How many students [was Re: Random ideas]

[Tom Wall <thomasmwall@yahoo.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 51698

Grey Wolf wrote:
That canon (if indeed interviews can be 
considered canon) doesn't wash at all.

Mysmacek wrote:
I know the above quote. But, IMHO, what's 
in the book takes precedence :-) - and I tried 
to show above that at least in the year I mentioned,
there had to be < 20 first years per house. Do you 
have better explanation?

I reply:
Better explanations. Hmmm. Not novel!canon based 
ones, at least. ;-)

Maybe I'm a loner here, but I've noticed that JKR, 
like Dumbledore, does one of two things when asked 
questions in interviews: She either answers truthfully, 
or refuses to answer. 

I mean, although the novels don't specifically *say* so, are we 
supposed to doubt when JKR says that Ron's birthday is March first, 
that Hermione's is September nineteenth, that Harry *does* buy return 
birthday and Christmas presents even though we never hear about them, 
or that Harry's middle name is `James?'

I would submit that the information we receive from the interviews is 
in some ways better canon than in the novels. The interviews are 
direct from the source. In the novels, she's setting up a plot, and 
can't realistically give us everything.


Grey Wolf wrote:
For example, by your numbers there are 25 students in Gryffindor 
Harry hasn't ever seen, heard named or mentioned in the books - five 
boys (Harry, Ron, Neville, Dean & Seamus) and three girls (Hermione, 
Lavender and Parvati) are named, and two more girls get a chance 
against the Boggart in PoA. The other 25 have never been mentioned at 
all - not even in passing.

I wrote previously:
Of course, that's assuming that each year, 
roughly the same number of students come
to the school, and that out of that total,
each house gets roughly the same number of 
students.

I reply:
Using my previous response as a basis: maybe Harry's year is a small 
one for Gryffindor House. There's absolutely no reason to assume that 
each house gets the same number of boys and girls per year per house. 
And really, if you think about it, it's hard to even consider such a 
question, because the question itself presupposes one of two things 
(that I can come up with now):

1) Wizards and witches are born in perfect proportion to match the 
Hogwarts classifications each year, or
2) The Sorting Hat has some predetermined quotas for the number of 
students for each house.


Grey Wolf wrote:
But then there is Quidditch games, were there are 200 slytherin 
students, which are a fourth of the total number - getting some 800 
students in total. and there are enough carriages for 1000 students, 
and enough tables in the Yule Ball, IIRC (although, as I say, the 
relevant passages are in the FP).

I reply:
Exactly: Occam's razor – the simplest answer is usually the best. So, 
why would JKR mislead us on the population of Hogwarts in 
interviews?  Answer: she's not.

-Tom

PS: *Dreadfully* sorry for those spelling errors in my last post. 
Always feel quite silly when something like `intack' gets by me. ;-)