Blog 2: Growing Up

Although many people may not agree to the truth of this statement, a major theme in the Harry Potter series is that people do change--or at least, they grow. Such truth is evident in our protagonist: look how far Harry has come in 5½ books. He's faced more than a few pretty major obstacles, both internal and external, and has learned a lot, grown, and changed as a result. But I'm not going to talk about Harry; that would be too easy. I'm going to talk about Ginny.

Ginny is sort of unfortunate character because she is so ignored in the series--before the Order of the Phoenix, she does not get a lot of time on the page, and it seems that the characters don't even think of her all that much when she's not there. However, Ginny remains perhaps one of the best examples of change and growth.

In the first novel, Ginny only appears once--as a silly little girl who cannot wait to go to Hogwarts with her older brothers. At the start of the second, she is not much better; a silly little girl who cannot wait to go to Hogwarts with her older brothers and her celebrity crush. Obviously, Ginny's role becomes pretty major throughout the events depicted in the Chamber of Secrets, but then she falls off the radar once again.

However, she starts to become a more major force during Harry's fifth year at Hogwarts. For the first time, Harry and Ron realize that she has changed and grown. For example, Ron becomes absolutely furious when he learns that his little sister has a boyfriend. "I thought Ginny fancied Harry!" he exclaims.

But Hermione explains, "Ginny used to fancy Harry, but she gave up on him months ago" (Order of the Phoenix 348). While it might seem natural that people give up on old love interests and pursue new ones, this is a drastic change in Ginny's character, seeing as it was a pretty major facet of it when the reader was first introduced to her.

In fact, we get to see Ginny become a rather remarkable young woman--strong and brave in the face of an incredibly traumatic experience at a tragically young age, mature, beautiful, and quite accomplished at magic, especially that Bat Bogie Hex. One could definitely argue that she has more than just grown into young adulthood--Ginny has completely changed into a person we never would have expected given her description in the opening novels.

As minor and humble as Ginny's beginnings were, it is her growth that has caused to me to see a theme of change that Rowling has intertwined into this series. People are not born certain ways--Voldemort was not born the most feared Dark wizard the world has ever known just as Harry was not born a hero, nor Dumbledore a skilled mentor. People experience things, they learn from them, they interpret them their own ways, they grow up, and they change. Even if Harry and Ron are reluctant to recognize this in Ginny, I don't think anyone can deny that this is one of her contributions to this story.