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reenkaSkimming a reasonable enough post on the defense of Ginny, for the first time since I read HBP I was uncomfortable. Mostly... mostly because I was just writing about Zacharias & Ginny hexed Zacharias for asking too many questions and making her annoyed :/ :/ Well, acting like that, I don't think she's any kind of slut/Queen Bee/whatever-people-accuse-her-of, but she does remind me of a more immature version of Ron what with the hair-trigger temper and... all the hexing, honestly :/
Of course I'm not one of the 'Ginny haters' 'cause I don't hate on any character, just not my gig anymore (used to seriously dislike Lucius, but eh, water under the bridge + mostly fanon). But the whole thing where she's like a trigger-happy Gryff recruit or something (for Harry's army?)-- that's annoying, in retrospect, but fact is she was always a Harry fangirl, it's just she was a supposedly passive Harry fangirl. *sigh* She gets carried away with petty emotions & translates it into violence and/or mean-spirited remarks, but then so does Harry and Lily and James and every teenage Gryff or Slyth character except Neville and Luna (even Hermione! jeez, and people say she should've been in Ravenclaw), so. :/
There's only so much effort you can put into defending any of them, is my point. Like, I was reading bits of Mike Smith's hilarious HBP commentary, and well-- he hates Harry, and says he's useless and a ridiculous hero-figure who doesn't deserve any credit, etcetc, and you know what? That's all true.
You can always learn from any (remotely intelligent) criticism.
I mean, just 'cause I love Harry doesn't mean I have to disagree with his critics-- it's true, Harry's won by luck & help from his friends & sheer blind nerve and/or stupidity. Yep. Well, it was never really the point that he's so competent, anyway. The point is that he's Harry, and lovable to me.
On that note, it really annoys me to read a fic where My Harry is made into an 'angel' who realizes the Obvious Truth About Draco or Life, The Universe & Everything, whatever. He's a dense, prejudiced, stubborn little devil, okay? He's also brave and kind to others in his own way, but whatever. Doesn't make him nice or wise or even competent, though he's pretty good at Quidditch and Defense (Patronus, man!), you haveta give him that. I mean, he's a bit precocious, which may be 'cause Voldy gave him his power and his mum gave him magical defenses, but point is that he's a focus for others' powers/issues in many ways-- that's just what he is. He -is- really good at Quidditch, though, but I think he's good 'cause he loves it so much-- the freedom of it. He really -wants- to succeed, and that drive is one of the things he and Draco share, which is neither here nor there, but anyway.
This isn't about Harry. I just wanted to say that... well, I think I'm usually easy on HP characters when I've written them, even if I started out writing them to torture them or whatever. It's hard not to be like 'My Ginny' & 'My Luna' & 'My Harry' & 'My Draco' and so on. I always try to figure out why they'd act a certain way and accept it 'cause everyone's kind of... on the level, I guess? In my experience of people in general, when they're kids & teenagers, they kind of suck too :/ Not like 'oh, these people teased me in school'-- no, I'm saying EVERYONE SUCKED in school, so. Yeah, I sucked pretty bad, I was just The Quiet One who seethed in silence and wanted to have herself be cryogenically frozen just to escape the hell that was other people. ^^;;;
Just to stay sane & adjust, I accepted it's a phase and then some people grow up & others become mass murdering lunatics, what can I tell you :P
Actually, this issue of reader-projection is a huge hot-button of mine, but I dunno if I can even take it seriously anymore. *sigh* I can't take it seriously when people OMG H8 GINNY/RON/DRACO XXXX!!1!!11eleven or whatever, or whatever way they express it. Hate in any form is just... okay, I hate child molestors, but I realize that's unreasonable because it stops me thinking reasonably. I don't even care if I'm ethically right, I try not to give in to it because I can always -become- like those people who hex whoever annoys them. And you may think I'm nothing like Ginny, but I'm a hair-trigger-temper & a wand away from hexing like, 45% of mankind 'cause they smell wrong, trust me ><;; And you know, I think I'm mostly a nice person. A nicer person than usual, even (even though I hate the word & -idea- of 'nice' and am actually not 'nice' but I do act nice most of the time). So.
I just have no patience for people who condemn other people, honestly. Using any form of self-righteousness to combat self-righteousness... not on. But of course, if we just say 'everyone sucks, and I realize I do too', most people get depressed, not loving/understanding of humanity in general, so... whatever works, I guess. I'm not going to stay up late waiting for anyone to be like 'yeahhh... this character/person/group has issues, but then that's human' or whatever. It's okay to be annoyed. Hell, I'm often annoyed, which is why I should stop reading fluffy H/D with smooth!Draco, right? RIGHT.
And let me add this before someone brings it up: many (most?) people say it's not that they care that 'people suck' or Ginny sucks or whatever, it's that JKR ('the Author') is telling them they don't suck when they do, so. It's all a meta-argument & they're not dissing Ginny but rather JKR through Ginny, so posts like![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
theregoesyamum's or whatever miss the point. And.
