Copyediting Errors - Listed? (was:Voldemort killed personally?)

[Mike]

No: HPFGUIDX 157188

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" wrote:
> 
> Carol again:
<snip>
> A good copyeditor familiar with JKR's work should have noticed
> and queried the narrator's assertion in HBP that Tom murdered
> his father "in his sixteenth year" since we know from CoS that 
> he was sixteen (he says so himself). To be fair, the copyeditor   
> may not have almost memorized the books as we have and the books 
> may have been copyedited by different people, but if I'd been the
> copyeditor, I'd have queried: "JKR: Shouldn't it be seventeenth 
> year, not sixteenth?
>
> According to CoS, Tom was sixteen at this point. (If he's in his
> sixteenth year, he'd be fifteen.)" It would be up to JKR as the 
> author to make the correction or not, but I would think she'd have 
> made the correction if the copyeditor caught it.
> <massive snippage> 

Mike responds:

Um, Carol are you saying that this *isn't* a admitted mistake by 
either JKR or he publishing houses? Because, I thought you were 
saying that this was an *admitted* mistake as opposed to a 
*perceived* mistake. See, I too think this whole thing plays better 
if Tom kills his elders after his fifth year, after he openned the 
CoS. But here's the problem:

We have plenty of evidence that Tom openned the CoS in his fifth 
year, and Diary!Tom says he preserved his 16 year old self in the 
diary, but there is no reference whatsoever to when or if he killed 
his father. Diary!Tom only says that he wasn't using his "filthy 
Muggle fathers name", he'd benn calling himself "Lord Voldemort" 
already. In fact, Diary!Tom told us that his father had abandoned 
his mother. What book would he read this in? Yes, he could have 
deduced it since he had deduced his father was a muggle. But, we 
also know that Morfin told him this very thing at the Gaunt shack, 
right before Tom kills his dear Pa.

So Diary!Tom knows about his father abandonning his mother, and 
Penseive!Tom found out this same thing (and got confirmation that 
his father was a Muggle) just before he kills his father. Based on 
this evidence, it does appear that Tom killed his father *before* 
his fifth year. But, more importantly, it's canon. And unless 
someone of authority tells us it was a mistake, we shouldn't be 
assuming it was, no matter how well the alternate version plays. I 
know JKR admits she's bad with math, and I agree she's no whiz with 
time lines either. But, unless she comes out with a correction, like 
she did with the GoF priori scene, we're stuck with canon.

Darn shame, I had some good theories that worked so much better if 
Tom kills dear old dad after he makes the diary. Oh well, back to 
the TBay Inn for more evidence!

Mike, wishing he could just post corrections to JKR's timelines and 
they would magically correct themselves in his books.