At least respect JKR

[Jim Ferer]

No: HPFGUIDX 109498

RMM: "This means that we are allowed to consider any and all dates and
times with an eye for discovering the significance of them. Yes, we
see that many dates and times are incorrect. This can throw us
immediately into the mindset -- well Jo is bad at math, she said so,
so we must ignore any and all dates and times."

No, but we often try to wring an answer out of too little information.
 Many things have to be laid aside in the hope new information will
come in.  We can't make a connect-the-dots drawing with two dots, one
of which turned out to be fly droppings.

In the 1700's there was a French natural philosopher named Cuvier who
claimed he could describe an animal fully from just one bone. If this
bone is like this, than the next one must be like so, and therefore
the next one from that is thus, on an on until he described the whole
animal.

Of course he didn't succeed.  The farther out from the starting point
he got the more the uncertainties multiplied until his new creature
was nonsense.  He was trying for too many conclusions out of too
little data.

RMM:"If we continue down this path, then what are we left with? Hints
and clues to what? Are ANY of them valid clues or hints anymore? The
whole thing becomes a fruitless search for the truth, because that is
what we are doing when we theorize."

Back to Harry.  If we overprocess small clues, or names like Evans,
it's not gonna work.  The person who comes up with a hypothesis is the
first one who should be looking for objections to it.  Some hypotheses
just can't be taken further until more information comes in.  All is
not lost.

I think reading Harry Potter as history and looking at the characters
works better.  For example, the events of the battle at the Ministry,
the outing of Voldemort, and Dumbledore's and Harry's restoration in
the public mind says that Fudge is toast.  Things that make sense in
our world make sense in Harry's, and vice versa.

JKR leaves clues, but not, I believe, such tiny ones.  Shouldn't we
have realized that when Sirius invaded the dorm and cut up Ron's
curtains without harming any human that something was strange about
that?  Once Crouch!Moody was revealed, the disturbance at his house
made sense. Anything else like that?

Finally: how many of these elaborate theories with cute acronymic
names turn out?  How many have gone through the Veil of Dead Theories,
never to be seen again?

Jim Ferer