Chapter Questions - Continents - Wizards in Disguises - Ron's Teddy - Salem Witches' Institute - Snape - Oedipus -

[Rita Winston]

No: HPFGUIDX 22967

Catherine wrote:
> Has anyone ever eaten a pudding made of cream and
> sugared  violets?  Is it as sickly and as revolting
> as it sounds? 

Because people are always reminding me that the Brits say 'pudding' when
they mean 'dessert', I've been assuming that Petunia's fancy 'pudding'
was a white cake with whipped-cream frosting and decorated with candied
violets. I love whipped-cream frosting almost as much as chocolate
frosting, and I like violet flavored anis de Flavigny pastilles....

fyregirl wrote:
> the seven seas in the 15th century were:  the
> Red Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, the Persian Gulf,
> the Black Sea, the Adriatic Sea, the Caspian Sea, 
> the Indian Ocean.

I was freaked out to see a map which labelled the Middle East "the Land
of Five Seas" (Mediterranean, Red Sea, Black Sea, Caspian Sea, and
Persian Gulf). 1 to 2 thousand years before the 15th century, the
Hellenes knew that the Caspian isn't a Sea: they called it Lake
Maerotis.

David Frankis wrote:
> When I worked in Covent Garden in the eighties, 
> one of my colleagues (a sort of young Vernon) 
> remarked that all the people one saw in the 
> street were trendies, perverts, foreigners 
> and wierdos.  Of course, I now know they were
> wizards disguised as Muggles.   

I love that remark so much that I forgive you for sending your e-mail
through something that turns open quotes into #8216 and closes quotes
into #8217.

pigwidgeon37 wrote:
> 2)Ron's story about his fear of spiders: When he
> was 3 years old, Gred or Forge turned his Teddy bear
> into a spider. That is a tricky bit of transfiguration,
> how could it be done by a 5 year-old?
 
I expect it was one of those unconscious bit of wandless magic that
wizarding children do when emotionally riled -- I wonder if part of
learning to use a wand and do intended magic is learning to control
oneself so as not to do unintended magic?

Danette wrote (of QWC):
> Harry and Co. passed a banner that read "Salem School
> for Witchcraft" or something to that effect 

The banner said Salem Witches' Institute. I'm a f--ing *American*, how
come *I* am the only one who gets this British joke????? The Women's
Institute (Witches = Women) is a club for housewives. JOHN! Explain
Women's Institute to these people. 

Red Queen wrote:
> has it ever been said explicitly in canon that
> Voldemort has discovered that Snape is working 
> for Dumbledore?

I want neither Voldemort nor the Death Eaters to know that Snape turned
traitor during the Dark Years and spied on them, but I don't see how the
Death Eaters could fail to know it, seeing as how Dumbledore announced
it in a courtroom of 200 people in the Pensieve scene of Karkaroff's
trial, I mean parole hearing. Even if none of those people were secret
Death Eaters, SURELY some of them would have blabbed.

Indigo wrote:
> Voldemort had silkily harsh words for Lucius
> [who had actually tried to help Voldemort along
> with Riddle's diary]

People on this list have speculated hugely about just why Lucius did
that with Riddle's diary. I wonder if he could have been acting on
instructions from Voldemort to 'use the diary to realise the basilisk'
-- COULD Voldemort possibly send instructions in-between damaging
Quirrell and meeting up with Wormtail? Maybe before Quirrell entirely
died? 

One popular theory is that he was trying to replace the real but missing
Voldemort with the 16 year old Voldemort, who didn't know that Lucius
hadn't tried to find him and had claimed to have been bewitched, and and
who might be more malleable to Lucius's influence this time around...  

Another is that he was using the diary and the basilisk entirely for his
own advantage to disgrace Arthur Weasley so that the law written by
Arthur would be voted down (and presumably the competing law written by
Lucius would be voted up). 

Lisa Palmer wrote:
> This is such crap. It makes no sense..there are 
> no Oedipus complexes in these books.

I  absolutely agree that that theory made no sense: for starters, Harry
is always missing his FATHER, not always missing his MOTHER. However, I
wouldn't go so far as to say there are NO Oedipus complexes in these
books: Barty Jr might have one.

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R ighteous
A ttractive
V ictorious
E ager
N atural
C lassy
L echerous
A mazing
W ise
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