The Internet and Potterama

[justcarol67]

Carol earlier:
> > As for the effect of the Internet on Rowling's writing, I don't
think it affected either the length or the darkness or the books.
Surely, she planned the three important deaths we've encountered so
far from the beginning, along with the pivotal restoration of LV to
his body in the fourth book--surely always intended to be dark, with
the kidnap/murder plot, the Death Eaters, the Unforgiveable Curses,
and the murder of Cedric Diggory.
> 
Nirjhar responded:
> 
> Do you really believe that the Publishers would have allowed Book 4
to be that long if Harry Potter had not become popular?
> 
> I do not think so. IMO, GoF would have been less voluminous and more
"PG" friendly had it not been for the immense success of Potterama.
The climax of GoF would not have been allowed if it not for the
success of the earlier books. Cedric's brutal death and Wormtail
cutting off his hand would have been regarded by the publishers as
being to violent for a children's book. They would have told Jo to
rewrite it. Jo Rowling would not have been able to say no.
> 
> I do not believe Jo Rowling would have got the freedom to write
Potterama the way she wanted to if it had not been for the success of
Potterama.
> 
> JMHO :)
>

Carol responds:
The books as written and the books as edited are two different things.
You may be right that they'd have been more tightly edited, but I
think JKR would have cut out SPEW before she'd have cut central
elements like Voldemort's return and Cedric's death, which paves the
way for darker elements to come.

It's possible that the publisher would have demanded changes if they'd
been less popular, but JKR would not have given in. She had plotted
the books from the beginning, including everything from Dementors to
the three important deaths we've seen so far, and she could not have
omitted any element central to the end of the series. Wormtail's
silver hand is also a necessary plot element, I'm pretty sure. It's a
Chekhov's gun if I ever saw one, probably tied in with his life debt
to Harry.

The Internet (and savvy marketing, including the film franchise) may
have made the books a cultural phenomenon, but I think they'd have
sold well enough (wasn't the initial run 50,000 books?) even without
the Internet that Bloomsbury would have given her a relatively free
hand. (She must have told them that she had a seven-book series
planned and that the earlier books were stepping stones to the later
ones.) Bloomsbury (and Scholastic) had no problem with Harry's parents
being murdered offpage in the first book, a Basilisk petrifying
students (and killing one, presumably on Tom Riddle's orders, fifty
years before) in the second book, or soul-sucking Dementors in the
third book. If they didn't see the books getting longer and darker,
with some sort of resurrection for Voldemort and more murders by the
Dark Lord (who otherwise wouldn't deserve the name), they'd have been
very short-sighted.

I can see a publishing house refusing a book like "Goblet of Fire" if
it were the author's first book, but it was the fourth in a series. If
the first few had sold only 50,000-100,000 copies each, with no adult
following (just child readers), I can see them asking her to cut 100
pages or so of minor subplots. (They might have asked her to return
Barty Jr. to Azkaban as the film did rather than having him
soul-sucked, for example.) But she would never have agreed to cut the
central elements, especially the crucial Voldemort restoration chapter
and the other events in the graveyard (including Wormtail cutting off
his own right hand). The main story was plotted from the beginning.
Snape was always going to kill Dumbledore, for example. And how could
she work up to that scene without introducing other murders first?
Best to start with a fairly minor, if likeable character, then Harry's
godfather (who spends most of the books offpage) before showing the
death of Dumbledore, which shocked even adult readers like us. And how
could she show that Voldemort was evil if he didn't (through Wormtail)
perform a really heartless and terrible deed right before Harry's
eyes? GoF establishes, as none of the earlier books has done, that
Voldemort is truly evil, that Harry really has reason to fear and
oppose him. Having the innocent Cedric die for no reason other than
that he's in the way establishes that fact as nothing else could.
"Remember Cedric Diggory, a boy who was good and kind and brave. . ."
Would GoF be the memorable book it is without that speech? I don't
think so.

An eleven-year-old asked me that very question: "Why did JK Rowling
have Cedric die?" I answered, "To show how evil Voldemort is." The
eleven-year-old nodded wisely and said, "You're right." Kids
understand more than adults give them credit for.

I think Bloomsbury must have known more or less where JKR was going
with the books before they contracted for a seven-book series. In any
case, JKR has said that GoF is a very important book, a pivotal book.
It's whole purpose, IMO, is to prepare the reader for Voldemort's
return and to show how evil he is when he does return. It also
prepares for even darker elements central to the plot in the later
books. At the same time, it shows, through Cedric, what the WW is
fighting to protect, what it will lose if Voldemort is not defeated.

Carol, who thinks that JKR would have written the books her way and
found another publisher if Bloomsbury had not agreed to publish them
with no key scenes cut out