Um. I don't care. I mean, if I can ignore authorial voice while reading with some effort (and it does take some!), then I feel I don't have to discuss it every time I discuss the characters. That just ruins the books for me, and that? Isn't worth it for meta's sake. Okay, that's all, basically.
PS: *sigh* Yeah. The day has come for me to lock meta if I don't want it to be on comms :/
Of course I'm not one of the 'Ginny haters' 'cause I don't hate on any character, just not my gig anymore (used to seriously dislike Lucius, but eh, water under the bridge + mostly fanon). But the whole thing where she's like a trigger-happy Gryff recruit or something (for Harry's army?)-- that's annoying, in retrospect, but fact is she was always a Harry fangirl, it's just she was a supposedly passive Harry fangirl. *sigh* She gets carried away with petty emotions & translates it into violence and/or mean-spirited remarks, but then so does Harry and Lily and James and every teenage Gryff or Slyth character except Neville and Luna (even Hermione! jeez, and people say she should've been in Ravenclaw), so. :/
There's only so much effort you can put into defending any of them, is my point. Like, I was reading bits of Mike Smith's hilarious HBP commentary, and well-- he hates Harry, and says he's useless and a ridiculous hero-figure who doesn't deserve any credit, etcetc, and you know what? That's all true.
You can always learn from any (remotely intelligent) criticism.
I mean, just 'cause I love Harry doesn't mean I have to disagree with his critics-- it's true, Harry's won by luck & help from his friends & sheer blind nerve and/or stupidity. Yep. Well, it was never really the point that he's so competent, anyway. The point is that he's Harry, and lovable to me.
On that note, it really annoys me to read a fic where My Harry is made into an 'angel' who realizes the Obvious Truth About Draco or Life, The Universe & Everything, whatever. He's a dense, prejudiced, stubborn little devil, okay? He's also brave and kind to others in his own way, but whatever. Doesn't make him nice or wise or even competent, though he's pretty good at Quidditch and Defense (Patronus, man!), you haveta give him that. I mean, he's a bit precocious, which may be 'cause Voldy gave him his power and his mum gave him magical defenses, but point is that he's a focus for others' powers/issues in many ways-- that's just what he is. He -is- really good at Quidditch, though, but I think he's good 'cause he loves it so much-- the freedom of it. He really -wants- to succeed, and that drive is one of the things he and Draco share, which is neither here nor there, but anyway.
This isn't about Harry. I just wanted to say that... well, I think I'm usually easy on HP characters when I've written them, even if I started out writing them to torture them or whatever. It's hard not to be like 'My Ginny' & 'My Luna' & 'My Harry' & 'My Draco' and so on. I always try to figure out why they'd act a certain way and accept it 'cause everyone's kind of... on the level, I guess? In my experience of people in general, when they're kids & teenagers, they kind of suck too :/ Not like 'oh, these people teased me in school'-- no, I'm saying EVERYONE SUCKED in school, so. Yeah, I sucked pretty bad, I was just The Quiet One who seethed in silence and wanted to have herself be cryogenically frozen just to escape the hell that was other people. ^^;;;
Just to stay sane & adjust, I accepted it's a phase and then some people grow up & others become mass murdering lunatics, what can I tell you :P
Actually, this issue of reader-projection is a huge hot-button of mine, but I dunno if I can even take it seriously anymore. *sigh* I can't take it seriously when people OMG H8 GINNY/RON/DRACO XXXX!!1!!11eleven or whatever, or whatever way they express it. Hate in any form is just... okay, I hate child molestors, but I realize that's unreasonable because it stops me thinking reasonably. I don't even care if I'm ethically right, I try not to give in to it because I can always -become- like those people who hex whoever annoys them. And you may think I'm nothing like Ginny, but I'm a hair-trigger-temper & a wand away from hexing like, 45% of mankind 'cause they smell wrong, trust me ><;; And you know, I think I'm mostly a nice person. A nicer person than usual, even (even though I hate the word & -idea- of 'nice' and am actually not 'nice' but I do act nice most of the time). So.
I just have no patience for people who condemn other people, honestly. Using any form of self-righteousness to combat self-righteousness... not on. But of course, if we just say 'everyone sucks, and I realize I do too', most people get depressed, not loving/understanding of humanity in general, so... whatever works, I guess. I'm not going to stay up late waiting for anyone to be like 'yeahhh... this character/person/group has issues, but then that's human' or whatever. It's okay to be annoyed. Hell, I'm often annoyed, which is why I should stop reading fluffy H/D with smooth!Draco, right? RIGHT.
And let me add this before someone brings it up: many (most?) people say it's not that they care that 'people suck' or Ginny sucks or whatever, it's that JKR ('the Author') is telling them they don't suck when they do, so. It's all a meta-argument & they're not dissing Ginny but rather JKR through Ginny, so posts like
theregoesyamum's or whatever miss the point. And.Um. I don't care. I mean, if I can ignore authorial voice while reading with some effort (and it does take some!), then I feel I don't have to discuss it every time I discuss the characters. That just ruins the books for me, and that? Isn't worth it for meta's sake. Okay, that's all, basically.
