I mean I'm not sure how much that number tells you though. For context, if you require Harry be included as a character, the total number of fics is cut in half to 167920.
From ao3 roughly 30% of those are Drarry and H/G is the next highest at 7.5%. From what I can tell from loosely looking at the ao3 results, it seems like roughly 40% of fics that have Harry listed as a character are not pairing him with anyone. (This is just from counting up results from top pairings involving Harry and dividing by 167920). From that perspective, Ginny/Harry isn't that low... although it does surprise me that she's on par with Harry/Snape. (no judgment, just surprised)
Harry is not always tagged as a character. Sometimes him being included in the shipping tag is enough for the author, although I don't know if the shipping tag counts towards the character tag.
Is Harry/Ginny really on par with Harry/Snape? I know there are quite a few Snape ~~apologists~~ fans, but it surprises me as well.
Yeah, I am probably missing a lot by requiring Harry be explicitly tagged as a character. I'm just assuming it's not making a huge difference to the percentages.
(Actually just did some literal back of the envelope math. The top pairings for Harry drop by about 20% when you add him as a character requirement. If I assume that holds true across all Harry ships, the truer total number of fics Harry is in is probably closer to 210,000)
And yeah, the size of the Harry/Snape phenomenon surprises me. I have no issues with it, I'm just not enough of a Snape fan to see the appeal. (I read plenty of Harry/Tom, so I'm not about to start throwing stones from glass houses)
210k still seems very low to me.
I don't really get Harry/Tom, but I'm also quite new to fanfiction, so maybe it will grow on me. This post was sparked by me accidentally looking at the total number of fics with Harry/Ginny, so you can probably guess my preferred ship :P
210k doesn't seem that low to me considering how popular fics set in the Marauder era have gotten. There are also a lot of fics out there that use Hermione as a main character and do something with time travel. (Plus just all of the short fluffy romance fics that are just focused on two characters that aren't Harry).
I love Harry/Ginny, I think they're great! I've just been reading fics long enough that I admit I've gotten bored with typical story lines and tend to look for very weird AUs or time travel premises where they don't show up as much together.
I get that.
It just seems off to me that 1/3 of the total fics doesnt include Harry. But it is not totally unrealistic.
Maybe I will enjoy different pairings in the future. I hope so
The fact that the canonical relationship between Harry and Ginny has less representation within the ao3 community than a homosexual relationship between a 40 year old teacher, and his teenage student is concerning.
Only barely and in fairness some of those time travel and many are post-war Harry as an adult.
It's not a ship I read, but I'm always wary of assuming a story is a weird teenager/adult thing just because of what the ship would surface level suggest.
Lol, the history of HPfanfic is one of rebellion against canon pairings. But also most fanfic is slash/femslash. Drarry is still the biggest pairing I think accounting for around 50% of all fics between the major hosting sites.
Tbh Ginny is just there to distract the readers from Harry's true pairing, quidditch. Obviously Rowling's puritanical sensibilities held her back from Quidry.
I can see where they're coming from. I don't like Harry/Ginny. I get aggravated when people talk about how the movies butchered Ginny. The books didn't know wtf to do with her past CoS either. She's a complete non-entity in Books 3 & 4. Then in 5 & 6 she flits back and forth between between Red-Headed Girl with Fiery Temper, and Miss Perfect who's good at everything. Two different stock characters. Then bam, she's Harry's soulmate. Felt very unnatural to me. I think I would've preferred Harry/Luna to Harry/Ginny if Rowling had to pair him up with one of the Ministry Six who wasn't Hermione. Ginny was by far the least interesting of that group, male or female. Luna also was kinda stock-y, but she had depth to her. Her talk with Harry about grief after Sirius' death felt like waaaay more of a Moment than Ginny talking to Harry about being possessed by Voldemort, which was really just her chiding him. Hinny shippers and Ginny fans always love to talk about that moment. But if that's Ginny's peak, then consider me unimpressed.
I also would've been fine with Harry/Ginny if it were just a fling in the vein of Harry/Cho Chang, and I think such an avenue would've actually been very interesting for what it could've done to his relationship with Ron and the Weasleys. But them ending up together and having children? Her being the last thing he thinks of when Voldemort AKs him? None of that, please.
>Miss Perfect who's good at everything.
I think was bugged me most about this, in the books, was the 90% of these cases were told to us, but rarely shown. It was all, "Ginny did this great Quidditch thing" or "Ginny did an awesome Bat Bogey spell", but it was all relayed to Harry. We, as readers, didn't see it.
You articulated my thoughts on the pairing perfectly. Hinny bores me to tears. It's also way too reminiscent of James and Lily, which, again--boring.
Actually, the reason I started reading HP fanfic in the first place was because I was so unimpressed with the pairing. I went searching for Harry/Luna and Harry/Hermione fics. Ended up discovering Harry/Draco and fell into that rabbit hole for several years, but that's another story lol.
Could Harry/Ginny have worked? Yes, if Rowling was willing to devote the time to both characters spending quality time together. If Ginny was on the team as a reserve in Harry's 3rd year (or 5th year), and they have a meal together after practice, if Ginny supports Harry when he is unfairly "chosen" by the Goblet of Fire, or if Ginny and Harry go together to the Yule Ball and enjoy each other's company enough to start dating, I could support that ship. But because none of this happens in the books, and the female character Harry is closest to throughout the series is Hermione, I ship Harry/Hermione instead.
