idle musings on the FF

[hp_lexicon]

No: HPFGUIDX 32383

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Aja <aromano at i...> wrote:
> 
> Hi all. :)
> 
> I'm just sitting here looking out over the bare forest outside my 
window
> and the thought occurs to me--I wonder what the Forbidden Forest 
is like
> in the daytime? Unless my memory is faulty we've only seen it at 
night,
> when it's quite terrifying. I wonder if it's less dangerous during 
the
> day?  For that matter, I wonder what other kinds of creatures lurk 
in the
> forest. 

The forbidden forest (no upper case there, by the way...) is where 
anything large and nasty is released to live on its own. Fluffy was 
released there, for example, at the end of the 1991-92 school year. 
I think it's likely that there are charms around the forest of the 
type Hagrid wanted to put around his henhouse to protect his 
roosters in CS. Like you say, otherwise there would certainly be 
incidents of creatures wandering out of the forest and causing 
mayhem. What else lives there? You can read the list in the Lexicon, 
if you want:
http://www.i2k.com/~svderark/lexicon/forest.html

The werewolf question is interesting. I think it's fairly clear that 
JKR's werewolves aren't exactly the same as the classic werewolves, 
by which I mean that she's adjusted the rules somewhat to suit her 
stories. But it still doesn't seem likely that there could be 
werewolves living in the forbidden fofest, since most of the time 
they'd just be humans, and then they'd be in dire peril. Of course, 
maybe folks who suffer from that disease are quarantined in a small 
village near the forest and when they transform once a month, they 
are banished into the trees until it's over. Not a pretty thought, 
really. 

You know, maybe there are several types of werewolves in the Potter 
universe, some that are human most of the time and some that are 
more completely infected who stay wolves all the time. THere might 
be several levels of infection, depending on when in you life you 
were bitten perhaps. I know that there are several types of 
diabetes, for example, and some are controllable by careful 
attention to diet while others require more direct intervention on 
an ongoing basis. 

Okay, now I'm way off into the realm of speculation. But it would 
explain why Malfoy seems to honestly believe that werewolves live in 
the forest and Hagrid doesn't argue with him. 

Steve Vander Ark
back to work on the Lexicon on this snowy, peaceful afternoon in 
Michigan 

(ps "Lake Effect" snow is just as annoying to shovel as any other 
kind, take my word for it)