The One Simple Answer To All Our Questions (well, sorta)

[Tammy Rizzo]

No: HPFGUIDX 106883

Well, to all the plotholes we've found, at least.  And all the niggling 
little inconsistancies we find in the Potterverse, and the questions 
about how things actually work and why, and all that stuff.  It's really 
very, very simple.  Honest and truly, and it doesn't have a shred of 
conspiracy anywhere.

Jo didn't expect *US*.  When she first started writing, she was good -- 
very good, obviously -- but she was still basically a beginner.  
Plotting seamless, tight stories is a skill that takes practice, and 
she's been getting better and better with each book, but the whole point 
is, she didn't expect *US*, our hyperanalyzing, our latching onto the 
slightest whiff of a clue, our endless debates on just who Mark Evans 
is, etc.  She was just telling her story in the best way she could; it 
was inevitable that there were some small inconsistancies.  I don't 
think *anyone* could have predicted *US*, though!  Can you imagine the 
pressure we're putting on Jo now, to get every single datum absolutely 
correct or see us fighting over the discrepancies?

Now, I'm not saying we should stop our hyperanalysis, absolutely not!  
It's making Jo a better writer!  Besides, it's fun to lurk around here 
and pick through the theories and essays and whatnot.  It's very 
instructive, as well, especially for a worldbuilder like myself -- I'm 
seeing things brought up here for discussion and debate that remind me 
that my own world still lacks such depth of detail.  Sometimes, it can 
be enough to just show how a thing (like microwaves or magic) impacts 
one's daily life, but sometimes, too, it's necessary for the author, at 
least, to know practically every facet of a thing so that her writing 
has that seamless background we all crave.  Tolkien pretty much managed 
that, but it took him fifty years to do it.  Jo's building a simpler 
world, an overlay onto our own, rather than a complete and whole 
underpinning of our own, but there are still systems and details in 
place that it seems that she has not thought out completely.  Or rather, 
that she *had not* thought out completely when the books were just 
starting, and hadn't realized that we'd end up picking apart.  I think 
it might be that, sometimes, in the heat of battle (so to speak), some 
of us might lose sight of that little point.  Worldbuilding is an 
incredibly difficult task, after all, and whether she realized it or 
not, that's what she's been up to in telling Harry's story.  She's been 
building a world for us to play in, but one that missed a few details at 
first and now she's stuck with them.

Hmm.  It appears I've started rambling, so that must mean I've come to 
my point and passed it, backed up and missed it, gone past it again, 
turned around and come at it another way and passed it again.  I might 
never get there if I don't stop now.  ;-)

Thanks for listening!

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Tammy Rizzo
ms-tamany at rcn.com