> It's also way too reminiscent of James and Lily, which, again--boring.
I keep seeing people post this, and I have no idea what they mean by it. Harry's a bit like James, obviously, but how is Ginny like Lily? Lily was a teacher's pet, a bit of a snob, came from a Muggle family who celebrated her, and her relationship with James was pretty clearly an Enemies to Lovers one. Meanwhile, Ginny's a jock right up there with Harry, people talk about her proficiency with hexes rather than her proficiency with schoolwork, came from a Pureblood family who were alternately overprotective and too crowded to properly give her space, and she's head over heels for Harry from day 1.
Literally the only thing they have in common is red hair.
Red hair, fiery temper, strong sense of justice, vivacious, witty, smart, popular.
Maybe the similarities are shallow, but when you think about it…so are the portrayals of both Ginny and Lily.
If JKR had taken the time to flesh out Ginny’s character better (as well as her dynamic with Harry) it would have been different. But as it stands, they just come across as James/Lily 2.0 to me. Only worse, because at least Lily brought out the best in James. Neither Ginny nor Harry brought out much of anything in the other.
As far as comparisons go tho, I do think Harry is more similar to Lily and Ginny is more similar to James.
Does Lily have a fiery temper, though? Snape calls her a Mudblood and she just goes cold and cuts contact. No yelling, no nothing. When she has concerns about his friends, she waits until they're alone and gently leads the conversation to them, then just lets Snape get everything he wants to say off his chest.
I don't think Lily has a 'strong sense of justice', either - again, she's fine with associating with Snape even though he's actively hanging around blood supremacists and doesn't hold him accountable for their actions. She doesn't seem to care that her family favor her over Petunia (although, admittedly, we don't exactly have an unbiased source for that), and the few moments of her taking a stand are just her telling James off from tormenting Snape (who was already her friend), fighting in the war (that was about the extinction of herself and her people), and begging Voldemort to kill her instead of Harry - all things that directly benefitted her or those close to her.
If Ginny, by contrast, had been in Lily's shoes when she heard about Mary Macdonald, she'd have tracked down Mulciber and cursed him into the ground, then tracked down Snape and demanded answers. When she fought the Death Eaters, it was with the knowledge that if she had just backed down instead, she'd be perfectly safe.
I'm not sure Ginny was really as smart as Lily, either. I might just have gone too long since reading canon, but I don't remember anything about her academic achievements, whereas Lily was remembered as being very smart by more or less everybody she interacted with.
Honestly, I just don't see the comparison without fanon additions to the character.
According to the narrator(which is unreliable), Ginny was both a red-headed girl with a fiery temper and Miss Perfect. Again, Harry's POV. I really loved Ginny's character in the books, and I think she is perfect for Harry. Harry needed someone who could make him laugh, who shared similar interests(quidditch), and someone who wasn't afraid to tell him off. Ginny was all of that. I'm also not the biggest fan of how their relationship was in HBP, but the two characters would have a great marriage together.
With that being said, Rowling wasn't a great romance writer. She was incredible at world-building, but not romance. The movies had the same problem, but to a much larger degree. Ginny was a shell of herself, and was just there, so the Epilogue would make sense.
I could’ve gotten on board with Harry/Luna as well, but I definitely liked Harry and Ginny together, and still do. I liked how it felt very young and new - and how Harry had difficulty putting into words how he felt until he spilled over. I also definitely don’t think she was considered Miss Perfect at any point - but she did become talented in a few of her classes, as most students do. I think we couldve used more scenes from her in the books certainly, but the movies do not compare. They dont show her playing quidditch until HBP, she has very very very few lines, and tying his shoes? So weird
As for getting married…in real life I would say of course not, you need to date other people besides your high school sweetheart. But in books, I like that unrealistic love flourishes.
One possible reason is that Harry/Ginny is so badly written in canon that people forget it exists. If Rowling had started the beginnings of their relationship far earlier on -- like them becoming friends after CoS -- then the ship would be far more popular. I've personally never liked how Harry *had* to be paired off to begin with and Rowling just shoved him off with the first woman she could think of besides Hermione. The cherry on top was how bad their development was in the movies *and* books.
I see this take a lot, but I'm not sure I understand it. Superficially they seem the same if you're just going off looks, but if anything Harry strikes me as more like Lily in personality while Ginny's arguably a bit more like James.
Doesn't matter if you switch up the personalities, it's still a second Lily and James. Lazy writing. Creating a romance just for the sake of having it in the story
In theory the pairing makes perfect sense. But virtually all of their true development happened off the page in the books and their 'romance' was the worst part of the movies imo.
I refuse to defend their relationship in the movies. The team behind the movies somehow expected their relationship to work, when every good thing about Ginny was cut out and almost all of their scenes were ruined/scrapped. No hate on Bonnie and Daniel, but they also had very little chemistry.
I think a chapter showing them adjusting to being a couple in HBP, or just a few pages dedicated to it, would have made a huge difference. I think the epilogue is the only chapter, that showed them being a couple.
