[HPforGrownups] Mysteries of McGonagall

[Peg Kerr]

No: HPFGUIDX 4246

Amanda Lewanski wrote:

> Neil Ward wrote:
>
> > I have always found it strange that she asked him how he knew it was her?
> > (After changing from cat to
> > >Professor).  Has Dumbledore never seen her in her cat form?  After all
> > those years?
> >
> > Yes, I agree.  I posted something on that very point ages ago. Is Dumbledore
> > *that* lacking in observation? Perhaps he left that knowledge in his
> > Pensieve and forgot to put it back in his head.
>
> Even odder, considering he was the Transfiguration teacher prior to his
> headmastership.

I've always had a sense that the first chapter of that first book felt sort of
"tentative" to me, and that it raised implications that JKR just didn't go back
and fix when she had finished the book.  Something about McGonagall and
Dumbledore's characterization felt a little bit different from the way they felt
in the rest of the book; nothing I could quite put my finger on.

I don't know about JKR, but on both my novels, I've found the opening chapter to
be particularly difficult.  LOTS of writing/doodling with possible starts.  I
think I remember reading that M. Mitchell rewrote the first chapter to Gone with
the Wind over eighty times.  And PARTICULARLY when you're writing your first
novel, you learn so much about writing in the process, that your control and
writing ability can be totally different by the time you finish.  (Although, yes,
I know, SS/PS wasn't technically JKR's first novel--I believe she'd finished two
other manuscripts--but it was the first one she shepherded through the
revision/editing/copyediting/publishing process.)

All I'm suggesting is that since it was the first chapter of her first novel, she
might not have had the ability/perspective to revise some of these strange things
to make them totally consistent.

Peg