Polyjuice potion (was Re: Spinner's End)

[Ken Hutchinson]

No: HPFGUIDX 156795

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, juli17 at ... wrote:
>
> Ken wrote:
> I guess the key is that is there *anything* that *certainly* ID's 
> Snape as the HBP? Or are there just several things that point that way
> but are inconclusive when examined in detail? Hermione never actually
> said that Eileen gave birth to a son named Severus though we are
> intended to believe that she was about to. Even if Snape is her son
> that doesn't mean he was the only half blood Prince floating around.
> And right to the very end Hermione insists it is a girl's handwriting.
> Don't appeal to the "wonderful irony" either, JKR insists that writers
> are cruel. DD's killer would not spare Irony.
> 
> Julie:
> The main problem with saying Snape can't be IDed with certainty
> in the Tower scene is that this is true of almost any given 
> character in almost any given scene. Take Sirius for instance...
>  

I agree that it is a problem. It is a problem for the author, not the
reader. If she has introduced an element that can be used to great
effect in almost any situation yet her characters ignore it on most
occasions that is her problem not mine. If you think that polyjuice is
the worst such element in this series you have not thought very
carefully about time turners. I doubt that there is, or could be, any
problem in the books that does not have a trivial solution involving a
time turner. The burden is on the author to show us why her characters
make no use of their most powerful tools.

I can't accept arguments base on a love of the irony in the
Snape/Harry relationship that falls out of the HBP subplot simply
because I believe this author values tricking the reader above irony.

Ken