I mean... I don't ship them but I prefer book Ginny over movie Ginny. Their first kiss in the books was so much realistic than that awkward scene in the Room of Requirement where Harry closes his eyes and Ginny kisses him. Like... wtf?! 

But the book kiss where they have won the Quidditch Cup and Ginny ran up to Harry to give him a  hug and then Harry kisses her. That's the type of kissing I'd rather see in Hinny. I'm not saying I ship it but then again I'm not saying that I do ship it. I'm kind of in-between. Book ginny is perfect for harry, movie ginny is a love-struck fangirl, and don't get me started on fanon Ginny. fanon is a reason why I no longer ship Hinny unless I'm in 'books' mode. 

Fact: Harry's bi. Same with Ginny.

Now onto the reasons why I don't ship Hinny. 

I actually see Harry and Ginny's relationship as a bro and sister kind of...err... relationship and not a romantic one. Oh, and Harry... BACK OFF GINNY'S MINE! >:C

One the reasons why I don't ship Hinny is because of all the parallels between Ginny and Lily, the books describe both of them as very similar both in personality and looks. So Harry suddenly being attracted to her when she's "older" just screams Oedipus Complex to me. I have nothing against Hinny shippers, they interpret things differently and that's fine, but to me, their relationship is lacking good development at best, and is creepy at worst.

I think the way JKR framed their relationship as James/Lily 2.0 is very weird. Especially since their personalities and the circumstances surrounding their relationship are so different. I also think it's weird how Ginny's narrative gets erased. She has so much more personality (and is so much more likable in book 5). By the epilogue of book 7, all of Harry's kids are named after people he cared about. Ginny lost people in the war too, but none of them is memorialized in the names of the children. She's just a kind of stereotypical housewife in the background of her husband's life, minding the kids.

Harry and Ginny being together make no sense to me, especially after the war. They have no chemistry, no development and it doesn't help their characters in any way. Harry's infatuation with her in book 6 came out of nowhere and was extremely poorly handled. It came at the cost of both their characters. It felt wrong for him, and book 6 Ginny was written in a much less interesting (and less likable way) than book 5 Ginny. In book 6 she suddenly turned into this annoying mary sue (IMHO) instead of the vivacious and strong character we saw in book 5.

Also, the idea that they don't just date, but that their relationship is "true love" is preposterous. Harry never confides in her. We never see any moments of intimacy. A good relationship should be clearly romantic and intimate even without the kissing. With this, only the overtly romantic stuff is there. Everything else is missing.

By the end of book 7, Harry still views Ginny as someone to be protected, not an equal. Yes, he wants to protect Ron and Hermione and Luna too, but he also respects their skills. (And remember, Luna is the same age as Ginny). At the very end, he goes to Ron and Hermione for comfort and to confide in. Not Ginny. And when he loses hope it is LUNA who comforts him at his lowest. NOT Ginny. Other than the bits we are specifically told that Harry and Ginny are a couple or the bits where they kiss, there is, as you say, no chemistry. And no romance.

I always thought it was weird how Harry suddenly fell in love with Ginny. Like, he never saw her as more than a friend, and then suddenly after one summer he just developed a giant, almost full-blown love crush on her? Seems like a really poorly executed, pretty much-shoehorned storyline to me. 

To be honest, I feel that Harry and Ginny's relationship was better developed in A Very Potter Musical than in the actual books. Yes, I know that AVPM is a parody, but they actually show Harry being initially disinterested in Ginny, but later turning to her for advice. She becomes someone he feels comfortable with and confides in. And their relationship develops from there.

This never happens in the actual books.

He never once turns to her or trusts her with his secrets. Even in book 7, it is Luna who helps him conjure a Patronus when he loses hope. And it is Ron and Hermione that he goes to for comfort when the battle is all over. His attraction to her seems to come out of nowhere in book 6, and it is not supported by any emotional intimacy.