PS: *sigh* Yeah. The day has come for me to lock meta if I don't want it to be on comms :/
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no subject
Date: 2006-07-10 03:17 pm (UTC)Although I felt compelled to answer the thread you linked to because...just because, the thing is I always have a sort of knee-jerk reaction to any post that's a "defense" of a character. First because no character needs a defense. There's always a whiny quality to it, like Christians talking about the War on Christmas. You're not under attack and neither is the character. I can understand disagreeing with stuff that people say about the character that's just wrong because it's just wrong, but as I said in my reply on that thread, the thing about that particular defense is it's this whole list of how Ginny can't be this kind of girl who went to your school because that kind of girl followed this very set pattern of behavior. Meanwhile I'm reading it and saying...uh, not in my school!
I mean, I can see if somebody is comparing Ginny to a bitchy girl that you know and someone is saying, "Wait, she's not like her because that girl picks on poor people and would never be nice to Neville and Luna etc." But you can't tell somebody else about people they went to school with and you didn't. For instance, as I've said before about Pansy, she doesn't inspire a visceral reaction in me, maybe partially because girls like Pansy didn't pick on me. Just as we've never seen Pansy pick on Luna. Luna's not a threat to Pansy. She might even see something she likes in her because she's "weird." You know, like maybe she could talk to Luna or be amused by her and not feel nervous about being judged. Whatever. If Neville were in Slytherin Pansy might not have called him a fat crybaby and maybe Ginny would have been the one to be mean to him. It's just...yeah, if somebody says Ginny's the popular slutty girl fine to point out no she's not because here's canon. But it's different to try to argue, "No, she can't be a mean girl because mean girls make fun of people for this limited set of reasons and Ginny wouldn't make fun of *me* so she must be a not mean girl."
no subject
Date: 2006-07-10 03:38 pm (UTC)The whole thing read like a straw man of some kind, though perhaps she's responding to a specific post or something that say Ginny's a stereotypical cheerleader (people -are- pretty stupid). Well, it bothers me what she did to Zacharias, but no one ever mentions that among the references I hear (from a distance) about being a bitch to Dean & too fixated on Harry + not independent enough & um, dissing Fleur (seriously, the Fleur issue is where people lose me, or basically any case where she's just verbally snarking or whatever, funny or not-- who cares). I suppose with Ginny, there -have- been a flurry of anti-Ginny posts post-HBP so maybe it feels like an attack? There were also a flurry of anti-Harry posts post-OoTP, and some anti-Hermione post-HBP too... so I do think there are 'moods' or whatever in fandom where some characters are in or out of favor, but....
The pointlessness of bothering to combat the natural fandom weather conditions does strike me as extreme ^^;
(PS! Hee! MORE CUTE DRACO ICONAGE!)
no subject
Date: 2006-07-10 04:22 pm (UTC)Also things just get more extreme the more they're talked about. Like if you like a character and you're talking to other people who like him/her you always talk a lot about the wrong way other people talk about the character, and those arguments gets exaggerated or you concentrate on the most extreme ones. And if you dislike a character and are talking to other people who do you joke around and get more and more extreme. So people who hate Draco are always saying, "Oh yes, he's a misunderstood woobie!" as if this is the only position other than their own, and people who hate Ginny are all, "She's such a feminist ideal!" as if that's what you must see her as if you like her at all.
I remember in a recent DTCL I did it was the chapter where Ginny runs into Zach in the commentator stand and it just seemed right to completely riff on my own hatred. I said something like, "Well, Gryffindor won as usual but that's old by now. I wish there was something more to make it a real triumph. I know! How about one last reminder that Ginny's a cunt? Yay! There it is!"
Btw, I so love mike_smith's recaps. Especially the stuff about the special bathrooms.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-10 05:35 pm (UTC)...Er, yeah, I think it's totally true that people say a lot of things in their cliquish fandom context that's intended for a specific audience... like, you can talk and talk and talk about why you love Harry or Draco and people who just 'don't dig it' will NEVER DIG IT, never really understand, it seems, unless maybe you write a brilliant fic & then they're like 'wow, you made me like this character, you're a genius! even though I still hate him!' Probably 'cause it's all about the interplay between one's own emotions & the character.
Although the thing about joking around about a hated character... I don't think I've ever done that. Woe. I've hated fanon!Draco, who may be considered a character, but it's hard to joke around about it 'cause the hate is so strangly-strong when I read a badfic, I just want to rant and rant and rant. Or if the fic is good, then I'm pacified. But I still get what you're saying :> It's totally all about the emotional context, in terms of what you need to understand other people's preferences/prejudices, and that individual understanding is what people are missing when they go off about any of the details, I think.