Gryffindors - MWPP ages - SWMNBN - HP live with SB - Lee - IDO Fleur

[Amy Z]

No: HPFGUIDX 28453

Ev vy wrote:

>1. OK, Sirius was a prisoner, etc. but he's still a Gryffindor (sorry for a 
>cliche) so he might
>be hot-headed and acting before thinking but his hatred towards Snape is 
>somewhat out of place.

The defining characteristic of Gryffindor is courage.  We may all be fans of 
Gryffindor because we all love Harry, Neville, Dumbledore, etc. so much, but 
the awful truth is that Gryffindors are not necessarily nice.

Sofie wrote:

>I worked out (through a long and complicated process)that Sirius,
>remus and Snape will be 35 in book five.

Ooh, goody, math.  Will you post sharing your reasoning?  This is just about 
what JKR said (in an interview this year she said that Snape is "35 or 
36"--meaning in GF?).  However, before that interview, speculation was 
rampant, and many of us thought James and Lily were older than the 20-21 
that made them at Harry's birth.

David whispered:

>Whisper it who dares, but could she have
>subliminally got some of her words from Nancy Stouffer after all?
>Not that that gives NS a case but our minds are deceptive.

Anything is possible, and memory is tricky, but let's remember that She Who 
Must Not Be Named's "books" were activity/coloring books mostly sold in a 
few stores close to her home.  They were not the kind of thing JKR (or 
anyone else for that matter) is likely to have picked up in an Edinburgh 
book shop and thumbed through and forgotten.  Well, the forgetting part is 
likely, if one can get those little buttocks-faced guys out of one's 
nightmares (meow, but it's true!).

Amber wrote:

>I have problems with Harry agreeing so
 > readily to live with someone he doesn't know at all.
 >

Cindy wrote:

>OK.  Let me try this, then.  We've seen one significant situation in
>which Harry is willing to trust and face the unknown to get away from
>the Dursleys.  In PS/SS, he leaves the Dursleys and goes with Hagrid,
>someone he has only just met, someone his uncle was prepared to
>shoot.  No Professor Lupin is around to vouch for Hagrid either.
>Harry knows nothing at all of the magical world, and before you know
>it, he's leaving the only home he has ever had and is in a row boat
>with a giant carrying a pink umbrella.

JKR even addresses this, though she doesn't explain it:  "even though 
everything Hagrid had told him so far was unbelievable, Harry couldn't help 
trusting him" (PS/SS 5).  I think it's believable because Hagrid IS entirely 
trustworthy.  His honesty and affection toward Harry just pour off him, two 
things Harry is not accustomed to receive from adults.

Harry has always dreamed of a relative who will come and take him away--how 
many people get to act on these escape fantasies?  For most of us, home 
means the safe and the known.  Harry relishes the unknown, and as for safe, 
Four Privet Drive ain't it.  In the case of Sirius, add the compelling 
connection to his parents.  This is the closest he is ever going to come to 
living with his true family.

>5. For most sports events you have the announcers' booth with
 > microphones and such, but we know they wouldn't work at Hogwarts.
 > What does Lee Jordan use to commentate?

A magical megaphone.  It gets mentioned somewhere (in PA?)--McGonagall tries 
to wrest it away from him.  Don't take away my LOON membership for failure 
to dig up the exact reference--I have to go to work!

Cindy slandered <grin>:

>2.  Fleur (if female characters are going to be beautiful but not so
>nice, they had better be more competent at magic than Fleur)

I am about ready to start a Fleur Defense League, and I don't even *like* 
her.  Why, tell me, why does everyone think she is so bad at magic?  She is 
school champion.  She *ought* to have come in second in the first task, 
IMHO--maybe the judges are sexist <g>.  Seriously, we don't know about 
times, but we do know she was the only one who wasn't injured, and Viktor 
got eggs trampled.  If it weren't for Karkaroff's screwy scoring she'd have 
beaten him for sure.  In the second task, she's defeated by grindylows--so?  
She's probably never learned about them (they are found only in Britain and 
Ireland, and that I *can* document--it's in FB).  In the third task she's 
sabotaged by a powerful wizard.

Amy Z

---------------------------------------------------------
   "Are you, er, much of a religious man yourself?" said
Rincewind as clouds whipped by the window.
   "I believe all religions do reflect some aspect of an
eternal truth, yes," said Carrot.
   "Good wheeze," said Rincewind.  "You might just get
away with it."
                        -Terry Pratchett, The Last Hero
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