JKR answering fan concerns/correcting impressions (was: My Reaction)

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 133043

> > SSSusan:
> > Chapter 2, especially, and a couple of other places in the book
> > felt to me like JKR crossing items off a list.  "Fan complaint 
> >#1?  Yes, took care of that. Fan misinterpretation #2?  Yep.  Fan
> > concern #3?  Got it."  I mean, when Bella asked all those
> > questions in Spinner's End, and Snape provided answers -- BING
> >  BING BING -- to them all, didn't anyone else feel like JKR had
> > created a list of most-often asked or complained-about points
> > and just got them out of the way?
 
 
> Dungrollin:
> I'm not sure I agree, entirely.  The amount of planning she's 
really 
> done on the series is of course open to question, but you can't 
for 
> a second convince me that she's only just decided what Snape was 
> going to do in HBP.  The whole situation in which we now find 
> ourselves has been very carefully set up right from the beginning
> of the series. 
<snipping>
> I did find chapter 2 a bit clunky, but I think it's one of the 
ones 
> that she's had written for a while, and it's been over-polished. I 
> doubt that she's responding specifically to fan concerns. 


Jen: The hard part of this issue, is which came first, JKR's Plan or 
fan response???

It's not hard to believe the two will coincide quite often. Jo is 
incredibly creative and witty, but her choice of genre and myth 
aren't new. The way she twists it is. But that leaves a lot of space 
in the middle for the rest of us to fill in, and we will fill in 
with similar thoughts sometimes.

It's like when JKR said that watching the POA movie gave her chills 
because a couple of parts seemed to mirror things in later books, so 
much so that fans would think they were planted in the movie.  And 
right there on the pages of HBP were words so similar to POA I *did* 
think that: " It was cruel...that you and Sirius had such a short 
time together. A brutal ending to what should have been a long and 
happy relationship." (US, p. 76, chap. 4) Was anyone else reminded 
of Sirius' words to Harry about his parents? And yet I'm certain JKR 
wrote that before she ever saw the movie.

I do think some of Chapter 2 could be a checklist, but I also think 
part of it is that we're not so different in our thinking from JKR! 
Many of us are in the same age range, some have very similar 
cultural experiences, and most of us are as familiar as JKR is with 
the myths, narratives, literary themes and symbolism that appears in 
the books. Or we learned about them on this list!! I know I did. 

So it would be very hard for Jo to write something that *none* of us 
ever explored before or thought about in a similar way.

Jen, who loved this story almost unconditionally.