OOP -- On the Teaser and the Structure of the Book.

[cornflower_o_shea]

No: HPFGUIDX 62995

B
I
G

F
A
T

S
P
O
I
L
E
R

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



     I just wanted to comment on the brilliance of the publicity for 
the book. By letting the entire world know that someone was going to 
die, Rowling allowed for some wonderful suspense in the book. It was 
very, very, calculated to manipulate the reader (which is GREAT!!!). 
I'm sure all of us went through the "Is this it???" at each problem, 
each near-death incident. It was a wonderful way of keeping us 
engrossed, and a nice distractor from other subtler hints that we 
here at HPfG will all be spending our time now trying to tease out.

     The one that particularly stopped my heart was when Ron was 
discussing his tea leaves in his Divination OWL! ("I don't care if 
my tea leaves spell out 'die, Ron, die' - I'm chucking them in the 
bin...) I put down the book and couldn't read for about 30 seconds 
(and that seemed like forever!).

     I think that the whole "someone is going to die" leak was so 
very clever, partly because we are all such accomplished readers 
that we know what kinds of hints to look for, and we read into 
everything. The kinds of red herrings that worked so brilliantly in 
GoF won't really work as well now....so JK is really keeping up with 
how the readers are changing, and working to trick us...putting fake 
foreshadowing, little hints. BRILLIANT! She never ceases to sucker 
me in...and I'm not really an easy sucker. 

-Cornflower O'Shea