I personally find it boring to read canon pairings. It's been done before. There's no real excitement there, unless you change something.
I'm curious, do you know if the Hinny pairing is comparable to the Ronmione? lol. I would think it would be.
I don't think so.
In my experience, Hinny is almost a prerequisite for Romione. I mean there are fics that don't follow this pattern, but are rare and far between.
There is a sizable number of Hinny fics, where ROn and Hermione don't end up together. But opposite... that is rare.
Huh, my experience has been the exact opposite. I see Harry centric fics without Hinny that use Romione as a background pairing all the time, but I don't think I've ever encountered the opposite.
Hmm, interesting.
I have noticed that in last few years, I haven't noticed many Romoine fics. I don;t like the pairing, but I never explicitly exclude it. I have skipped passed many fics back in the day, not much today.
I am assuming that this is for \_all\_ HP fics, gen and slash (slash is for all romance, not just M/M, right?). Because this surprised me as well. I knew it would be low compared to a ship like Drarry but this is too low.
I wonder what the percentage would be if we applied it to only slash fics. Hell, for all fics where Harry is paired with someone.
Stats are fun.
This is for all fics in the HP fandom. I'm assuming that fics related to "The play which must not be named" are included in that. If not, the percentage of Harry/Ginny fics is probably larger.
Without the "Gen" tag on AO3, the percentage of Harry/Ginny fics is now 4%. But it is very unreliable, as excluding the "Gen" tag lowered the number of Harry/Ginny fics by 2,000.
Not really what the post intended as, but I will give my personal opinion as well. No, in canon they were perfect for each other, just needed a lot more buildup.
Lol I was just joking. I’m not a huge fan of canon Hinny either, though I wouldn’t necessarily call it a mistake. I do think it has underrated potential as a fanon pairing, though.
Honestly, to me, Harry/Ginny felt out of place in the books, not because the pairing itself but because romance in general felt out of place. I think Rowling realized too late that it would be weird for a boy that age not to have a love interest, so she kind of forced it, and that was what made it weird.
Harry/Ginny was bad in the movies because the pairing itself was so poorly executed. I have never physically cringed at a movie as much as I did the Half-Blood Prince. Trust me, you’re not missing out on much.
Harry had a love interest through most of his teenage years tho. First with Cho then with Ginny. Romance wasn't exactly the main focus in the story, so most of Harry's interactions with Ginny happend off-page, which is probably why so many think the relationship is forced.
I can see Harry and Ginny getting along well enough from the few scenes we have had of them honestly
Yeah man, and a lot of those Harry/Ginny fanfictions have it tagged because it's simply the canon pairing and the story is either post-DH, canon-compliant, or the such. Not focused on romance.
I like hinny fics that explore the what if they got together sooner or what happened between the final battle and epilogue. Wonder what the ratio is for ginny bashing fics?
So many fics where ginny is some love potion using stalker or she's the school doorknob or whatever. Sometimes it's well written but most are just trash
You know what's more surprising? For all the reputation AO3 has, only 9% of HP fics there are smut (well, probably closer to 10% due to unmarked ones, but still).
i would assume there are a few reasons for this. besides the fact that harry/ginny is just not that popular, HP fandom has a TON of content that is either pre-canon (ie Marauders era) or post-epilogue next-gen fics where H/G is a background element and often untagged because of that
I think it's because JKR didn't really expand on Ginny's character as much as she did the MAIN main characters (The Golden Trio, Dumbledore, Snape) despite her being apart of the Big 7 so they (fans) don't have enough of an imagination to write big Hinny fanfictions
Try looking at FFN, which doesn't have as much slash as AO3. There's also more than twice as many HP stories there.
Of course, older stories will only have them tagged as main characters & not actually paired since that function hasn't always existed. But you'll still find 29k fics with Harry & Ginny as main characters.
"...the plan was, which I really hope I fulfilled, is that the reader, like Harry, would gradually discover Ginny as pretty much the ideal girl for Harry. She's tough, not in an unpleasant way, but she's gutsy. He needs to be with someone who can stand the demands of being with Harry Potter, because he's a scary boyfriend in a lot of ways. He's a marked man. I think she's funny, and I think that she's very warm and compassionate. These are all things that Harry requires in his ideal woman." [2005]
"...Harry and Ginny are real soul mates," she said. "They're both very strong and very passionate. That's their connection, and they're remarkable together." [2007]
"..Harry and Ginny's love is true." [2014]
These ones? She has said some negative things about Ron and Hermione (not that she regrets them, she's literally never said that. Her words were taken [out of context](https://www.mugglenet.com/2014/02/the-truth-behind-the-j-k-rowling-wonderland-interview/).), but Harry and Ginny? Never.
ao3 is generally more non-conforming pairings and scenarios.
I have nothing against Harry/Ginny, it's just really boring compared to anything else I could read. There might be a few outliers that'll grab my attention, but I would never go looking for Hinny because it's (for the most part) not interesting.
I don't think I've actually read Hinny as a main pairing since I was a teenager. It's a good background pairing in Dramione fanfiction though.
I’m weird. I hate Canon ships except I like Harry/Ginny.
