Bloody Baron/Silver/Tom Collins/Unmet Expectations/Kissing Gate/Cho Chang

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

Hey, Carol, did I miss something in Chapter 31? Just because the
Bloody Baron has a bad temper and a sword does not explain to me why
he was the only being, alive or dead, of whom Peeves was afraid. Can a
ghost sword (or being struck or stangled by a ghost hand) hurt or harm
Peeves? If yes, is the Baron the only ghost who has a sword? I'd think
ghosts could get swords wherever new members of the Headless Horsemen
get their horses.

I trust that now that Wormtail's silver hand has served its plot
purpose, no one still insists that its purpose is to kill Lupin or
Greyback. I fear that the underlying notion remains, that werewolves
can be killed only by silver, even tho' I think that JKR was trying to
show that that doesn't apply to Potterverse werewolves by specifying
that the goblet that Lupin was holding at the first dinner at 12
Grimmauld Place in OoP was solid silver. Could Herself have specified
in DH when Harry saw Lupin's corpse, that he had been killed by AK or
whatever, not silver?

Carol wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/32770>:

<< BTW, I once knew a man named Tom Collins whose girlfriend wouldn't
marry him unless he took her last name because she associated his name
with a cocktail.  >>

Refusing to marry a man because he shares his name with a cocktail, a
fictional character, or a celebrity strikes me as irrational. It's not
as if she refused to marry him and take his last name because it
turned her name into something with which she was uncomfortable (quick
example: she was Betty Osaka and he was Jimmy Boop) or if the names he
wanted to give their hypothetical future children bothered her.

Sandy wrote in 
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/32774>:

<< All three of these expectations were met, yet I have a great deal
of negative criticism for the book. The world, and the characters in
it, that I thought I knew so well were turned inside-out and
upside-down to the point that I no longer know who's on first. >>

I am NOT trying to get personal, but it seems to me that some of your
complaints ARE unfulfilled expectations. You could be more speciic
about how the world and the characters were 'turned inside-out', but I
think part of what you mean is that characters acted out-of-character.
I think that indicates an unfillfulled expectation that the characters
would act 'in character' according to your understanding of their
characters. 

<< She introduced plots and theories that, even after a second read, I
still don't understand, and not understanding makes me feel stupid and
I don't like that. >>

I allow as how the plots and theories that are hard to understand are
NOT an unfilled expectation, because I don't think I am playing games
with words. If I were just playing word games, I could have said "You
expected the plot to make sense". 

<< She has made so many statements prior to the release of the book
that turned out to be false, or that she managed to find a way to worm
around. One example: Even in the wizarding world people don't come
back from the dead, but then we get King' Cross. I felt like I was
watching Dallas again. For many it is a matter of unfulfilled
expectations. That is not the case for me. >> 

I think that complaining that it's the book's  fault that it
contradicts thing that Rowling said in RL indicates an expectation
that the book will go according to those statements. I think that's a
flaw in the statements rather than in the book -- probably many
readers don't bother with groups like this or Mugglenet or The Leaky
Cauldron or the Lexicon, they just read the books when they're
released. I those readers experience only the books (and maybe later
the movies) and therefore it doesn't bother them at all if the book
contradicts something Rowling said in RL, and therefore the flaw is
not IN the book.

Carol wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/32777>:

<< Were any other non-British readers confused by "kissing gate"? I
found a detailed definition, complete with a photo, which I founed
very helpful at answers.com:
<http://www.answers.com/topic/kissing-gate>.>>

Your quotes from that article suggest that it is the same as the
Kissing Gate article in Wikipedia that my friend printed out for me.
While I was reading the chapter, I enountered the word 'kissing gate'
and I didn't know what it meant, but by the time I stopped reading, I
didn't remember that it was one of the things that I meant to look up.
However, the word 'kissing gate' did remind me of the Kissing Bridge
at Ren Faire (the toll is a kiss), which I have never understood: is
there something in the historical Elizabethan period that inspired the
Kissing Bridge? I looked it up and found only 18th-19th century
covered bridges that were called kissing bridges because of the moment
of privacy inside.

Stacy wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/32814>:

<< (Secretly wishing Harry ended up with Cho Chang, for all the Asian
fans out there) >>

I'm not at all Asisan, but I always was a Harry/Cho, Ron/Susan Bones,
Hermione/Ginny shipper ... I used to think Ginny would be helpful for
Hermione's career in politics, that would begin in the opposition, an
activist for non-humans' and part-humans' right, but culminate in
Hermione becoming the first Muggle-born Minister of Magic. Then we
found that Ginny hexes people in the halls for no particular reason
and deliberately drove her broom into Zacharias Smith just because of
his biased play-by-play of a match that Gryffindor *won*, which should
have made the victorious players feel magnanimous.