Can you talk about your thoughts on hinny? I have no problem with people shipping it but to me personally it just doesn't work. It feels like Rowling tried too hard or maybe just wasn't good at writing romance and messed it up. Maybe it was too rushed? The ship doesn't work for me but I'd love to hear your views.
Okay, sorry it took a while to answer this, I actually have a lot of thoughts and I have posts on some of them that I hope to get out soon-ish. I also wanted to go back to the books to make sure I'm not talking out of my ass. But I don't like Hinny, never did. And my reasons are kinda divided into three categories.
Disclaimer: I don't have anything against anyone who ships hinny, it's just really not my thing and I don't see it working with the way I see their characters.
And that's like the core of it. I just don't see Harry and Ginny as compatible on a character level. That and their relationship never really read as believable to me in the books.
The 3 categories I mentioned are:
Firstly, I think Harry is gay. Not bi, but gay. I think he was never actually attracted to a woman and I have a whole post to prove it. So, because that's how I read his character, I just can't really see him with any girl.
(Now, I don't think JKR intended for Harry to come off as gay, but he did)
Secondly, he never thought about Ginny, like, up until book 6, and even during large portions of book 6, he just isn't thinking about Ginny as a potential romantic interest. And when he does think about Ginny in the final two books it never reads like he really likes her. It reads like they decided they are dating, but I don't think Harry knows why he supposedly likes her. He just decided he does, but doesn't know why. It was kind of the same with Cho, where he said he had a crush on her and was nervous around her, but if you asked Harry what he likes about her, his answer would be: "Ehh...."
Like, Harry doesn't really seem to know why he's dating Ginny, and neither do I. It's just how it's written.
So, this is again my opinion, but I don't like Ginny. I just don't like her character. I wish her off the page whenever she talks.
And, when it comes to shipping, for me, I need to find both the characters involved interesting and fun for me to explore to ship them together and care about the pairing. As I don't like Ginny and don't really care for her, I can't really ship her with anyone, not really. It's not even like I hate her (not the way I hate Dumbledore), I just find a lot of her actions and behavior iffy and she annoys me more often than not.
I'm not going to list everything I don't like about Ginny (some of it appears in the rest of this post). But her treatment of Fluer, for example, really soured her character to me. Like, sure, Ginny's young, but, she's 15, and by that point, I think she should take responsibility for being awful to Fluer who was nothing but nice to all of them. Envy is not a good look for Ginny.
3. How they are portrayed together
Like I mentioned in the Harry section, their romance just never really felt there to me. The descriptions were off and left me feeling annoyed at their scenes together more than anything else.
Again, I'm writing a more comprehensive post about it, but the gist of it is that Harry's thoughts about Ginny in books 6 and 7 are weirdly detached for a supposed crush at best or outright uncomfortable for me to read at worst.
Now, we know Harry can describe characters he finds attractive in greater detail. There is none of that detail with Ginny. He only mentioned her hair color and that her hair is long and smells nice. Like, he doesn't talk about her eye color, her facial structure, eye shape (like he does sometimes with characters he does find attractive) — nothing. He doesn't even call her pretty once! At least he referred to Cho Chang as pretty twice in the series.
In the books there is never a scene (not even one) that convinces me they should be together. Like, they have no chemistry. They kinda remind me of Ron and Lavender tbh. They make out and are present in the same space often, but they never talk. Not really. I don't think Ginny actually knows Harry all that well because he never honestly talks to her about anything real. They don't really have chemistry or a relationship, they're just together. At least, that's how I always saw them.
And yes, Harry has his jealousy moments (that are portrayed so weirdly I always narrow my eyes at them to make sure they were actually there, but that's a whole other post about Harry's chest monster of jealousy), but he still doesn't really explain what he finds in Ginny. He doesn't mention she's attractive or pretty at any point, nor does he mention anything he particularly likes about her personality (except that she doesn't weep like Cho and is good at Quidditch. Neither of which are particularly good basis for a relationship).
Like, Ginny mentions why she likes Harry and that she does multiple times. Harry by contrast, just feels so incredibly uninvolved in his own relationship, to me.
Also, personally, I just find the setup of their relationship iffy. Like Ginny outright says she never gave up on Hary and always knew they'd end up together. It means, that since she was 11 (or earlier), she was crushing on Harry, never gave up on her crush, and considered them ending up together fate. She dated other guys to make Harry jealous and pay attention to her, and that's just really gross. I don't like her long obsessive crush on Harry or her treatment of the other guys she dated on her way to get Harry.
Proof of that, for those wondering:
“I never really gave up on you,” she [Ginny] said. “Not really. I always hoped. . . . Hermione told me to get on with life, maybe go out with some other people, relax a bit around you, because I never used to be able to talk if you were in the room, remember? And she thought you might take a bit more notice if I was a bit more — myself.”
(Half-Blood Prince, page 647)
She literally said she dated other guys so Harry would take notice of her. That just grosses me out.
So, no, I don't like Hinny (or Ginny).