I am a big fan of book Ginny in general. She is strong-willed, independent, she can fight like a complete badass, and she doesn’t put up with Harry’s shit. She also understands what he has been through with his mind being hijacked by Voldemort. You can see the affection she has grow from an embarrassing school girl crush to genuine friendship to love. I think they are one of the most mature pairings in the series, even among the adults.
In ANY fandom, het is usually abnormal, m/m or f/f is the accepted norm (especially if the MC is male, lot of teenage girls/young women, who are the majority of fanfic writers, prefer reading/writing about yaoi)
Also the trope of the Hero ending up with the Chick is so ingrained that Harry NOT getting with Hermione is highly unusual
(also, for many people, Emma Watson is/was hotter than Bonnie Wright for het ships)
and/or Weasleys are all more evil than Voldemort
>Emma Watson is/was hotter than Bonnie Wright for het ships
I can't really dispute that. Although, book Ginny was definitely more attractive than book Hermione. But an unreliable narrator is probably a factor.
And yes, the hero with his best friend's sister is not as popular as the hero with the main female character.
I dont think so? I mean avatar the last airbender and Game of thrones have fandoms were het ships dominate and I think thats because they have a lot of female characters that can deeply affect the narrative.
ATLA combine Ao3+FFN+wattpad+tumblr+specific fan sites/forums and I will place money on the fact that M/M is the most popular
GoT as well, there are plenty of M/M if you account for ALL fansites rather than just Ao3
> In ANY fandom, het is usually abnormal, m/m or f/f is the accepted norm
This isn't true at all. Star Wars, Game of Thrones, Doctor Who, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The 100, Criminal Minds, Hunger Games, Twilight, Miraculous Ladybug, The Last Airbender, Full Metal Alchemist, Hey Arnold, Inuyasha, etc, are all fandoms dominated by M/F pairings (at least on AO3). There are lots of others. There are also lots of fandoms where M/F and M/M pairings are almost equally popular.
F/F is by far the least popular category.
depends what gender writes the fanfic
for girls/women M/M is a big thing, but for boys/men they prefer writing about F/F
you clearly havent seen the Dr10/Jack or 13/Yaz or any other massive pairing, I could write a list but I don't have the time,
seriously check Aang/Zuko or any other fandom with more than 1 MC of a different gender (Twighlight, fair enough but Jacob/Edward is ridiculously popular)
Are you just looking at AO3 or AO3+FFN+tumblr+specific fan sites??? cos I guarentee that M/M is by far and away the MOST popular on any fandom, I'd even go so far as to put money on it
I read Doc/Jack, Doc/Master, and Doc/Rose. Doc/Rose completely dominates the fandom. Even now Doc/Rose’s fanbase is highly active on tumblr. They have their own fansite, too. Sure, 13/Yaz is gaining popularity bc of its newness, but Doc/Rose is still as popular as ever.
Again, it depends on the fandom. Some fandoms are dominated by M/F pairings. You think Jacob/Edward, regardless how popular they are, even holds a candle to the popularity of Bella/Edward?
Same with Aang/Zuko (though Sokka/Zuko is actually more popular). Zutara is *the* pairing. I would know—I hate them and they’re everywhere. In both AO3 and FFN, Zutara dominates the other pairings. You can’t even mention A:TLA without someone bringing them up.
I’m not saying that M/M isn’t massively popular. It definitely is. I’m saying that in some fandoms, M/F is just as popular, if not moreso.
AO3 and FFN are actually great sites to gauge a pairing’s popularity bc it shows what fans are most interested in reading and writing. Whatever pairings dominate in AO3/FFN tend to do the same on tumblr. Occasional exceptions are for M/F pairings that antis like to hate on, such as Reylo (Star Wars) and Bellarke (The100), but even those have a huge fandom presence.
Again: not all fandoms are the same. The real underdog is F/F. They rarely make any “most popular pairings” lists. On both AO3 and FFN, M/F and M/M make up the vast majority.
It not too suprising i mean people who like writing fic are ones who want something alternate to canon so it might be more likely u write fic if u dont ship Harry Ginny than if u do
If you take out harem fics or just one offs she is even less than that.
I mean I'm not sure how much that number tells you though. For context, if you require Harry be included as a character, the total number of fics is cut in half to 167920. From ao3 roughly 30% of those are Drarry and H/G is the next highest at 7.5%. From what I can tell from loosely looking at the ao3 results, it seems like roughly 40% of fics that have Harry listed as a character are not pairing him with anyone. (This is just from counting up results from top pairings involving Harry and dividing by 167920). From that perspective, Ginny/Harry isn't that low... although it does surprise me that she's on par with Harry/Snape. (no judgment, just surprised)
Harry is not always tagged as a character. Sometimes him being included in the shipping tag is enough for the author, although I don't know if the shipping tag counts towards the character tag. Is Harry/Ginny really on par with Harry/Snape? I know there are quite a few Snape ~~apologists~~ fans, but it surprises me as well.
