Coming Of Age

[Talisman]

No: HPFGUIDX 75690

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "harrypotterfanatic2000" 
<harrypotterfanatic2000 at y...> wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Susan Atherton" 
<suzloua at h...> 
> > 16 - legal to: get a National Insurance card, and therefore get a
> job better than a paper round
> >                 : be in a pub and order a soft drink 
> >                 : be in a pub and drink an alcoholic drink with a
                        meal if someone over 18 buys it for you.
> >                 : have sexual intercourse (heterosexual)
> >                 : buy cigarettes
>  16 is legal for sex in the UK?  Isn't it 17 in the US?
> JKR has said that her characters would be 'growing up' 
realistically.sex with a 20, 30 year old?  
> 
> I guess the legislators in Britain have set this age for a reason, 
but would this be crossing the line for Harry Potter??

Talisman, responds, in her very, very friendliest voice:

As long as I have my Northrup Frye out, may I quote him as saying:

"A reader who quarrels with postulates, who dislikes Hamlet because 
he does not believe that there are ghosts or that people speak in 
pentameters, clearly has no business in literature." 

One sense of this is to say that attempting to graph one-to-one 
correspondences with banalities does violence to art.

Having said that, JK has spoken to her notion of propriety, and I 
don't think we'll see Harry, or any of his little friends, puffing a 
post-coital cig.  If knowing that is important to you.

Talisman, who doesn't think we'll ever know what kind of insurance 
is accepted at St. Mungos.