Petunia's Eyes/Snape, Snape, Snape

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 169967

> > Magpie:
> > I wasn't skating up to any guess, actually. I was just saying 
that 
> > since Rowling doesn't flat-out lie in interviews I thought if 
she 
> > said Petunia was a Muggle I should assume she was a Muggle as 
we've 
> > always been given to understood the term in canon.

Random:
> 
> It's not clear that our understanding of the term exactly matches 
what
> she intends by it in corner cases such as these. (also, she did 
lie in
> an interview at least once - in agreeing that her statements about
> Harry's grandparents tended to shut down Heir of Gryffindor 
theories
> when clearly they do nothing of the sort whether such theories are 
false
> or not.)

Magpie:
I think she's been pretty clear about what these terms mean since 
they are important terms in canon, though. A bit like saying what we 
mean by somebody being in Gryffindor isn't what she means. Sure we 
could probably come up with another definition, but why?

I wouldn't say she lied about shutting down the Heir of Gryffindor 
theory. She's being asked questions and speaking off the cuff. I 
don't think she was able to really work out the logical steps from 
one to the other, however the interviewer made them. And nobody 
would expect her, as the author, to be able to do that any better 
than anyone else. 

What would be a lie, imo, would be if she'd said that the theory was 
shut down when it was actually true. I wouldn't hold her to knowing 
whether or not a theory was shut down by a particular answer in this 
case, but I think her saying, "Yeah...well, yeah" indicates not that 
yes, Harry's grandparents dying a normal death means Harry can't be 
the Heir (one is not dependent on the other) but that the larger 
question is correct: Harry's relatives in generations beyond his 
parents is not an issue and Harry is not the Heir of Gryffindor. I 
think she's just be not quite on top of the conversation (a sort 
of "Oh dear, Maths," type moment where she's not working it out). I 
think her "Yeah" indicates not that she's followed the same logic as 
the interviewer, but that yeah, that theory isn't correct.

Iow, I don't think she'd agree that Harry is the Heir of Gryffindor 
theory was shut down when it wasn't, just as I don't think she 
would, in knowing that she's talking about the fact that Petunia is 
a witch, say she was a Muggle accidentally. She can make a mistake 
(which I think she's doing by agreeing that Harry's grandparents 
dying normally=Harry can't be the Heir of Gryffindor), but she says 
she has never knowingly lied. 

-m