You're gonna be bothered by how cool I am.

You know, I think I remember feeling exactly this way a long time ago, during the three-year summer. I distinctly remember a good fandom friend of mine saying that she expected H/G to happen, but didn't love it the way she loved R/H. And I, being impressionable, started wondering if it was silly of me to love H/G so much, much more than R/H, when it wasn't as developed or obvious or whatever. To be honest, I did feel a little bit as though Sugar Quill were the R/H website and Gryffindor Tower were the H/G website and we at SQ thought we were better for that reason. I always associated myself with the "R/H (H/G on the side)" crowd -- I lived at SQ and hardly ever visited GT, I posted a zillion times on the R/H vs H/H threads and about three times on the H/G vs H/H thread, and most of my friends were (I thought) primarily R/H shippers. But the ship I thought about all the time, wrote stories about, identified with was H/G.

I guess my point is that I don't think this shadow of a rivalry is a new thing -- although I guess it is more prominent now. Back in the day there were R/H shippers who didn't see H/G happening or didn't care; now there are R/H shippers who don't like the way it happened. H/G, bless its heart, has always had its detractors. If they're not complaining about Ginny being a pathetic little dishrag you could wipe the floor with, they're complaining that she's too strong-willed and fiery and awesome (er, I'm guilty as charged there...). But no matter how JKR wrote Ginny, there was never a chance that everyone would like her, because she's the main love interest we've been waiting for for so long! She's the big thing! I think H/G (even H/whoever if it had for some inconceivable reason turned out another way) was destined to be sat upon, spat upon and ratted on. But at least we got it right, and we got to read it in canon.

For what it's worth, I think R/H was probably the romance that JKR had the most fun writing and I had the most fun reading out of all the romances in the series. But thematically, H/G is totally more important, and more beautiful, and we always knew it would be. It just wasn't a major plot point, which I'm grateful for, because even though I used to write stories in my head where Ginny's love for Harry helped defeat Voldemort, it wouldn't have been a Harry Potter kind of story.