FAQs: Lily died before James?

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 103172

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Jen Reese" <stevejjen at e...> wrote:

> 
> Jen: 
>
> ...edited...
> 
> I see what you're saying now about the wand order. My hour of 
> pondering wasn't enough :). So JKR's quote on the website is either 
> confused or she wasn't answering the question that was asked. In her 
> mind she could be thinking James was killed first, therefore he came 
> out of the wand first. 
> 
> If she wasn't answering the question that was asked, maybe she was 
> saying who died first: Q: "At the end of Goblet of Fire, in which 
> order should Harry's parents have come out of the wand?" JKR says 
> James first, then Lily. Was she really answering who died first? 
> 
> Or James really did die after Lily, opening up a huge can of worms. 
> I'm thinking a retraction will be posted soon, or JKR will explain 
> why she worded her answer that way.
> 
> Jen


asian_lovr2:

That's exactly what I thought. She was asked about wand order, and her
mind shifted to thinking about death order, and in a sense, gave the
right answer to the wrong question.

HOWEVER...

On her website she said that the original manuscripts were correct,
that James came out first, therefore died last. 

She further says that the original UK publication was correct which
showed James appearing first, then later changed by the USA publisher.
Attributing this mistaken correction to the rush to publish and
fatigue. Later other editions were corrected to match the USA
editions, and now JKR is correcting the mistake once and for all.

Although, as I said before, if we are to take it at face value, things
just got infinitely more complicated. I'm really stunned by this
because if confounds several year of thoughts and beliefs.



SIDE NOTE: (general)

Visual aid to picturing deaths-

Think of people dying as stacking dinner plates on top of each other.
The Last plate on the stack, the one on the top, is the first one to
be taken off the stack. 

Lily dies, so we set her 'death plate' on the table, then James dies
and we set his 'death plate' on top of Lily's. That puts James at the
top of the stack; last on = first off. 

Now the plates come off in reverse order. James was the last on, so he
is the first off. After James, then Lily's plate comes off the stack. 

This is how computer stacks work. We call it LIFO (last in; first out). 

There still seems to be some confusion on who was where and when. I
thought this example might help.

Steve/asian_lovr2