I’ve spent some time thinking about what I think the problem is with the canon Harry/Ginny relationship. Obviously there’s the basic problem of Ginny being an underdeveloped character - for being the romantic partner of the MC, she’s remarkably absent from the books. But I don’t think that’s my primary issue.

I started to think about the fact that if at any point during Ginny’s relationship with Dean in book 6 Harry had come up to Ginny and just said hey Ginny, I’m ready to start dating you, Ginny would’ve dropped Dean and been with Harry in a nanosecond. And that’s the problem, and the only way JKR prevents it from being a problem is by having Harry inexplicably not realize this.

Ginny has been in love with Harry since literally before she ever met him, because she doesnt really ever develop any love for Harry, only Harry Potter The Boy Who Lived. She’s never given any character arc where she gets to know the real him and appreciate how much he resents all the myth and legend and hype about him, and still loves him anyway. In her first year her storybook hero literally saves her from a basilisk and the memory of Voldemort. She doesnt really reappear in the narrative in a significant way until book 5, when he teaches her how to fight and then leads them on an insane crusade to defend his family into the heart of the ministry where they have no business being able to reach, and he defends them against death eaters. When is she supposed to have lost her schoolgirl crush on the legendary hero and began to appreciate the real Harry?

JKR conveniently makes Harry oblivious to Ginny’s feelings for him, and doesnt have Hermione tell him, because if he realized in book 6 that he could just tap her on the shoulder and say I’m ready and have her jump into his arms he would realize it’s not really about him, it’s about Harry Potter, and he wouldn’t want her anymore. That’s my fundamental issue with the Harry/Ginny relationship. She’s a perfectly fine secondary or tertiary character, and she could’ve been given a character arc that made their relationship a real thing instead of just an odd sort of trophy that Harry gets at the end. But JKR doesnt do any of that, and that’s why I think for a lot of us the relationship just doesnt work and a pairing with Hermione is the only satisfying one - she’s the only one who’s a real partner to him and who was never starstruck and has come to love and appreciate Harry rather than the legend.