One reporter-JKR's revelations: Chapter & Verse

[Steve]

--- "sistermagpie" <sistermagpie at ...> wrote:
>
> > Tiffany:
> > 
> > I see it in a similar light to Pippin, Harry is only as
> > real outside of the books & movies as we let him be. ...
> 
> Magpie:
> But the point isn't whether or not Harry has a life outside
> of what we see. ...
> 
> The article's author isn't saying JKR should not think of 
> Harry as having more to him than what's on the page, he's 
> saying that everybody will fill him in for themselves off 
> the page .... Some people, I guess, find it makes it "more
> real" when she throws out random facts that are outside of
> canon. Others of us don't like it at all.
> 
> -m
>

bboyminn:

Here is something we need to consider. When JKR makes statements
that occur beyond the end of books Seven, I don't think she
is intending to dictate this to us as if it were canon. 

She seems, most often when answering these question, to 
answer with /qualified/ statements. In otherword, 'I picture...',
'I thought...', 'It seemed to me that...'. For example, she
never said Dumbledore was gay, she said 'I always thought of
him as gay'. 

In other words, she is imagining the Potterverse future beyond
book seven the same way that we are imagining it. She isn't 
flatly saying, Harry went to work for the Aurors Office. She is
saying she imagines Harry working there. She pictures Ron helping
his brother in the Joke Shop. It seems that Nevillie might marry
Hannah, but that is JKR imagination, she has not written it down
in any book or official publication, so I think we are free to 
imagine our own alternatives. 

So, my point is until she officially writes something down, we
and she are free to imagine what we want. We and she are even
free to change our mind from day to day.

Right now, she imagines that Harry went to work for the Aurors 
Office, but if she decides to write the further adventures of
Harry Potter, the needs of that particular book and adventure
may call for Harry to have done something else. When she write
those further adventure and Harry does do something else then
and only then does it become an absolute fact. Until then it 
is merely the fluid speculations of the author, and that shouldn't
inhibit our own fluid every changing speculations.

As many years of fan fiction should attest, the authors
imagination does not limit the universe. There is plenty of
off-page time that can be filled in with the imaginations
of creative writers. 

As to specifically, JKR saying the Dumbledore was gay. For
me that makes Dumbledore's story all the more sad and tragic.
Imagine how such a brilliant man with no equal felt when he
finally met what he assumed was an equal. Someone with whom
he could discuss magic and philosophy at depth beyond which
the average mind can not see. Plus, Grindlewald was young
and beautiful. It is easy to see how even a straight man
could become infatuated with this person.

Then imagine how crushing it was when Grindlewald showed 
his true colors, compounding the event by the death of 
Dumbledore's sister, preceded by the loss of his
mother and father, and the estrangement of his brother.
His one infatuation, had cost him everything personal in 
his life; everything of value. That doesn't strike me as a
good advertisement for love.

I can see that tragic event coloring and inhibiting Dumbledore
for the rest of his life. It all seems very very sad to me. 

So, part of my point is that I think at this stage JKR just
considers herself another fan. She imagines the future she
imagines, and we are free to imagine alternatives. If she ever
feels the need to write down Harry and the gangs future then
it takes on a more permanent air. Still even then, if she
qualifies her statement as she sometimes does now, it does
not make her written statements absolute. It merely makes 
them her opinion of what happen. Now if she eventually
writes a literary work chronicling Harry's future life in
story form, that becomes canon. But you know what, canon
has never inhibited the imaginations of wildly creative
fan fiction writers.

Just a few thoughts.

Steve/bboyminn