TBAY(slightly referenced) - Why we care (Re: Hogwarts Student Population)

[lucky_kari]

No: HPFGUIDX 45475

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Jackie <jayenks at y...> wrote:
> I argue these points because I just find it easier to accept this
world JK Rowling has built on her terms.  After all, she is the
author. If she says there are 1000 students in the school, I believe
her. I just argue to make what she says true. Now, I know that the
interviews are not as canon as what we see in the books, but I still
believe that this is a very little point to disagree with her on (on
the other hand, I am fighting vehemently for her over this 'little
point', so maybe it's not so moot after all ;D ) 
> 

I would suspect the reason why the argument is so vehement is that
this is not a 'little point' at all. I would place the "Hogwarts
Numbers" discussions right on the fault line Elkins so vividly
described the other day. 

----------------------------


<Elkins gasps as the sand suddenly begins to shift beneath her feet.
Out in the Bay, the ships toss wildly in the waves. Lilac, Gail and
Nicole, safely up on the promenade, clutch onto a bench for support.
The visitors in the Canon Museum up on the hill scurry to position
themselves beneath the lintels of the doors. Elkins screams to the
heavens...>

Thematic consistency, Jo! Thematic consistency! For God's sake, is
it really all that much to ask?

<After a few tense moments, the rumbling stops. Elkins shakes her
head, pulls a small notebook and pencil out of her pocket, and walks
across the beach to the Richter sensor buried deep in the sand. She
bends down to read the meter, winces, whistles softly. She makes a
quick note in her book, shoves it back in her pocket, and shrugs
helplessly.>

Oh, well. I guess that we really can't complain too much about the
fault line, can we? After all, if it weren't for that little quirk
of geology, then this Bay wouldn't even exist.

---------------------------------

Choice vs. Blood

The Hogwarts Numbers discussion has far-reaching implications. If
Hogwarts has a 1,000 students and is the only wizarding school in
Britain, it's possible that all magic children are schooled therein.
If not, it isn't. 

Issues arise. Questions of a wizarding elite. Where are the working
classes? This is a fundamentally disturbing aspect of the books, if
one is to judge by the heated debates on this list. No-one feels
entirely comfortable with this, though many take the position that we
should not read Hogwarts as classist, despite reasons to do just that,
because there are equally good reasons to discount these features as
accident. Reasons having to do with Rowling's promotion of Choice not
Blood, as the telling factor. 

The reason the Hogwarts Numbers debate comes up again and again (until
most oldbies are clicking past groaning) is that it's one of the most
important debates inspired by the book. It's not one that most people
feel comfortable with just having read the Lexicon's and other
people's opinions on the matter. People need to adress it themselves
b/c it changes everything. 

A large Hogwarts swings the dial towards Choice.
A small Hogwarts towards Blood. 

And the futher the dial swings towards Blood, the more tension in the
Potterverse, the books, and the fandom.

Eileen