Let me explain. (it should be obvious that I’m doing anything but my 20 page paper due in 10 days, but I digress).
OK, so we have AD’s funeral*, and Harry tells Ginny He Must Carry On Alone**.
And then, not one page later, he accepts the help of Hermione and Ron. So, here is my question: if Voldemort is so tacky as to use loved ones against Harry (or to hold them hostage etc), then won’t Voldy just use Hermione and Ron? Shouldn’t Harry tell them adios as well?
This is bugging me.
Theories? Comments? Suggestions?
*sorry, don’t know how to do spoiler boxes. ** ditto.
Ginny’s not off the hook. Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Neville, Luna and the rest are known members of the Order of the Phoenix, so they’re all targets already. But a romantic relationship with Harry Potter would single out Ginny as the most attractive target.
But it still doesn’t fly. Harry sucks at occulemency or whatever-what if every time his scar hurts or he has a headache it’s Voldy, reading his thoughts and emotions?
Voldemort already knows about Ginny. If he doesn’t, then Draco will tell him. If Draco isn’t in hiding…
But if Ginny isn’t the most attractive target, then Ron will be, or Hermione; If Voldemort looks into who Harry likes, he’s going to find someone he can kill to anger Harry whether Ginny’s there or not.
I don’t think anything bad will happen at the wedding, just because I don’t think anyone really knows about it (assuming Draco and his minions were too busy all year to eavesdrop) beyond the Order. I suppose Snape might have told, if he knew, but that would depend on whether he was evil or not.
Ron and Hermione were insistent that they help. They wouldn’t let Harry go off on his own for any reason and he knows this. He is trying to save Ginny from being one more target (though she is already a target as a member of the Order of the Phoenix and having been the one with the diary in Chamber of Secrets). Rather than putting all the Weasley’s into imminent danger he is trying to protect as many of them as possible and this is the best way he can think of to do that.
Because of Ginny is around and Voldemort takes a shot at Harry there’s a chance Ginny will get hurt in the crossfire.
If she’s away from Harry, Voldemort will have to go out of his way to hurt Ginny. Why do that when he can go after Hermoine or Moody who are both dangerous to his cause AND will hurt Harry?
-Joe, used Moody because he was trying to think of someone dangerous to Voldy
All good points, but I still contend that Rowling is weak with this plot point and might be digging herself into a hole.
I will confess to being worried re Neville–I so want him to live, but given the prophecy (and the fact that Harry can’t die unless JK wants mass rioting on her conscience), I fear he is wearing a red shirt…
Yes, it’s an illogical decision, but no, I don’t think it’s out of character. The boy’s under a lot of emotional stress at that point in time… I’m impressed he’s able to think at all. That his thinking might not be entirely clear is quite understandable.
Now, I do think it would be too illogical, and out of character, for Ginny to just quietly go along with it. Anyone want to lay odds that she’ll have managed to convince him otherwise within the first chapter of book 7?
I agree, by the way, that Neville has a very good (or rather, very bad) chance of dying heroically, elanorigby, but what does the prophecy have to do with that? Even if Neville were, or ought to have been, the boy described in the prophecy, that just means that he would have to die if Voldemort doesn’t. And I think we can all agree that Tommy-boy is going to snuff it, which means that any threat implicit in the prophecy against Neville or Harry is an empty one.
Logical or not, it’s a brilliant setup. It allows Rowling a lot more possibilities in plot development than just having Ginny remain Harry’s GF would. Will Ginny pine for Harry and try to scheme some way back into his life – and play into Voldemort’s hands in the process? Will she try to console herself with some other boy, driving Harry so insanely jealous that his judgment is impaired and he makes a deadly mistake? Will Cho Chang come back into the picture and create a triangle? Rich, juicy possibilities! Better still, Harry can’t just cut Ginny out of his life entirely because they’re still schoolmates and he’s still Ron’s best friend and visits the Weasleys every holiday; so he can’t help seeing her before his eyes, and vice-versa, practically every day of the year. Oh, the tension!
It is both illogical and rather sexist on Harry’s part, but I think this is intentional on Rowling’s part – we, the readers, are supposed to see that Harry is doing something stupid here. There are some huge flashing neon signs that this decision is going to come back to haunt him – Harry has already tried to leave her out of things once, at the end of Book 5, and found that she wouldn’t play along, and the whole subplot with Lupin and Tonks is an object lesson in why it’s a bad idea to cut a woman who is perfectly capable of taking care of herself out of your life due to a misplaced sense of chivalry. Besides, she has more direct experience with Horcruxes than anybody else Harry knows.
As a side note, I suspect that his decision to leave school is another thing he’s going to end up regretting very quickly, but I would be less surprised to be proven wrong about that than I would to be proven wrong about Ginny.
My theory, upon reading that chapter the first time, is that JK Rowling has watched Spiderman a few too many times. I haven’t come up with a better explaination since then.
No. Grown men prancing around in spandex do nothing for me…
Miller -I laughed out loud at that. Harry has been passive/aggressive all along…hehehehehe…bwahahahahaha.
The plot twist thing–I can see that. I’ll bet that Ginny does any number of things behind the scenes. I don’t know that Hogwarts will be open the next year, either.
And Chronos you raise an excellent point. I am just worried about Neville. I like geeky side kick types. And will Ron step up as he did in book one and actually DO something? I don’t like the way he’s become this comic relief counter-foil.
Off to cyber class. No work on my paper yet. If any of you have anything to say about the use of allegory in children’s literature, please share! (topic of paper).
What are some of your specs re Book 7? (yes, I know we’ve done this, but HP is fun to talk about)
But, but, but–Nev and Luna BELONG together! They so remind me of that odd, but filthy rich couple in 4 Weddings and a Funeral–the hopelessly geeky guy and the chick who actually wears the lil Bo Peep wedding dress…yes! A match made in heaven.
Can’t you just see Luna up against Voldemort? He’d be all “Fear me, tremble at my wrath!” and she’d be all “what happened to your nose?”
Harry has internalized Ron and Hermione as being privileged members of his personal inner circle, and he has been doing this for the past six years. He’s only been interactiing on anything like a personal level with Ginny for a bit less than two years. She is important to him, but he hasn’t internalized her importance to the point where she has veto power over his decision to leave her behind the front lines.
Harry having a right to relinquish Ron and Hermione as assets? They simply won’t hear of it.