calling a character strong when they play almost no role outside of being a love interest. It's just giving a character a bunch of impressive or good qualities and trying to call them a strong female.
Though that's probably just me defining a 'strong character' differently to you, though. I admit that she has many good qualities as a person.

Ginny doesn't get enough "screen time" to be described like a good main character(with his/her faults), maybe because she's not. That's what i like about Harry Potter. I'm sick and tired from watching how 99% of the authors create a strong main male character(Harry in this case) and they automatically pair him off with the main strong female character (which would be Hermione). I really like this aspect of the story.
Think of it that way: this is a plot strong book. If she took her time to fully develop Ginny, she would have to spend quite a lot on a character who, honestly speaking, doesn't have big role in the story. Which is, waste of time. There are a lot of book (ones lebeled "Romances") in which the main couple doesn't know more than the other's looks before falling deeply and irrevocably in love. I don't say it's a good method, but i find it justifiable and suiting in this case.
I'm not saying you're wrong, just expressing an opinion =)

Ginny doesn't get enough "screen time" to be described like a good main character(with his/her faults), maybe because she's not. That's what i like about Harry Potter..."
I definitely agree that main boy/main girl couples can get really tiring, and it is nice to see a change from that. I like that Harry and Hermione's relationship was completely platonic through the whole thing, because that can be a hard thing to find sometimes, too.
I know that Ginny was never going to be an incredibly complex character, and I don't mind that she isn't. But compared to other background or more minor characters she just felt quite a bit more empty and bland, to me at least. It would have been nice to have seen a little more of her, even if she wasn't the main focus.
I know the books aren't a romance, and friendship generally focused on more than romantic love. I think that's wonderful, and that both kinds can be just as important and valuable as one another. I just would have liked to have more of a reason to care about the girl that Harry was in love with.




Either JK has no clue how romance really works or she doesn't know how to write it.

So yes, i really like her and think her and Harry are perfect. I especially think this because Harry being so popular and heroic in his world, didn't go for a veela or even popular girls like Cho Chang but someone who was quietly besides him all those years.
She's also such a strong, brave and accepting character, and i am talking about Half Blood prince and when Harry broke up with her. She knew what was at risk and she knew why Harry was breaking up with her...
I don't agree with the comments that JK Rowling just slammed her with Harry...i really do think it was there from the start and it did actually begin at the end of Chamber of Secrets. The fact that she was in love with Harry all those years also makes it believable.




I agree. Maybe we expected so many things from Ginny in the movie, that's why we are dissapointed?

Looking back, there's not much about Ginny I remember from the books. I'll probably get hell for this, but in my opinion, she was just a gap filler...

Hardly... Ginny was someone who was always meant to be the true love interest. The thing is that she's such a background character that we couldn't really see the progress from little girl with hero worship to the woman JKR tells us she became.
I mean, JKR tells us she held her own against Bellatrix, for one, but I would much rather be shown that than told.


I agree with the earlier posts too about Luna/Neville. Always cheered that one on.
Last thing I agree on is that Cho the Hoe sucked. XD Hated her to the very end, though I never did understand why Harry DIDNT end up with her after he found out she wasn't the one to tattle tell on the DA

'Cho the Hoe'? Really?
I genuinely don't understand why anyone would bother hating Cho. She's in it little enough that you can pretty much ignore her if you don't like her.

I was afraid I would be the only one who disliked her so much.
The one I liked best was someone who was never actually alive in any of the books. It was Lily Evans. You only knew who she was through flashback scenes of various characters. But she was my favorite lady character. Dumbledore was my favorite male character.

Everyone else is on my hit list for various reasons.

Everyone else is on my hit list for various reasons."
Why was Dumbledore on it? Just curious.

Because he literally set everyone up. He had the power to do a lot more than he did, he had the power to veto - for example - the triwizard tournament, he had the power to have gotten Sirius a trial, he had the power and the resources to have Harry actively trained instead of the BS we saw on the 6th book, to get him decent Occlumency lessons, to move him away from abuse. He had the magical power to trap Voldemort when they fought back in the first book, to close down the corridor Mirtle died in at the first sign of trouble... to present regulations, laws, bypass Fudge & Malfoy entirely [politically speaking] and so, so, so much more!
Instead he did nothing, he chose to step back and let a bunch of kids deal with his enemies. He chose to let his enemies become a bunch of kid's enemies. He set the downfall of Voldemort but he didn't take care for or about his army. He let the world be in the same state of decay and corruptness as before the war.
And the thing is? He had power... he had a LOT of political power, of political cloud to change things, to make everything better, easier.
And he did nothing.
That's why he's on my hit list.
All right, I think it's pretty much this.


