missing students from Harry's year? Was:Re: Random ideas

[tesseract197 <jayemelle@earthlink.net>]

No: HPFGUIDX 51800

tcy:
I looked closely at these pictures and in checking them (the readable 
ones) with my list of characters I noticed that several (at least 11) 
have yet to be mentioned in the first 4 books.  Has anyone else 
noticed this and formed any thoughts on why they may not have been 
mentioned if they are in Harry's year?  Are they just not relevant, 
yet?  Or (and this is quite possible, too) have I just missed the 
mention of them?  I also noticed that none of the missing students 
were Gryffindor and wonder if this is significant?

The students (and their houses) that I couldn't find in my list were:
(please excuse any errors - some were difficult to read)

Book, Trevor - R
Corner, Michael - H
Cornfoot, Stephen - R
Davis, Tracey - S
Entwhistle, Kevin - R
Goldstein, Anthony - H
Greengrass, Amel???mie - S
Hopkins, Wayne - H
Jones, Megan - H
Li, Su - R
???dougal, Isabel - R

Any thoughts?

Audra:
To answer your question, I think the reason why the unmentioned 
students from the list are all non-Gryffindors is because Harry is in 
Gryffindor, and the story is told around him.  He is more likely to 
associate with and hear about other Gryffindors rather than the other 
Houses.  Regarding your list of unmentioned students, Trevor Book and 
Tracey Davis stood out for me.  I believe Trevor is mentioned by name 
in the Sorting Ceremony, and perhaps Tracey as well.

Me:
There's no Trevor Book or Tracey Davis in the first Sorting Ceremony, 
but there is a Terry Boot, who's Sorted into Ravenclaw (PS/SS 7, US 
paperback).  To me, JKR's list clearly says the boy's first name 
is "Trevor," but when I read the last name it looks more like "Boot" 
than "Book" anyhow.  So maybe during the writing process she decided 
to keep the last name (or at most change the final letter), 
substitute a new first name and use the original first name for a 
different purpose, thinking "Trevor the toad" has a more amphibious 
ring to it than "Terry the toad" does :o)

Audra again:
Perhaps some of Harry's classmates from the list will never be 
mentioned in the book. JKR may have made the list of names for her 
own reference early on in her writing to draw from, and she may not 
need to use all the names. <snip examples about several characters>

Me:
I think this makes sense for convenience (not having to waste time 
coming up with a new name every time she wants to bring in or mention 
a new character) and backstory purposes (although her "1000 students" 
claim doesn't necessarily follow from it), and also in light of what 
I said above about changes being made between the writing of the list 
and the publication of the book.  The full last name of "???dougal, 
Isabel" in tcy's transcription is IMO likely "MacDougal," due to its 
alphabetical placement in the list.  The only student we know of with 
that last name is a Morag MacDougal, who was Sorted into an unknown 
house right after Neville (PS/SS 7 again).  I believe JKR decided to 
switch this character's first name over from Isabel at some point, 
but didn't bother updating her entry on the list due to the relative 
unimportance of the character (we haven't heard from her since that 
first ceremony), unlike visible list changes that mostly affected 
more visible characters.

Tess
a small-school theorist wishing for a look at that facing page of 
JKR's list