Revised Opinion of Scholastic Chat -- :)

[Penny & Bryce Linsenmayer]

No: HPFGUIDX 3711

Hi --

Okay it took over 20 minutes, but we did get some good questions in.  No
names were identified, so thanks to whoever asked some of the questions
that I didn't!  I sort of think the questions might be randomly chosen
by guest # rather than substance (I say that since some of the lame
questions were repeated several times, phrased slightly differently).
Anyway, here's a recap of the good stuff:

Oh man -- gotta do this from memory -- their chatroom cleared old text
including the entire discourse on the ancestor/descendent debate.

1.  Lily Potter was in Gryffindor & her maiden name was Evans.
2.  Arabella Figg is the same as Mrs. Figgs.
3.  Cats are important to the plot & she can't say how.
4.  There are 1000 students at Hogwarts (which makes *no* sense!)
5.  Lupin question --- she says the moon hadn't risen when Lupin went
into the Shrieking Shack.  Not sure I buy that either.
6.  As for the ancestor/descendent debate, at first she said "ahh. . . .
you caught that "deliberate" error.  Then she said, it's supposed to be
descendant & was changed in subsequent editions (she's wrong about
that).  Then, she said, conspiratorially, "hold onto that ancestor
thought . . . it might be valuable later!").  Hmmm . . . can't decide
what I think about all that!
7.  Voldemort isn't related to Lily -- she laughed & said that would be
very Star Wars-ish.
8.  Dumbledore is 150 yrs old & McGonagall is 70 (so Maggie Smith *is*
an appropriate casting choice).
9.  James was a chaser on the Quidditch team while at Hogwarts.
10.  She said again that she doesn't like or read fantasy literature &
she downplayed any Tolkien influence on her writing.

I can't think of anything else good that was discussed.  Anyone else??
The chat transcript will be on Scholastic's site later this week.

Penny