I think the proof is on the 5th book: Harry works better with more information than with little to no information. Case in point: They spent half of book 7 doing virtually nothing but camping. They all reacted in some way or another instead of acting. They all could have done more than they did and I think the key to it was the lack of information they all had.
Info kept quite polarized/centred on two people. Who released that info on the basis that the actors would react one way or another that would suit their purposes. Which is also why Snape is on my hit list [well... that and other reasons]
About that 'people have to go through hard times to be happy'? I disagree with you due to personal reasons and motivations.

oh deer... I'm afraid the answer to that is much, much longer than the 12K characters limit we're permitted. So let me divide this in three, okay?
First, Voldemort:
What do we really know of Voldemort? His mother was an unstable witch who bewitched his father and thought the illusion she created was real. When her reality crumbled she gave up and gave birth in an orphanage. Dying soon after.
What JK wanted us to swallow is that Tom/Voldemort was evil since he was born, that he was a bully and vengeful and all around evil and never regret it. She only wrote one possible path to Voldemort but... she gave us no reason to it, what were his motives, what were his ideals before his insanity?
You have to remember that before there is Evil, there is a revolutionary, something thinking, someone making stuff happen. JK left it pretty clear through her writing that Voldemort is the magical version of Hittler but, unlike history, she gave us no motive to his rise to power, why his followers... well followed him, what his political platform was like. He went after pureblood ideals, yes, but why did he choose hypocrisy? We don't know.
We only, briefly, see the pride his teenage self takes on finding a family connection in the Wizard World. We later see him [possibly] at the brink of insanity asking for a job at Hogwarts, and later on his final moments at Godric's Hollow.
Then we only see Voldemort at the end of book 7, fighting Harry.
I think Tom/Voldemort had the potential to be the greatest villain of all. Evil, murdering bastard? Certainly! But, just like Hitler, charismatic enough to have followers who would go to war for him, who would die for him, who would do anything for his attention. Bellatrix is such a minion and the default Nazi/Death Eater. Voldemort is not on my hit list because we don't really see him do anything at all, his character is a black sheet of paper which we can only see a few tiny bits. We only have a vague notion of what he is, of what he's made of.
The only thing we know for certain is that he's the villain, he's evil. Okay, but what else? Labelling a character as 'evil' is hardly enough basis. Then there's the argument 'but he killed so and so and so many others!' well... of course he did. That's what villains DO! They go after the other side and ruin lives. They act on things to give them the advantage... but that's normal and nowhere near enough for us to actually know Voldemort.
Basically, Voldemort is not on my 'hit list' because we don't know him! We know he's evil, we know he's the villain. And that's all we know. We don't know enough to hate /him/, to detest /him/, we do, however, know enough to be afraid of his /actions/, to be afraid of what he could /do/.
And there's definitely a difference there.
We have an idea of what Voldemort is like, but we don't know /him/. And while an idea is enough to form hate, it's not enough for me, personally, to put him on any sort of hit list.





When you need an important character but not one who's personality will get in the way of wherever you need the plot to go, choose Ginny. When you realize the hero has to end up with somebody and it can't be someone random and Ron and Hermoine are out of the question, choose Ginny. Nothing is too out of character for her or, in different words, she can do almost anything with minimal justification.
'Hmm I need another interesting Gryffindor on the Quidditch team. Ah what the hell, I'll just stick Ginny in there.'

I ABSOLUTELY shipped Luna and Harry! I thought they had such an awesome chemistry. I just think the best friends sister thing is so cliched and pathetic. I can actually hear Victoria Justices' song Best Friends Brother (but instead sister)in my head.
So annoyed that after all that, they put Ginny and Harry together. Still cannot get over that and its been nearly a year since Harry Potter finished. But hey - theres always FanFictions as ppl like to say -.-

You'd think people had better things to gossip about," said Ginny as she sat on the common room floor, leaning against Harry’s legs and reading the Daily Prophet. "Three Dementor attacks in a week, and all Romilda Vane does is ask me if it’s true you’ve got a Hippogriff tattooed across your chest."
Ron and Hermione both roared with laughter. Harry ignored them.
What did you tell her?"
I told her it's a Hungarian Horntail," said Ginny, turning a page of the newspaper idly. "Much more macho."
Thanks," said Harry, grinning. "And what did you tell her Ron’s got?"
A Pygmy Puff, but I didn’t say where."
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Well said :)