apparent lack of traumaterri_testingOctober 16 2014, 17:11:14 UTC
They key word may be "apparent." (Unless there was something in that cocoa that night that Muggle therapists would kill for....)
Modeling herself consciously on the twins does make sense; they are, after all, available as models. Mrs. Weasley even says that her older boys are role models for the youngest two--she just would rather they take Percy as their ideal.
But it wasn't just that acting according to her natural inclination hadn't gotten Ginny what she wanted--it had gotten her violated.
Of course, I just realized there's a further complication: Ginny first year wasn't natural-Ginny either. Tom had already gotten his hooks into her before she started Hogwarts. She was apparently friendless first year (in PoA, on the Hogwarts Express, she doesn't voluntarily leave the Trio to join her agemates). And, indeed, we never do see her with friends her own age. We eventually see her with older boyfriends (Neville, Michael, Dean, and Harry) and with an older girl friend (Hermione). Do we even once see her voluntarily associating with her dorm mates?
So she wasn't ever a popular girl like Lily. Lily had people she called friends to Severus.
We do see quiet, shy Ginny at the beginning of Book One when she is still Tom-free. It's only a short glimpse, but she gives no sign of being bold and spunky.
Original Ginnyterri_testingOctober 17 2014, 06:27:21 UTC
POint! But slight correction--Ron expresses surprise that she's so shy. OTOH, aside from her crush (how serious, in a ten-year-old?), we never see the family at the Burrow interacting with outsiders. So houseguest Harry might be the only person outside her family Ginny's ever had occasion to speak to--reason enough for shyness! If Ron's to be believed, original!Ginny is a chatterbox in the bosom of her family.
Hmm. And presumably, if continuing on the same trajectory, would have been so with everyone with whom she felt comfortable. With all of her subsequent friends, once she grew comfortable with them.
Except that her first friend outside her family, to whom she poured out her heart, was... oh, yeah.
Ron says little Ginny was always talking. You couldn't shut her up.
Tom could, and did. Apparently permanently. Older Ginny... well, older Severus would have been proud of how well older Ginny seemed to have internalized the lesson he snarled at Harry. Fools sho wear their hearts proudly on their sleeve, who cannot control their emotions, who wallow in sad memories and allow themselves to be provoked this easily--weak people, in other words--they stand no chance against his [Tom's] powers!
Once upon a time, there was a little girl who prattled confidingly to everyone who would listen. That is, to her family, the only people she'd actually met, to whom she was the baby and the pet, to be both teased and tormented, and protected.
Once upon a time, there was a little girl who never shut up.
And her tendency to confide was itself made into a trap, with someone inviting her confidences and not just betraying her trust, but twisting her very willingness to trust, her innocent outpouring of her true emotions, into a rope that bound her the more deeply, the more candid she was. That forced her to secret acts she abominated, with a halter-rope spun of her own candour.
What a perversion!
But, y'know, it worked. After that Ginny wasn't a chatterbox any more. With anybody, ever.
Re: Original Ginnyjana_chOctober 18 2014, 01:49:14 UTC
It’s about the right age for it to happen, too. I went through a social crisis when I was ten and eleven years old-nothing like as serious as actual abuse, but a crisis none the less, that lasted for two full years. Before that, my mother told me I used to come home saying, “I made a new friend today; I found out her name.” Since then I’ve had a devil of a time making friends. I sometimes blame it on living in Seattle, where everyone is friendly but it’s hard to make friends, but it was just as true when I lived elsewhere. Really’s it me.
This sort of thing happens as one grows up. I can’t say the Jana who made friends by finding out their names was the “real” Jana, and the current friendless Jana is a warped and distorted version. We all change as we grow up, and not all the changes are positive, even when one has not suffered the sort of trauma you and Ginny have suffered. The “real” Jana is the one who has gone through the changes, good and bad.
Modeling herself consciously on the twins does make sense; they are, after all, available as models. Mrs. Weasley even says that her older boys are role models for the youngest two--she just would rather they take Percy as their ideal.
But it wasn't just that acting according to her natural inclination hadn't gotten Ginny what she wanted--it had gotten her violated.
Of course, I just realized there's a further complication: Ginny first year wasn't natural-Ginny either. Tom had already gotten his hooks into her before she started Hogwarts. She was apparently friendless first year (in PoA, on the Hogwarts Express, she doesn't voluntarily leave the Trio to join her agemates). And, indeed, we never do see her with friends her own age. We eventually see her with older boyfriends (Neville, Michael, Dean, and Harry) and with an older girl friend (Hermione). Do we even once see her voluntarily associating with her dorm mates?
So she wasn't ever a popular girl like Lily. Lily had people she called friends to Severus.
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Hmm. And presumably, if continuing on the same trajectory, would have been so with everyone with whom she felt comfortable. With all of her subsequent friends, once she grew comfortable with them.
Except that her first friend outside her family, to whom she poured out her heart, was... oh, yeah.
Ron says little Ginny was always talking. You couldn't shut her up.
Tom could, and did. Apparently permanently. Older Ginny... well, older Severus would have been proud of how well older Ginny seemed to have internalized the lesson he snarled at Harry. Fools sho wear their hearts proudly on their sleeve, who cannot control their emotions, who wallow in sad memories and allow themselves to be provoked this easily--weak people, in other words--they stand no chance against his [Tom's] powers!
Once upon a time, there was a little girl who prattled confidingly to everyone who would listen. That is, to her family, the only people she'd actually met, to whom she was the baby and the pet, to be both teased and tormented, and protected.
Once upon a time, there was a little girl who never shut up.
And her tendency to confide was itself made into a trap, with someone inviting her confidences and not just betraying her trust, but twisting her very willingness to trust, her innocent outpouring of her true emotions, into a rope that bound her the more deeply, the more candid she was. That forced her to secret acts she abominated, with a halter-rope spun of her own candour.
What a perversion!
But, y'know, it worked. After that Ginny wasn't a chatterbox any more. With anybody, ever.
Reply
This sort of thing happens as one grows up. I can’t say the Jana who made friends by finding out their names was the “real” Jana, and the current friendless Jana is a warped and distorted version. We all change as we grow up, and not all the changes are positive, even when one has not suffered the sort of trauma you and Ginny have suffered. The “real” Jana is the one who has gone through the changes, good and bad.
Reply
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