On Ginny Hate
Psychoanalyzing the Ginny Haters –is it as easy as they paint it to be?
The recent attacks on Vanceone and other harmonians because of what is perceived as character hate have gone to such extremes that it is no funny anymore.
Most people involved are indeed those so-called Ginny lovers. Seems everyone has an opinion on this and both extremes paint the other in colourful terms.
While some people (especially harmonians) have indeed attacked Ginny’s character, the Ginny lovers’ faction, who, in fact, comprises mostly H/G shippers, have responded attacking harmonians.
I repeat: they responded attacking people and not arguments.
I’ve seen many comments where Ginny lovers have tried to explain away the horrible “crime” of disliking the aforementioned character. The reasons given are:
- Harmonians hate her because she gets the hero.
- No, they hate her because she is pretty and popular, and they seem to have such complexes with pretty people that they hate anyone pretty.
- They are no popular either, so they also dislike a lot popular people.
- They hate her because they were wrong in their predictions
- No, they hate her because they want Harry with Hermione or Luna and Ginny is in the way.
- No, they think she is a bitch, a slut, a meanie, egotistical, etc because that is the way they project themselves in others, their world is filled with fearful people like that, while we see her as pretty, kind, warm, compassionate, adorable because we also pretty, kind, warm, compassionate, adorable too! Wheee!! So that is how we see her! Ginny is the mirror all truths reflect into!! I am sorry for Harmonians, but yet I still hate them for hating Ginny!
- They are misogynists (miso-gynists, got it?) and they hate women. All women. Ginny is the new Eve whence every curse is distributed multiplied by a thousand, to any woman proud of being so.
Don’t you just hate how simple things are when someone summarizes them? But well, sorry that is simply the way my mind works. I really try to rescue the point of the talks, even if they are hidden underneath tons of bullshit (need a bathe now).
But indeed, what does this endless talk about those strange creatures conceived in someone’s febrile imagination and called “Ginny haters” give away about the Ginny lovers?
Inexplicable love and care for a character who was remarkably commonplace and cardboard
Even if for a few of you, Ginny Weasley, a secondary character in a children series, is a representative of the most important human values in your systems; it doesn’t follow that the rest of the readers will give such an importance to said character. This pro-Ginny crusade has baffled and cooled people who may had previously been indifferent to it, turning them into “haters”. I count myself in this category.
Upon entering the fandom I hardly had paid attention to many details of the series, I hardly remembered or cared for a great number of characters. Among these were Sirius, Percy, Arthur and Ginny. The strange and compulsive love I encountered for Ginny as months went by surprised me and finally sickened me out of my rather innocent indifference.
I wonder why all this love? Why care so much? This comes back from the very first books, where Ginny was even less interesting and had much much less page space.
Canon cannot properly vouch for this. Ginny has made no incredibly exploit in goodness or generosity. She has not sacrificed herself for a friend. We know no true goodness or extreme brightness as coming from her. So why the admiration?
Was it because she is commonplace? Because she is like just any average person? No pretty, no smart (no Hermione for sure!), not rich, nor popular?
Because…that was the case until book 5 arrived. When OoTP was finally released the Ginny love suddenly exploded as the previous common person became everything she probably had dreamed of, by the snapping of her fingers: she became suddenly pretty, popular, spunky, athletic and extroverted. Got over her painful crush and the rejection of the person she cared about. Later she got that very same man who had ignored her before, and has him moping for her and mortally wounded by her incredible allure.
And not only that, but this was done remarkably badly from a literary POV too.
So did the people who identified with the common person character saw finally their dreams of overcoming their own real life of shortcomings, fulfilled vicariously? Looks like that to me; just my opinion, of course. I am just an amateur psychologist.
The dream of having all your problems gone down the drain without any effort whatsoever is quite tempting, isn’t it? To have the humiliating memories and experiences of the past suddenly justified through someone who reminds me of myself can be too good to let go…
Well… no, not to everybody. Honest. People who were not invested emotionally in the character; but only invested in the series or other characters, reacted with coolness to the extreme makeover of Ginny. In all fairness, some people like to work for what they get in life. It’s more interesting that way, isn’t it? Well, it is, if you fill yourself capable of obtaining what you want with hard work and talent.
Some readers like to see their values reflected in their literature: even in escapism literature, because if we care about some characters it is because we can identify somehow ourselves with them.
So, we come down to the point of the identification /projection issue. This people who didn’t identify with the “instant millionaire fantasy” may have found themselves not invested emotionally in any character, and even in some cases they were feeling more identified with Hermione.
Hermione, actually does work for what she gets. More intellectual inclined readers may have found themselves more intrigued by her, which was quite natural for them, in my opinion, especially given the great amount of page space and the interesting character development that Hermione received, not to mention the amount of heroine deeds she has performed over the years.
Ginny lovers and self-appointed honour defenders mix reality with fantasy.
Yet, if we find ourselves identified with this or that character, which is natural and human, we should draw the line somewhere and stop thinking that critics on the character I identify with are ATTACKS ON MYSELF OR MY VALUE SYSTEM. OR THE WESTERN CIVILIZATION.
They are not.
They are not.
They are not.
People who dislike, hate or simply find Ginny irritating are not saying so to bother you or to attack your private fantasy of finally getting Brad Pitt to fall in love with you.
Into this point I’d like to also explain something that seems to be basic logic to me but is giving a great deal of unnecessary heartache to my dear friends from the H/G camp:
Even if Ginny was written to be a virgin or a slut, a nun-to-be or the temptress from hell, either case… it doesn’t’ affect the whole of womanhood in its entirety.
Unfortunately literary and media stereotypes do exist. Cataloguing a character as belonging to a certain stereotype is something rather normal to do in the frame of in-depth analysis. It doesn’t mean that the person writing the analysis supports said stereotype.
Comments, essays, even epithets directed to Ginny are not to be applied to you just because you happen to belong to the same gender as the fictional character. You are independent entities to whom literary analysis of your projected fantasy won’t affect in reality.
I love Ginny because I am also pretty and popular and everything positive that could ever be said or written about any woman, oh YES!.
Ok, you are. We have no problem with that, except that is pretty ridiculous that you need to say so yourself. Get a grip for God’s sake. I think I am too ashamed of my fandom to continue right now with this.
So part II may or may not come later.
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darynthe) wrote,
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