The only thing that makes me angrier than a female
protagonist that is helpless, defenseless and a waste of paper is a female
protagonist that is portrayed as the strongest, smartest, and most desirable woman
in the entire book.
Hello, I like contradictions. But I don’t like Ginny Weasley.
Ginny Weasley is what we would refer to as the
‘exceptional women’. “Exceptional
Woman” refers to a woman, who is the best and awesome-est at what she does, but she’s still only
playing the game that is reserved for boys, an example, Princess Lea, who is
also the only female character in the entire trilogy. Women get to be either
the best, or non-existent, because apparently only men get to be average.
Let’s be serious- great female protagonists, even good
ones, are hard to find in novels. Authors really don’t seem to know how to play
it; to write a character that can’t seem to do anything herself, or a woman who
is so independent, she can’t even stand the thought of two boys being in love
with her throughout the entire series? It’s been seen throughout the history of
young adult fiction.
Ginny Weasley really did show up out of the blue- we
did, of course, see her in the first four books, where she was shy, quiet, undeniably
infatuated with Harry Potter…and possessed by a diary in the girls’ bathroom. But
suddenly when the rest of the books came out, Ginny Weasley became super woman
2.0. The best at hexes, the snarkiest when it came to insults, and obviously much
prettier than all the other girls, not even the Boy Who Lived could stay away
from her. She was never ashamed of her countless boyfriends, or her poverty, or
any clichés that should be worried about when it comes to being a teenage girl.
All in all, J.K Rowling took every possible quality a human could want, and
bestowed it on Ron Weasley’s little sister.
I really tried to like Ginny the way I liked every other
character in the book- she had qualities that made people like her, I’m sure of
it, but she just seemed a little too great for my taste. Out of the hundreds of
students that attended Hogwarts, she was the only person who stuck up for Luna?
The only person who made it into the Slug Club without connections? She alone
won the award of BEST chaser, even after Katie Bell had been on the team for
six long years?
What bothered me the most was that all of these
qualities that were bestowed upon her were not an attempt to make a funny,
strong female lead- they were given to her so that she would be good enough for
Harry. Harry only seems to like her after she’s wooed plenty of men with her
feminine wiles; only after she makes sure not to cry like all the other girls,
or when she’s treated like a special snowflake for being oh so strong, and oh
so witty. Ginny Weasley, it seems, was planned out from the beginning to date
Harry as a reward, as if he needed something to make up for the horrible years
spent in battling Voldemort and wizarding angst.
Ginny Weasley has had her moments, every character in
the series has, but after the books are finished, and the story has been
closed, I’ll always remember Ginny as the girl who reminded me of the one
person in your class that is the best at everything, and you alone can see all
of their flaws.
By: Sarah Quraishi
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