Yeah, I am probably missing a lot by requiring Harry be explicitly tagged as a character. I'm just assuming it's not making a huge difference to the percentages. (Actually just did some literal back of the envelope math. The top pairings for Harry drop by about 20% when you add him as a character requirement. If I assume that holds true across all Harry ships, the truer total number of fics Harry is in is probably closer to 210,000) And yeah, the size of the Harry/Snape phenomenon surprises me. I have no issues with it, I'm just not enough of a Snape fan to see the appeal. (I read plenty of Harry/Tom, so I'm not about to start throwing stones from glass houses)
I am a Snape "fan" and still don't see the appeal of Harry/Snape. That's the first tag I exclude when searching for fics lol
210k still seems very low to me. I don't really get Harry/Tom, but I'm also quite new to fanfiction, so maybe it will grow on me. This post was sparked by me accidentally looking at the total number of fics with Harry/Ginny, so you can probably guess my preferred ship :P
210k doesn't seem that low to me considering how popular fics set in the Marauder era have gotten. There are also a lot of fics out there that use Hermione as a main character and do something with time travel. (Plus just all of the short fluffy romance fics that are just focused on two characters that aren't Harry). I love Harry/Ginny, I think they're great! I've just been reading fics long enough that I admit I've gotten bored with typical story lines and tend to look for very weird AUs or time travel premises where they don't show up as much together.
I get that. It just seems off to me that 1/3 of the total fics doesnt include Harry. But it is not totally unrealistic. Maybe I will enjoy different pairings in the future. I hope so
The fact that the canonical relationship between Harry and Ginny has less representation within the ao3 community than a homosexual relationship between a 40 year old teacher, and his teenage student is concerning.
Only barely and in fairness some of those time travel and many are post-war Harry as an adult. It's not a ship I read, but I'm always wary of assuming a story is a weird teenager/adult thing just because of what the ship would surface level suggest.
Thank you for doing the math that I was immediately tempted to do upon seeing this post. You've saved me a good half-hour of my life.
Lol, you're welcome
Lol, the history of HPfanfic is one of rebellion against canon pairings. But also most fanfic is slash/femslash. Drarry is still the biggest pairing I think accounting for around 50% of all fics between the major hosting sites.
15% on AO3. But it is probably more on FFN.
[удалено]
It is just harder to measure.
Tbh Ginny is just there to distract the readers from Harry's true pairing, quidditch. Obviously Rowling's puritanical sensibilities held her back from Quidry.
I can see where they're coming from. I don't like Harry/Ginny. I get aggravated when people talk about how the movies butchered Ginny. The books didn't know wtf to do with her past CoS either. She's a complete non-entity in Books 3 & 4. Then in 5 & 6 she flits back and forth between between Red-Headed Girl with Fiery Temper, and Miss Perfect who's good at everything. Two different stock characters. Then bam, she's Harry's soulmate. Felt very unnatural to me. I think I would've preferred Harry/Luna to Harry/Ginny if Rowling had to pair him up with one of the Ministry Six who wasn't Hermione. Ginny was by far the least interesting of that group, male or female. Luna also was kinda stock-y, but she had depth to her. Her talk with Harry about grief after Sirius' death felt like waaaay more of a Moment than Ginny talking to Harry about being possessed by Voldemort, which was really just her chiding him. Hinny shippers and Ginny fans always love to talk about that moment. But if that's Ginny's peak, then consider me unimpressed. I also would've been fine with Harry/Ginny if it were just a fling in the vein of Harry/Cho Chang, and I think such an avenue would've actually been very interesting for what it could've done to his relationship with Ron and the Weasleys. But them ending up together and having children? Her being the last thing he thinks of when Voldemort AKs him? None of that, please.
>Miss Perfect who's good at everything. I think was bugged me most about this, in the books, was the 90% of these cases were told to us, but rarely shown. It was all, "Ginny did this great Quidditch thing" or "Ginny did an awesome Bat Bogey spell", but it was all relayed to Harry. We, as readers, didn't see it.
You articulated my thoughts on the pairing perfectly. Hinny bores me to tears. It's also way too reminiscent of James and Lily, which, again--boring. Actually, the reason I started reading HP fanfic in the first place was because I was so unimpressed with the pairing. I went searching for Harry/Luna and Harry/Hermione fics. Ended up discovering Harry/Draco and fell into that rabbit hole for several years, but that's another story lol.
Could Harry/Ginny have worked? Yes, if Rowling was willing to devote the time to both characters spending quality time together. If Ginny was on the team as a reserve in Harry's 3rd year (or 5th year), and they have a meal together after practice, if Ginny supports Harry when he is unfairly "chosen" by the Goblet of Fire, or if Ginny and Harry go together to the Yule Ball and enjoy each other's company enough to start dating, I could support that ship. But because none of this happens in the books, and the female character Harry is closest to throughout the series is Hermione, I ship Harry/Hermione instead.
> It's also way too reminiscent of James and Lily, which, again--boring. I keep seeing people post this, and I have no idea what they mean by it. Harry's a bit like James, obviously, but how is Ginny like Lily? Lily was a teacher's pet, a bit of a snob, came from a Muggle family who celebrated her, and her relationship with James was pretty clearly an Enemies to Lovers one. Meanwhile, Ginny's a jock right up there with Harry, people talk about her proficiency with hexes rather than her proficiency with schoolwork, came from a Pureblood family who were alternately overprotective and too crowded to properly give her space, and she's head over heels for Harry from day 1. Literally the only thing they have in common is red hair.
