Hello! Im Rereading The Changeling And I Cant Remember For The Life Of Me What Ginny Meant By More Like

Hello! I’m rereading The Changeling and I can’t remember for the life of me what Ginny meant by ‘more like power is the weakling’s ambition’, Antonia’s pride and her own conclusions after that. Could you elaborate please?

She forces herself to tune back in to what Antonia is saying about a letter she just received from her parents. Apparently some wizards came by their bookshop to get her family to pay a “protection fee” in these unsettled times. Common enough in Diagon and Knockturn Alleys these days apparently.

Antonia scoffs. “They didn’t count on my Auntie Victoria.”

Ginny huffs. “Probably were just hoping your family would be too scared to do anything,” she says scathingly.

“Fear is the weakling’s power,” Antonia says, sash drawn dramatically across her chest.

“More like power is the weakling’s ambition,” she counters.

Antonia looks at her in surprise, delicately penciled eyebrow crawling up under her fringe.

“What?” Ginny demands, shifting uncomfortably under her gaze.

Antonia smiles then, a dazzling spread of red lips over perfectly white teeth. “So you’re learning at last.”

Ginny scowls at her, not liking to be spoken to as if an unruly child, even as she knows Antonia has a valid point. Ginny hadn’t understood when she first met Antonia, mistaking ambition for maliciousness, unconventional thought for something as simple as evil. There is no easy corollary to be found between ordinary –normal?—and good. An entire world of nuance and subtlety and extraordinary exists in the spaces between.

She can see that. She just wishes other people could too.

I assume this scene from chapter five is what you are referencing.

Ah, the great foible of Slytherin. Assuming that to be ambitious means to lusting after power. Ginny is at once acknowledging that ambition is much more complex than merely wanting to have power over other people, and also beginning to see how that thirst for power more than anything else is perhaps a sign, ultimately, of weakness. The weak hoping to not be weak, but also a weakness of ambition to see so narrowly.

Remember, this conversation around power started in the previous year in the context of Umbridge and her actions, as ultimately being about trying to have power over all decisions, over Dumbledore and his supposed 'army', and over the whole school--and what that mean and how it landed on the students in really disturbing ways. And in the scene you are talking about above, it's in the context of Harry and his narrow of view of Slytherin and her, and her anger over it. They've just had their big fight over Draco Malfoy that is really more about Ginny thinking Harry isn't capable of seeing nuance when it comes to Slytherin. That maybe all he can see is that they are all after power and therefore are all evil. That there is no difference between ambition and evil. When she knows very well that there is far more grey than that, that the grey is the entire point. Ginny, at this point, does not crave power over people. She never really does. When she does wield power over people, it is merely as a tool, not an end in and of itself. Controlling people itself is never the point. Her ambition is ultimately about being true to herself, to the knowing and accepting of her own strengths and weaknesses both. She just wishes she could be seen for them by others (Harry) too.

Craving power as an end in and of itself is both a weakness in understanding and in a weakness in ambition. True ambition would reach far beyond it.

So here’s the thing. There is no logical reason that Ginny Weasley, as a nearly 17-year-old at the end of Deathly Hallows, would be good at taking care of babies, that she would somehow be this amazing Teddy-caring-for figure. Like, she was (nearly) 17. Her family is big, but she’s the baby, the youngest child and there seems to be a conspicuous canonical absence of Prewett or Weasley cousins in the narrative that could have maybe exposed her to younger kids. She probably has zero baby experience in her entire life. So the concept of her becoming a primary care giver or even being the most competent caretaker of a months-old if not weeks-old infant in the face of Harry bumbling about is so weird to me. (And makes me wonder if this is some ‘women are inherently, biologically nurturing and great at caring at babies because that is what they are meant to do’ cult of true womanhood bullshit that is crazy toxic and makes first time mums feel like they are somehow deficient when they struggle to care for an infant because babies are HARD, yo. anyway, I digress)

Honestly, the Ginny and Harry care for baby Teddy shit would probably go more like this if you ask me:

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Maybe this is dumb, sorry, but I just wasn't sure. Ginny became member of the Parlor the second she was invited, right? And she could go back any time she wanted? So when Antonia 'asked her again' when she was going do a reading, it wasn't actually Ginny's second chance?

