sistermagpie | Amateur HP Psychology

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Amateur HP Psychology

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!

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Yes, it's like Cassie said above: did she mean to create such a controversial character? Because it really doesn't seem that way. It's not like Ginny's speaking to Hermione that way and defending Harry is presented as a bad thing at all. In fact, that moment was when I knew that the H/G was really about to happen and that I was going to hate it as much as I'd been dreading for the whole book and OotP. But it seems like JKR thought these were things that would make us like Ginny.

I guess so. JKR is seeing the Ginny of both book 6 and 7. So she has a different perspective. Which makes me fear 7 all the more. Because we are going to see a Ginny who can singlehandedly defeat Snape or Draco. Shudder.

My worst fear is that we might see Draco revealing that he loves Ginny just as much as everyone else. Or Zacharias. *shudder*

No, the absolute worst would be Tom Riddle confessing his love for Lily Potter therefore loving Ginny by proxy.

That is the stuff of my nightmares. Tom/Ginny makes me gag just as much as H/G.

Hi I lurk around here.

My nightmare is that Harry's love for Ginny will play a part in defeating Voldemort. If this happens I will be violently ill.

When book 7 came out, I read an article about everyone's reactions. There was one family that were reading the book together. And the father stated that Ginny's love would save Harry and kill Riddle at the end.

A cold chill just went through me...because that is what JKR could be writing. The lowest common denominator.

Luckily, I won't be buying the next book. I'll wait out for spoilerage and then buy the book used. Or get it from the library.

I think that for some people, that scene where Ginny snaps bitchily at Hermione isn't a bad thing. I know I reacted to it with revulsion, but here's an essay defending it, for instance. (If you can stand reading about Ginny, that is! The author of the essay is quite a decent person, so play nice. :P) And here's our whole epic discussion about it, in case I haven't wasted your time enough today.

I understand the essay but I don't buy it.

Harry was running around Hogwarts covered in blood so he could hide a banned book. A book he knew he shouldn't be using hence the reason he wanted to hide it. Someone should have called him to task on this and at least Hermione attempted to do that. Ginny, of all people, should have realized the danger.

Then again, she never felt guilt when she released the Tom Riddle soul from the diary. So her character is consistent in that respect.

See, that part makes me dislike Harry as much as anyone.
(In fact, I can't name a person in that after scene that I found remotely likeable. Ron's apathetic, Hermione's concerned more about being right than about Harry nearly killing someone, Harry's still in the kiddy faze of 'OMG, you're not taking my side, what if I get in big trouble about this?' and Ginny's all about her boyfriend.)

You just posted the issue that I have been avoiding for months. Noone in HBP was likeable. In fact none of these characters have been likeable since GOF.

I stood behind Hermione during this book because I have the most symphathy for her character. But it is very sad when you don't give a fig about what happens to the lead.

Right now, I am under the happy delusion that Harry is under some spell induced dementia or is being drugged. But I am fully prepared for that not to be the case and Harry is just a jacka$$.

JKR really has some messed up sensibilities if the Sectumsempra deal is not addressed in book 7. If that incident is okay by her, well then what was the point of the series beside making loads of money?

Yes--I think I started having that problem in OotP, that no one was likable, but in HBP it was worse because all in all "our kids" had a pretty normal year, and you saw that when things were going well for them they were just nasty. Imagine how awful they would have been throughout the series without Voldemort and Malfoy to make them look good by comparison!

Yes, I recall after OotP a lot of people were saying 'Harry/Hermione/The Twins have suddenly become OOC and nasty!' but to defend Rowling (first and last time for everything, I'm sure) I think the threads for their more overt behaviour was pretty well foreshadowed/present even in the earlier books, it was just subtler.
Only Ginny can really be said to have changed drastically for the worse, imho.

What I like about that scene is that they are all uniformly, believably horrible. I really have decided that JKR is playing a very sly game with her readers by writing her 'heroes' as being flawed (often to the point of being horrible). I don't think that she means us to automatically excuse (or approve) the crappy behavior that her 'good' characters indulge in. I think she means for her readers to approve of the ultimate good that these flawed, horrid little kids may achieve, while at the same time realizing that they are all just a bunch of obnoxious kids.

