timelines: right? wrong? why bother?

[hp_lexicon]

No: HPFGUIDX 39551

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "grey_wolf_c" <greywolf1 at j...> wrote:
> but I think that canon, although FLINTy 
> in this matter, is definite enough to allow for the 1980 timeframe.

There are several plausible timeframes, each based on a different 
starting point. The Lexicon uses the Deathday Party cake. Others go 
with the days of the week matching those in particular years. Still 
others use full moons or the age of the real Nicholas Flamel. Each 
of these starting points is problematic, some more than others. Only 
one of them, the date on the cake, is specific in the books. So 
that's the one that the Lexicon uses (my personal canon rules being 
what they are). It's not perfect, as you will see from the day-by-
day calendars on the Lexicon, but it does work with minor tweaking 
here and there. It certainly works better than some of the others. 

But the point of the timeline isn't to figure out the exact years, 
not really. The whole point is to organize the events of the Harry 
Potter Universe relative to each other. That's where this really 
gets interesting. Here's an example. We don't know exactly when 
Harry's parents were at Hogwarts from the books, but with the 
timeline we can position them relative to Harry and his friends. 
That is possible because of knowing that Snape is "35 or 36" 
(probably meaning around the time of GF), as Rowling stated. We 
don't know the year, surely, but that does fix Harry's folks as 
being about twenty when they died. Whether they died in 1981 or 1991 
isn't nearly as important as the fact that they were very, very 
young! That's startling, at least for me. How they became such 
powerful enemies of Voldemort in those few years that they were 
adult wizards is intriguing to say the least.

I do love dissecting things like possible dates, possible locations, 
and hidden facts like the color of someone's eyes (No, really, I 
do). But more important in all of that is the overall scope of the 
world Rowling has created. That's what the timeline allows us to 
see: the scope and sequence of the Harry Potter Universe. Whatever 
timeframe we use, let's also talk about the whole interconnected 
history that timeframe reveals to us.

Steve Vander Ark
The Harry Potter Lexicon
http://www.i2k.com/~svderark/lexicon