Lupin, coins, Cho, Ginny and Lily: livered or white?

[Tabouli]

No: HPFGUIDX 21148

David:
> (see how he cunningly avoids the lengthy hunt for chapter and verse) 

Which raises the main reason why people don't proclaim their sources on JKR chats: what a major hassle!  I've seen probably 15+ chats with JKR on the web, some of which took considerable effort to track down, some of which were actual videos. some transcripts, etc.etc., and it would take me days of rereading and research to figure out exactly which one was the one where she made the comment I was quoting.  Let's be realistic. While I can understand that people are suspicious without clearly footnoted sources, I can't help wondering if the immediate effect of insisting on citing actual verified sources is to close down the option of quoting JKR to all but those who have photographic memories and/or bookmarked links to every chat they've read (or are you all this devoted except me?).  Then again, it's possible that one of our trusty members knows the links to all the existing chats, which would be a handy thing to post if draconian citation laws were enforced...

Milz:
> Personally, I found the Fleur character very irritating and the more I re-read GOF, the more irritating the character 
becomes.  

Hear, hear, found her irritating myself, and I've only read it twice and don't own a copy yet.  This is one case where I think a little deliberate affirmation action would have been a good idea.  Given the comparative irrelevance of the performances of Krum and Fleur in the tournament and the 3:1 gender ratio, I really wish JKR had let her perform a bit better.

Steve:
> the coin Ron was referring to in that passage is in fact hexagonal 

Hey, in Australia the 50 cent piece is decagonal!  Must be something we imitated from the motherland, so to speak...

> Emma, who would mourn dear Remus with an unhealthy intensity

Melissa:
> Lupin, OTOH, has come across completely as a warm, fun, and couragous man.  

Ahh, Lupin.  Remarkably mild, calm, and level headed, a fine contrast to Sirius the hothead.

Hui: (re Cho Chang / Zhang Qiu)
> Pinyin looks weird to western people.

Yes, I must say when I first started studying Mandarin and learnt pinyin, my thought was "what *were* they thinking?  C is pronounced TS and Q as CH??"  Then, a few years later, a mainland Chinese friend of mine pointed out that they were, in fact, thinking of their Russian allies.  Apparently a lot of the apparently bizarre aspects of pinyin reflect Russian pronunciation rather than English pronunciation.

Jenny:
> Hermione stands head and shoulders above Ginny in many ways

Too right (declares Tabouli, who to no-one's surprise got Hermione top of the list when she did the quiz, followed by Harry and then Voldemort (?!)).  Ginny's just a bit Nice for me: so noble, so trustworthy, so earnest, so sweet, so sensitive, so loyal... gah, give me Hermione and her interesting character flaws and temper any day.  As for G/H, in my view the girl needs a serious injection of oomph and vim and zing before she could come close to handling the stress of a relationship with Harry (the boy who almost dies regularly).

Now for some untrammelled speculation on my part... the mysterious Lily.

Some of you complained that we know very little about Lily: where are her girl friends?  etc.  Well it just occurred to me that we don't, to the best of my knowledge (though after my whinge above someone will no doubt trump me with some obscure chat reference!), know for sure that she was in Gryffindor.  Perhaps the reason why we haven't heard about her from Lupin and Sirius is that she was in another house.  ***Could she have been in Slytherin??***

As an investor in the failed Snape/Lily ship building project, I find this possibility intriguing.  Perhaps all her friends went off to be Death Eaters, and she was rejected for being Muggle-born, sparking Snape's first doubts about the dark side.  Perhaps she didn't meet James Potter until they were sharing happy Head Girl and Head Boy cosy chats in Dumbledore's office, or played against him in Quidditch, to foreshadow a family tendency to fall for opposing team members.  Perhaps, in this vein, Harry will end up not with Ginny or Hermione, but with Pansy...!

The good ship P/H, anyone?  (evil chuckling)


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