newbie with questions

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 159278

---  "Stephen and Angelique" <mrnmrswatters at ...> wrote:
>
> Hey. I just joined this group today. Both my husband 
> and I are Harry Potter fans. ... I have a few questions
> that I'm hoping somebody might be able to answer.
> 
> First, I believe it's in the 5th book that the Thestrals
> are first mentioned. They say that only those who have 
> witnessed death can see these creatures. ... Why does 
> he not see the Thestrals until his fifth year?
> 


bboyminn:

First is it safe to assume you have read all the available
books so far. You mention book 5, so it seems you have 
read at least that far. I would hate to introduce 
something that would spoil newer books for you.

Others have already elaborated on the reason why Harry's
parents and Quirrel's deaths did not count, so I won't 
touch that aspect. As far as Cedric's death, let me 
diverge for a moment and remind you of the stages of
grieving. The first stage is Denial. You brain says,
I have this data and I know it to be true, but your
heart refuses to accept it. That is the stage Harry is in
at the end of Goblet of Fire. He intellectually knows 
Cedric is dead, but his heart hasn't accepted it yet. 
He goes through a huge stage of denial when someone very
close to him dies in book 5 (don't want to spoil it).

As to whether JKR added this as an after thought or 
whether she was aware of it when she was writting, I 
think she was well aware of it. On her website -

http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/en/faq_view.cfm?id=21

She explains this in the second paragraph. Combining this
with information from interviews, she said she knew this 
was going to be a problem, but she didn't want to 
introduce a mystery of this magnitude in book four that
wouldn't be explained for a couple of years. It's a good
think too, or all our heads would have probably exploded
trying to figure it out.

So, she needed a rational explanation for leaving it out
of book 4 (GoF), and that explanation was that it takes 
time to process death. It takes time to get beyond the
stage of emotional denial and into the stage of emotional
acceptance in the grieving process.

She explains it very well in the link provided above.

> mrnmrswatters continue:
> 
> Also, I think that Crookshanks the cat might turn out
> to be an animagi but my husband thinks not. Does 
> anybody else think this cat might be something besides
> just a cat?
> 
> mrnmrswatters
>

bboyminn:

One could speculate that, but one must ask one's self how
that could possibly happen. Hermione bought that Cat in a
pet store, she went into the pet story to buy an Owl. What
are the odds that anyone could have predicted that 
Hermione would go into that particular pet story at that
particular time and buy that particulat pet? And, who 
would volunteer to take on that job? Who would volunteer 
to spend an unknown number of years disguised as a magical
cat? And for what purpose?

There is something special about Crookshanks but it is the
fact that he/she is a Kneasle; a special magical variety 
of cat with special, though somewhat limited, magical
powers. 

For a brief summary of Kneasles see-

http://www.hp-lexicon.org/bestiary/bestiary_k.html#kneazle

Note it is likely that Crookshanks is part Kneasle.

Information specifically on Crookshanks including quotes
from JKR -

http://www.hp-lexicon.org/bestiary/crookshanks.html

Hope that helps, and welcome to the group. It can get a bit
hectic at times and the discussion can get very emotional
and intense at times, but all posts are welcome (within the
posting guidelines, of course). Some new comers are a bit
intimidated here, but new posts on old subjects are welcome.
They frequently allow us to examine an old hashed-out 
subject from a new perspective. Look as the posts generated
by your simple questions. Any idea or theory that can be
reasonably state will be reasonably accepted and answered.

Enjoy.

Steve/bboyminn