JKR's house (was kiddielit; and The Sorting Hat and Houses)

[David <dfrankiswork@netscape.net>]

No: HPFGUIDX 52941

It's a while since this was posted but I wanted to respond.  Morgan 
has also touched on the same topic.

Steve bboy wrote:

> These books were never written as or intended to be kids books, or
> were they intended to specifically exclude kids. 
> 
> On the other hand, some marketing executive sitting in some office
> somewhere who has absolutely nothing to do with the content of the
> books, decided he could sell the books best in a children's and 
teen's
> market. So that's how he classified them and that's how he tried to
> sell them. But he made that decision with a single book in hand and
> with no consideration to the series as a whole.
> 
> So, yes indeed these were marketed as kids books, but they were 
never
> written as kids books. Nor will future books be written with the
> sensitivities of kids in mind. 
> 
> JKR clearly stated that she is writing these books for herself. 

Ah yes, the poor naive struggling author having to bow to the wishes 
of dimwitted but powerful corporations, against her better judgement.

I agree that marketing considerations are a factor in the image HP 
has as children's books.  However, I think JKR herself has a lot to 
do with that. 

JKR is a good author, and no doubt she is telling the truth when she 
says she wrote the books for herself.

But she is also a marketing *genius* of the first order.  She runs 
rings round Bloomsbury, Scholastic and WB. Just look at the 
evidence.  Here is an author who gives sufficient interviews that we 
have a search engine for quotes and we still aren't sure we've got 
it all, yet has a reputation as a *recluse*.  Here is someone with 
unprecedented control over the transfer of her stories to film, yet 
WB and Columbus get *all the blame* for anything wrong with them.  
She oversees the publication of a special version for the American 
market, and Scholastic are vilified for being - and catering for -
 'dumb Americans'.

This is the woman who, *before she had anything published*, decided 
to name a principal character Hermione because she wanted a rare 
name so nobody would be adversely labelled in the playground.  
Helloooo, struggling authors here: how many of you are calculating 
the impact that mass popularity is going to have on the way your 
works are used?  I thought so.

She writes down a few random words (like 'Ron') from her next book 
on a card, then hides it away, and sells it at auction, and then 
*gives the money to charity*.  How media savvy is that?  Getting 
other people falling over themselves to pay money to advertise your 
product while keeping secet even the little you have given away, and 
coming out smelling of roses, too.  Lucius Malfoy can only gape in 
awe.

Morgan wrote:

> And when I
> read JKR's interviews and see her complaining about an online "hat"
> that sorted into Hufflepuff and arguing that, if someone was a
> Gryffindor, that would be her (even if she claims -- in the very 
same
> interview -- to be a coward), I'm left without any hope of seeing 
the
> others Houses better developed. 

Hah! *Real* Gryffindors don't say that they ought to be sorted 
there, they say 'Not Slytherin, not Slytherin'.

I think a very different house is suited to people who routinely 
achieve their ends through misdirection.

David