In a good relationship, if you take out the explicitly romantic aspects, you will still have characters that are close. She's basically a nonentity in books 1,3 and 4. He's not attracted to her in book 5, and if you took out the parts in book 6 where he specifically thinks about being attracted to her, you'd have basically zero interactions between them. Also, there's no reason for this. It's not like they're enemies or on opposite sides of the war or something and come to appreciate each other later. Their relationship feels kind of forced and underdeveloped to me. She doesn't have that much dialogue and she doesn't really get shining moments as a character where she makes a decision or does something important for good or ill, the way so many of the other characters do.

I think we're supposed to like hinny because Harry gets officially married into the Weasley family through that, and then there's the fangirl-who's-not-like-the-other-girls-turned-girlfriend trope that I think we were expected to identify with, but it really felt forced. Draco would've made more sense, and a more gripping story arc, IMO (accepting one's sexuality, forgiveness, redemption, etc). Hinny was pushed because harry needed a heteronormative relationship. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

For anyone who likes hinny - that's great. No hate intended. But I personally just don't see it. I think Ginny is much better written, and a much more interesting character in book 5.

In book 6, JKR tries to rush the romance and turns Ginny into a flat, unlikable character with none of the agency or spunk or personality we saw in the previous book. We never see her relationship with Harry grow realistically. He's not interested in her that way in book 5, even though they are friends. And then suddenly in book 6, everyone is constantly going on about how attractive she is (even the Slytherins! WTF!) and Harry suddenly has a "chest monster." I mean, I can't say Ginny's not attractive. :3 (She most certainly is)

But there are no moments of emotional intimacy. He never comes to respect her as an equal or confides in her or grows close to her. Harry has much deeper, closer relationships with Hermione and Luna than with Ginny.

I know it's a parody, but A Very Potter Musical handles hinny much better than the actual books because in that Harry does start to confide in Ginny and they do become close and come to see each other as equals and confidants. THAT NEVER HAPPENS IN THE BOOKS. So the romance just feels forced and weird. Ginny's character feels stunted by the whole thing too.

I will never forget that one time Pottermore said, "One reason why Ginny and Harry are perfect for each other is that they've both been possessed by Voldemort and Ginny understands him in that aspect" but then they released an article called "Five ways Draco Mirrored Harry."

I mean, that would be a great thing for them to bond over....except for the tiny little problem that they NEVER FREAKING DISCUSS IT! The only time it comes up is briefly in book 5 when Ginny gets (very understandably) angry bc Harry straight-up FORGOT about the time she was possessed.

A huge issue that I have with their relationship (leaving aside the fact that I ship both of them with other people) is that we never see any real trust or intimacy between them. JKR forgot to do in canon what A Very Potter Musical did. She forgot to have Harry and Ginny grow close "on-screen," and bond and support each other and develop a close bond. In the books, we're told that this has happened but we never actually see it. Guess there wasn't time to show it, what with Harry's busy schedule of obsessing over Draco...

I always found it strange that in Deathly Hallows Harry won't let Ginny fight and seems to feel she is too young and joins her parents in telling her so in a very patronizing way. He cares about her, but he doesn't respect her the way he does Ron or Hermione or Luna. He cares about them a great deal and would die for them, but he also respects their abilities to stand by his side and their right to choose to do so. Luna is a particularly notable example here because Harry has no issue at all letting her join them even though she IS IN THE SAME YEAR AS GINNY! It's also Luna who comforts him at his lowest during the battle, not Ginny. I just never see the closeness between Harry and Ginny that would justify a great love. 

The "chest monster" aspect of HBP was so stupid.. god.. why does harry feel so strongly for ginny that this supposed monster personified in his chest wants to THROTTLE Dean Thomas around the neck, just for dating her? why was the chest monster so loud, so sudden, and so incredulously passionate? I genuinely don't understand- and I'm sure jk rowling doesn't understand how love develops and forms over time, either, and instead thinks it suddenly rushes upon you all at once in a roar of passion.

