Hermione dying? - Homosexuality - Age - OWLs - Race

[find_sam at hotmail.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 21046

Rita Winston wrote:

> Madhuri wrote:
> 
> > Why is it that it's more probably Ron will die, rather than 
Hermione?
> 
> Hermione is JKR's Mary-Sue, so for Hermione to die, JKR would have 
to be
> suicidal. I personally can't imagine Hermione dying unless EVERYONE
> dies, but I can imagine the whole wizarding world being destroyed 
and
> everyone except Hermione dying, and Hermione being left to write 
down
> the whole story for us Muggles.

I never realised it before, but I always had a back-of-the-mindset 
that if one of the trio were to die, it would be Ron. Maybe it's a 
gender thing; that if Hermione were to die, then the gender balance 
of the trio would flip out. Or maybe it's just the whole 'best 
friend' thing that JKR herself has acknowledged - it seems to be a 
fairly common literary thing that the main character's best friend 
dies. Naturally I can't think of any examples of the whole best-
friend-dies literary thing, except for the death of a certain 
character (I won't spoil who it is) in the third book of John 
Marsden's 'Tomorrow' series.

> Neil wrote:
> > It will always be an issue until people stop assuming 
heterosexuality
> as a default.
> 
> Umm, Neil, I want there to be gay characters in HP for the sake of
> realism and political correctness and more possible ships.

Actually, I wouldn't like to see homosexual characters in HP canon. 
Not because I have any homophobic tendencies, but because I think it 
*wouldn't* be particularly realistic. From my own understanding and 
observations, very few homosexuals come out in highschool. As for 
political correctness, I'd feel disappointed if JKR put a homosexual 
character at Hogwarts simply for the sake of it. It'd be like her 
dropping in references to the Bible simply to please the God Squad. I 
also feel that a homosexual character wouldn't really have 
any 'place' in the series - while HP focuses on issues such as 
discrimination and tolerance, I think that JKR has (and will) covered 
these issues excellently, and does not need to use an actual 
homosexual character to further the theme.

Also, JKR doing *anything* to the canon simply for the sake of 'more 
possible ships' would be, IMO, sacrilege :)

 but the
> famous Kinsey statistic that 10% of people are pretty much 
homosexual
> and 90% of people are pretty much heterosexual implies that 
assuming any
> newly met person is heterosexual will be right 9 out of 10 times -- 
a
> probability rate high enough that it will probably stay the default
> assumption. 

This is OT (sorry!), but I always thought that there was never any 
real proof to backup these statistics. And (I know I'm contradicting 
myself a bit here), didn't Kinsey actually say something more along 
the lines of '10% of people are definitely hetero, 10% are definitely 
homo, and the other 80% are somewhere in between'? Don't flame me if 
I'm wrong, because I'm not sure about this.

By the way, I nearly wrote 'the other 90% are somewhere in between' 
which just goes to show how good at Maths I am.


> That is one of the problems I have with JKR's statement that 
Hogwarts
> has a magic quill that writes the name of each magic child born in
> Britain (and Ireland?) 

I have problems with the 'magical quill' statement too - it seems 
like something JKR made up as an afterthought. Having said that, 
though, it's still the wonderful little idea I wish *I* had made up!

Rita wrote:
If they were born in Britain and emigrated to Australia, perhaps
Hogwarts would still want to invite them, but their parents might 
prefer to send them to the Australian wizarding school so as not to 
be so far away.

Australian wizarding school. I love it! It reminds me of the XXXX 
version of Unseen University of Terry Pratchett's 'The Last 
Continent' (Motto: 'No Bloody Sheilas').

> Sam