The Harry Potter Series

[dwanollah]

TOTALLY Ginny + Neville!!1!

But yeah, the fact that Ginny is a Weasley is the crux of it. Harry loses everything family-wise, but, through marriage, gets to be part of his ideal family. Trite but true.

[alpierce]

Jul 31, 2009 16:14:46 GMT -4 prada said:

I just reread Deathly Hallows after watching HBP too. And for the life of me, I can't understand WHY Harry ends up with Ginny. I always thought Luna or Hermione would've been better matches for him, and Ginny for Neville. Oh well.

I never read any of the books, but judging from the movies, HP and Hermoine would be too easy and expected.

[Coffeecakes]

I wanted Harry to end up with Luna. They had excellent chemistry in the books and surprisingly also in the movies. Too bad that was all fucked so he could end up with Ginny, who I never cared for. She should've ended up with Dean or someone else that was not awesome because the alternative of her ending up with the awesome that is Neville is simply unacceptable.

[Deleted]

Hermione is the loner only child of two astonishingly hands off parents (did she ever spend more than four or six weeks a year with her folks

Hee! But that's typical of kids in boarding-school stories (and I guess kids who go to boarding-school IRL?). Even as a kid myself, reading Enid Blyton's various series, I was always amazed at how little time these parents and children actually spent with each other. I don't think we're supposed to read the Granger's as being particularly distant - even the Weasley's only spend the six weeks of summer together most of the time.

I really liked that JK Rowling made Dumbledore into a fallible character.

That's what I loved about the series - nobody was all good or all bad. You've got Dumbledore, Snape, Sirius, James Potter and even the Malfoys having both darkness and redeeming features.

[Deleted]

Aug 1, 2009 6:01:17 GMT -4 Coffeecakes said:

I wanted Harry to end up with Luna. They had excellent chemistry in the books and surprisingly also in the movies. Too bad that was all fucked so he could end up with Ginny, who I never cared for. She should've ended up with Dean or someone else that was not awesome because the alternative of her ending up with the awesome that is Neville is simply unacceptable.

Man, I think I am the only one who likes Ginny. But I admit that my perspective has been skewed by the massive amount of Harry/Ginny fan fic that I have read.

[dwanollah]

Well, BookGinny is certainly MUCH more kick-ass than MovieGinny.....

[bklynred]

I got surprisingly weepy the second time around, esp. around <<Dobby's>> death and Luna easing Harry into using his Patronus when he's too exhausted. I'm still not accepting the whole <<<Fred/Remus/Tonks>>> thing yet, I don't care what anyone says.

[angelaudie]

Yeah, Fred, Remus, and Tonks's deaths were heartbreakers and rather equally heartbreaking. Remus and Tonks left a young son and didn't get the chance to really enjoy happiness. Fred was young and had his whole life ahead of him. I must say I found JK's reasoning for killing off Remus and Tonks a bit silly. I'm glad Mr. Weasley was given a reprieve but at the same time I don't buy because he wasn't killed someone else had to die.

I really liked that JK Rowling made Dumbledore into a fallible character.

I'm glad it was finally shown that even Dumbledore had his faults. I get why Harry was always quick to defend him though. Dumbledore was the closest Harry had to an actual father (Sirius certainly loved Harry but seemed to encourage him to go looking for trouble). In a way Harry was kinda like young child when it came to Dumbledore. When we are young we tend to believe our parents are perfect and can do no wrong. Harry was going through this phase at an older age.

Harry himself was also fallible. He certainly has good qualities. He's brave, smart, and loyal to friends. But Harry could also be arrogant, hot headed, and stubborn. Plus, once Harry decided he didn't like you he never really gave you a second chance. Harry having negative qualities and JK acknowledging he has some bad traits prevented Harry from becoming a male Mary Sue. See Stephanie Mey... I mean writers! A character can be less than perfect and the audience will still like him/her!

[aibohphobia]

Aug 1, 2009 14:16:01 GMT -4 @borokat said:

Aug 1, 2009 6:01:17 GMT -4 Coffeecakes said:

I wanted Harry to end up with Luna. They had excellent chemistry in the books and surprisingly also in the movies. Too bad that was all fucked so he could end up with Ginny, who I never cared for. She should've ended up with Dean or someone else that was not awesome because the alternative of her ending up with the awesome that is Neville is simply unacceptable.

Man, I think I am the only one who likes Ginny. But I admit that my perspective has been skewed by the massive amount of Harry/Ginny fan fic that I have read.

Oh, I do too, borokat. In fact, after Fametracker exploded, there was a HP messageboard that I visited that a FT poster had set up, but I felt too much like Ginny's The Jakes to keep posting there.

I can understand the problems with her, but I guess that's because JKR had to hide her for so long as it to sort of come as a surprise when Harry did finally notice her because they both had to go out with other people first. However, I think she waited too long, and I could see why the telling not showing what good qualities she has method got old. I think she could have easily cut many if not all of those parts, and just had those great parts of Ginny telling Harry off in OotP because I loved that she was basically the only one that could do that with him stopping being so emo and not yelling at her in return like he would other people.

That's why I think if she would have just been left at the level that she had been pre-OotP while still being able to knock sense into Harry in that book and also stand up for Neville the way that she did in OotP that Ginny/Neville would have been the best way to go since she didn't really get to do anything in the last book that wasn't connected to just being the love interest which I didn't like because everyone else got to do something onscreen.

I think at least that way people who actually liked H/G like me wouldn't have been upset that she didn't get to help at all in the last book and was only the love interest which was one of my biggest fear that I had before that book because I didn't want her to end up so one dimensional especially compared to the way that other female characters like Hermione, Luna, and even Cho were written, and prove many people who didn't like her character right. At least with N/G or at least no H/G at all, people who didn't like H/G wouldn't have to put up with all the lovey dovey stuff and being told how great Ginny was because I could see how that could be pretty annoying, and she still would have been mostly in the background like she was during the first four books which would have matched up with Neville better instead of with being paired with the main character.

I still like her character even if I thought JKR could have written her better in the books once she started to seriously lay the groundwork for H/G post-GoF because she made Harry happy which was good enough for me.

[Mutagen]

Hmm, my tuppence on the Potter ships...

As far back as book one, I remember thinking "Are Ron/Hermione going to be the feuding-couple-secretly-in-love of the series?" So when that 'ship became more overt in later books, I was like, awesome. And normally when a couple is telegraphed from that far away I find it boring, but for some reason I was 100% onboard with it in this case... maybe because I got a kick out of seeing two kind of awkward kids have that kind of chemistry.

As far as Harry goes, I never strongly shipped him with anyone. I think, this might sound really weird, but my first pass through the books I felt really maternal towards him. The mirror of Erised and the ending of Goblet of Fire made me think stuff like, "I want to take care of this poor kid and feed him hot chocolate" more than anything girlfriend-related. So when he finally ended up with Ginny, I was like "Sure, OK, whatever."

The movies, on the other hand, have really opened my eyes to Harry/Luna. I bought them as friends in the books, but in the movies, they have GREAT chemistry. For that matter, I was kind of disproportionately annoyed that Luna and Neville ended up with random other people instead of each other (I guess it might have been a little too neat and tidy to have Ron/Hermione, Harry/Ginny AND Neville/Luna all pair off, but I don't care).

All just my personal take of course....