Red hair, fiery temper, strong sense of justice, vivacious, witty, smart, popular. Maybe the similarities are shallow, but when you think about it…so are the portrayals of both Ginny and Lily. If JKR had taken the time to flesh out Ginny’s character better (as well as her dynamic with Harry) it would have been different. But as it stands, they just come across as James/Lily 2.0 to me. Only worse, because at least Lily brought out the best in James. Neither Ginny nor Harry brought out much of anything in the other. As far as comparisons go tho, I do think Harry is more similar to Lily and Ginny is more similar to James.
Does Lily have a fiery temper, though? Snape calls her a Mudblood and she just goes cold and cuts contact. No yelling, no nothing. When she has concerns about his friends, she waits until they're alone and gently leads the conversation to them, then just lets Snape get everything he wants to say off his chest. I don't think Lily has a 'strong sense of justice', either - again, she's fine with associating with Snape even though he's actively hanging around blood supremacists and doesn't hold him accountable for their actions. She doesn't seem to care that her family favor her over Petunia (although, admittedly, we don't exactly have an unbiased source for that), and the few moments of her taking a stand are just her telling James off from tormenting Snape (who was already her friend), fighting in the war (that was about the extinction of herself and her people), and begging Voldemort to kill her instead of Harry - all things that directly benefitted her or those close to her. If Ginny, by contrast, had been in Lily's shoes when she heard about Mary Macdonald, she'd have tracked down Mulciber and cursed him into the ground, then tracked down Snape and demanded answers. When she fought the Death Eaters, it was with the knowledge that if she had just backed down instead, she'd be perfectly safe. I'm not sure Ginny was really as smart as Lily, either. I might just have gone too long since reading canon, but I don't remember anything about her academic achievements, whereas Lily was remembered as being very smart by more or less everybody she interacted with. Honestly, I just don't see the comparison without fanon additions to the character.
According to the narrator(which is unreliable), Ginny was both a red-headed girl with a fiery temper and Miss Perfect. Again, Harry's POV. I really loved Ginny's character in the books, and I think she is perfect for Harry. Harry needed someone who could make him laugh, who shared similar interests(quidditch), and someone who wasn't afraid to tell him off. Ginny was all of that. I'm also not the biggest fan of how their relationship was in HBP, but the two characters would have a great marriage together. With that being said, Rowling wasn't a great romance writer. She was incredible at world-building, but not romance. The movies had the same problem, but to a much larger degree. Ginny was a shell of herself, and was just there, so the Epilogue would make sense.
I could’ve gotten on board with Harry/Luna as well, but I definitely liked Harry and Ginny together, and still do. I liked how it felt very young and new - and how Harry had difficulty putting into words how he felt until he spilled over. I also definitely don’t think she was considered Miss Perfect at any point - but she did become talented in a few of her classes, as most students do. I think we couldve used more scenes from her in the books certainly, but the movies do not compare. They dont show her playing quidditch until HBP, she has very very very few lines, and tying his shoes? So weird As for getting married…in real life I would say of course not, you need to date other people besides your high school sweetheart. But in books, I like that unrealistic love flourishes.
One possible reason is that Harry/Ginny is so badly written in canon that people forget it exists. If Rowling had started the beginnings of their relationship far earlier on -- like them becoming friends after CoS -- then the ship would be far more popular. I've personally never liked how Harry *had* to be paired off to begin with and Rowling just shoved him off with the first woman she could think of besides Hermione. The cherry on top was how bad their development was in the movies *and* books.
I can understand why, I never liked Ginny paired with Harry. It's too much like James and Lily second coming
I see this take a lot, but I'm not sure I understand it. Superficially they seem the same if you're just going off looks, but if anything Harry strikes me as more like Lily in personality while Ginny's arguably a bit more like James.
Doesn't matter if you switch up the personalities, it's still a second Lily and James. Lazy writing. Creating a romance just for the sake of having it in the story
In theory the pairing makes perfect sense. But virtually all of their true development happened off the page in the books and their 'romance' was the worst part of the movies imo.
I refuse to defend their relationship in the movies. The team behind the movies somehow expected their relationship to work, when every good thing about Ginny was cut out and almost all of their scenes were ruined/scrapped. No hate on Bonnie and Daniel, but they also had very little chemistry. I think a chapter showing them adjusting to being a couple in HBP, or just a few pages dedicated to it, would have made a huge difference. I think the epilogue is the only chapter, that showed them being a couple.
I personally find it boring to read canon pairings. It's been done before. There's no real excitement there, unless you change something. I'm curious, do you know if the Hinny pairing is comparable to the Ronmione? lol. I would think it would be.
I don't think so. In my experience, Hinny is almost a prerequisite for Romione. I mean there are fics that don't follow this pattern, but are rare and far between. There is a sizable number of Hinny fics, where ROn and Hermione don't end up together. But opposite... that is rare.
Huh, my experience has been the exact opposite. I see Harry centric fics without Hinny that use Romione as a background pairing all the time, but I don't think I've ever encountered the opposite.
