Blog 3
People are universally shamed if they watch the film before the books because the general populace claims that “the film is nowhere as accurate as the books! The books are better!”. While this may be true for some film depictions of books, the Harry Potter film franchise has been relatively close due to Rowling being involved as well. However, she and the films quickly rose to criticism as the ending of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 was nowhere near the book’s depicted ending. Additionally, a majority of the fans were confused or outraged over Harry and Ginny suddenly getting married as opposed to Harry and Hermione or Harry being single (or, Harry and Draco implications to a significant number of Harry Potter fans).
In the film, it is widely agreed that the couple made no sense as the prime argument is “we see no chemistry on-screen and hardly any interactions”. One major aspect to this is because it is very difficult to create a film adaptation out of the ambush of content provided in the books thus having every detail depicted on screen would make the movie too time-consuming and too expensive. Additionally, Ginny is not counted as one of the main characters despite being a very important supporting character thus she couldn’t be shown interacting with Harry more. As a result of this, some critics assumed that Rowling wanted all her main characters to have a typical “happily ever after” via marriage or that she felt Harry was left out after coupling Ron and Hermione together.
However, this is where the intricate line between book and film come into play as the book actually provides a “slow burn” love story between Harry and Ginny throughout the series that is subtle but noticeable. It is very implied that they have absolutely spent a reasonable amount of time together given that Ron’s family welcomes Harry continuously, he and Ginny were in the same house, and that they were in the same Quidditch team. More importantly however, the biggest drive for them is their shared usage of dark humor and Harry finds Ginny very funny because of this too. Furthermore, they both utilize humor to attack those they don’t like in a similar fashion: “Been kissing Pigwidgeon, have you? Or have you got a picture of Aunt Muriel stashed under your pillow?” (Ginny, Goblet of Fire) and “Yeah? Did he say you look like a pig that’s been taught to walk on its hind legs? ‘Cause that’s not cheek, Dud, that’s true” (Harry, Order of the Phoenix). Harry and Ginny also share a personal connection of suffering loss at the hands of Voldemort.
For interaction-arguments, Harry does notice Ginny and he is more observant to his friend’s little sister than is casual. He often makes a statement to include her in his thoughts when observing the Weasleys despite her being very quiet and off-to-the side sometimes such as when she was sat subdued in Hermione’s chair after Hermione was found petrified. In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Harry takes extensive note of Ginny’s expression changes so much so that there is a whole paragraph dedicated to it. Furthermore, he notices Ginny and Neville dancing nearby and notes how Ginny winces as Neville stamps on her foot as opposed to noticing Dumbledore and Madam Maxime who are much more obvious in appearance and whom only get one line of observation mention.
Relationships tend to develop when we are exposed to someone frequently and when there is familiarity between the two people. Given that the two are constantly exposed to one another and they share the same personality humor trait, it’s not completely unreasonable to think they’ve taken a liking to one another in the books. It is far too easy to downplay a main character’s romantic subplot in film as it is very hard to display both a slow-burn interaction filled with chemistry and an action-packed coming-of-age sequence. However, given that Rowling made the executive decision to alter the ending, it would be reasonable to alter Harry and Ginny’s relationship in the film as well because there was little-to-no interaction between the two which resulted in a seemingly nonsensical relationship. It is very important to keep into account congruity and when one breaks or there is an absence of development in one aspect, then that aspect should be cut because then the audience will be skipped from beginning to the end which evokes this confusion and outrage.
2 responses to “Harry and Ginny: The Issue with Film VS Books”
I really enjoyed your blog post Karen! I liked how you compared the books and the movies to discuss Harry and Ginny’s relationship. I feel like a lot of the people who have watched the films without reading the books themselves get a lot of information lost in translation, as the movie simply tries to include the most important content, while taking out content that is not too relevant to the storyline. I also liked how you included examples from across the series to showcase how their relationship developed (slowly but as you said, still noticeable). Keep up the good work!
Karen, this post was really great. The discussion surrounding Ginny and Harry is something that I think held much weight in the Harry Potter community and I am glad you tackled the topic. The points you made were spot on, especially when you discussed the difficulty in capturing the two’s chemistry on camera and how difficult it is to include everything when making a film out of a book. Overall, this post was very interesting and you definitely gave me some thoughts to think on.