[HPforGrownups] Changing as she goes along.

[Sister Mary Lunatic]

No: HPFGUIDX 12486

Filch is probably an overseer of the House Elves.  After all, when you have
a castle as huge as Hogwarts, with hundreds of kids tracking in dirt &
whatnot, you need plenty of people to clean the floors, stoke the
fireplaces, do the laundry, cook, schlep the luggage and props around, etc
etc.

We know an author simply CAN'T put in all the details we would love to know
about, since the book would be enormous and that would make the publishers
unhappy (even though it would delight the fans).  There's a whole mob of us
who want to know every working detail in the Wizarding World (remember the
Great Bathroom Debate from several months ago?).

I think we can safely say that JKR has the skeleton of the entire 7-book
series, and fleshes it out with scenes and details as she goes along.  For
example, after the first book, a lot of people questioned the fact that
while Harry received presents from a lot of people, he was never shown
GIVING presents to anyone.  Voila... in the next books he was shown to be a
generous gift giver.  And there was so much confusion over how to pronounce
Hermione's name that JKR very sweetly laid down the law in Goblet of Fire by
having Hermione try to teach Viktor how to say it.

There are also scenes which she had planned, but had to jettison.  I think
that she mentioned in one interview that the Rita Skeeter character evolved
from being a character related to the Weasleys to being an outsider, because
JKR's original character developed a fatal plot hole halfway through the
writing of GoF.  I do remember her saying that she had to do a major
re-write on GoF because of some problem with a character.

SML

-----Original Message-----
From: Scott [mailto:harry_potter00 at yahoo.com]
Sent: Friday, February 16, 2001 10:00 PM
To: HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com
Subject: [HPforGrownups] Changing as she goes along.


Just how much does JKR change/add things as she's writing. Also how
much is planned ahead. The case in point which seems to have been
discussed lately was why Filch is at Hogwarts if there are so many
House Elves.

Wasn't it stated that SPEW was NOT originally planned but that Jo
added it in whilst writing GoF?

It seems pretty obvious that Dobby is a part of the overall plot, and
Winky also seems to be. What about the other house elves. When Jo
created Dobby did she think about HE's being at Hogwarts.

How much did she plan? I think that, whilst she always knew there
were HE's in the wizarding world she had never considered that there
were any at Hogwarts. If she had then Filch would most likely have a
very different role or not be in the books at all. He's not very
central to the plot besides being a great comic relief character...

Question: Is Filch an "overseer" of the House Elves?



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