It doesn't help that I'm not sure I like the the "real" Ginny in HBP, or at least the way JKR treats her.
I think this might be the point we differ on
I really disliked 'early' Ginny with her constant blushing (a Rowling trait that, actually - everyone's always 'blushing' early on) and felt she got a bit of an unfair backseat role in books 3 and 4. I much preferred the more confident Ginny of book 5 onwards, and so I guess it made personal sense to me that Harry would too.
Do I detect a disappointed Harry/Hermione shipper?
I think you do.
I would have prefered that to Hermione/Ron for sure. However if you characterised my dislike of books six and seven as soley because Harry and Hermione didnt get together then that would be wildly missing the point of my criticisms.
My point was more that your only interest in DH was the scenes that could be interpreted from a H/H ship POV. You're naturally perfectly entitled to dislike whatever books you like
Also, the prophecy is completely useless and tells us nothing that impacts the rest of the story other than a throwaway backstory for Neville.
No, the prophecy sets Harry up as a martyr, and that is what DD is grooming him to be at that point.
The prophecy really wasn't necessary for that though - Harry would have been in that position anyway as he was a Horcrux. And that woudl have been less obvious if we hadn't known for two books that line about 'neither can live...'. Essentially, the story could have played out in exactly the same way without the prophecy. Now, granted, the 'half blood prince' book never really featured again either, but the crux of
that book was the backstory, not the potion book plot - OotP was the other way around - the prophecy was the furthering of the arc, while Umbridge was the supporting story. And yet, the prophecy was largely unimportant. If Vodlemort had got it, what would he really have known of import? He was trying to kill Harry anyway.
Dissapointed that the LOGICAL pairing is tossed aside for half-assed, baseless pairings "because the author says so"?
No, it wasn't logical. You've decided it's the pairing you'd have liked to see, and that's absolutely your right, but it wasn't
logic that lead to that, nor following the actual story in front of you - R/H has been there in subtle form since the beginning and in far
less than subtle form since at least book 4. I can certainly see that people think H/G is out of the blue, but R/H was
very clearly on the cards from the first time Rowling even introduces the idea of relationships.
Yes, because making a girl cry and almost getting her crushed by a troll is SUCH a good way to show her how you feel...or tearing her a new one about a broom...etc etc...
No, they're baseless until the mysterious appearance of the Chest Monster. And there's STILL the bit about Molly "helping along" her relationship with Arthur...like mother like daughter...
You had some unusual high school experiences if you think either of these relationship progressions were unusual. The only unusual thing is that they would last into forever-marriage. But then, having gone through all that together, that makes pretty good sense too.
On the contrary, she all but throws herself (in an 11-year old way) at him right at the end of book 1 with the "friendship and..." line. Hermione is constantly being demonstrative with him, until the later books when she unexpectedly (and unrealistically) starts throwing herself at Ron.
So a minute ago relationships with girls who crushed on you at 11 was dodgy and irrational, but now its the LOGICAL choice to get with them and be together forever?
What? That Voldie was a 'bad seed'? That's not interesting OR particularly informative.
If that's all the backstory you need on a villain, that he's 'bad', I can see why you didn't like the book (you can't like
many books, actually) - I preferred to see how Voldemort came to be, to learn about his past. Rather than be the Dark Lord of Conveniently Motiveless Evil, we learnt how and why he became obsessed with cheating death. And it's not just the life story of Voldemort, it explains the entire Horcrux thing and all the locations he hid them.
Oh, and to those moaning about side-along apparition not being invented until book 6, that's just a Rowling trademark - new things get added to the Potterverse all along which start out rare or unusual and are suddenly commonplace from then on.
The mark of a poor writer.
Mostly, the mark of kids books morphing into adults books. Difficult to make a world slowly more complex through 7 books designed for increasingly older people without... making it more complex. Granted, it's not the best setup, it makes it hard to fit the early books into the later universe, but then you are supposed to be taking Harry's POV - someone who is as new to this world as we are. He might
not get things right or complete the first time.
), she does become kind of the girl who can do no wrong in books 6 and 7 - but when a similar point was put to Rowling in one of her interviews on British TV, her response was that every character's portrayal is through Harry's eyes, so they naturally come across how Harry sees them - Harry views Snape as a dickhead, Malfoy as a scheming villain and Ginny (later on) as wonderful - so the characters are portrayed as such - she also pointed out the actions of the characters are supposed to give away the 'reality' - Snape's actions and memories late in book 7, Malfoy's crying and general being a pussy and Ginny's acting quite snappy or simpering at times.
