Amateur HP Psychology

[sistermagpie]

I am not getting any e-mail and I don't know why. They just started coming, but anything from today before the last ten minutes seems to be gone.

I've been reading this book on the Shadow as in Jung (kind of a theme lately) and I'm reading about how the Shadow is all the things you repress in yourself, so you're enraged when you see them in other people. So somebody else could be a terrible person but wouldn't bother you as much because you're not repressing those kinds of things too much. What's horrible about it is I'm reading and knowing that my shadow…

Is post-GoF Ginny Weasley.

She's not the only one, obviously, but oh my god she so is my shadow. When I hear anyone defending her--even reasonably--I am filled with rage. Of course, being who I am (what I repress) I have to try to listen objectively and even admit when the person has a point, because I always want to be accurate and blah blah. Sometimes even I have to defend her because something's off. But what I really want to do is hex the person so that they shut up. Or say something mean that's probably like, "Don't start talking about Quidditch, you'll only embarrass yourself." Or run into the person and put them in the infirmary. This is why it's so strange when people say one must hate Ginny because one wants Harry for herself, because when Harry is liking Ginny it's hard for me to just not see him as a jerk. Like I picture them in their 30s as some dreadful couple I'd avoid. Unfortunately this isn't exactly objective canon analysis, so I can't usually just say that.

The one good thing about this is Lupin is a lot like me in this way--I mean, the kind of stuff he swallows--so maybe he hates her too. I believe when Ginny is throwing her temper tantrum in OotP Lupin quietly shuts the door. For Lupin that's probably the equivalent of smacking her in the face. Poor guy has to live with her.

Oh, the other thing I just read in one essay in the book that we tend to notice and react to Shadow things more in our own gender than the opposite gender--we can ignore stuff when it's in the other gender. I guess that's where fandom's OMG U R JUS JELLUS AND U DON'T LIKE GIRLZ!!1!!1

I was thinking about this in my ballet class, mostly because I have another Shadow problem there, or maybe it's just a pet peeve. Okay, in a dance class you often split into groups to do combinations. There is this woman who always GOES WITH ALL THE GROUPS! In this case there's just the two groups, but it drives me up a tree. The point is to split up so there's room. Yes, she's just one more person, but why the hell does she get to decide that she's the person who gets to dance whenever she wants because everyone else is only going once? What if everybody just decided to do that? (And btw, we're talking about somebody who's in class with some professional dancers--not me--and is herself not even really on the level the class is at. Every time I see her doing it I start stewing. Also she always winds up standing near me so I'm wishing there wasn't somebody so close to me because I don't like people behind me and look--it's her!

Comments

[strangemuses.livejournal.com]

I do think that Ginny is putting on an act; the problem is, I can't tell when she is acting and/or lying, and when she is not. I do think that her reaction(s) to the way that Harry dumped her were all genuine, from her initial anger to her subsequent 'cool' cover up. Beyond that, I cannot truly tell how much of her current behavior is genuine, how much is an act, how much to write off as just a phase she is in, and how much may have been her 'real' personality all along.

Abstractly, that is one of the things about her that fascinates me so much. There is a whole lot going on inside of her head that we are not privy too. I don't think that we can take all of her behavior at face value, but I cannot tell where to draw the line because JKR has not made us privy to Ginny's thoughts. She hasn't made us privy to any of these people's thoughts except for Harry's. Likely, she will never let us be privy to anyone's thoughts, nor will she ever -- as author -- pass a moral judgment about anything that happens. This used to bother me intensely about this series, but now it is the thing that I respect the most about JKR's writing. She has presented her readers with a morally muddy, murky (very scary) world populated by morally ambiguous, highly flawed people... and then left it entirely up to the readers to draw their own conclusions about *everything* and *everyone.*

That's why... (to bring this full circle back to the original topic post) it's perfectly okay for a reader to say, "I hate character X! I wish people would stop trying to tell me that character X is 'good' or justify his/her behavior so that I will like her/him." Just as in the real world, we *don't* know what's going on inside of these peoples' heads to make them act the way that they do. We can only judge them by their words and deeds. We shouldn't be swayed by whether or not Harry likes/dislikes someone. We shouldn't overly romanticism them and turn our own favorite characters into insufferably noble Byronic heroes. I'm beginning to think that this is even why she revealed that Tom Riddle was a complete, psychotic nutjob even as a child. She didn't want readers to ever be able think that they understand (or can justify) who he is and what he has done. We just need to take him at face value and assess his actions, not try to crawl inside his head and psychoanalyze him, or hold any romaticized ideas about him.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

Yeah. What you say.

I can't tell when she's lying, or etc. either. Except when it's obvious, as it has been a couple of times (more or less). I do think it isn't her usual personality if someone outside of herself has suggested it. Maybe a direction the character *might* take or she'd be less likely to use it? I didn't take Psychology, and I haven't signed up for it, either.

JKR's writing is good enough to have us defending or sparing no mercy for certain characters as if they were our real friends or foes. Which is pretty good. I haven't defended the Bobbsey Twins like that, and I ate their series for breakfast, lunch and dinner when I was a kid. Now, I've got grandkids and I get completely stunned over Ginny's (to me) OOC behavior. She does come off as obnoxious in the later books. I could put that down to the strain of being the Ginny she thinks Harry wants to see, but that totally negates Rowling's role. She's the Goddess of the piece, the Creatrix. Ginny doesn't do anything at all.

But, that takes all the fun out of it... sometimes. I do like the HP series! And, I suppose, grudgingly, that maybe she's got to do shorthand at some point because the series is supposed to end in one more book and there are bigger fish to fry than Ginny.

Which leaves me with the mental image of Voldemort on a bed of parsley with lemon and tartar sauce.