If you're any kind of Harry Potter fan, you will know at once who Ginevra is. For the rest of you, who have perhaps seen the films but not seen the light, Ginevra would be Ginny Weasley's real name.  I confess, I chose this particular piece of artwork to represent her because (1) I didn't want "Ginevra"'s identity to be immediately obvious to the uninitiated, and (2) it is absolutely, irrefutably, the coolest, most adorable fan artwork of her that I have ever seen.  Kudos to Vishelina, whoever she really is.

Why, you might ask, would she need defended?  She casts a wicked Bat-Boogey hex, was a member of Dumbledore's Army, fought in the Department of Mysteries and the Battle of the Astronomy Tower, and kicked butt in the Second Wizarding War.  It sounds like someone might need defended from her.

Well, I'm not talking about anyone in-universe.  She'd be just as effective as Hermione at punching old Draco in the nose.  And she can't afford to be a bad person: she has to fill the bill of Harry Potter's girlfriend, future wife, and mother of his children.  The Boy Who Lived, the Chosen One, who ultimately defeated Lord Voldemort in battle.  She can't be a slouch.

No, the accusations come from from out-of-universe, in other words, the real-life one we live in.  As one blogger put it, "She's not a bad person, she's a bad character."  This was based on the premise of Ginny's involvement and transformation.  She appeared in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as a victim of Tom Riddle's diary, possessed by Lord Voldemort, and ultimately rescued by Harry.  Rather week, it seems, impressionable, vulnerable.  She sort of drops out of history for the most part other than the skirmish in the Department of Mysteries.  But then, in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, she resurfaces, as intelligent, talented, strong, and suddenly a top-notch, formidable Quidditch player.  One wonders what happened during those missing years.

Simply, she grew up.

The complaint, however, is that she grew up invisibly, that Rowling did not properly develop her character between those two volumes.  Instead, she disappeared into a cocoon as a caterpillar and mysteriously emerged as a butterfly.  There is some truth to this argument.  Rowling could have done a better job polishing her in the interim, showing her develop as a person, keeping her on the table so that we didn't forget she existed.

But she didn't, actually, make a mistake.

I'm a writer, so I know what it's like to have to backtrack.  You chronicle a history of your world, and then, in a later chapter or even later volume, you realize that something back at the beginning needs to be changed.  That's why I don't want to put anything out until a following volume or two, at least, have solidified.  Failing that, you have to play some fancy footwork to cover up a sudden shift in the plot.   Everyone reading this blog should know that George Lucas is guilty of that.  In the original Star Wars, later to be named Episode IV, A New Hope, Obi-wan Kenobi tells a young Luke Skywalker that Darth Vader betrayed and murdered his father.  Later, in The Empire Strikes Back, Darth Vader reveals to him, "No, I am your father."  Well, this took some of that fancy footwork to patch up, and Kenobi's weak, "so in a manner of speaking" explanation is far from satisfying.  Awkward.

Rowling was never guilty of that.  There were never any contradictions in Ginny's personality, in her story line, in anything.  In fact, Rowling did even foreshadow their future romance: remember Ginny's embarrassed fascination with him at first?  We might feel a bit cheated in that we didn't get to see her actually grow up in very much detail, and I feel that Rowling should have showed us that, but she didn't do anything wrong.  She didn't shift the plot and have to cover it up.  She didn't suddenly twist Ginny's motives.  She didn't have her doing bizarre and inexplicable things.  She didn't botch her role in the plot.  Ginny didn't change in any way over the "silent years" that is not explained by simply growing up.  We just missed out on seeing it, but that does not necessarily make her a bad character.

Tolkien was frustrating about that: he'd lead up to a great battle, cut to another scene, then come back when the battle was over.  Darn!  We missed It!

Perhaps I'm defending Rowling here more than I am Ginny.  I'm not particularly a Ginny fan (except for the artwork above); I'm much more of a Hermione fan, or even more than her, Luna.  Regardless, I'm still tired of all the whining about Ginny's being a bad character.  She is a great character, just one that wasn't entirely documented.