Broken potionvial WAS: Re: Bad Writing? (was: JKR and the boys)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 163205

> 
> Neri:
> Accidents in stories aren't accidental. They are intended plot points
> (making something happening, like Mclaggen accidentally knocking Harry
> was needed for Gryffindor to lose the match) or characterization (like
> Neville's accidents characterize him as clumsy and insecure). At most
> they can be red herrings, made to look like they were intended by the
> character but aren't really. However, unless Draco or Snape confide in
> Book 7 that it was accidental, which I very much doubt, the dropped
> flask wouldn't make any red herring or any other plot point that I can
> see. 

Pippin:
Everything Snape has done vis-a-vis Harry is overshadowed now
by what happened on the Tower. Either Harry was right about that 
and right to always expect the worst from Snape, or he will discover
he was wrong, in which case he may reflect that many 
times where Snape was concerned, he took his assumptions for fact. 

Those occasions can be left for the reader to discover, just as, for 
example, many instances when Fake!Moody must have been lying 
are never brought to the reader's attention.
That's what makes the books fun to read over and over again.

Pippin
Who agrees that little in Rowling's stories is accidental, especially
when she's had the opportunity to fix mistakes.

'If the blood did spit, you must acquit'