Yes. Though Antonia is the queen of second chances, this was more about Ginny thinking she deserved a second chance. Also a way to highlight that for Ginny, she is in foreign territory with rules and rituals and practices that she does not understand (and for a while doesn’t want to understand). All of which contributes to her feeling of not belonging. But it is not that the others don’t think she belongs, or even that she doesn’t, rather that Ginny’s perspective and understanding is the thing that needs to grow. Both of herself and of the space she inhabits.

What does Slytherin Ginny think about Albus Severus as a name for her baby? After two dead men with controversial histories? One who didn't care enough for the individual losses in face of greater good and another,a petty bully who was once her close friend's boggart? Perhaps if she got creative enough she could name him after a couple of parlor sisters instead?

1) Don’t assume Slytherin Ginny is going to have James, Albus, and Lily. Sorry next gen kids, nothing against you, but The Changeling universe is not epilogue compliant. I can say for certain that she is not going to have kids at 22.

2) I have a wonky personal headcanon that first-girl-in-seven-generations Ginny Weasley is going to have all girls. I just like that. You know, MAGIC.

3) I’m not on board with naming kids after dead people. I mean, you want to give them a name that’s been in your family for a long while and it’s your long dead great-great-great aunt’s name? Sure. Want to honor your grandmother who was your rock and your guiding light? Sure. Maybe a middle name though. But to give children a name tied to someone who died tragically or who is some larger than life hero? No. I think any kid of Harry Potter’s is going to have enough to deal with. Adding to that is just cruel. There are other ways to honor the dead. (I think I can understand why Harry might want to do that though. Particularly only four years after the end of the war when he probably hadn’t even really begun to heal, and he doesn’t have the healthiest ways to deal with things, so yeah, name your kid after dead people. Okay. But, Harry, WHY? Sometimes it just reads too much as a narrative trick to reinforce the ALL WAS WELL, without actually showing the ‘how’ of any of it. It’s a nice neat bow at the end of what was always a gloriously real and messy story. It’s the happily ever after.)

Do you think Ginny’s need for everything to be under her control (which we still have to discuss how different it is from Hermione’s), besides the emotional and traumatic aspects, may also come from her fear of being powerless? Better put, of not having power? And that makes her strive for it more? If it is, it’s a very Slytherin trait for sure

Oh, yes. She would much rather be in a position to have power that she chooses not to use, than to not have power at all. I think it is definitely a Slytherin trait. But also definitely out of her trauma from Tom, from being completely powerless and swearing to herself that she would never find herself in that position of weakness again. I think this is something both Ginnys have in common, and was honestly one of the reasons I thought she could actually work in Slytherin. She isn’t interested in controlling others, only interested in controlling her own destiny and path, and anyone who would try to take that away from her.

And, yes, I think Hermione’s need to control comes from a different place. Primarily the belief that she knows better than everyone else. It probably sounds egotistical, and it is a bit, but it also comes from what I imagine is Hermione’s feeling that she is Very Smart, that this smartness has been ingrained in her as being her core characteristics, her one valuable trait. (She’s bad with people and emotions and does not easily make friends, and maybe panics under stressful situations and doesn’t make the best leader or dueler, but she can always count on being smart, on Knowing Useful Things, and it’s the one thing that if she puts her effort into it, it always pays off, whereas other areas it never seems to matter how hard she tries, it always goes wrong.) Hermione isn’t interested so much in power in and of itself, as in Doing What’s Right, and Knowing More Than Everyone Else What’s Best.

i was really surprised that ginny and smita’s friendship faded bc i’m so used to characters becoming best/forever friends with the first person they become attached to. why did you decide to have smita exit ginny’s life? and do you think tobias and ginny would still have the same friendship they do now if smita was still friends with them?

I think that was the reason why? In fic things are always so ‘forever’ in ways that are not always true in real life. Considering we have Harry, Ron, and Hermione who have a rough start but are then besties for life, I wanted to show that not all friendships go that way. It’s actually much more common to have people in our lives who are so important for a period of time, but then not anymore. Whether that is moving away, growing apart, having a nasty fall out, or what, it does happen. And it’s natural and doesn’t have to be dramatic, and you can still love people deeply and have them just have a different place in your life than they used to.

I think Tobias and Ginny would have still been friends, but it would have been different. They went through the gauntlet together, so to speak. But with Smita still in the picture, I don’t think Tobias would have pulled the double agent thing. And he wouldn’t have been forced to open up to Ginny in ways he normally wouldn’t have. And the same goes for Ginny.