What’s wrong with Ginny?
(my comments on “The Character Development of Ginny Weasley”
by u/goodlife23)
For me the main idea of everything written (originally I have
this from an excellent book by Walter Kerr “How Not to Write
a Play”) is that the plot (and character development and many
other things in any literary work) is about a character moving
from point A to point B. That’s all the play (novel, short story)
is about! Why did she move from A to B? What were the obstacles
on the way? How did she overcame them? Actually points A and
B are not so important as the travel between them.
One of the most horrible sins of every literary work is when in
the first act of a drama the character (let’s say Draco Malfoy or
Severus Snape) is in point A (marked Death Eater believing
honestly in the pureblood ideals), and in the second act he is in
point B (member of the Order of Phoenix fighting pureblood
mentality). Change happened sometime during the intermission.
That’s completely and absolutely wrong! The most important part,
the only part we are interested in, is how he changed. What moved
him to leave the Voldemort’s camp? Was it difficult? What
obstacles he had to overcome? What precious things he had to
sacrifice and leave behind? This is for example problem of most
stories with Severus Snape as the main character. In books we
have rather horrible person persecuting Harry just because he
looks like his dad. Then suddenly in the story he is fair, a bit
hurt by the nasty Dumbledore, smart guy who is the best friend
with Harry without much problems. WHAT? How did they get there?
Why Severus changed his attitude towards Harry? How did Harry
struggle to accept this change? etc. The story in this area
I rather like (“Becoming Harriet” by Teao; another problem is
that amount of smut is so big that it hurts the narrative) is
exactly with this problem. Suddenly without any transition, Snape
is the only professor who was always honest with Harry (WHAT?),
desperately hoping for just treatment for his Slytherins, etc.,
and Harry (well, Harriet, it is a gender bending story) accepts
it immediately without any objections (WHAT?).
The similar thing happened to Ginny in the books. She starts as
a very shy girl with her elbow in the butter dish when seeing
Harry, then she is a damsel in distress (OK, that part is
covered, that’s what COS is about), princess saved by her knight
in (not so much) shining armour from a dragon, and then … she is
completely forgotten. Suddenly she shows up two and half books
later as a self-confident sport-loving most pretty girl well
prepared to be the girl for Harry (and there is not much else for
her goals in life apparently). We are told, that Hermione had
told her (behind the scenes, we don’t even know when that
conversation happened) to date around to get a confidence (pretty
stupid idea, if I may say so) and somewhere behind the scenes
(aside from one scene when Harry and Ron found her kissing
somebody, we don’t even know anything about that process) she
changes. There is a hint to something in my beloved line ‘“Lucky
you,” said Ginny coolly.’, but it has never been developed into
proper substory (which is huge mistake, IMHO). That’s COMPLETELY
WRONG! We are interested in the process how a girl, who was shy
and horribly abused by Tom Riddle (emotionally, physically,
perhaps even otherwise), changes into the fiery Ginny we all know
and love. We don’t know and we are never told.
Difference between Luna and Ginny is interesting. The story arch
we are here following is not actually change in Luna herself (she
is mostly the same all time she is present), but the journey is
Harry’s (and ours) discovery who she is. He first thinks (with
everybody else including Hermione) she is just Loony, crazy girl
spitting out nonsense. And gradually he finds out she is actually
rather smart, shockingly honest, and absolutely faithful to her
friends, so he ends to take her to the Slughorn’s party, and she
then follows the group to the Department of Mysteries and
co-leads the Dumbledore Army during DH (another horribly
situation where everything interesting with Ginny happens
somewhere in background). However, given Luna is not the main
heroine of the story (contrary to Ginny, who should be the one),
it is possibly easier to forgive her disappearance in the
background, when she is not needed for the main storyline.
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Harry and Ginny as siblings
Originally published as “Harry & Ginny are brother and sister” on Reddit.
I see it like this. Lily was already pregnant with her second
child (it is slightly over a year between Harry and Ginny so it
is biologically possible), when they found out about the Prophecy
and need to hide …
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On anger and forgiveness
(my comments on “the thread on reddit”)
I have been thinking about this thread for the last couple of
days, and I am sorry I let myself to be side-tracked into
a stupid argument about the Christianity and religion and stuff.
Right now I read linkffn(9203082) and that made …
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Conference of the inner healing
When John wrote about himself he didn’t himself us an evangelist,
a gospel-writer, an apostle, he identified himself as the one
whom Jesus loved.
The situation where John leaned on the Jesus’ chest: we cannot
just read it, we have to have the experience it ourselves. Living
like a …
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To přece ví každé malé dítě
Někde v nějaké diskusi jsem zmínil, že přece každé malé dítě ví,
co je Geiger a tak jsem neodolal a přepíšu sem příslušnou úvahu
Karla Čapka (ze sbírky novinových sloupků „V zajetí slov“,
Svoboda, Praha, 1969, str. 135):
To přece ví každé malé dítě. To mi řekl jeden
automobilista, když …
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Smashing of Death Eaters?
