Owls, Teachers, Death and Housism

[Tabouli]

No: HPFGUIDX 21563

(Tabouli presses "send/receive" and watches the "receiving mail" message twinkling on and on and on in growing dismay)

ArrrgyeEEEurgggh... I *knew* it was a bad idea to leave myself subscribed and nip off to Tasmania for a week...  my mailbox is positively overflowing with HP4GU, both OT and O!  O well, I suppose that's one of the great things about mailing lists like this: when you go away on holiday you can be guaranteed plenty of letters when you get home!

Right. (rolls up sleeves in manner of Sirius and Remus in the Shrieking Shack)

A question to begin with: what's this VW1 abbreviation stand for?  (Voldemort War 1?  Vile Wizards in Wonderland?)

Alice:
> How long can Pig stay an owlet ? Surely by the end of GoF he's no 
longer the baby described. And if Hagrid is part giant, could prof. 
Flitwick be part goblin/leprechaun/insert-your-favourite-small-being ?

I'm with Ginny on Ron's inglorious shortening of Pigwidgeon's name...  why shorten a name that whimsical?  I always saw him as a young, high-spirited miniature adult rather than a baby owl.  Aren't Scops owls a tiny species when adult?  As for the good ship P/H, Hedwig's made it clear that she thinks Pigwidgeon rather juvenile and undignified, so I doubt she'd be snatching him from the cradle/nest.  He needs a she-owl with a better sense of humour to appreciate him, and she needs someone older and more serious (a lovesick Hedwig going over all cooey and hooty would be very endearing!)

And yeah, I mused ages ago that Flitwick's probably part pixie or something: another of Dumbledore's controversial appointments?

Craig:
> OTOH, if Harry and Ron have natural gifts of seership, then they
could unconsciously get their made-up horoscopes correct, just on
the basis of it *sounding good to them*.

Err, given they were doing their best to come up with dire and tragic predictions of their own demises in GoF, I have to hope not!

> This is true enough, however, the KKK (_Ku_ Klux Klan, not _Klu_ Klux Klan, BTW) 

Now, all you history buffs out there, where exactly does the name "Ku Klux Klan" come from anyway?

Joelle:
> I think another reason Snape became a teacher was for the sense of power

>From my memories of my long trek through the HP4GU holiday mail backlog, I seem to remember this thread implying that Snape would have made more money by being a potion peddler or something.  My impression has always been that to be a teacher in Hogwarts is a very prestigious and probably well-paid profession in the magic world, in contrast to the Anglophone muggle world, where they mostly seem to have low status and salaries.  Remember that Dumbledore is considered the greatest wizard alive, and he prefers being headmaster at Hogwarts to being Minister of Magic.  Certainly Hagrid is overwhelmed at the prospect of being a teacher there and considers Hogwarts teachers to be eminently worthy of respect. I haven't heard any snooting about teaching being a lowly profession from the status-conscious Malfoys, either.

Lindsay:
> It is worth pointing out that there is no reason why Ginny has to be the
last child. Molly could announce the happy news that she is expecting a
seventh son/second daughter of a seventh son any day now.

A still *bigger* gap between children, this would be!  What would the missing Weasley speculators do then?

Susanna:
> I imagine that Hagrid was expelled and, considering what he 
was accused of, he wasn't allowed to enter the school grounds for 
quite a long time. Later, when dumbledore became Headmaster and Ogg 
retired, he called Hagrid.

Exactly.  Surely no-one would make Hagrid gamekeeper at the age of 13, no matter how big and beast-oriented he was.

Meijen Shaggy:
> JKR have been asked whether Arabella Figg and Mrs. Figg were the same 
person, and her answer was (sort of...) positive...

Didn't she say that Mrs Figg was a Squib in the same chat where she said that Crookshanks was part-Kneazle?

Susanna:
> Where are the other Potters?
Stephanie:
> And what happened to those O-so-supportive Lily/Petunia parents?

I think we're to presume that Voldemort polished off the lot looking for Harry, hence the great crowd Harry sees in the Mirror of Erised.  Which would give Petunia still more reasons to be bitter about magic in general and Harry in particular: her sister's magical connection caused the death of all her and her husband's relatives.

Michelle:
> The thing that I don't like is Maggie Smith's accent. She sounds like she's from Northern Ireland.

I always thought JKR was driving home the point that McGonagall is Scottish pretty heavily, so I'd assume that's the accent Maggie's aiming for (making her a Hogwarts local!).  Though some vague memory tells me that "Mc" with no "a" in the middle is originally Irish and that the Irish also have tartans, so Northern Ireland is possible.  Any wisdom from the founts out there?

One last gripe: OK, so I gracefully sink my exciting theory that Lily may have been a Slytherin in the light of JKR's chatscript, grumbling darkly to myself.  *However*, does anyone else besides me feel faintly bothered by JKR's shameless partisanship for Gryffindor?  Yes, I know she values bravery more highly than the virtues embodied in the other houses, but making all but a couple of the significant unambiguously "good" characters in the books Gryffindors strikes me as a touch housist (?).  Are hard workers and those of "ready mind" really so intrinsically weak at Quidditch that they accept without question that the Cup is always a fight between Slytherin and Gryffindor (in which they of course support Gryffindor, the Good Guys)??  Don't Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff ever win the House Championship?  Why don't Ravenclaws make up for lost Quidditch points by getting points for classwork?  Hermione aside, you'd expect them to dominate in the top students of the year.

Speculations welcome...


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