The Fans v JK Rowling

[nkafkafi]

No: HPFGUIDX 92326

Ali wrote:
> All rise: this court is now in session.
> 
> Judge: Ms Rowling, you stand before us today accused of a heinous 
> crime. Your maths does not add up. You know that Hermione should 
> really be older than Harry. How do you plead? Guilty or not guilty?
> <snip of a great post. Go up-thread and read all of it>

Neri:
Ali, you are entirely right – in regard to small Flints such as 
characters' ages or the number of students. I personally never had a 
problem with these inconsistencies either. In fact, people would have 
never attempted to construct timelines if JKR wasn't so consistent to 
begin with.

{BTW: just gleefully adding my part to the confusion around 
Hermione's age, I'll note that biologically she is actually several 
months older than she is supposed to be, because of her use of the 
time-turner to get into all those classes in PoA. The math (oh 
dear...) goes like this: Hermione goes to the Charms class from 11:00 
to 12:00, then she jumps back in time one hour and goes to the 
Ancient Runes class from 11:00 to 12:00. While for the outside world 
only one hour had passed, for Hermione it was two hours. I'm sure JKR 
was aware of this since she described how hungry was Hermione at 
lunch. For her mealtime is long past due. So by how much was Hermione 
aged during that year? If we assume that for about 9 months, she was 
repeating a third of each 24 hrs day (normal teaching hours), then 
she added a third of those 9 months, or additional 3 months. This 
means that at her 15th birthday (whenever it was!) she was 
biologically 15 years and 3 months old...}

Back to my main point, the real problem with these inconsistencies is 
when they get into the central plot. This is why the order of the 
wand echos in GoF was the only flint that was corrected. Because it 
is essential to the main plot. And this is why small flints make me 
worry. Not because I care about them, but because I'm afraid JKR 
might make a major blunder in the "most crucial and central" part. 
This is also my fear regarding using a big time-travel twist. Unlike 
many group members (or so it seems) I don't have any principal 
problem with using time-travel as a main plot device, but I know how 
easy it is to get it wrong, and I really don't want to wait so much 
for Book 7 only to find some unresolved, mountain-size Flint sitting 
smack in the middle of the main plot.  

Neri, 
hoping his fears will turn out to be unfounded