Significance of missing line (was: HBP paperback)

[Ceridwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 156174

Sue:
> It's not impossible that the change was made for the US edition on 
the demand of the US 
> publisher. This happens often with books from overseas, because 
publishers in the US 
> seem to think their readers won't get certain subtle implications 
(though I must admit I will 
> need to re-read before I decide if there is any implication here.I 
have only read the novel 
> once, just after it came out). 

Ceridwen:
Someone (justcarol?) posted the two different quotes above, and 
provided a link to the Lexicon's page of differences between the UK 
HBP and the US HBP.  There are two changes in the US edition - the 
first, Dumbledore suggesting that no one's going to hunt someone who 
is already dead; the second, suggesting that the Death Eaters 
wouldn't think it odd for the Order to kill Narcissa since it is the 
sort of thing the Death Eaters would do themselves.

Reading the two phrasings, I don't see how someone could extrapolate 
everything Dumbledore said in the US version from what is in the UK 
version.  Maybe I'm one of those dumb US readers who need it spelled 
out for them, but maybe there is too much in what he says for the 
average reader to pick up on such subtle clues?

Sue:
Sorry to say this to US readers, but your publishers don't have 
> a lot of respect for you. :-(  A well-known Australian writer, John 
Marsden, for excample, 
> wrote a novel in which it was made fairly clear, through 
implication, that the heroine had 
> had acid thrown at her face in a family quarrel. The US publishers 
decided this wasn't good 
> enough and he had to *write*  the scene in which it happened, 
especially for the US 
> edition. You won't find it in any other edition.

Ceridwen:
Sounds like someone thinks US readers of that genre like more 
gratuitious violence than Australian readers of the same genre do, 
not that US readers are more clueless.  Just my own impression, of 
course.

Sue:
>  Even in HP, the title Sorcerer's Stone is meaningless in the 
context of the story, but the 
> publishers didn't think US readers would understand what a 
Philosopher's Stone was, even 
> though it was explained in the book.

Ceridwen:
It could also have been that, in the US, the same device, a stone 
achieved through alchemical means which will give eternal life, is 
called a Sorcerer's Stone, and not a Philosopher's Stone as it 
apparently is in Britain.  Cultural context here, I believe.

Ceridwen.