One reporter reacts to JKR's revelations

[Carol]

Magpie wrote:
<snip>
> 
> 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 and when she
just throws out "this is the way to imagine this" when she's talking 
about something off-page it's cutting into the reader's experience. 
<snip> 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.

Carol responds:

Exactly. The writer's point is that JKR is making it harder to read
the books now because her post-publication statements interfere with
our ability to interpret the works for ourselves and prevent our
imaginations from filling in whatever information was left out of the
books (including the details that she trimmed from the epilogue).
According to the writer (and I agree), JKR seems not to realize that
the books are no longer under her control. She has sent them out into
the world, and the words on the pages of the published books exist for
each reader to interact with and interpret independent of anything the
author intended or imagined that is not included in the books themselves.

As the writer states at the end of the article, addressing JKR
directly as he does throughout, " For all of those years, until those
books were published, the characters and settings were yours to
command and control. But then you let them go.

"And speaking for all of your happy readers I need to tell you: Now
they are ours."

Amen. Bravo. This is exactly what JKR needs to hear, IMO. *Now they
are ours.*

For those of you who didn't read the article, here's the link again.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/ent/stories/DN-rowlingcolumn_1024gl.State.Edition1.2292bdc.html

I highly recommend it because it's clever and because it articulately
expresses a point of view that perhaps has not occurred to JKR, who
seems to view her books and characters as her own exclusive property,
not realizing that propietorship over the interpretation of a
character ceases with publication. 

Carol, sincerely hoping that JKR reads--and heeds--that article