[HPforGrownups] Re: Wand Order Story for Salon.com

[Amanda Lewanski]

No: HPFGUIDX 6930

If she wants to work up a catalog of possible satisfactory scenarios that would let
James come out first (which she might not), there were quite a few, as I recall; why
not have her join and look through the archives? Or tell her the message numbers of
the most likely?

--Amanda

Penny & Bryce Linsenmayer wrote:

> Hi --
>
> I have an update on the Salon.com article.  I'm not sure if the reporter ever
> did visit us formally, but I contacted her individually.  I've cut & pasted
> below what I sent to her.  She wrote back and asked if she could quote me in her
> article as she liked my articulation of the basic issues surrounding this
> "correction."  I wrote back & gave her permission to quote me, and I asked her
> to please mention this group as a whole.  I stressed, for example, that I
> certainly can't take credit for coming up with the explanation/theory for the
> wand order problem that I always liked the best (credit to Trina for that one):
> that Harry wanted to see his father so badly that he managed to magically cause
> the images to reverse themselves in the wand.
>
> Joy Wotton wrote:
>
> > Bad Borders. I went to their shop on Charing Cross Road in London this
> > evening. They are selling the original version of GOBLET for 11.99 and the
> > new version for 14.99 - with no indication at all why the prices are
> > different.
>
> Wow!  I haven't noticed a price difference in the US -- anyone else?
>
> > Looking at the corrected Wand Order scene I see that the correction fits
> > neatly within the spread and doesn't roll on to the following page. Find it
> > hard to believe that JR rewrote this herself since the simple transposition of
> > mother and father leads to the statement when Lily emerges that Harry
> > sees the woman he has thought of more often than any other that night. But are
> > there ANY other women in Harry's life who are of such overwhelming importance
> > that he would think of them?
>
> No, I don't think so Joy.  That's basically what I said to the reporter, but I
> may forward your message to her anyway in case she wants to add your spin on
> it.  I did not, for example, make mention of what you point out: the
> "corrections" don't require page layout changes.  Surely they aren't trying to
> be *cheap* are they???!!
>
> > Perhaps because we have discussed this at length, I find that the first
> > version of the scene (although wrong according to the facts as we know them)
> > makes much more sense because it strengthens our picture of Harry's
> > relationship with his father. The second version doesn't add to our picture
> > of Lily and I find it lacks depth.
>
> I agree.  I think Harry clearly is portrayed as having a more emotional
> connection to his father-- or at least we (and Harry) learn so much more about
> his father in PoA, that it *seems* as though he has a more emotional connection
> with his father, which, of course, is validated by the original version of this
> scene.  I'm with Joy: the corrected version not only makes no sense, it lacks
> depth.
>
> Penny (my message to Kera is below this)
>
> Hi Kera --
>
> Brian Dorband forwarded me your email address and your message regarding your
> research into the change in the "wand order" passage from Goblet of Fire.  I'm
> the "listmom" for the Harry Potter for Grownups group
> (HPforGrownups at egroups.com).  Our members recognized this issue immediately, and
> since July, we have developed a variety of theories about why James might have
> emerged from the wand prior to Lily.
>
> Needless to say, we were completely taken aback that (a) it was *just* a
> mistake, (b) the "correction" was done silently and (c) the "corrected" passage
> reads very strangely (in the opinion of most of us anyway).  I would say that
> most of us believe that it was a colossal mistake to have
> slipped by JK Rowling *and* the editorial staff at both Bloomsbury &
> Scholastic.  It was a passage that gave virtually all of us pause on the first
> read, so we can't help but wonder whether the editors were completely asleep at
> the wheel to have missed it.  Many of us have speculated that the release
> deadline for GoF contributed to several errors that should have been corrected
> with adequate editorial supervision & reasonable deadlines (the "wand order"
> passage being the most glaring example of course).
>
> We also wonder about the corrected passage.  It doesn't really make sense
> internally.  Whoever made the change did so without much thought it would
> appear.  It's really not enough to simply change the pronouns and proper names
> to make Lily appear before James.  There is a passage
> in the original version where Harry thinks to himself that he knew whoit would
> be coming out of the wand next, because it was the man he'd thought of more than
> any other that night.  That was beautiful & emotionally evocative because Harry
> *had* been thinking of his father.  It makes considerably less sense to say that
> he'd been thinking of Lily more than any woman that night, when in fact, he
> hadn't had any thoughts about Lily that are conveyed to the reader.
>
> The theory that we originally came up with that *I* liked the best was that
> Harry unconsciously *wanted* to see his father so desperately at that point that
> he somehow magically caused the images inside the wand to reverse order.  Of
> course, we had a number of other theories, ranging
> from perfectly plausible to insane, and I'd be happy to share those with you in
> more detail if you're interested.
>
> Good luck with this article, and we would all certainly love to know when it is
> released.  Please feel free to join our group if you're so inclined, even
> temporarily for purposes of discussing this issue with
> the members.  You'll find us a diverse and entertaining crowd I think!
>
> Penny Linsenmayer
> pennylin at swbell.net
>
>
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