Details (was Re: Full Moon - A Rant About Lycantrophy Symptoms)

[Renee]

No: HPFGUIDX 124008


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "nkafkafi" <nkafkafi at y...> 
wrote:
> 
 
> Neri:
> Renee, I agree with all my heart that JKR didn't put much thought 
into
> the whole transformation thing, which most probably means it's not
> something important in the story. I once got very interested with
> Potterverse lycanthropy and did a full research on Lupin's 
symptoms. A
> lot of wasted time. What was I thinking? That I'm going to discover
> the cure for lycanthropy and win myself an Order of Merlin? Anyway,
> after a lot of work I had to stop because too many things just 
didn't
> add up. 

Renee:
I'm snipping the rest of your post, which I enjoyed a lot - thank 
you for studying this so meticulously! This whole lycanthropy 
business, along with the current "biggest error" thread and many 
past references to all kinds of flints, only serves to confirm my 
suspicion that JKR simply doesn't spend equally much time and care 
on every single detail in the Potterverse. Not everything matters, 
and when it doesn't, why put a lot of effort into it?    

The temptation to be blunt and call this sloppiness, and to make a 
connection with the sloppy and less than polished writing found in 
OotP, with its numerous adverbs clogging almost every page, is huge. 
But I'll stop just short of this, and not just because I know JKR 
must be working under a lot of pressure, what with hordes of fans 
breathing down her neck and looking over her shoulder. There's no 
way she can get every minor detail right without spending twice as 
much time on her writing as she does now. It took Tolkien more than 
fifteen years to write LotR, a text that is only half as long as the 
first five HP books. (And he did carefully figure out all the phases 
of the moon during the journey of the Fellowship, something people 
only found out when his notes were published by his son. When you 
get something right, nobody gives it another thought...)   

When it really matters, when we're dealing with important plot 
twists and developments, JKR does seem to get it right. (I haven't 
quite accepted her explanation for Harry's failure to to use the two-
way mirror in an emergency yet, but that's about it.) Most of the 
errors, flints and inconsistencies are about matters of secondary 
importance and not detrimental to the overal story. I'd almost be 
inclined to say something like "if it's erroneous and/or leads to 
confusion, it's most likely not crucial".  

However, one problem with such a statement is, that we can't be sure 
it's valid as long as we've still got two books to go. Another 
problem is that we (or maybe it's just me?) seem to lack a good 
overview. Does anyone remember details from an earlier book that 
seemed wrong at the time but suddenly made sense when viewed in the 
context of later developments and revelations? Contradictions 
resolved over the course of several books? Apparent mistakes that 
turned out to be no such thing? I'm not talking about details that 
stood out as strange or inconsistent in retrospect, but about things 
that did so at first sight.

On the other hand, I'm also curious about errors persistent enough 
to seem deliberate. This is JKRs world, after all. Expecting 
everything to conform to our knowledge and perception of our own, 
primary world is not realistic.