World Building And The Potterverse

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 167559

> Betsy Hp:
> It does mean that any theories based on time (minutes, hours, days, 
> years) are doomed to possibly end up in the "oh dear, maths" trash 
> pile.  Was Lupin's 12 years *really* unaccounted for, or was he just 
> hanging in the AU world where Charlie won a quidditch cup or two?

Pippin:
A lot of theories based on what turned out to be sequencing errors
have bitten the dust. But we know that they were sequencing errors
because JKR fixed them. She swapped 'descendant' for 'ancestor',
she re-wrote the wand order, and she's had plenty of time to 
insert some information about what Lupin was doing while Sirius
was in jail, Pettigrew was in hiding, and James was a-moldering in
his grave. It wouldn't even contradict anything that's already there.
But she hasn't. If that was the only gap in Lupin's history it wouldn't
amount to much, I agree. But he's been MIA in every book.

Betsy:
> IMO, this kind of mystery solving is cheating.  JKR isn't laying out 
> clues, she's saying things are how they are and any readers 
> questioning here are obviously freakishly interested in math or 
> consistency.

Pippin:
Hardly -- it's only the people who notice things which are jarring
who have any chance of solving the mysteries at all-- the trick
is to decide which things are jarring by accident and which have
been made jarring on purpose. IMO, if you can connect the dots
from book to book with some consistency, and the outcome
would have some obvious relevance to the plot, you've got a
real clue, not a mistake.

I guess we're not bothered by the same things, if you see
the Hand of Glory as a great big deal but the things I mentioned
in PS/SS didn't bother you. They jarred me on first reading because
they seemed senseless.  When I re-read, they were explained
and didn't jar any more, which is where I got the idea that some
things which are jarring must be clues. 

IIRC, Steve Kloves remarks in his interview with JKR that he can
recognize the clues because they stand out a little and JKR
nods her head. 

> > >>Pippin:
It might make an intriguing bit of fan fiction, but there's no 
thematic necessity for this info, IMO.
> > We don't, er, need to know.
> 
> Betsy Hp:
> Right.  Which is why it's an example of a mistake rather than a 
> stylistic choice.  It's a mistake that jars a reader out of the story 
> without adding anything to the story at all.  It's a question never 
> answered that wasn't meant to be asked in the first place.

Pippin:
IMO, we don't know that yet.  There are multiple times in canon 
where items disappear or reappear, and JKR doesn't always
let us know immediately. The leprechaun gold, various invisibility 
cloaks, the marauders map, and so forth. IMO, something's up 
with that. The clue here is not, maybe, that the hand itself is
important but that we should be alert that items may not be
where we think they are. Harry's invisibility cloak is AWOL at
the moment. The complacent assumption is that JKR so far 
omitted to write that he got it back...but we'll see. 

> > >>Pippin:
> > The point is, Dumbledore couldn't *know* how much wizard 
> > interference it would take to put Harry in the street. He'd
> > be guessing, and he knows as well as we do that some of his
> > guesses are wrong. 
> > <snip>
> 
> Betsy Hp:
> Which is why it's an odd choice on JKR's point.  <snip
Dumbledore's odd choices>
> 
Pippin:
I thought the books had established pretty well that the 
Dursleys would abuse any child in their 'care' regardless of 
intervention, well-meant or otherwise. Dumbledore's lecture
was more aimed at making sure Harry squeezed the last 
bit of coverage out of the protection than  at getting the 
Dursleys to understand anything, IMO. And I think he
wanted to Harry to understand that despite appearances,
there never was any reason to be jealous of Dudley.

I think Molly's shunning of Hermione in GoF shows 
that repeating gossip leads to evil and hints at why
Dumbledore did not expose Riddle.  I think Snape's handshake
shows that however it looked to Draco, Slytherin got beat
fair and square. Hey, this is Snape we're talking about. He's
not exactly given to conciliatory gestures. 

But hey, maybe I'm wrong. See, *that*'s why he took the vow. He'd
been brooding over Slytherin's humiliation for four years, and 
he finally cracked. <veg>

> 
> Betsy Hp:
> But I still think the books are meant to be a bit of an escape, a 
> nice armchair adventure where good will triumph over evil.  I'll be 
> interested to see if they're meant to be something more.
> 

Pippin:
What's Dolores Umbridge doing in a book like that? If good
always triumphed over evil, would Sirius be dead? Or Cedric?
Or even the poor unicorn in Book One?

IMO, the good side is the side that believes that good *can*
triumph over evil, despite the fact that people, even heroes,
are seldom as good as we wish they were. Dumbledore 
believes that, IMO, and it gives him the courage to offer
second chances and to refuse to fight evil with its own
weapons even if it looks like that's the only way to win.

I think his actions are consistent with this, but we'll see.

Pippin