(my comments on “Canon and the Moral Dimensions of Killing in
War” thread on reddit)
This is no question of agreeing and disagreeing with me. What I wrote
was not exactly my opinion (which I specifically emphasized), but what I
consider the prevalent notion among Europeans. Discussion here is very …
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Religionless universe of Harry Potter
(my comments on the thread “Probably gonna catch some hate for
this. Religion and Mythology and its place in fiction.” on
Reddit by RhysThornbery; edited for this blog)
The question is about the role of religion in the HP
universe, and it is very interesting one. I am a …
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Terms of Matrimony
(my comments on “Terms of Matrimony” by Galad Estel)
First of all, this story has broken link on Fanfiction.net, so
I have had to look up and down all over the Internet to find that
only working copy known to me is at ff2ebook.com link shown
above. Even …
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Ad “A magical love affair”
(my comments on “A magical love affair” by charmed9292)
I have to admit reading of this story was an exercise in
frustration for me. I think the general idea of Petunia and
Severus crying over one another’s shoulder is a great. Both of
them are nicely complicated and somehow …
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Harry Potter and Aristotle
Aristotle in the seventh and eighth chapter of his Poetics
writes:
Now, according to our definition, Tragedy is an imitation of
an action that is complete, and whole, and of a certain
magnitude … As therefore, in the other imitative arts, the
imitation is one when the object imitated is one …
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Dudley has a witch as a daughter
(review of Must Have Changed A Lot)
This certainly works as a one-shot, but as many (most?) fanfics
it is necessary to distinguish between exposition and story.
There are zillion fanfics with at least interesting exposition
(OK, so not only "what if Harry was a girl/has a sister"), but …
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Evangelium království
(kázání pronesené ve sboru ČCE Praha-Braník, 29. července 2018)
Po Janově uvěznění přišel Ježíš do Galileje a hlásal evangelium Boží.
A říkal: „Naplnil se čas a přiblížilo se Boží království;
čiňte pokání a věřte evangeliu.“
—Marek 1:14-15
Když se zeptám křesťanů na to, co je evangelium, většinou dostanu
celkem …
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Loving Vincent
Movie “Loving Vincent” is certainly an experience worthy of the
tickets to go to the cinema. The main idea of it is to make
“animated” film by painting endless number of quality oil
paintings in the style of Vincent van Gogh about the painter
himself. I have been warned that …
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Pokud nebude hnutí ANO trvat na účasti A. Babiše ve vládě, měli bychom …
(odpověď v interním dotazníku KDÚ-ČSL)
Podle mého „na jednání o naší případné účasti ve vládě
přistoupit“. Zde je můj komentář (který se do formuláře nevešel).
Zároveň zcela souhlasím s tím, že lidovci (a každá politická
strana) vstupovala do voleb s tím, že jsou ochotni se zasazovat
o správu věcí veřejných …
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O panu Drahošovi a ozbrojení obyvatelstva
(komentář k diskusi na Facebooku k včerejší diskusi
prezidentských kandidátů panů Drahoše a Zemana)
Byl jsem z té včerejší diskuse upřímně nešťastný (tedy z pěti
minut, které jsem vydržel sledovat).
Ne, proto, že by novinář Primy byl neschopný minimální novinářské
práce a jenom se snažil přivést diváctvo co nejvíce do …
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On Lying
(a comment to the blogpost by Robert O’Callahan)
I think the truthfulness among Christians is overrated. Here,
I said it.
OK, before saying anything else, I have to say that it is very
important, and I know what I am talking about. I had my brush
with an addiction …
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Podpora kandidátů na prezidenta
(z emailové diskuse)
K obavám z roztříštěnosti:
Pokud v prvním kole bude mít Zeman více než 50% hlasů, bude
zvolen. Pak je úplně jedno, kolik hlasů dostane Drahoš
a Fišer. Pokud v prvním kole nedostane více než 50%,
a předpokládejme, že do druhého kola se dostane, pak záleží na
kandidátovi …
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Review of “Escape” and “Mr and Mrs Percy Weasley”
There is a biblical verse from Galatians 3:3: “Are you so
foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected
by the flesh?” What I mean is that “Escape” and “Mr and Mrs
Percy Weasley” started as one of the best fanfictions I found
anywhere. Obviously, from …
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Úvaha postvolební
Co jsem napsal dnes ráno jednomu kamarádovi na IM:
Tak já Ti nevím. Jsem hodně nešťastnej z té včerejší
post-volební diskuse předesedů vítězných stran. Kromě toho,
že jsou morálně radikální názory dost neuctivé k milionu
a půl našich spoluobčanů, tak efektivně dotlačili Bureše
k tomu, že v této chvíli jediná …
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On The Third Way or the Reply to Dave
(Comment to the article by Dave Schmelzer on a Christian and
politics)
Hi, Dave,
let me add couple of comments from this side of The Pond.
First of all, of course, I blame completely confused American
terminology, especially in the political matters. Here Socialists
are not afraid to call themselves …
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Yet another on the infallibility in the Church
(written originally as yet another comment to the blogpost “How Many
Theologians Does it Take To Define Infallibility?” by Melinda Selyms)
First of all: thank you, these are very good questions, which actually made me
think (doesn’t happen that often on blog comments).
Certainly, some rules are necessary even …
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The Holy Protestant Tradition?
(written originally as a comment to the blogpost “How Many
Theologians Does it Take To Define Infallibility?” by Melinda
Selyms)
I am a Protestant, so I am not entitled to bring much to this
discussion, but we were yesterday with my wife in Wittenberg, so
I cannot resist to add …
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On “A Painfully Familiar Reason for Using NFP”
Record of my comment to another nice article by Melinda Selmys.
This is one of those sad places where I am afraid my voice will
be completely ignored, because exactly the people who will most
dogmatically insist on NFP will be the ones who will be the least
likely to …
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Review of Aftershocks
Some thoughts on the fan fiction Aftershocks.
We need to know without a shadow of a doubt that Padma did not
kill Parvati before we can move on.
I am extremely confused about this whole work. On the one hand
there are some parts which are really trully excellent. Whole …
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What We Were Made For: Gratitude For Normal
(unfortunately, FanFiction.net allows only one review per
chapter, so I was not able to add this to my review of
chapter 90 of The Missing Moments by Ash-and-Vine).
When I was something like fourteen I was in hospital for surgery
which made me for a week unable to move …
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