[HPforGrownups] CHAP DISC: HBP 22, After the Burial

[Ffred Clegg]

No: HPFGUIDX 159539

Potioncat wrote:
>We need to be very careful anytime JKR uses numbers. Some of us (me) 
>have very vague notions of numbers and time. Others (well, Neri for 
>example) are very precise.
>
>JKR gives the impression of lots of students and great numbers of 
>wizarding folk. This 7 story castle has crowded halls, thundering 
>footsteps are heard between classes, students from the same house do 
>not know each other after years of attending school together. Yet she 
>only names 40 students for the one year, only has 5 boys in Harry's 
>dorm, says that there are 20 students in a particular class. Heck, 
>there are more than 40 new students every year in the local grade 
>school in my small community. It isn't crowded and it is not a 7 
>story castle.

JKR has said something to the effect of "don't trust me on the numbers". So I don't. What I do trust is the way she has drawn a world and the way it fits together. All of the things in it (Hogwarts, the Ministry, the World Cup stadium, the Quidditch league, the Daily Prophet, and so on) have implications for the number of wizarding folk around, and all of them point to a large community rather than a small one.

As the scientists have proved, the harder you look at something, the less you see it, and I think that's as true of the WW as it is of anything else.

Cheers

Ffred


		
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