school years + ships + GoF movie

[shanerichmond at hotmail.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 28143

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Sofie " <sofie_elisabeth at y...> wrote:
> Hermione will have turned 12 during her first month at 
> Hogwarts while Harry didn't turn 12 until after the school year 
> ended. About the people being a year younger then others in there 
> year.

Hi all,

I'm relatively new to the group so I guess I missed the start of this 
thread but I'm puzzled as to why Hermione's age is such an issue. I'm 
not aware of any serious canon evidence suggesting that she is 
younger so why is there such string disagreement?

Anyway, just to add my experiences to Sofie's comments above. I 
turned 11 on June 30 1985 and started secondary school in September 
85. My best friend throughout school had his birthday on September 4, 
meaning that he was twelve just days after starting secondary school 
while I had to wait another ten months, turning 12 just two weeks 
before term finished. Purely from my experience, I would say this is 
the most plausible answer to the mystery.

>
Penny and Bryce said: > I would, as I mentioned above, be far more 
annoyed if JKR
>  >were to try & sell us that these characters who will be adults (UK
> age>of consent is 17?)

I'm not sure if anyone has cleared this up, so apologies if I'm 
repeating stuff but ages of consent in the UK are as follows...

16: Can consent to heterosexual sex
17: Can drive a car
18: Can consent to homosexual sex / Can drink alcohol / Can smoke 
tobacco / Can gamble 

> Kanna Ophelia wrote:
> It's not any mention that concerns me, it's the "forcing it down our
> throats" that I'm dubious about.  What's wrong with wanting to keep
> the focus on the books on the magic of Hogwarts, friendship and
> fighting the baddies than on pre-adult fumblings?

I tend to want to see the books focus on these things too but the two 
core themes of the book are IMHO: Harry's journey of discovery of his 
parents/past and Harry moving from a child in the Muggle world to 
being an adult in the wizard world. Few, if any, of us make the 
journey to adulthood without developing an awareness of our sexuality 
and I think it would be more unrealistic to leave this out. 

That said, I'm not personally bothered by which characters get paired 
off - I feel that it can simply be used as a good plot device to aid 
character development.

> Maxwell Simpson <usergoogol at y...> wrote:
> But how would two movies work? Could it be a good old fashioned
> double feature? Or what? What then? Would the two movies be released
> at the same time, and people could either watch seperately, or
> simultaneously?

I'll lend my voice to those saying that cutting the book into 2 
halves wouldn't work. Almost everything in the first half is there to 
set up something for the second so you couldn't help but have a first 
half that would feel directionless and dull. The only way to chop it 
into two would be to drastically re-write the story so that both 
halves have viable beginnings, middles and ends. I for one wouldn't 
be in favour of them doing that.

One suggestion I have seen elsewhere is to take The Riddle House and 
put it on the end of the PoA movie, which would make a great 
cliffhanger. I'd then start the GoF movie with Harry and the Weasleys 
scouring the hill for the portkey.

One or two subplots would have to be chopped but only JKR would know 
which ones. After all who would have thought that the snake would be 
so important to book one? Or the Whomping Willow would return after 
book two? Or that Cedric beating Harry in book three would be 
significant?

Right, back to work for me!

Shane, who is really really really excited about his tickets to see 
the movie on November 10.