[HPforGrownups] Further speculation on Dates in WW

[Barb]

No: HPFGUIDX 45909


I think we have to remind ourselves that there are some things that are just not important to JKR, and dates are a very big something about which she doesn't seem to give a fig.  Based on CoS and the chapter about Nick's Deathday party, for instance, it would seem that Harry was born on July 31, 1980.  However, this would put his eleventh birthday on a different day of the week than that indicated in the first book.  She has Ginny saying she has wanted to go to Hogwarts since Bill went, rather than Percy, who actually started school after she was somewhat sentient, and, as previously noted, the Shrieking Shack incident in PoA does not coincide with a full moon in the real world.  The number of Quidditch World Cups that have occurred and the year that it started also do not add up mathematically.  
 
I find it highly unlikely that JKR has the wizarding world living on some other calendar.  They seem to celebrate Christmas and New Year and Easter right along with the rest of Great Britain.  To bother figuring out which calendar would allow the dates in the Potterverse jibe with ours is, quite frankly, a huge waste of time, IMO.  JKR doesn't care and neither should we.  Let's remember that it's fiction, and fiction written by someone who is not really on speaking terms with numbers.  If JKR wants all school terms (the actual classes) to begin on Monday, September 2, that's her prerogative as an artist.  I'm not going to complain as long as I eventually have books 5, 6 and 7 to read. <g>
 
--Barb
 
 Dave Hardenbrook <DaveH47 at mindspring.com> wrote:
Tuesday, October 29, 2002, 9:55:58 AM, jastrangfeld wrote:

j> Ok, I neglected to mention what I was thinking.  Do the WW have their 
j> own calendar?  One that would be more accurate?  Possibly one that 
j> would explain why school always seems to start on a Monday?  I know 
j> they say the way we keep time is off by a minute every so many years 
j> (don't remember exactly how many, sorry.)  And then we have our leap 
j> years.  With all our calendar systems, I could see a different system 
j> in the WW.  However, doesn't Olivander's say something about having 
j> started in BC?

I have speculated in the past that perhaps the WW is still on the
Julian Calendar.  (The Muggles switched over to the Gregorian Calendar
in the 16th century.)  Perhaps the WW Calendar is "more accurate" in
the sense that Christ really was born in the year 1 CWE (Current
Wizarding Era) -- Most scholars think the Gregorian Calendar is off
by a few years.  In any case, these things might iron out some current
problems like Dudley's anachronistic Playstation, and Wormtail's
escape happening on a night that (on the Lexicon-accepted timeline)
was not anything near to a Full Moon.   In other words, yes, Harry was
born in 1981... 1981 CWE ... But that may have been, say, AD 1984.
(This date works for making the Playstation and the Full Moon work.)

-- 
Dave


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