Harry shouldn't see Thestrals

[cubfanbudwoman]

No: HPFGUIDX 121798


Nicky Joe:
> However, I still don't buy the "Harry was in shock" line.  She 
> simply hadn't thought of it in time to get it into the book.  The 
> problem with writing serials and publishing them as soon as 
> they're done is that you can't go back and insert something.  I'll 
> bet JKR has kicked herself at least twenty times because she would 
> love to go back to book one or two and place a hook or a hint.


SSSusan:
Actually, no, unless you're saying that you think JKR is lying, it's 
not that she didn't think of it in time.  Rather, she said it didn't 
seem fair to introduce them at the END of a book -- which is when it 
would have had to have happened, since Harry'd just experienced the 
death -- but decided to require a "sinking in" period so that it 
could more easily and sensibly be introduced at the beginning of the 
next year.

Here is the quote from the Royal Albert Hall appearance in 2003:

JKR: I knew I was going to get that one. That is an excellent 
question and here is the truth. As you know at the end of Goblet Of 
Fire we sent Harry home more depressed than he's ever been really 
leaving Hogwarts. Now I knew that the Thestrals were coming because, 
I can prove that because they're in the book I produced for Comic 
Relief - Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - these unlucky 
black winged horses. However if Harry sees them then and we hadn't 
explained them then I thought that that would be rather a cheat on 
the reader that he suddenly sees these monsters but we don't go
anywhere with that story line so I thought well to explain that to 
myself I decided that you had to have seen the death and allowed it 
to sink in a little bit before slowly these creatures became solid 
in front of you so that's how I'm going to sneak past that one

Siriusly Snapey Susan