HouseElf/Muggle/Fiction/Kappa/Goblins/CHAPDISC/Flitwick/WorldClass/Bullies/Sn

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 162645

Steve bboyminn wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/162052>:

<< Next, take a faithful companion like a Dog; just an ordinary dog.
... Though, I hardly think we consider dogs to be slaves. >>

On 12/3, my friend e-mailed me:
<< an idea from the LJ of a filker acquaintance of mine:
House Elves in the Wizarding World
All the discussion I've read about house elves in Rowling's universe
start with the same assumption Hermoine Granger does - that they have
a human psychology, which is to say, a primate one. Suppose that,
although they are people, they are not human people, but are
hard-wired to find out who is boss and follow him and her? To want and
need a master and to love and serve a master? There is one sort of
being that already fits that description whom we all know and many of
us love dearly. That is ....

Suppose their psychology is canine? >>

Are you my friend's friend on LJ?

Altho' all this talk of House Elves as dogs obscures a previous theory
that House Elves symbolize House Wives, who also often dislike being
freed (divorced). A  listie offered that explanation of House Elves
before we even met Winky.

Inge wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/162010>:

<< Hermione's parents somehow got into The Leaky Cauldron (and I'm
sure there's been quite a few explanations as to how *that* happened
on here; I just forgot what they were) >>

We just know that the Leaky Cauldron has a spell on it so that Muggles
won't see its front, not that Muggles can't enter it or can't see its
interior. I assume Hermione's parents simply closed their eyes and
followed as their daughter led them by the hand into the Leaky
Cauldron. (As Mike Crudele mentioned in passing in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/162063>, where I
don't agree with him that being Unplottable makes a place invisible to
Muggles.)

Betsy Hp wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/162046>:

<< IIRC JKR stated in an interview that there are no fiction authors
in the WW. (I believe she said something about having to write charms
instruction books if she lived there.) >>

My recollection is that she didn't directly state that there are no
fiction authors in the WW, but she did say that all she ever wanted to
be was a writer, so she would be a writer of spell books. That struck
me as odd, because even if there are no fiction authors, there ARE
story authors. For example, October '05 Wizard of the Month Fifi
LaFolle, author of the 'Enchanted Encounters' series of what we would
call 'trashy romance novels, at least from her visual resemblance to
Barbara Cartland.

Potioncat wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/162298>:

<< He disputes the imformation about Kappas (is it Kappas?) Most of us
thought he had made a mistake. But, given his "improvement" on the
potions from the potions text, do we think he's correct on this issue? >>

Kappas are real -- I mean, JKR didn't make them up. They're from
Japanese folklore, where their fondness for cucumber is well-enough
known that a kind of sushi roll is named kappa roll. They live in
rivers and streams, and have a depression on the top of their head
that is full of water, and if you trick one into bowing to you, the
water falls out and the kappa loses its strength and can't harm you.
Whether some kappas emigrated to Mongolia and established a large
population there I do not know, but I don't think of Mongolia as a
place with lots of rivers and streams for them to live in.

Nikkalmati wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/162311>:

<< The goblin rebellions are mentioned more than once in the books in
connection with History of Magic. I am not sure we will ever know more
about them but I wonder did they win? It would seem the goblins are
not under the control of wizards and play an vital and independent
role in WW finance, ergo, they must have won? >>

In OoP chapter 5, during the dinner conversation at 12 Grimmauld
Place, Lupin and some Weasleys were speaking of which side the goblins
will choose to be on. 'I think it depends what they're offered,' said
Lupin. 'And I'm not talking about gold. If they're offered the
freedoms we've been denying them for centuries they're going to be
tempted.'

If wizards are still limiting the freedoms of goblins, then the
goblins haven't won. Yet. 

One of the OWL questions was 'In your opinion, did wand legislation
contribute to, or lead to better control of, goblin riots of the
eighteenth century?' I suspect that means that owning/using a wand is
one of the freedoms that wizards have denied to goblins.

Zgirnius discussed Chapter 26 in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/162333>:

<< 14) Does the chapter title "The Cave" have any special
significance? Is its setting in a cave important? (Important events at
the ends of PS/SS, CoS, and PoA involve subterranean settings, as
well). >>

Do you want us to associate the chapter title with Plato's metaphor of
the Cave? He said that people in the world are like people in a cave
watching shadows move around on the wall and believing that the
shadows are the real things, because they don't realize that the
shadows are only cast by the real real things outside the cave mouth
in the sunlight. The experience of our senses is all illusion.

Carol wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/162414>:

<< Flitwick (who could no more have been a duelling champion in his
youth than I could given his size) >>

Being small just makes him a smaller target. It doesn't make him
slower and (as Scarah wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/162417>) it
doesn't make his spells less powerful.

Eggplant wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/162423>:

<< Harry is world class at Defense Against the Dark Arts >>

For his age group.

Katie wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/162500>:

<< My three-year-old came home from nursery school last week with a
bite mark on his arm from another child. Did I tell him to bite back,
or punch the child? Of course not. We went and spoke with his teacher,
arranged a meeting with mom and the little boy, and worked it out like
civilized people. That's real life - Potter books are about wizards!
Fiction! I think different rules apply. >>

This is *so strange* to me. A parent complains to a teacher about her
child being bitten and the teacher doesn't scold the parent for being
'overprotective'. I was a child a very long time ago (I'm 49 now), and
in those days, if a child reported to an adult (teacher, parent) about
being bullied, some adults would punish the child for 'tattling' and
others would mock the child for being a 'crybaby', but all would
express similar opinions to those expressed by Steve bboyminn and
QuigonGinger: that being bullied is your own fault for being weak and
it is your duty to hit him back.

Jen wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/162583>:

<< Noble Snape willing-to-die-for-the-cause is difficult to take,
including willingness to die for Draco. >>

I think Snape would kind of like to die. Because it can't be pleasant
to be Snape, with all that nastiness churning inside him, and death
would be a release. But something forbids him from obvious suicide, so
doing risky jobs is his suicide attempt.

Chrus wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/162609>:

<< Assuming that Snape is on the good side and killed DD for a good
reason, how will he make his way back to the Order? >>

Maybe he will send them helpful information anonymously by owl, in
notes written in disguised handwriting that looks like Dumbledore's
(or like RAB's), 

Pippin wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/162630>:

<< Blown!Snape ... a new ... Gray!Snape theory.  >>

I like the name.