many many topics

[Catlady]

No: HPFGUIDX 14546

I just now read all the posts from last Sunday to today!
***
Ender wrote on 3/13/01:
> Harry's ability to fight the imperio curse would have been
> valuable information for Voldemort and his peeps.

Except that apparently Crouch didn't pass that info to Voldemort before
V attacked Harry, or else V didn't realise that the info was valuable.
***
On the thread about whether Harry will kill Voldemort, can Voldemort be
redeemed, what would happen if Harry forgave Voldemort and loved him?
The possibility exists that Voldemort's rebirth with Harry's blood and
Peter's hand, and maybe other things he does in attempt to regain his
immortality, will make him human enough that he can understand
forgiveness and love ... and therefore will ask Harry to put him out of
his misery, misery of being a monster who has done so much evil and who
has made himself permanently unable to be fully human again.
***
Margaret Dean wrote on 3/15/01:
> Magda Grantwich wrote:
> > (snip)
> >  But what was he going to say to Lupin when he resumed human form?
> > "Hey, good going, you really mauled him!"  What kind of a friend
sets
> > up another friend to become a murderer when he's in no condition to
> > stop himself?
> James Potter, OTOH, is a lot less prone to this mistake.  I kind
> on.  "Sirius, are you MAD?" just before he goes bounding down the
> stairs like a deer . . .  :)

"...like a deer..."
I felt a lot happier about James Potter a couple of months ago when it
finally dawned on me (I'm slow on the uptake) that he made that mighty
effort NOT in order to heroically save his enemy Severus from death, but
RATHER to loyally save his friend Remus from expulsion and, worse,
eternal self-guilt. I agree with those who said that Sirius was simply
NOT THINKING of the effect on Remus.
---- Did I really comment on this only as an excuse to express envy of
being named Grand-Witch?
***
Marianne Zarleycat on 3/15/01 wrote:
> Peter doesn't seem to have a
> killer instinct.  He'd much rather wait around for someone else to
> get the job done and then sneak in to get his scraps.

A lot of the bad things that people have said about Peter in the course
of this thread may apply to mice but do not apply to rats. Most races of
wild rats are big and brave and vicious, not scared to sneak in to a
human habitation by night and start eating the baby, not scared to fight
off cats (so only tough cats fight instead of run) who are their
competitors for dustbin contents, and in habit of fighting other rats,
sometimes to the death, over territory.
***
Andrea from Brazil on 3/12/01 (and others) reported from the recent JKR
chat:
> Ron's birthday is on March 1st

It is good to know Ron's birthday, but Ron really seem like a Pisces to
the rest of you? Pisceans are supposed to have a tendency to mysticism
and getting lost in daydreams and often come across as wishy-washy
because it's hard for them to decide between two different things that
they want both (the two fish of the symbol going in opposite
directions). I thought it more likely that Ron would be a stubborn
Taurean or a hot-headed Aries.
***
Jim Ferer on 3/12/01 replied to a post of mine:
> I always got the impression that the WWN is like radio, not TV. And we

> haven't heard of anything like recordings that enable wizards to play
> their own music.  So you can't take your Weird Sisters stuff with you;

> you've got to settle for Stevie Nicks CD's.

I agree with both, but I realised the other night that the SMALL
wizarding population (especially small if the those who believe in
280-400 students at Hogwarts and no other schools are correct) and the
ability to Apparate mean that on just about ANY night, a witch or wizard
can attend a performance by at least ONE of her favorite bands. Except
the kids at Hogwarts can only attend during the holidays or if there is
a show in Hogsmeade on a Hogsmeade weekend.
***
When Indigo asked the difference between a griffin and a hippogriff,
several people mentioned that 'griff' refers to the eagle part. JEN
FAULKER's reply on 3/15/01 included:
> The 'griff' part really is the griffin, though it basically refers to
> the bird part; the 'hippo' part is the horse; and the 'campus' of the
> hippocampus is the sea-monster part.  (Griffin is ultimately derived
> from the Greek word grups, which means 'griffin'; no derivation for
> 'grups' is given in the LSJ (the big Greek dictionary).

I think it is Adrienne Mayor who wrote the article from which I have the
information that the Greek name of Gryphon (origin of Griffin) comes
from a Greek word means 'grasp' or 'claw' -- I recently said it was
Greek for 'grabber' because I was trying to be colloquial.
***
Any Z wrote on 3/15/01:
> I think Dean Thomas is Welsh.  I have absolutely no evidence,
> just a wish.  Anyone want to weigh in?  Football fans, would it be
> insane for him to be a West Ham fan then?

