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edenfallingI think one of the reasons I started writing "Secrets" -- there were several and they were all rather tangled and I was definitely not aware of all of them at the time -- was a nagging dissatisfaction with the ending of CoS. Fundamentally, this dissatisfaction stems from a disjoint between my moral understanding of the universe and Rowling's moral vision as presented in her work, but that's a long, complicated topic for another day. On a more surface level, my problem is that the ending of CoS is simply too trite.
For example, after the big explanation scene in Professor McGonagall's office -- which, interestingly, Rowling does not actually write one word of until we get to the reveal that diary!Tom is a copy of the person who became Voldemort -- Mrs. and Mr. Weasley take Ginny off to the hospital wing. Later, Ron takes Lockhart to the hospital wing.
Presumably Ron sees Ginny while dropping Lockhart off, but we get no mention of this. We also get no mention of Percy, Fred, or George being informed of their sister's rescue. Instead, an hour or two later Ron is down at the feast with Harry, giving no indication of any residual emotional upset. Possibly this is shock, or possibly he's deliberately being cheerful, or possibly Harry skimmed a LOT of details during his explanation so Ron doesn't quite realize how close both Ginny and Harry came to death. I don't know, and Rowling doesn't seem to care enough about Ron to give any explanation.
Ginny may or may not be at the feast; she's not mentioned. Her brothers may or may not have visited her in hospital; we're not informed. Her parents may have stayed the night, or may have gone home after as little as an hour; nobody ever discusses it, and Harry never asks.
In fact, we learn NOTHING of the Weasley family's reaction to events, and Ginny's recovery happens entirely offscreen. We don't meet her again until this paragraph (p. 340 of the SFBC edition):
The rest of the final term passed in a haze of blazing sunshine. Hogwarts was back to normal with only a few, small differences -- Defense Against the Dark Arts classes were canceled ("but we've had plenty of practice at that anyway," Ron told a disgruntled Hermione) and Lucius Malfoy had been sacked as a school governor. Draco was no longer strutting around the school as though he owned the place. On the contrary, he looked resentful and sulky. On the other hand, Ginny Weasley was perfectly happy again.
Perfectly happy? (And blazing sunshine to drive the idea home?) I don't believe it for a second. Nobody can recover that fast from something that devastating.
And it doesn't even make sense for the series arc! See, CoS is apparently supposed to show Ginny's suitability as Harry's match -- they've both faced a version of Voldemort and lived. But Ginny is not a heroine; she's almost entirely passive all through CoS. Her only moments of agency happen offscreen -- throwing the diary into Myrtle's toilet, and stealing it back from Harry -- and they're both reactive rather than proactive. Furthermore, the narrative belittles Ginny's experience -- Rowling dismisses a year of trauma with that one line about 'perfect happiness' -- which seems stupid if she wanted to play up parallels between Ginny and Harry. (Compare this, particularly, with the entire book's worth of post-traumatic stress Harry gets to indulge in during OotP.)
...
I can see how Harry is young enough to still not grasp all the implications of events -- and he can be awfully self-centered at the best of times, though I'm not sure Rowling always understands that -- but I keep thinking that if he could sympathize with Dobby, he ought to have been able to sympathize with Ginny as well. He ought to have been curious about how the Weasleys, a mostly functional family, would deal with the aftermath of a crisis. He ought to have looked beyond his worries about his similarities to Tom Riddle and realized that compared to Ginny, to Hermione, or even to Ron, he got off lightly.
You see, while Harry is the main character of the series, CoS is not really his story. It's Ginny's story. Ginny is the one who suffers most. Until the very end, Ginny is the one whose choices matter most. Ginny is the one all the events turn around.
Yet Rowling marginalizes her, shoves her offscreen, mutes her voice. Rowling allows Harry to ignore Ginny and trivialize her suffering.
Harry is supposed to be a hero. In my mind, a hero is not just someone who saves the day. A hero is someone who cares about other people and genuinely tries to help them, not just defeat monsters and ride off into the sunset without noticing the chaos in his wake.
Harry kills Tom, but he leaves Ginny's life in shambles and never gives her a second thought once her parents take her away.
His failure to care mars the book.
---------------
...I seem to have slid into talking about moral issues despite my resolve to leave them for another post. *sigh* But the point stands. CoS trivializes Ginny's suffering in favor of a trite 'and then they lived happily ever after... at least until next year' ending. That annoys me from a storytelling perspective, because I like to see consequences and an understanding that people do not act or react in isolation; we live in community.
The trite happiness of the ending annoys me even more from a moral perspective, because it dismisses Ginny's trauma (possessed by a sociopath, twisted into thinking she's responsible for his actions, loss of control over her own body and thoughts, metaphor for rape) as just the mcguffin of an adventure plot. I find that especially demeaning after the narrative takes Harry's lesser trauma (OMG, I share some traits with my parents' murderer!) as a serious concern.
But maybe that's just me. Thoughts?
