Ancestor/Descendant Recap

[plinsenmayer]

Original Yahoo! HPFG Header:
No: HPFGUIDX C4754
From: plinsenmayer
Subject: Ancestor/Descendant Recap
Date: 7/21/00 10:01 am  (ET)

Hi:

Jennifer raised the ancestor/descendant issue again earlier this week --
just now replying.

Recap:

In the UK editions of CoS (and in the earliest American editions),
Dumbledore tells Harry that Voldemort is the last remaining *ancestor*
of Salazar Slytherin.

In the later American editions, it was changed to read the last remaining
*descendant* of Slytherin.

I have speculated whether or not the American editors *should* have made
that change, and here's why. It was something that absolutely leapt off
the page at me (I am a genealogist though so perhaps that's why). "Last
remaining" implies *descendant* and yet they said *ancestor*. It still
strikes me as a very obvious "error" that would have been caught by any
editor worth his or her salt. So . . . I was left wondering if maybe the
UK editors tried to make the change and JKR said, "oh no, no! *Ancestor*
is precisely what I intended. Leave it alone."

I picture she'd have had less hands-on interaction with the Scholastic
editors, and that they changed it for one of the later printing editions,
just based on the assumption that "last remaining ancestor" makes
no sense.

Maybe the UK members could check their later versions (later printings
that is) -- did it ever get changed in the UK edition? If so, that would
settle the debate I suppose. When I first raised the issue, I had an
early UK version & a later American version. I've since learned that
the earliest American versions had "ancestor" as well. So, maybe it got
changed in a later UK version as well.

It is still a mystery as far as I'm concerned. Raises all sorts of plot
implications if it was indeed intended to be "ancestor"!

Penny