DD's dilemma + owl post

[cubfanbudwoman]

No: HPFGUIDX 126374


Lupinlore said:
>>> For what it's worth, stepping out of the canon for a moment and 
doing a little authorial analysis, I think Siriusly Snapey Susan is 
right in a comment she made to me off list recently. That is that 
JKR probably thought "OK, Harry at Dursleys, here's the reason, 
subplot closed, moving on." All the issues implied and imbedded in 
that subplot may well not have occurred to her until it was too late.

JKR just isn't the best in the world when it comes to keeping track 
of implications and details. If it doesn't directly concern the 
storyline she has envisioned, she tends sometimes to slide over 
things, leaving all sorts of tangles and confusions and objections 
in the wake of her pen.<<<


SSSusan:
Yep, I did say something along these lines offlist.  To clarify a 
wee bit, I had said that I *can* see JKR thinking so fully that DD 
saw leaving Harry with the Dursleys as his only option, that she 
never gave all the rest of those issues we've talked about that much 
thought [not checking up on him; not going back & intervening over 
the years; not threatening the Dursleys a little more -- *if* in 
fact none of that happened].  

(I also wrote this before I thought more fully about the possibility 
of a "return protection" offered by DD to Petunia.  This has altered 
my thinking somewhat about DD's options.)

My main point to Lupinlore really was intended to be that JKR may 
well have never anticipated the degree of analysis her books & 
decisions would undergo.  She may have thought that her reasoning 
would be clear to the readers, whereas a lot of us (esp. her adult 
readers) are more inclined to question and critique.  This is not a 
bad thing!  But I do think there may well be situations where JKR 
believes her position is clearer than we feel it is.  I'm wondering 
if DD's decision to leave Harry with the Dursleys isn't one of those 
situations where she'd be surprised to discover what a hullabaloo 
has arisen over it.


On another matter, but still in this thread...

bbkkyy55 wrote:
> Bottom line, I don't think DD knew ALL the details of Harry's life 
> at the Dursleys

Lupinlore replied:
> This is possible, although as Alla says the fact that the letter
> arrived addressed to Harry in the cupboard cuts against this. 


SSSusan:
I've always assumed that the precise addressing of envelopes in the 
WW comes via some special magic of the owls, rather than of the 
sender.  That somehow they are able to adjust the ink so that it 
matches the true location of the recipient.

I've mentioned this before and haven't exactly been overwhelmed with 
support for the idea <g>, so I may be in a big minority.  

But when Harry wrote to Sirius, he couldn't know the address, yet 
Hedwig found him.  And didn't Pig know to find Ron while he was *on* 
the Hogwarts Express and moving?  I know that's *finding* and not 
*addressing,* but couldn't those two be connected?  Harry's letters 
in SS/PS kept changing as he & the Dursleys moved to new locations.  
Did the sender [McGonagall, I think?] actually know of these addy 
changes, or did the owls simply adjust the envelopes to reflect the 
reality?

Siriusly Snapey Susan