HWGA -- Number of students

[brooksindy]

Original Yahoo! HPFG Header:
No: HPFGUIDX C6953
From: brooksindy
Subject: Re: HWGA -- Number of students
Reply To: [Yahoo! #6947] Re: HWGA -- Number of students
Date: 8/15/00 11:17 pm  (ET)

I'm thinking more & more now that JKR just wrote a story and put some
details in and didn't bother to work out that some demographics and
population data one could estimate from the stories does not actually
support the society she postulates. Big deal. Maybe we should give
up speculating on the number of students and just appreciate it for
how it makes us feel - view it in the context of storytelling art, not
fantasy with a *fully* worked out background - granted, JKR showed in a
CBS interview she *does* have a fully worked out background (which woill
probably be quoted at length in her someday-to-be-published _Harry Potter
Companion_ volume), but maybe it would stand up fine to storytelling but
not statistical analysis of the type we are attempting. It may be time
to accept that it can't quite work the way she says it does and read
it for the flow of the story, not for the not scientifically reasonable
background....