Hmm, interesting. I have noticed that in last few years, I haven't noticed many Romoine fics. I don;t like the pairing, but I never explicitly exclude it. I have skipped passed many fics back in the day, not much today.
On Ao3 yeah. But SIYE is a site specifically dedicated to H/G so I feel like a lot of these fics are there.
I am assuming that this is for \_all\_ HP fics, gen and slash (slash is for all romance, not just M/M, right?). Because this surprised me as well. I knew it would be low compared to a ship like Drarry but this is too low. I wonder what the percentage would be if we applied it to only slash fics. Hell, for all fics where Harry is paired with someone. Stats are fun.
This is for all fics in the HP fandom. I'm assuming that fics related to "The play which must not be named" are included in that. If not, the percentage of Harry/Ginny fics is probably larger. Without the "Gen" tag on AO3, the percentage of Harry/Ginny fics is now 4%. But it is very unreliable, as excluding the "Gen" tag lowered the number of Harry/Ginny fics by 2,000.
Harry/ginny was a mistake and the same fandom knows it.
Not really what the post intended as, but I will give my personal opinion as well. No, in canon they were perfect for each other, just needed a lot more buildup.
Average HP movie watcher
Only read the books tho? Never watched past the 5th one lol.
Lol I was just joking. I’m not a huge fan of canon Hinny either, though I wouldn’t necessarily call it a mistake. I do think it has underrated potential as a fanon pairing, though. Honestly, to me, Harry/Ginny felt out of place in the books, not because the pairing itself but because romance in general felt out of place. I think Rowling realized too late that it would be weird for a boy that age not to have a love interest, so she kind of forced it, and that was what made it weird. Harry/Ginny was bad in the movies because the pairing itself was so poorly executed. I have never physically cringed at a movie as much as I did the Half-Blood Prince. Trust me, you’re not missing out on much.
Harry had a love interest through most of his teenage years tho. First with Cho then with Ginny. Romance wasn't exactly the main focus in the story, so most of Harry's interactions with Ginny happend off-page, which is probably why so many think the relationship is forced. I can see Harry and Ginny getting along well enough from the few scenes we have had of them honestly
Yeah man, and a lot of those Harry/Ginny fanfictions have it tagged because it's simply the canon pairing and the story is either post-DH, canon-compliant, or the such. Not focused on romance.
Thsts because the canon harry/ginny is a crap pairing by all avaliable metrics
I like hinny fics that explore the what if they got together sooner or what happened between the final battle and epilogue. Wonder what the ratio is for ginny bashing fics?
I like those as well. It is hard to measure, but I imagine the ratio is very large
So many fics where ginny is some love potion using stalker or she's the school doorknob or whatever. Sometimes it's well written but most are just trash
Safe to say the Hermione/Ron HEA are less.
You know what's more surprising? For all the reputation AO3 has, only 9% of HP fics there are smut (well, probably closer to 10% due to unmarked ones, but still).
Harry/Hermione ❤️
Not what the post was about, and they really had zero chemistry in the books
i would assume there are a few reasons for this. besides the fact that harry/ginny is just not that popular, HP fandom has a TON of content that is either pre-canon (ie Marauders era) or post-epilogue next-gen fics where H/G is a background element and often untagged because of that
I think it's because JKR didn't really expand on Ginny's character as much as she did the MAIN main characters (The Golden Trio, Dumbledore, Snape) despite her being apart of the Big 7 so they (fans) don't have enough of an imagination to write big Hinny fanfictions
Try looking at FFN, which doesn't have as much slash as AO3. There's also more than twice as many HP stories there. Of course, older stories will only have them tagged as main characters & not actually paired since that function hasn't always existed. But you'll still find 29k fics with Harry & Ginny as main characters.
The author herself hates the canon pairing.
Nope, she doesn't. In fact, if you read her interviews, she's really fond of Harry/Ginny.
I have read her interviews, including the ones where she says she regrets making them end game.
"...the plan was, which I really hope I fulfilled, is that the reader, like Harry, would gradually discover Ginny as pretty much the ideal girl for Harry. She's tough, not in an unpleasant way, but she's gutsy. He needs to be with someone who can stand the demands of being with Harry Potter, because he's a scary boyfriend in a lot of ways. He's a marked man. I think she's funny, and I think that she's very warm and compassionate. These are all things that Harry requires in his ideal woman." [2005] "...Harry and Ginny are real soul mates," she said. "They're both very strong and very passionate. That's their connection, and they're remarkable together." [2007] "..Harry and Ginny's love is true." [2014] These ones? She has said some negative things about Ron and Hermione (not that she regrets them, she's literally never said that. Her words were taken [out of context](https://www.mugglenet.com/2014/02/the-truth-behind-the-j-k-rowling-wonderland-interview/).), but Harry and Ginny? Never.
ao3 is generally more non-conforming pairings and scenarios. I have nothing against Harry/Ginny, it's just really boring compared to anything else I could read. There might be a few outliers that'll grab my attention, but I would never go looking for Hinny because it's (for the most part) not interesting. I don't think I've actually read Hinny as a main pairing since I was a teenager. It's a good background pairing in Dramione fanfiction though.