For example, after the big explanation scene in Professor McGonagall's office -- which, interestingly, Rowling does not actually write one word of until we get to the reveal that diary!Tom is a copy of the person who became Voldemort -- Mrs. and Mr. Weasley take Ginny off to the hospital wing. Later, Ron takes Lockhart to the hospital wing.
Presumably Ron sees Ginny while dropping Lockhart off, but we get no mention of this. We also get no mention of Percy, Fred, or George being informed of their sister's rescue. Instead, an hour or two later Ron is down at the feast with Harry, giving no indication of any residual emotional upset. Possibly this is shock, or possibly he's deliberately being cheerful, or possibly Harry skimmed a LOT of details during his explanation so Ron doesn't quite realize how close both Ginny and Harry came to death. I don't know, and Rowling doesn't seem to care enough about Ron to give any explanation.
Ginny may or may not be at the feast; she's not mentioned. Her brothers may or may not have visited her in hospital; we're not informed. Her parents may have stayed the night, or may have gone home after as little as an hour; nobody ever discusses it, and Harry never asks.
In fact, we learn NOTHING of the Weasley family's reaction to events, and Ginny's recovery happens entirely offscreen. We don't meet her again until this paragraph (p. 340 of the SFBC edition):
The rest of the final term passed in a haze of blazing sunshine. Hogwarts was back to normal with only a few, small differences -- Defense Against the Dark Arts classes were canceled ("but we've had plenty of practice at that anyway," Ron told a disgruntled Hermione) and Lucius Malfoy had been sacked as a school governor. Draco was no longer strutting around the school as though he owned the place. On the contrary, he looked resentful and sulky. On the other hand, Ginny Weasley was perfectly happy again.
Perfectly happy? (And blazing sunshine to drive the idea home?) I don't believe it for a second. Nobody can recover that fast from something that devastating.
And it doesn't even make sense for the series arc! See, CoS is apparently supposed to show Ginny's suitability as Harry's match -- they've both faced a version of Voldemort and lived. But Ginny is not a heroine; she's almost entirely passive all through CoS. Her only moments of agency happen offscreen -- throwing the diary into Myrtle's toilet, and stealing it back from Harry -- and they're both reactive rather than proactive. Furthermore, the narrative belittles Ginny's experience -- Rowling dismisses a year of trauma with that one line about 'perfect happiness' -- which seems stupid if she wanted to play up parallels between Ginny and Harry. (Compare this, particularly, with the entire book's worth of post-traumatic stress Harry gets to indulge in during OotP.)
...
I can see how Harry is young enough to still not grasp all the implications of events -- and he can be awfully self-centered at the best of times, though I'm not sure Rowling always understands that -- but I keep thinking that if he could sympathize with Dobby, he ought to have been able to sympathize with Ginny as well. He ought to have been curious about how the Weasleys, a mostly functional family, would deal with the aftermath of a crisis. He ought to have looked beyond his worries about his similarities to Tom Riddle and realized that compared to Ginny, to Hermione, or even to Ron, he got off lightly.
You see, while Harry is the main character of the series, CoS is not really his story. It's Ginny's story. Ginny is the one who suffers most. Until the very end, Ginny is the one whose choices matter most. Ginny is the one all the events turn around.
Yet Rowling marginalizes her, shoves her offscreen, mutes her voice. Rowling allows Harry to ignore Ginny and trivialize her suffering.
Harry is supposed to be a hero. In my mind, a hero is not just someone who saves the day. A hero is someone who cares about other people and genuinely tries to help them, not just defeat monsters and ride off into the sunset without noticing the chaos in his wake.
Harry kills Tom, but he leaves Ginny's life in shambles and never gives her a second thought once her parents take her away.
His failure to care mars the book.
---------------
...I seem to have slid into talking about moral issues despite my resolve to leave them for another post. *sigh* But the point stands. CoS trivializes Ginny's suffering in favor of a trite 'and then they lived happily ever after... at least until next year' ending. That annoys me from a storytelling perspective, because I like to see consequences and an understanding that people do not act or react in isolation; we live in community.
The trite happiness of the ending annoys me even more from a moral perspective, because it dismisses Ginny's trauma (possessed by a sociopath, twisted into thinking she's responsible for his actions, loss of control over her own body and thoughts, metaphor for rape) as just the mcguffin of an adventure plot. I find that especially demeaning after the narrative takes Harry's lesser trauma (OMG, I share some traits with my parents' murderer!) as a serious concern.
But maybe that's just me. Thoughts?
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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.
Re: Thoughts on Ginny and JKR's writing style in general
Date: 2008-11-09 07:25 pm (UTC)This. Yes. Exactly.
I even wrote a story incorporating that idea -- that Harry (like Tom) only sees other people in terms of how they affect him, or sometimes how he affects them. He doesn't see how other people affect each other; if they're not in his immediate focus, they might as well not exist.
Which is a very interesting character trait, especially in combination with Harry's genuine ability for empathy (when he's paying attention to somebody), but Rowling never does anything with it. *sigh*