Wand Order Publicity; Obsession Quiz

[Penny & Bryce Linsenmayer]

No: HPFGUIDX 9496

Hi everyone --

I'm back from a mini-vacation to NY City -- sadly no more vacations for
quite some time (at least a few months after the baby arrives in any
case).  As you know, I had lunch with Jeralyn, and it was as fun to meet
her in person as it was when I met Ebony back in October!  Funny how our
physical images of our online friends rarely match up with their real
appearance.  She pictured me with shorter hair -- I pictured her with
longer hair of a different color.  I look forward to the regional HP
get-togethers that we're all planning (and hopefully some national/int'l
ones as well!).

PUBLICITY -- We've gotten *lots* of new members thanks to the salon.com
article (picked up by cnn.com) last week.  I might also mention that I
spoke with a reporter from the New York Daily News on Monday, and the
article appeared in yesterday's issue.  It has a similar tone to the
salon.com article, and I've not yet had a chance to check & see if it's
available online or not.  If not, I'll see about scanning or typing in a
text file.

I also have had offlist inquiries from another reporter, who reports
that he received the following rebuttal to the salon.com article from
one of the editors at the Canadian publishers of HP:

He disagreed with the notion that reversing the pronouns and proper
names didn't work.

"Clearly," writes the editor, "Lily is in Harry's mind a lot, whether
this is stated outright or not -- and probably his mother figures most
prominently in his thoughts in times of danger (yes, even more than his
dad) because it was Lily who protected him with her own life, thereby
giving him his power over Voldemort -- and the resulting scar on his
forehead (proof of the power of Lily's love)."

I wrote back to him & indicated that my personal opinion (which I think
is shared by some of you at least) is that Harry can be said to have a
more emotional connection to his father.  After all, while he's affected
by the sounds/memories of his mother's dying moments when the dementors
draw near, it was his first memory of his father's voice that reduced
him to tears in PoA.  His patronus is his father's animagus form.  And,
I think it's his *father* and not his mother who figures most
prominently in his thoughts in times of danger *after* PoA.  He learned
alot about his father in PoA, and he's established a bond with 2 of his
father's dearest friends.  And, there's no disputing that he was
directly thinking about James and not Lily that night of the 3rd Task
when facing Voldemort.  I also think Harry is, at this point in his
adolescence, identifying more with his father (this seems natural to
me).  And, in listening to PoA tapes this morning in the car, I
remembered that it seems to be slurs against his father that enrage him
more than anything said about his mum (when Aunt Marge says James was a
wastrel and when Snape taunts him about his father).

This reporter also says that the Canadian publishers have told him that
JKR approved the change herself.  I wrote back and said that my question
would not be did she approve the change, but did she *write* the
revisions (or approve the specific wording of the revisions).

I also told him that it hasn't escaped our notice that simply changing
pronouns & proper names does not require a change to the page layouts
(hence, no additional printing costs in rearranging the page layouts for
printing & binding books).

To the newbies -- we have *lots* of theories about the wand order
issue.  Searching our message archives (both this group & our
predecessor group at Yahoo) will be fruitful.  There will also be a FAQ
covering this topic (the "Mysteries & Inconsistencies" FAQ) sometime
soon-ish.  Even if it *is* just a mistake!  IMO, many of our theories
were far preferable to just saying "It was a mistake & we've fixed
it."

OBSESSION QUIZ -- I scored 72%.  I think the reason the grownups can't
score much higher is that some of the questions were clearly geared to
teenagers or even younger kids.  I like the one Dr MM is developing
(other than the fact that I'm falsely accused of writing H/H fanfic --
<g>).  Meant to add this to my reply on that one this morning -- I will
eventually write H/H fanfic, and that might mean that I'm the only (???)
fanfic writer who could claim to write fanfic devoted to more than one
ship since ASA is H/G by necessity.  *Are* there any fanfic writers who
branch out & write about more than one ship?  Seems like most of us are
pretty well firmly committed to just one ship preference.

Penny