JKR quotes Lupin & more (was Re: Lupin - Potioncat's challenge ( Was:

[potioncat]

No: HPFGUIDX 128486

 
> Alla:
snip
> 
> Yes, I do understand why JKR said that she would pick Lupin from 
> Hogwarts teachers to teach her daughter.

Potioncat:
I was looking for something else, but I found this interview:
 
Fraser, Lindsay. "Harry Potter - Harry and me," The Scotsman, 
November 2002

My most influential writer, without a doubt, is Jessica Mitford. When 
my great-aunt gave me Hons and Rebels when I was 14, she instantly 
became my heroine. She ran away from home to fight in the Spanish 
Civil War, taking with her a camera that she had charged to her 
father's account. I wished I'd had the nerve to do something like 
that. I love the way she never outgrew some of her adolescent traits, 
remaining true to her politics - she was a self-taught socialist - 
throughout her life. I think I've read everything she wrote. I even 
called my daughter after her. 

Potioncat:
That sounds like Sirius and like the twins. 



Quotes:
When did the idea for Harry Potter first enter your head?

snip

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was the first thing I 
concentrated on. I was thinking of a place of great order but immense 
danger, with children who had skills with which they could overwhelm 
their teachers. Logically, it had to be set in a secluded place and 
pretty soon I settled on Scotland, in my mind. I think it was in 
subconscious tribute to where my parents had married. People keep 
saying they know what I based Hogwarts on - but they're all wrong. I 
have never seen a castle anywhere that looks the way I imagine 
Hogwarts.

Potioncat:
Maybe this explains why DD has trouble getting qualified staff: it's 
a place with children who can overwhelm their teachers... 


Quotes:
Can you describe the process of creating the stories?

It was a question of discovering why Harry was where he was, why his 
parents were dead. I was inventing it but it felt like research. By 
the end of that train journey I knew it was going to be a seven-book 
series. I know that's extraordinarily arrogant for somebody who had 
never been published but that's how it came to me. It took me five 
years to plan the series out, to plot through each of the seven 
novels. I know what and who's coming when, and it can feel like 
greeting old friends. Professor Lupin, who appears in the third book, 
is one of my favourite characters. He's a damaged person, literally 
and metaphorically. I think it's important for children to know that 
adults, too, have their problems, that they struggle. His being a 
werewolf is a metaphor for people's reactions to illness and 
disability. I almost always have complete histories for my 
characters. If I put all that detail in, each book would be the size 
of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, but I do have to be careful that I 
don't just assume that the reader knows as much as I do. Sirius Black 
is a good example. I have a whole childhood worked out for him. The 
readers don't need to know that but I do. I need to know much more 
than them because I'm the one moving the characters across the page.

Potioncat: 
A whole childhood? We don't need to know? Oh, but we want to know!