I know what you mean. To be honest I've always had issues with CoS. I read book one before HP took off and loved it - but jsut could not get into book 2.
I have serious misgivings about the whole of JKR's system - esp. the sorting/house system. While this is the Gryffindor point of view, all the main charcters come from this ouse, so it is the only view that is protrayed.
In her world (in general) Slytherin = bad therefore ambition/cunning = bad, Hufflepuff = losers therefore loyalty/hardwork = losers, Ravenclaws don't fair so badly, but Hermione's intellegence is both dismissed and taken for granted, and the only other intellegent characters shown are Percy (a 'prat') and Luna ('looney') so being intellengent = outcast/no social ability.
The concept of love is also not well portrayed. The Serverus/Lily relationship is obsessive on the part of Serverus. We don't really see Tonks/Remus, but it seems a sudden relationship brought on by the war (and her pregnancy). Molly and Arthur, while caring, are depicted in their role as parents first, and Vernon and Petunia as tormenters/Dudley's parents.
As a result the relationships we see are of the whole 'high school sweethearts' type thing to happen (Harry/Ginny, Ron/Hermione and James/Lily).
This leads me to see Ginny as, unfortunately, a mere plot device - Harry's one twue love - the knight ends up with the girl he rescued from the dragon, whiel the sidekicks pair off. It's almost as if a box has been ticked - the hero gets the girl in the end. In addition, Ginny displays a number of Mary-Sue type qualites.
I think the main issues aries out of confusion on JKR's on what the aim of the books was to be - they try to cross too many 'categories' and as a result fit into none well. She is so focused on getting the plot done and items checked off on the hero's to-do list that unfortunately, characterisation gets lost by the wayside. She 'tells' us what happens, instead of showing us - and as a result emotional nuances get left out. Therefore while we see the heroic deeds, we do not see the emotional aftermath.
Ultimately, I think this is the flaw with the Harry Potter books - they are, at the core, action books where the plot and heroic deeds where everything is either 'good' or 'bad' triumph over the messy, emotional, parts of life that are in shades of grey. JKR created a world, but does not flesh out this world via characterisation, but rather by using architypes and heroic deeds. There is no need to flesh out characters, as they merely exist as a foil for Harry. Ginny serves her purposes as a maiden to be rescued (thereby turning her into a potential love interest), in the 'action'/plot based type of writing it is unnessecary for her to be any further developed. She is something to be won or lost, not a character in her own right.
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Thoughts on Ginny and JKR's writing style in general
Date: 2008-11-09 12:43 pm (UTC)I have serious misgivings about the whole of JKR's system - esp. the sorting/house system. While this is the Gryffindor point of view, all the main charcters come from this ouse, so it is the only view that is protrayed.
In her world (in general) Slytherin = bad therefore ambition/cunning = bad, Hufflepuff = losers therefore loyalty/hardwork = losers, Ravenclaws don't fair so badly, but Hermione's intellegence is both dismissed and taken for granted, and the only other intellegent characters shown are Percy (a 'prat') and Luna ('looney') so being intellengent = outcast/no social ability.
The concept of love is also not well portrayed. The Serverus/Lily relationship is obsessive on the part of Serverus. We don't really see Tonks/Remus, but it seems a sudden relationship brought on by the war (and her pregnancy). Molly and Arthur, while caring, are depicted in their role as parents first, and Vernon and Petunia as tormenters/Dudley's parents.
As a result the relationships we see are of the whole 'high school sweethearts' type thing to happen (Harry/Ginny, Ron/Hermione and James/Lily).
This leads me to see Ginny as, unfortunately, a mere plot device - Harry's one twue love - the knight ends up with the girl he rescued from the dragon, whiel the sidekicks pair off. It's almost as if a box has been ticked - the hero gets the girl in the end. In addition, Ginny displays a number of Mary-Sue type qualites.
I think the main issues aries out of confusion on JKR's on what the aim of the books was to be - they try to cross too many 'categories' and as a result fit into none well. She is so focused on getting the plot done and items checked off on the hero's to-do list that unfortunately, characterisation gets lost by the wayside. She 'tells' us what happens, instead of showing us - and as a result emotional nuances get left out. Therefore while we see the heroic deeds, we do not see the emotional aftermath.
Ultimately, I think this is the flaw with the Harry Potter books - they are, at the core, action books where the plot and heroic deeds where everything is either 'good' or 'bad' triumph over the messy, emotional, parts of life that are in shades of grey. JKR created a world, but does not flesh out this world via characterisation, but rather by using architypes and heroic deeds. There is no need to flesh out characters, as they merely exist as a foil for Harry. Ginny serves her purposes as a maiden to be rescued (thereby turning her into a potential love interest), in the 'action'/plot based type of writing it is unnessecary for her to be any further developed. She is something to be won or lost, not a character in her own right.