New elements

[brandgwen at hotmail.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 15364

Amy Z wrote:
>One answer is that PS/SS would have been 900 pages long if she'd
made it a comprehensive tour of the wizarding world; another is that 
JKR is spacing them out to give us new delights in each book.

Stacy wrote:
>I think that "Death Eaters" has a very specific reason for not being 
brought up as early as PS/SS: it's too dark. 

meckelburg wrote:
>They don't tell Harry everything, because they assume that he, like 
themselves, has allways known.

I agree with all of the above points.  As the series has progressed, 
it has become increasingly evident that JKR has the whole story
pretty  well mapped out.  I mean, she dropped Sirius into the first 
chapter of PS, then held onto the character until PoA.

However, I would guess that the main reason for these new elements is 
a purely technical one.  By limiting the information given to the 
reader, an author can channel their attention.  The ability to 
maintain the rules of a universe, while restricting exposition to a 
managable level for the reader, is one of the great challenges of 
fantasy writing.

The fact that Harry books are mysteries makes this all the more 
important.  For the reader to even attempt to solve the problem at 
hand, they must be comfortable with their suspension of belief.  If 
their mind is already boggling from too much, or too little, 
extraneous information, the storyline itself will be lost.  

JKR can reveal different aspects of the universe as the book 
progresses, just as she might reveal clues to the bad guy's identity. 
 Giving us a lot of information about Parselmouths in PS would have 
confused the situation at hand, so JRK keeps it for CoS.  However,
the final outcome of the mystery must be within the reader's 
understanding of the universe.  For example, Crouch could not have 
used polyjuice potion in GoF, had Harry not used it in PoA - allowing 
the villain to hide using magic the reader doesn't know about is 
cheating.

Ah, the beauty of a well-written book,
Gwen.