Correct forecasts (long)

[Jim Ferer]

No: HPFGUIDX 80264

Sylvia:"I was flipping at random through past posts and came across one 
posted in November 2001 by Marianne (29398) in which she 
prophesied "Harry will have to come to terms with the fact that his 
father and godfather held some pretty unsavoury ideas, at least when 
they were kids". Talk about spot on! Can anyone else claim to have 
made an equally accurate forecast way before publication? Most of my 
own guesses have proved spectacularly wrong."

I think the approach to predicting future events has a lot to do with
the accuracy of predictions.

WHY MARIANNE WAS RIGHT

In my opinion, Marianne was dead on because she approached her
analysis in terms of the characters as humans.  Marianne probably knew
kids like James and Sirius, knew that kids like them generally are
"arrogant little berks," until the grow up, anyway, and so made her
prediction on her experience with human nature.  We all have
skeletons, so why would Prongs and Padfoot be any different?

This is the theory of analysis I subscribe to.  What would you do if
you were handed the same problem?  What have psychopaths like
Voldemort in history done in the past?  What are the parallels between
a real-life situation and the Potterverse?  They may be wizards, but
they're very human, and that's part of the appeal.

The "what would you do" test is useful.  I once wrote a fic designed
to answer a question: how do you get Muggle parents to accept the
existence of the wizarding world after their kid gets a Hogwarts
letter?  What I did was send the Muggle parents of other Hogwarts
students already at school to visit the new family and help them cope
with having their reality turned on its head.  I don't know if that's
how the wizard world does it, but it's at least believable.  We'll
probably never know the right answer.

HISTORY AND THE WIZARD WORLD

I like history in general and military history in particular, and my
best prediction came about from viewing the earliest stages of the
Second Voldemort War in that light.  I predicted that Voldemort would
spend the early stages of the War in 1, gathering strength, 2,
encouraging the wizard world and the MoM that the threat didn't exist,
3, trying to deprive the forces of good of their base, Hogwarts, and
4, trying to discredit and neutralize his main enemies, Dumbledore and
Harry.  That's what happened, but where I was surprised was how
Voldemort was revealed as early as he was.  I never expected him to be
outed so soon.

HINTS AND CLUES

A lot of people spend a lot of time combing the text for hints and
clues, some of which are tiny indeed, and construct all new models of
the Potterverse future based on them.  One small, observed fact is
parent to a speculation which in turn is used as the launching point
for another speculation, and another, and another, until there's a
whole new world cantilevered out there – and it doesn't take much for
the whole thing to come crashing down.
Are hints and clues meaningless? No, but they have to be treated with
care, filed away and brought out or discarded as new facts turn up. 
When JKR says something twice, take notice.  When somebody is
interrupted as they're about to make a revelation, remember it.
(Thanks to the authors of _The Unofficial Guide to the Mysteries of
Harry Potter_ for that one).

OCCAM'S RAZOR

William of Occam, a British Franciscan monk and philosopher of the
14th century, is responsible for a principle of logic that is the
foundation of all scientific modeling and theory building.  Occam's
Razor admonishes a reasoner to `choose from a set of otherwise
equivalent models of a given phenomenon the simplest one.'  Occam's
razor helps us to "shave off" those concepts, variables or constructs
that are not really needed to explain a phenomenon. 

This principle is cheerfully trashed on a regular basis in the Harry
Potter world.  That's OK for fun, but probably not if you want to make
predictions that actually turn out.

BIG THEORY/BIG PROOF

If you want to suggest that Luna is starting to like Harry, go ahead,
make your points and your arguments, and we'll have fun discussing it.
 It's not a ridiculous notion.  If you want to suggest that Professor
McGonagall is really a Death Eater near the center of Voldemort's
conspiracy, you better have something really, really good to back up
that notion.  It seems reasonable that anybody with a radical,
earthshaking theory should have a much higher wall to climb for
acceptance than someone with a more modest suggestion.

Never forget that JKR, who always plays fair, is also Knight Grand
Commander of the Order of the Red Herring. Many of the little hints
and clues are tiny little pills of foolery and double meaning; but if
you watch the characters you'll do all right.

Jim Ferer