[HPFGU-Movie] JKR's revelations

[Sue Wartell]

Valerie asked (among other things)...
How does everyone feel about JKR revealing so much after the books have been published? I'm wondering if she's not making some of it up as the questions are posed to her? (Don't throw virtual tomatoes at me!!) Or is she that deeply involved in her characters' development that she truly HAS thought about their pasts, and futures to that degree? And if so, is she going to be able to let the HP world go, any more than we are!?!Valerie

My thoughts:

If she has thought it through, she hasn't done so very thoroughly.  Not only did she give Ron two careers, but she gave Neville two lives.  He's a professor at Hogwarts (herbology), who lives over the Leaky Cauldron in London with Hannah Abbott.  That's a heck of a commute every day, unless he likes aparating (sp?) into Hogsmead every day and hiking up to the school.  Of course we never did learn where the other faculty lived, so that may be common.  But in emergencies, most of them seemed to be at the castle, even in the middle of the night, suggesting that they lived there.

I do think she has a lot of backstory in her mind, as well as alternative paths that she never had time to explore, like the person who did magic late in life.  And the fact that we were supposed to find out more about the professors and their personal lives, and find out what James and Lily did as careers, and where James got his money.  (Apparently,  reading between the lines, he inherited it, but that would have been my assumption regardless of his relationship, however distant, to the Peverells.  And as the Gaunt family history shows, being related to them did not mean that you stayed wealthy, even if you did manage to hang on to your relic.)

Anyway, she can continue to reveal, or make up, anything she wants to - it's her world, and she was gracious enough to invite us all in to share it.

Although an author is responsible for what has been put into the story, s/he does not have any control over what the reader finds in the words and the story.   And if the reader has a different interpretation, the author can't say it's wrong.  The author can say "that's not what I meant:" but that's about it.  (or perhaps, "I'm appalled that you drew that conclusion from what I said.")  Reading is a collaborative activity, requiring active participation by author and reader.  To some extent, every one of us has read a different story, because each of us has brought a unique perspective to the story.  And if you don't see Dumbledore as gay, or Hermione as a lawyer, or Hannah Abbott as an innkeeper, that's fine.  Those things aren't in the books.  If Jo wants to continue the saga, she can, and then what she says in the (hypothetical) books will become part of the story, but until then it's just like gossip to me (as someone else said.)

I wasn't disturbed by her statement that Dumbledore was gay.  I'd never thought about it, and didn't get that vibe at all, but that's OK.  It wasn't particularly relevant to the story as I read it.

Sue




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