Dean Thomas might be the son of one Dai Thomas who was related to Dylan
Thomas, but he either has an immigrant relative somewhere back or is
adopted, because he was stated to be black. Btw, just the other night I
realised that Dean Thomas is just as likely to be related to our Ebony
Elizabeth Thomas as to Dylan Thomas.
***
One of Amy Z's sigs says:
---------------------------------------------
Harry liked this clock.  It was completely
useless if you wanted to know the time, but
otherwise very informative.
   -HP and the Goblet of Fire
----------------------------------------------

It suddenly occured to me that one could make a good guess at the time
by noting which Weasleys were Asleep and which were At Work...
***
Michelle Apostolides wrote today:
> Sorry I have to correct you. In Greek culture, it is the men and not
the
> women omen who use worry beads to slip through their fingers as they
> contemplate the world as it goes by,

Is that because the women's hands are ALWAYS busy with work, busy with
spinning or knitting even if they get a chance to sit down?
***
Caius Marcius Coriolanus's filk for Dumbledore on 3/11/01  includes a
definition of
> Cock-cha-fer (n) The May Bug or Dorbeetle, Melolontha Vulgaris it is
> a large European beetle whose grubs live in the soil for three years
> feeding on the roots of plants.

I understand that to mean that May Bug is the Mayfly, the ubiquitous
cliche symbol of brief transitory life, as the metaphor ignores the
three busy years as a maggot and concentrates on opening the wings one
morning, mating, then dying before sunset.

However, the word "cockchafer" raises (!), ahem, *interesting*
possibilities.
***
On the married teachers thread:
I do not believe that Dumbledore and McGonagall are a couple, neither
married nor less formally paired, because I remain convinced that
McGonagall and Hooch are a couple. If I wanted to believe that
Dumbledore and McGonagall were a couple, I would not be put off by the
difference in their ages (150 to 70) -- what does 80 years matter when
both people are grown up enough to know their own minds? What bugs me is
one wizarding couple I invented, who married when the husband was 60 and
the wife was 20 -- facts which occur often enough in the Muggle world --
but I'm not at all sure that a girl of 20 is mature enough to make
life-long decisions that she won't regret later.

Dumbledore and Pomfrey might be a couple. Dumbledore and Sprout????

Storm Snuffles Mcgoo's theory that Dumbledore and Snape are a couple
would certainly explain why he felt free to barge into the room where
the interesting things were happening (the room of the four Champions)
without being invited or having any business there, why Dumbledore
didn't order him out, why he verbally defended Dumbledore against
Karkaroff's accusation....
***
On the theory that a writer should make up everything in her book from
scratch: I have been told that James Joyce invented his own language in
which to write Finnegin's Wake, but he made references to real things
ranging from his familiar shops in Dublin to Hindu mythology. Similarly,
JKR 'stole' many things like the idea of magic, magic wands, flying
broomsticks, griffins and hippogriffs (see above). Originality may be
overrated.

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The list of names of people who checked QTA out from the Library
includes I. Fawcett. I have trouble reading that letter, so am not SURE
it is I, but am sure it is not M for Mary. That quite irks me.

Value of the Galleon. As others have said  250 million dollars = 174
million pounds = 34 million Galleons indicates a $7.35 (5 pound)
Galleon. Thus,  the 14 Sickles 3 Knuts price of the book would be $6.12
compared to $3.99 in USA, which is reasonable since publishers often
mark up the price of exported books.

However, I CANNOT believe in a $7.35 Galleon ($51 wand), just as some
people CANNOT believe in a 1000-student Hogwarts. I continue to believe
in a $25-$40 Galleon.

Could their situation be something like countries whose currencies have
an official exchange rate to the dollar or deuschemark (sorry, euro) but
the real exchange rate on the sidewalk in front of the hotel or any shop
selling souvenirs is MUCH more favorable to the hard currency? That
would encourage the wizarding folk to earn their money in the Muggle
world, convert it to Galleons at Gringotts at the official rate, then
convert their Galleons back into Muggle money on the black market!

QTA contains too much info on USA (it's too much because it disagrees
with my theories, such as wizards and witches emigrating in Colonial
days in hope of evading European persecution).

I gather from Penny and Simon that there is no such town as Puddlemere
in the UK. But Puddlemere was one of the few placenames (of homes of
Quidditch teams) that I thought I recognized. I thought it was Dr.
Doolittle's home town, but I did a web search and found that the good
doctor is from Puddleby not Puddlemere. Maybe Hugh Lofting changed the
name to protect his privacy and it really is Puddlemere.

Having 13 teams in a league (instead of 16 for playing tidy elimination
rounds, or 12 and the winner of each group of 3 goes into the
semi-finals) was probably invented by the same wizards who assigned 17
sickles to the galleon and 29 knuds to the sickle.
--
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