That's just my take on it, because I cannot comprehend that JKR (or anyone) would actually justify (or approve) the day-to-day behavior of any of these characters.

I don't buy it, either. I mean, I buy the idea that Hermione places reason over intuition, but come on. Harry's covered in Malfoy's blood, Hermione snaps at Ginny first for thinking that "sectumsempra" is a "good spell", and Ginny's only retaliation is that Hermione doesn't understand Quidditch. Why?

Is it because Hermione's Muggle-born? Harry's as good as Muggle-born, too, and yet he's the team captain.

Is it because Hermione doesn't play? So what? She's best friends with two Quidditch-mad boys, and has been to every Gryffindor match mentioned in the five years when Quidditch matches are an option.

What I can't understand is why this person chose to pick up on Hermione's emotional intuition (or lack thereof) but didn't make a comment about Ginny's lack of compassion (or pity). Yes, Draco's a tosser/wanker/berk/git (choose the appropriate noun), he gets pleasure from bullying others, he's working for a very dangerous person, and he needs to be brought down a little... but shouldn't Ginny understand, at least intuitively, what the spell does? "Sectum-" is section, separate, "-sempra" is like "semper", always. (This just proves that Wizarding students need some sort of Latin or literature class, but that's another rant for another time.)

Saying "sectumsempra" is a good spell, in the moral sense, is like saying a bullied eleventh-grader is justified in bringing a gun to school and shooting whomever he pleases in the heart.

Yes, I know I'm ranting "here" and not "there", but I don't understand how the greater issue is Hermione's intuition, not Ginny's compassion (or lack thereof).

Saying "sectumsempra" is a good spell, in the moral sense, is like saying a bullied eleventh-grader is justified in bringing a gun to school and shooting whomever he pleases in the heart.

That is exactly how this nasty, little incident was portrayed. Harry went "Columbine" on Draco's butt. And NOONE cared. Not even Snape, McGonagall, or Dumbledore. Harry commits an almost mortal curse and all he gets is a little detention. But can that really be such a bother when Ginny rewards him with regular groping sessions?

What even disturbs me more is that most of fandom thinks this is a-okay. That it can be explained away because it is just magic and Draco was healed. But HELLO, did anyone else notice that Snape had to use a powerful, counterspell 3 TIMES to save Draco? And even then he had to go to the infirmary.

I don't know what to think anymore.

Yes, and she also Ginny's reaction was intentionally cold. I mean, it's one thing if she didn't get it but she was saying that she did get it but the fact that Malfoy was going to use Crucio meant it was good Harry did that to him. It's the same attitude as people have in fandom all the time--oh, you can't judge X character's actions at all because Y did this and that means anything is fair game.

I loved that mike_smith picked up on this too. He was like, "Um, is Harry ever going to have to rethink his own behavior? Because I'm just seeing that he did something really stupid and the result is he gets the girl and wins the Quidditch cup. Even the detentions are played as being about Snape being a jerk and being unfair, so it's not like Harry cares at all what he did."

Oh god, and here I am totally agreeing with you on your take of the scene, especially the whole, "Well, my BOYFRIEND thinks this and how dare you question him?" thing. That's how I knew the H/G was going to happen--and that Harry is attracted by this made it even more blech. I just don't see Hermione attacking Ginny personally at all there (what's to attack, really, since she doesn't havea coherent personality?). Not to mention, Hermione knows a lot about Quidditch because she's taken an interest in it in years because of her friend. She's certainly seen Harry put it at risk before and she knows that Harry misses it when he doesn't have it. She's just trying to speak to Harry using something he actually cares about, since saying his own safety is at stake doesn't get through to him but Quidditch does. She's not giving him tips for his next game.

Oops, I'm ranting again. It's just that remark was so un-called for and mean to me, like Ginny was just announcing that from now on she spoke for Harry because Hermione couldn't understand him and her adn they both think she's a fool when she tries to talk about Quidditch. Hermione's already on the retreat when Ginny zings her. Hermione's trying not to be difficult and Ginny's just a pill.

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