[HPforGrownups] Re: Meaning of Symbols and the second page? (WAS List of Harry's year at Hogwarts)

[Muridae]

No: HPFGUIDX 32356

Hollydaze wrote:

>Also one other thing, I'm guessing that other people have noticed that 
>all the Gryffindor's mentioned on the first page have a circle round 
>the G marking them as Gryffindors. Well what's the point? I'm just 
>asking as what if the point is that JK has marked out which Gryffindors 
>she is planning to mention in the books? Meaning that there are a 
>couple of Gryffindor's that have not been mentioned (possibly on the 
>other page) and these ones DON'T have a ring round the G. it's just 
>that otherwise I can't see a point to marking them out.

My theory is that JKR was just highlighting all the Gryffindors as being 
members of Harry's house and therefore the characters he was likely to 
encounter most often, and that she was most likely to have to feature. 
In the early days, before she got to know her own cast properly, that 
might have been helpful.

>Also the second page has two Macs at the top of it, one in blue ink at 
>the top and one that seems to have been added later in Black, these are 
>above Mal (Malfoy) and then Moon, one of these must be Ernie Macmillan 
>(sp) and the other Possibly Morag. We hardly know anything about Morag, 
>maybe she has a twin just like the Patil twins (Am I imagining things 
>or has that been written as PatEl in this photo?) or even two people 
>with the same surname who are unrelated, or indirectly related (cousins 
>or similar).

If there were a second pair of twins in the year, I'd have expected them 
to have been mentioned in passing at least when the spotlight fell on 
the Patel twins in book four. I suspect that "Isabel" simply became 
"Morag" at some stage in the same way that "Trevor" became "Terry". The 
list was presented as part of a montage of ten years of accumulated 
documentation on Harry's world. It's undoubtedly the original list, but 
it may not be the only one in existence. If JKR keeps all of her various 
attempts at chapter one of the first book, she may have multiple 
character lists as well. Most likely she referred to it heavily while 
writing the first book, certainly for the Sorting Hat scene, but didn't 
bother to go back and make minor corrections if she changed a name in a 
later draft of the book, or even during the proofreading stage before it 
finally went to press.

>?ran (as far as I can see, this one is illegible due to the three 
>crossings out below it)

I thought it might be the beginning of "Granger". Possibly Hermione 
originally had a different name (the "Puck" crossed out below), and the 
new version got written in here then later moved to where it rightly 
belonged alphabetically.

But it's really anyone's guess. But we do at least now know that the 
mythical two missing Gryffindor girls must have surnames in the second 
half of the alphabet!

And my thanks to Amy Z for that L.O.O.N. nomination. I promise to try 
only to use my nitpicking powers for good. <g>

-- 
Muridae