Flitwick, Trio death, dorm sex, LANDLUBBERS, racism

[Tabouli]

No: HPFGUIDX 31552

Elizabeth:
> I did see some speculation that Flitwick might be part 
house-elf (I don't think that was entirely serious)

Um, that was me, and I must admit that I wasn't being *entirely* serious...  but hey, why not?  We already have two living pieces of evidence that wizards can interbreed with other humanoid species such as Veela and Giants.  Why not house-elves, goblins and merfolk?  Ahaaaa, all you Snape-as-vampire types - how about Snape as half-merman, accounting for temper, yellow teeth, greasy hair (water resistant) and taste for water creatures suspended in jars and suchlike?  There's a theory for you.  I suppose Flitwick would have to have had a house elf father and witch mother (or otherwise a magically expanded elf-womb).  Though, for those of you exploring the ol' sex issue, here's a horrible idea for you...  (you have been warned - avert thy eyes, O squeamish...)

So the house-elves are slaves, eh?  We see them doing the usual slavery stuff - heavy unpaid work, denigration of their brainpower, ill-treatment and so forth... but so far we've seen no clear evidence of something which is widespread in cases of human slavery, and that is sexual exploitation.  Could Flitwick, in fact, be the result of the rape of a female house-elf by one of her masters?  Now there's a nasty but plausible idea.  Given the light touch JKR has used thus far in all things sexual, I don't suppose spelling this out is a genuine possibility in the Potterverse, but it's certainly plausible...

Cindy:
> Now that you mention it, I'd like a charter 
membership in the "Flitwick is a goblin" society, which of course 
must petition Tabouli for a snappy acronym.<

Oo dear, oo dear, I'm out of practice now, and G and F... eck!  Ummm... how about G.O.L.F.B.A.L.L.?  (Goblin Or Leprechaun?  Flitwick's Blood: A Littleness Legacy).  As a decidedly small person myself, I feel a kinship with poor, uncelebrated Flitwick, who understands what it's like living in a world where tall is beautiful and chairs and trousers are designed for the tall (which is most people, to us).  Perhaps we wee ones need a support group too - D.E.S.I.S.T., perhaps (Daintiness Enthusiasts: Small Is Sensational Too!).

djd:
> (Unless, of course, one of the trio gets killed off...

Not a chance, in my view.  There are bound to be one or two significant casualties in Books 5 and 6, but I'd say the chance of her killing off one of the Trio before Book 7 is zilch.  I've seen it done before (I can think of at least one series where the author killed off the protagonist at the end of Part I!), but I'd put money on JKR not doing this (and I ain't usually a gamblin' kinda gal).  In Book 7, mind you, the odds change, though even there I'd say the Trio will survive the first half.  Killing off one of 'em would be grand finale material...

Elizabeth:
> DO YOU PEOPLE THINK OF NOTHING ELSE????? Who will Hermione end up with? 
Are the students having sex in the halls of Hogwarts? Who's cuter, Sirius 
or Snape? Tune in next week, for the next episode of "As the Wizard World Turns"!

Ahhh, we're prurient types, we HP fans.  OK, so I sometimes cynically speculate that Western society's obsession with sex is getting out of control, but sex *is* interesting.  I've tried a couple of times to spark raging debates on OT about why the Anglophone world has such an issue with sex (the prudery/smuttery extreme reactions to it are as good an indicator of a cultural pivoting point as any) and whether sex is essential in adult literature, and so on, but no-one's ever taken me up, so obviously there are limits. I get the impression that the Northern Europeans have much healthier and more moderate attitudes to sex than us polarised Anglophones (sex is filthy and unmentionable vs sex is everything), but I'm not qualified to comment there.  Susanne?  Christian?  Any thoughts?

Cats:
> Since those of us who are non shippers seem to be coming out of the woodwork what we need is an acronym!

L.A.N.D.L.U.B.B.E.R.S. (Love And Nookie Detesters: Let Us Ban Boring Endless Romantic Speculations!)

If I may venture into port, I agree with Joshua that we focus on Hermione because she's in the middle.  We don't actually know any of the other eligible female characters *well* enough for informed speculation!  I also agree with this comment of his:

> In real life, tons of people get together that aren't mature enough for it, aren't ready for it, 
and aren't really "right" for each other.<

As for the privacy issue of sex in dormitories, I got to witness what happens under Hogwarts-style circumstances when I was at university in China.  Eight students to a room, all students living on campus, university rules forbidding sexual activity, people everywhere, very few places to hide.  There were some bushes around the sports grounds which were well-patronised (much suspicious rustling, couples nonchalantly strolling about with blankets rolled under their arms), and discreet inquiry revealed that in the boys' dorms girlfriends would occasionally get smuggled in, and the other boys would turn a blind eye (though also, no doubt, a fascinated and pantingly lascivious ear!).  Passionate young people will find ways...

Phonology... corrr.  I always wanted to study Linguistics, but the university I went to didn't have it when I did first year.  Hmph.  Though with all the language courses I've done (notably the Japanese classes, where proper pronunciation was stressed to the extent of having diagrams of tongue and lip placement and phonetic alphabet renditions) and a bit of the cross-cultural communication stuff, I have a basic working knowledge of the stuff.  On the subject of Japanese (answers to OT, of course), I applaud these measures - in the Japanese teaching boom in the 1990s there were a *lot* of appalling Australian teachers about, whose accents were excruciating...

"jorgealcontreras":
> all Tolkien heroes were white, blonde and blue-eyed, and live 
in the WESTERN side of Middle Earth, altough the men from the east
and south: asiatic, semithic and negroes,(kingdom of Harad) accepted the 
influence from Morgoth at first<

See also The Belgariad... the good guys are the Caucasians who live in the West, killing one of whom is a generation crossing crime, the bad guys the dark slanty eyed types who live in the East whose mass slaughter is a cause for celebration. Of course, in the Malloreon, the bad guys just turn out to have been corrupted by an evil god, and are brought around to the side of light by a new blond, blue-eyed god who introduces their primitive society to Freedom, Truth and the Western Way (Tabouli peeps out of her bunker, sticks her tongue out at John and then ducks back inside hastily before he and the other Mods do her for OT OD).

Margaret:
> the only specifically blue-eyed character I can remember is Tom Bombadil. 

My hero!  (cries Tabouli, who intends to attend the Opening Night screening of LOTR wearing her Bring Back Bombadil protest T shirt).  Now here's a question for OT... grey eyes.  Do such things actually exist?  I have seen maybe *one* person ever who has truly grey eyes, and even hers could arguably be called greyish slate blue.

Tabouli.


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