Disappointed in Potter?

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 127720


Geoff:
There have been a number of posts recently picking holes in the 
books - including the purpose of Hogwarts itself and the 
inconsistency of the day of 1st September just to mention a couple.

About eighteen months ago, I wrote about the problems arising when 
the combined intellects of the large membership of this group were 
brought to bear on the plotlines and story of Harry Potter.

As a large group, we can analyse the story down to the last full stop 
and use a scalpel to dissect each paragraph but I think we need to 
realise that Jo Rowling is actually human and that parts of the 
storyline have not been fully realised, perhaps because she did not 
feel it was necessary.

By way of example, I have already commented that she got the day of 
the week right for 1st September in 1991 - Harry's first journey to 
Hogwarts - and may not have troubled to calculate the weekday for 
succeeding years as there were more pressing plot ideas to develop. 
Again, on the subject of Hogwarts and its value in the Wizarding 
World, personally I have merely assumed that there are sections of 
wizard society and its structures which she has not fully described 
because they are not germane to the development of the story and also 
not known to Harry, whose POV is the main driving force.

HPFGU must represent a formidable analytical engine for this series 
of books which I believe the author set out to write partly for her 
own satisfaction and enjoyment. If you have ever tried writing 
anything in the way of fiction, even for your own satisfaction and no 
one else's eyes, tidying up loose ends of the sort I have mentioned 
can be time-consuming and possibly unnecessary. We are not always 
able to tie up all the loose ends in real life.

Bear in mind that an author like Tolkien was a perfectionist who went 
to great lengths to match up things like dates and phases of the moon 
in his books. It took him twelve years to write LOTR and get it to 
his satisfaction and something like 35 years had then elapsed since 
he first began putting his ideas down on paper in "The Book of Lost 
Tales". At the time of his death in 1973, he was still niggling away 
at various inconsistencies and contradictions in "The Silmarillion" 
and, when that was published in 1977, Christopher Tolkien had not 
managed to make the book read seamlessly.

So let's give JKR a break. In about eight years, she has performed a 
magnificent task in persuading all the contributors on this list (and 
many others) to recognise her talent to hold us to the books and get 
us so involved with the characters of Harry's world that we get so 
involved, so excited, so analytical and sometimes so confrontational 
about the way in which our fictional friends conduct themselves.

The books so far, and the coming two, may not always please us in 
their developments but let us keep a sense of proportion and enjoy 
these books as an escape to a world removed from global warming, 
Council Tax and (shh) General Elections!