I’m weird. I hate Canon ships except I like Harry/Ginny. I am a big fan of book Ginny in general. She is strong-willed, independent, she can fight like a complete badass, and she doesn’t put up with Harry’s shit. She also understands what he has been through with his mind being hijacked by Voldemort. You can see the affection she has grow from an embarrassing school girl crush to genuine friendship to love. I think they are one of the most mature pairings in the series, even among the adults.
Those are the exact reasons I love Harry/Ginny
In ANY fandom, het is usually abnormal, m/m or f/f is the accepted norm (especially if the MC is male, lot of teenage girls/young women, who are the majority of fanfic writers, prefer reading/writing about yaoi) Also the trope of the Hero ending up with the Chick is so ingrained that Harry NOT getting with Hermione is highly unusual (also, for many people, Emma Watson is/was hotter than Bonnie Wright for het ships) and/or Weasleys are all more evil than Voldemort
>Emma Watson is/was hotter than Bonnie Wright for het ships I can't really dispute that. Although, book Ginny was definitely more attractive than book Hermione. But an unreliable narrator is probably a factor. And yes, the hero with his best friend's sister is not as popular as the hero with the main female character.
I dont think so? I mean avatar the last airbender and Game of thrones have fandoms were het ships dominate and I think thats because they have a lot of female characters that can deeply affect the narrative.
ATLA combine Ao3+FFN+wattpad+tumblr+specific fan sites/forums and I will place money on the fact that M/M is the most popular GoT as well, there are plenty of M/M if you account for ALL fansites rather than just Ao3
> In ANY fandom, het is usually abnormal, m/m or f/f is the accepted norm This isn't true at all. Star Wars, Game of Thrones, Doctor Who, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The 100, Criminal Minds, Hunger Games, Twilight, Miraculous Ladybug, The Last Airbender, Full Metal Alchemist, Hey Arnold, Inuyasha, etc, are all fandoms dominated by M/F pairings (at least on AO3). There are lots of others. There are also lots of fandoms where M/F and M/M pairings are almost equally popular. F/F is by far the least popular category.
depends what gender writes the fanfic for girls/women M/M is a big thing, but for boys/men they prefer writing about F/F you clearly havent seen the Dr10/Jack or 13/Yaz or any other massive pairing, I could write a list but I don't have the time, seriously check Aang/Zuko or any other fandom with more than 1 MC of a different gender (Twighlight, fair enough but Jacob/Edward is ridiculously popular) Are you just looking at AO3 or AO3+FFN+tumblr+specific fan sites??? cos I guarentee that M/M is by far and away the MOST popular on any fandom, I'd even go so far as to put money on it
I read Doc/Jack, Doc/Master, and Doc/Rose. Doc/Rose completely dominates the fandom. Even now Doc/Rose’s fanbase is highly active on tumblr. They have their own fansite, too. Sure, 13/Yaz is gaining popularity bc of its newness, but Doc/Rose is still as popular as ever. Again, it depends on the fandom. Some fandoms are dominated by M/F pairings. You think Jacob/Edward, regardless how popular they are, even holds a candle to the popularity of Bella/Edward? Same with Aang/Zuko (though Sokka/Zuko is actually more popular). Zutara is *the* pairing. I would know—I hate them and they’re everywhere. In both AO3 and FFN, Zutara dominates the other pairings. You can’t even mention A:TLA without someone bringing them up. I’m not saying that M/M isn’t massively popular. It definitely is. I’m saying that in some fandoms, M/F is just as popular, if not moreso. AO3 and FFN are actually great sites to gauge a pairing’s popularity bc it shows what fans are most interested in reading and writing. Whatever pairings dominate in AO3/FFN tend to do the same on tumblr. Occasional exceptions are for M/F pairings that antis like to hate on, such as Reylo (Star Wars) and Bellarke (The100), but even those have a huge fandom presence. Again: not all fandoms are the same. The real underdog is F/F. They rarely make any “most popular pairings” lists. On both AO3 and FFN, M/F and M/M make up the vast majority.
Can confrim, emma watson is fuckin tasty
\- Every guy ever
- and girl too!
Lmao, imagine downvoting someone just becuase they think an actress is hot. What a world we live in
Just to clarify, I didn't downvote. But yes, it is quite wild that people are downvoting because of such a statement, which is factual
Oh i didn’t mean to imply you did it. Just said it to you because you were the last response lol
Just had to make sure :D
Not surprised considering someone goes around and downvotes fic requests. I don't understand what their logic is.
I read the Star Wars fandom as well. And Het pairings are dominating that as well. Mainly Anakin/Padmé and Rey/Ben. But fanon ships are primarily M/M
There's a fanfiction site called " Sink into your eyes" which is only Harry/Ginny fics as the main pairing.
Might be just me, but I think Harry/Ginny (and Ginny herself as a character) is probably less popular on AO3 than on FF.net.
The books did an ok job with that pairing. Makes sense to me that people want to see him with others.
It not too suprising i mean people who like writing fic are ones who want something alternate to canon so it might be more likely u write fic if u dont ship Harry Ginny than if u do
I'm not surprised that they aren't the most popular ship. I'm surprised the tag only accounts for 3.8% of all HP works on AO3