10 Reasons Why Ginny Weasley Was Done Dirty By The 'Harry Potter' Movies

The Deathly Hallows films keep the camera on Harry, Ron, and Hermione and their attempt to find the Horcruxes. The books focus on this quest as well, but also provide information about what's happening at Hogwarts, where the ramining students are under the leadership of Death Eaters. Ginny, Neville Longbottom, and Luna Lovegood lead other members of Dumblededore's Army in keeping up the fight against Voldemort at Hogwarts, constantly rebelling against the new teachers and administrators even though they are punished harshly for their actions.

Ginny, readers learn, is part of a group that attempts to rescue/take Gryffindor's sword from Snape's office by smashing open a glass case. They don't succeed and are punished, but it's a spunky move. During the Battle of Hogwarts, even though Mrs. Weasley tells her daughter she's underage and can't join the fight, Ginny ends up doing so anyway - and firing some very successful jinxes. In the film, her most notable move during the conflict is yet another awkward kiss with Harry. 

Quidditch at Hogwarts is covered more extensively in the books than in the films, in part because those scenes were so difficult to film, and the writers had so much other material to cover. But that means Ginny's stint as a star Quidditch player gets short shrift in the movies.

In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, after Professor Umbridge bans Harry from Quidditch, Ginny steps up to fill in as Seeker for the Gryffindor team. During a terrible game that Gryffindor loses against Hufflepuff, Ginny at least keeps it from being a rout by catching the Snitch at the end so the team loses by only 10 points. In the next game, she helps Gryffindor win the House Cup.

Her brothers Fred and George, trying to figure out how she got so good at the game when they never let her play with them, get an earful from Ginny's confidante Hermione: "She’s been breaking into your broom shed in the garden since the age of 6 and taking each of your brooms out in turn when you weren’t looking."

When Harry is captain of the Gryffindor team, he makes Ginny a Chaser after she flies better than anyone and "score[s] 17 goals to boot."

Ginny even has a picture of Gwenog Jones, captain of an all-female Quidditch team, on her bedroom wall at the Burrow. Plus, although this fact is not in the books, J.K. Rowling said in an interview with The Leaky Cauldron that Ginny eventually became a member herself of that Quidditch team, the Holyhead Harpies, and after her sports career was a reporter who wrote about Quidditch.

On the screen, Ginny does things for Harry that are probably supposed to seem romantic, but mostly make her look like his maid. In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, when Harry is visiting the Weasleys for Christmas, she feeds him a mini mince pie, literally putting the morsel in his mouth, followed by the line, "Don't you trust me?" 

In the same film, when they meet in the Burrow at the bottom of a staircase and don't have anything to say to each other, Ginny (clad in a pink fuzzy robe), simply says, "Shoelace," bends down to tie the laces on Harry's tennis shoes as he just stands there, then wishes him a wispy Merry Christmas.

In the books, these scenes don't exist. And although Ginny does start out infatuated with Harry, as they get older their relationship becomes more mature. They are close friends first, exchanging worries and advice along with fun experiences. When they start dating, Ginny doesn't just follow Harry around feeding him. They have an equal relationship, and confide in, lean on, and take care of each other.

Even when Harry realizes he has to break up with Ginny to keep her safe from Voldemort, he knows she will understand:

[H]e knew that at that moment they understood each other perfectly, and that when he told her what he was going to do now, she would not say, "Be careful," or "Don't do it," but accept his decision, because she would not have expected anything less of him. 

Ginny, as the youngest member of the Weasley family, and the only girl, wants to hang out with her brothers and their friends, but they often dismiss her as the pesky little sister. In the films, she doesn't say much and is often just tagging along as part of the Weasley clan, often pulled out of the room or a potential adventure by her overprotective mother.

That all happens in the books, too, but readers also get to see a side of Ginny that makes her more than a redheaded add-on: She's a loyal, caring friend. Hermione, for example, can't be with Ron and Harry all the time because she lives in the girls' dormitory at Hogwarts, and needs some "girl time" and female friends as well. Although the books don't show a lot of their conversations, readers know Hermione and Ginny become close friends, spending time together at the Burrow and sharing adolescent female advice.

Ginny is also kind to Luna Lovegood and Neville Longbottom, unlike the many other students who make fun of their quirks.   

In the Harry Potter films, Ginny Weasley is mostly humorless. At best, she is sometimes sarcastic. In the books, however, she has some of the sharpest comebacks and reactions.

In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, for example, after the Quidditch game where her brother Ron was the star player, he and Lavender Brown are wrapped around each other in a sloppy embrace during the post-game Gryffindor celebration.

Ginny says to Harry, "It looks like he's eating her face, doesn't it? But I suppose he's got to refine his technique somehow."

She also comes up with the clever (but admittedly somewhat unkind) nickname "Phlegm" for the overbearing Fleur Delacour. 

When she and Harry first get together in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and everyone at Hogwarts is gossiping about the new couple, she comes up with this quick-witted dialogue:

Ginny: Three Dementor attacks in a week, and all Romilda Vane does is ask me if it's true you've got a Hippogriff tattooed across your chest.

Harry: What did you tell her?

Ginny: I told her it's a Hungarian Horntail. Much more macho.

The movies understandably focus on Harry and Ginny's budding and eventual flourishing relationship, especially Ginny's infatuation with Harry. 

The books, however, feature more prominently her relationships with other boys, including Ravenclaw Michael Corner and Harry's Gryffindor classmate Dean Thomas. In these love scenarios, Ginny is the pursued, not the pursuer, because they find both her looks and personality attractive. Eventually, she breaks up with both of them.