It's like an alien wrote it. It's like someone was sitting there going "ah yes. this is definitely how humans experience romance. that is a thing." Like ???? And like. Sometimes you meet someone and immediately experience a strong attraction. But that didn't even happen here. Harry knew her for years and felt nothing. And to go from that to "RARRARRHGHGH CHEST MONSTER!" was so bizarre and jarring. It felt out of character for Harry, who does not tend to be a jealous person. And it felt out of the left-field because it wasn't precipitated by any increased closeness. If Harry and Ginny had been shown growing close and really coming to trust each other and lean on each other and then she started going out with Dean and Harry suddenly felt Not Ok about that it, that would have been more understandable. As it stands it just felt strange and heavy-handed. In conclusion: JKR can only write amazing romance when it's entirely accidental. 

 Genuine quote from HBP. 'Harry was sitting beside the window [...], supposedly finishing his Herbology homework but in reality relieving a particularly happy hour he had spent down by the lake with Ginny at lunchtime'. ... Goodness. Instead of JKR SHOWING us the hour they spent together, detailing their relationship and making it clear how they've fallen for each other and adore one another in a romantic sense- she merely writes one throwaway line and deems it satisfactory 'development'.

This bothers me so much! Ok, let me be clear. This quote by itself is fine. But it's the context. It's not just that particular moment in their relationship that we are told about rather than shown. It's everything!

In book 6 we are told that Harry and Ginny start spending more time together during/after Quidditch practice. We are told that Harry finds himself talking to her more than the others and laughing at her jokes. We are NEVER shown ANY of that! Never! We never hear her make any jokes at all (except painfully unfunny and mean spirited ones...which is weird bc I KNOW JKR can write funny characters. In fact she wrote Ginny as much funnier in book 5 than she does in books 6 and 7!).

Most importantly we NEVER see Harry and Ginny have a single, substantive conversation or share a moment of emotional intimacy. They have many more and much deeper and emotionally charged interactions in book 5 when their relationship is entirely platonic. Bizarrely in book 6 and 7, we see LESS of their interactions, less of their relationship, LESS intimacy rather than growing intimacy. We are told they have this great romance but we see no evidence of it.

Ginny has brown eyes, but most people wouldn't know because I remember only one instance where it was mentioned. At least Harry calls Cho Chang very pretty, but for Ginny, we only get occasional references to her red hair. J.K. Rowling fucked this up so badly she had to include a weird conversation between the Slytherins about Ginny's attractiveness.

And we never even find out what shade of brown. Are they light brown? Dark brown? Do they have flecks in them? Do the flecks spell out Crumple-Horned Snorkack"? Who knows! Certainly not Harry.

Meanwhile, we find out not only the colour (grey) but the exact shade (very light grey) of Draco's eyes books before we learn anything about Ginny's eye colour. And even then Draco's appearance is still mentioned way more. This is not how you write attraction JKR!

And ugh. Don't even get me started on the random out of nowhere scene where the Slytherins talk about how attractive Ginny is. She is the last person they would be complementing. And the idea that Pansy Parkinson is allegedly worried that Draco has a crush on Ginny instead of her is laughable. I mean one, he wouldn't want to date her. But two, even if he DID want to date her, she would never have him. Remember that little incident where Draco's father slipped her a Horcrux when she was 11? Remember how the Malfoys and the Weasleys hate each other? SMH.

It's like JKR thought that for us to believe in the Harry/Ginny romance she had to write everyone else as having a crush on Ginny too. Which is not how that works and just reduced Ginny to this boring Mary Sue character that she wasn't at all in book 5. It's so annoying in book 6 how every second every person has to sing Ginny's praises, even when it's out of character for them to do so.  

*cough*

This was just my opinion. If you wanna argue I give you permission to do so down below. 

Rating: 5/10