Faith healing, foreshadowing, and/but

[Tabouli]

No: HPFGUIDX 25369

Rita:
>> I know that, for example, if I were a Muggle-born medical wizard, 
>>and could cure one of my Muggle relatives of something that would 
>> otherwise certainly kill him or her, I'd do it and worry about 
>> keeping my secret secret later, if ever.
>
>Surely that problem could be solved by Memory Charms all around. 
>Maybe it is why there are 'spontaneous remissions' and 'miracle cures'.
 
Ooo, nice one, Rita!  I like this idea very much.  The magical cure issue has always bothered me on the Muggle-born front.  Perhaps some of the meditation and faith cure types are really wizards in disguise...?
 
Cassie:
 
> > Perhaps it was just that lack of foreshadowing in Pettigrew's case   that prompted the New Yorker criticism."
>
> No, it was a general, overall complaint. *goes to dig up article.* I know it also bemoaned the Sirius Black twist, among others. I'm in agreement with Cindy on this one.

What??  What *is* this tosh (!).  JKR's ingeniously planted plot devices and tiny hints are in my opinion one of the *strongest* points of her writing.  I loved the fact that an apparently innocuous pet turned out to be a villain in disguise in Book 3, and that the Heir of Slytherin turned out, against all expectation, to be Ginny under Riddle's control, and so on.  Go back to your desk, journalist...
 
The morphing Tom Riddle:

Speaking of Tom Riddle, this points to one of the *weakest* aspects of JKR's writing.  I belabour this point a bit often, methinks, but Voldemort, Crabbe and Goyle are lame lame lame.  OTOH, Tom Riddle, as he appeared in CoS, was a far more interesting villain.  Smooth, cool, plausible, suave even.  What did he do to himself to turn into a Batman comic wicked snake-man evil overlord?  Silly boy.
 
Tammy Z (Sister of Amy Z?) wrote:

> I tend to use literature for writing models and to see
> sentences begun with "And" and "But" is sickening.
 
I protest!  In an essay, sure.  But in a short story  (:-D) I think starting sentences with these words can be very effective in generating atmosphere.  And yes, I do write both...

Re: Luke's message on foreshadowing:
 
I not only read this entire post, I enjoyed it thoroughly.  Very interesting.  I'm assuming my medal's in the mail...
 
Tabouli.


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