JKR's Single Biggest Error

[Vivamus]

No: HPFGUIDX 123916

> SSSusan:
> Now *there's* a thread I could sink my teeth into.  I don't 
> agree with Eggplant that this is JKR's Single Biggest Error, 
> but I can't say that right off the top of my head I'd be able 
> to put forth what I think that SBE was.  I would really enjoy 
> seeing other people's nominations.  
> 
> Anybody been dying to get an SBE nomination off his/her chest??
> 
> Siriusly Snapey Susan

Vivamus:
All right, I'll bite, but my nomination is a group of errors.  Ignorance of
snakes.  


1. No snake that has ever lived, AFAIK, could chomp on someone like the
snake that bit Arthur Weasley.  She describes the snake splintering bones
with it's bite, which snakes' jaws are not physically capable of doing.
Snakes have three ways of biting that I know of: (1) a purely defensive
bite-and-withdraw, (2) injecting venom through its fangs, if it is a
venomous snake, and (3) as the first move in wrapping the victim up in
coils, if it is a constrictor.  The thing (Nagini, I presume) attacked
Arthur as if it were a dog, not a snake, and did damage accordingly.  Even
if it were being controlled by LV and therefore not attacking as a snake
normally would, it still would not have caused that much damage just by
biting.  


2. No matter how big Nagini is, there is no way a venomous snake is going to
be big enough to eat a 14 year old boy.  I've seen the world record King
Cobra (largest venomous snake of any kind on record, I believe) stuffed in
the Miami Serpentarium, at (I think) 16 feet.   It could probably have
swallowed something the size of an infant, but it is nowhere near large
enough to swallow a boy.  Only a constrictor would even have that
possibility.

A Rock Python (Kaa, in the Jungle Book) or an Anaconda would be able to do
it, but they are constrictors, without venom, and you would need a snake
better than 20 feet long (and weighing hundreds of pounds) to be able to do
it.  (But even a constrictor that big wouldn't be able to crunch bones with
it's jaws.)  The snake that bit Arthur, moreover, had fangs, so it isn't a
constrictor.

(For the record, the largest snakes ever found are South American Anacondas,
with a verified record of 34 feet, and reports of much longer ones killed or
sighted.  Tracks in the Amazon mud seem to suggest snakes well in excess of
40 feet, and possibly **much** longer.  Could one of those eat a grown
human?  Absolutely.)   (There was a report of a 49-foot, 980-pound
reticulated python caught in December of 2003, but the snake turned out to
be less than 21 feet long.)


3. People don't, usually, bleed when bitten by a poisonous snake.  In fact,
they don't usually bleed when bitten by a non-poisonous snake, except for
defensive bites, which the attack on Arthur certainly was not.

I've heard someone say that Nagini must be a Bushmaster.  It's possible, as
Bushmasters get up to almost four meters in length, and Nagini is described
as being over twelve feet long.  But Bushmasters (Lachesis mutus) have
extremely powerful hemotoxin in their venom, and the larger a snake is, the
more venom it can inject.  With all the time it took to get McGonagall and
get to DD's office, Arthur would have been long since dead by the time they
got to DD.  I'm not counting this one as an error, because we don't really
know what kind of snake it was, but most venomous snakes of that size would
have killed Arthur too quickly for help to arrive. 

You could, MAYBE, argue around some of the problems if you said that Nagini
was a 25-foot python, and the references to fangs were references to teeth,
not fangs, but there are also references to poison.


4. Harry "could see the vast, bloody eye sockets, see the mouth stretching
wide, wide enough to swallow him whole, lined with fangs long as his sword,
thin, glittering, venomous"   Venomous snakes only have two fangs.  Even the
highly magical Basilisk is not likely to vary from that.  

The mouth of a snake can also only open really wide when it is unhinging its
jaws to get around its food, and it needs to lever them around the food to
do so.  In other words, it has to bite something too big to swallow, and
then work its jaws around what it is swallowing to get its mouth open wide.
It's a fascinating process to watch.   I'm not counting this one as an
error, either, though, because the stories are from Harry's POV, and to
Harry, the mouth might well have *looked* big enough to swallow him whole.


Anyway, I have no trouble ignoring most of the little inconsistencies that
any excellent work of fiction contains, but the attack on Arthur in
particular screamed at me.   I'm kind of puzzled no one in the editorial
process said, "Wait a minute!" when they read it.  


I don't think phases of the moon not fitting the actual calendar can be
called an error, btw, because it is fiction, after all, and certain things
are just pushed by the plot.  JKR might have used an actual calendar to plan
out her sequence of events, but she never actually gives us an exact date,
except for the death-day party for NHN.  I think asking her to accurately
fit the phases of the moon with the actual lunar calendar is too much.  (The
full moon rising much later than sunset is, of course, an error, and I did
not catch that one at all.)


Vivamus, who hopes that JKR, if she reads this thread, doesn't take any of
it too seriously or think we don't love her or her books anyway.  He just
wishes there had been a proofer with more scientific background for the last
couple of books. (And yes, if you want one, I would be *happy* to do it for
free, and sign a confidentiality agreement in blood as well.)

(I am also sure there would be over 13,000 other volunteers from this group
for the same honor.)