[HPforGrownups] Re: World Building & The Potterverse -When it Rains, it Rain

[k12listmomma]

No: HPFGUIDX 167350

> On 10 Apr 2007 14:13:13 -0700, Steve <bboyminn at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > JKR needed school to begin on an assumed Monday and so it
> > does. When I read about the first day of school, trust me
> > I am not rushing to the calender to see if it really is
> > a Monday.
>
Random832:
> No, but she should have at least made sure the day before wasn't also
> a Monday. (yes, i know, that's one of the few that actually got fixed
> in reprints, but it's still an example of just how careless she can be
> about these things) Similarly, I don't care if the full moons line up
> with 1993-94, but it'd be nice if they were at about the same day each
> month (actual full moons are at an interval of 29.5 days). In other
> words, I don't care if there was a full moon or not on halloween of
> 1993, but you can't have one then and on christmas.

Shelley:
But this sort of analysis is rather pointless, isn't it? I mean, in most
stories we read, we don't care to go reread it a million times, plot out
calendars and dates and triple check to see if the author got everything
exactly correct. It's a little unfair of us to say to Rowling, "hey look,
lady, since your series is SO popular, we are holding you to a higher
standard than we do any other author we read." All authors make errors-
that's what editors are for! If you have to blame anyone, blame the editors
who checked over her work for errors before it was sent out. God knows that
any textbook has to be reprinted several times to get all those errors.
Practically any written work at all shows the humanity of it's author.
Heaven forbid that anyone be "careless"! (Gasp, what do you mean, you're
human???)

Personally, none of the mistakes you talk about make any difference to the
plot. Plus, the year 1993 isn't in canon anyway, so I feel the fans are
being a bit misleading by trying to match Harry up with actual years to
determine how old he would be for this year, 2007, or to line Harry's first
years in the books up with our calendar years to see just which days that
Halloween or Christmas would fall on. I agree with Steve- as I read this
series, I am not rushing to any calendar to see if the day she says
something falls on lines up.