Link to Daily News Article on Wand Order Problem

[Amy]

No: HPFGUIDX 9724

Penny, you're my listmom and I love you, but I disagree with you on 
the correction.

First, it isn't just a pronoun swap.  There are the usual physical 
descriptions plus, more significantly, the omission of the line 
"She wants to see you," an omission I disagree with but it does 
show some editorial thought.  (As for the recent question of whether 
it *should* be James, more than Lily, who "he'd thought of more than 
any other tonight": that is unchanged.  The text now reads "the woman 
appearing was the one he'd thought of more than any other tonight," 
not "the person appearing."  So James can still be the person most on 
his mind, if we insist on knowing.)

More than this, though, I am trying to look at the situation from 
JKR's point of view.  She plotted these books 10 years ago and on book 
4 appears to have made a major gaffe.  We, in our endless and joyful 
creativity, can invent all sorts of great reasons why James would 
emerge from the wand first, but JKR has to stay within the rules of a 
universe that she knows a lot better than we do.  Clearly, in her view 
of the full series, Lily died after James and none of our suggestions 
about what *really* happened the night they died fit with her overall 
plot.  Until we've read them all, we won't be able to judge whether 
this correction was really necessary, but the author thinks it was and 
that's good enough for me (even if she doesn't even know how many 
students go to Hogwarts <g>).  I think it's a bit unfair when people 
say "she should've worked her way out of it." 

My 2 knuts,
Amy Z