Four More Ways to Predict

[Jim Ferer]

No: HPFGUIDX 96674

We love making predictions about what's to come in the (sadly)
shrinking future of the HP series.  I do.  A lot of us comb canon
looking for clues in the text that point to the future, and that's one
of the ways to do it, but I think there's  others that don't get used
as often that can lead to interesting predicitions:

WHAT WOULD HARRY DO?

Not just Harry, anybody we're considering.  Getting under the
characters' skins and knowing how they've approached things in the
past can be important clues to the future.  If Harry becomes aware of
a danger in Book 6, I'm afraid he's likely not to tell anybody about
it (Dumbldeore, for instance) and make things harder and more
dangerous for himself and his friends.  He's done it as long as we've
known him, and it makes me nuts sometimes.  

I know why he does it: he never had adults he could go to when he was
little; he was totally on his own. He's an independent cuss anyway.  I
know why JKR does it: we all want to see Harry fight the fight, not
turn it over to Dumbledore.  Will he be more communicative this time
around?  We'll see. I'd be p.o.'d at him if he hasn't learned by *now.*  

Of course, the same approach can apply to any other character,
depending on how well we know him or her.  The debates here will
center around the true character of the subject (how well do we
*really* know __________?) and how he or she will act.

HARRY AS HISTORY

This can be fun, finding parallels in human history and applying them.
  My example: I read a lot of history and military history; I came
from a military family, and my dad and I had fun with it.  I predicted
that Voldemort's strategy in Book Five would be to keep the wizarding
world asleep and complacent while he built up strength, continued his
subversion of the Ministry, and undermine his enemies.  As it turned
out that's what Voldemort did, and his big mistake was getting wrapped
up in the Prophecy instead of sticking with a strategy that was
working.  He moved too soon and suffered a major defeat, revealed
himself to the wizard world, and vinidcated his two worst enemies. Not
a good day for the Voldster.  It's fun to debate if we've picked the
right parallels and learned the lessons of history the right way.

IF THIS WAS MY PROBLEM, HOW WOULD I SOLVE IT?

There's a lot of things in the wizard world we know absolutely nothing
about.  My example here is that about three years ago I started to
wonder "What would I do if one of *my* kids got a Hogwarts letter?"  I
mean now, in this world, the one with the Harry Potter books (that
turned out to be real).  I ended up writing a fic that had the Muggle
parents of Hogwarts students come to the new family and help them over
the shock, having been through it themselves. (A Muggle couple we've
heard of came to the house with their witch daughter). That's what I
said because that's what I would do if I was Headmaster. I didn't have
one word of canon support. In the World Book Day chat, JKR said
'messengers come to the homes and explain everything.'

How valid is this approach?  You can't find anything to prove these
hypotheses, so you have to go for plausibility and you try to make
sure they don't contradict the wizard world as we know it.  After that
you just have to accept it's speculation.  All you can really debate
is if the hypothesis is actually believable and fits into the
Potterverse, since you can't prove it or disprove it.

PARALLEL LITERATURE

Neither JKR nor wizardry exist in a vacuum.  We can offer up parallels
in the literature of magic and see if they fill holes in the
Potterverse.  Highly debatable always, it can still be worth doing. My
example: the late Randall Garrett wrote a series of stories and a
couple of books featuring Lord Darcy, chief criminal investigator for
the Duke of Normandy, and his assistant, Master Sorcerer Sean O
Lochlainn, set in an alternate history where magic works and there is
no wall between the magical and ordinary world.

Garrett read up extensively on the history of magic and the Laws of
Magic (Law of Similarity, Law of Contagion, etc.) and used them in his
writing.  It was Garrett that wrote Black Magic is "a matter of
symbolism and intent."  We can take these ideas out and test them in
the Potterverse and see if they fit.

My point here is that it would be fun to expand the prediction
toolbox.  It's really analysis, not just prediction.  Finding bits of
canon text, which can be ambiguous and not much to go on, isn't always
the best way to go.

Jim Ferer