Ron's chess-playing skills (was Howgarts Clubs - Art, Music, and Chess).

[Matt]

No: HPFGUIDX 85803

--- Caipora wrote:

> Something's bothered me since the first book, and 
> I hope someone has an answer.
> 
> One of the puzzles was pure logic, the potions. 
> Reading that, it took paper, pencil and fifteen 
> minutes to see that the clues were consistent, and 
> a bit longer to see that they were incomplete. The 
> text didn't have enough clues. There had to be a 
> diagram showing the heights of the bottles (or the 
> shapes, I don't have the book here).
> 
> This is probably a point settled long ago, but what 
> gives? Did the British edition have a diagram cut 
> in the American? Did she intentionally give a 
> puzzle without giving the reader enough clues?  
> Was it a mistake?

Possibly it was unintentional.  When I read it, I thought it was a
rather effective device to put the reader in Harry's position.  The
incomplete clues make the puzzle more confusing, as it was to Harry. 
Because Harry is stumped by the problem, he does not observe where the
"dwarf" and "giant" stand in line.  Hermione, of course, does look at
all of the relevant clues, and is able to solve the puzzle.  

Incidentally, if you assume that the puzzle is soluble -- i.e., that
the given clues plus a look at the bottle sizes disambiguates the
solution -- you can deduce that the "backward" potion must be in the
last place on the right, and that the "forward" potion must be either
the third or fourth in line, whichever is the dwarf or the giant. 
That's reasonably complete, and close enough to convince me that
Rowling probably had checked the puzzle and simply chose to leave out
a description of the heights.  If she had not checked it, I doubt that
she would have arrived, by chance, at a soluble puzzle.

-- Matt