Castle/Snape'sAge/Respect/ChoiceOfBadTeacher/Hawthorn

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 168666

Kemper wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/168462>:

<< I'm no architectural historian, but castles of Howgarts immensity
did not exist circa 997 AD.>>

That's only Muggle castles. The wizards started out more advanced than
Muggles -- for a while, Muggle inventions were attempts to do by
'technology' what they had seen wizards do by magic. (There's canon
for that, but I can't remember which book to skim for the quote about
the ways Muggles have figured out how to do things without magic.) So
the wizards may have had, what are they, 14th century castles, and
19th century palaces, and 20th century flush toilets, and talking
portraits (Mrs Black could be a 20th century video loop, but the
portraits in Hogwarts are 21st century AI) more than 3000 or 4000
years ago. 

For some reason, no one is as amused as I am by my joke that the
wizards had them in Atlantis before it sank, because I feel that
Atlantis being real goes along with Rowling's gag that the Loch Ness
monster, leprechauns, and other fables are real but concealed from
Muggles by wizards.

Here I go off on my digression about, since the conquest of
electricity, Muggles have been inventing things without having gotten
the idea from wizards (just being in the habit of inventing things)
and the wizards started copying from us. Railroads may have been
inspired by the Gringotts carts and gaslights by the candles that
illuminate wizarding home without ever burning out, but Wizarding
Wireless is obviously copied from Muggle wireless -- the Muggle radio
is called 'wireless' because it was preceeded by the 'wire'(the
telegraph), but the wizards didn't have a precursor named 'wire'.

Tandra wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/168489>:

<< how much older than Harry is Snape? >>

Harry was born on July 31, 1980. Severus, James, Lily, Sirius, Remus,
and Peter were all in the same year at school; therefore they were all
roughly the same age. I like to believe they were all born in the Sept
1957 through August 1958 year (thus being the same age as me) but
everyone else seems to have them born in 1960, which would make Sevvie
(and Harry's parents) 20 years older than Harry. 

Carol wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/168497>:

<< Snape is about twenty-one and a half years older than Harry (JKR
said that he was 35 or 36 as of GoF when Harry is 14 and his birthday
is January 9 compared with July 31 for Harry). >>

JKR said Snape "is" about 35 or 36 when she was asked during the
publicity tour for GoF, but didn't specify whether "is" means at the
start or the end of GoF, or the start or the end of the whole seven
book series, altho' I think we can safely assume she didn't mean he
was 35 or 36 in the year 2000. 

montims wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/168512>:

<< When I grew up, the prevailing theme really was that children
should be seen and not heard, and that adults were their betters and
expected respect even when they didn't earn it. And that is the
attitude that carries over in the JKR books. >>

It may be the attitude of some of the characters, but if it were the
attitude of the *books*, the readers would not be invited to joined
Harry in disrespecting adults such as 1) Lord Voldemort, 2) Gilderoy
Lockhart, 3) Sybil Trelawney, 4) Igor Karkaroff, 5) Cornelius Fudge,
6) Delores Umbridge ... I think Rowling wants children as well as
adults to recognize evil and not do what evil people tell them to do.

Carol wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/168615>:

<< would much rather have Snape as a teacher than Fake!Moody,
Umbridge, Slughorn, Binns, Lockhart, Hagrid, or Trelawney >>

It seems to me that Fake!Moody's students learned the material, which
is more than Quirrell's or Lockhart's or Umbridge's students did. Some
of Trelawney's students idolized her, and it is entirely possible that
they *were* learning Divination from her; while Trelawney did go in
for melodramatic rubbish and overheated rooms, she did provide a
memorizable list of shapes/meanings for the tea leaves and so on. From
what Professor Grubbly-Plank told High Inquisitor Umbridge, Hagrid's
students were on course with the creatures likely to be included on
their OWLs. Judging from my experience of taking a dog grooming class,
I wouldn't have liked COMC any better with Professor Kettleburn. Out
of that list, I think I would prefer Fake!Moody.

MiamiBarb wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/168630>:

<< On the witches' holiday of Beltane (May Day) >>

Some have heard of a May Day tradition of 'bringing in the may' --
gathering leafy twigs and flowers to leave on your true love's
doorstep, or put up as decorations in your own house. Under the Old
Style Calendar, the hawthorn was in bloom then (I hear tell that
global warming is now making it bloom for May Day despite the New
Style Calendar). I don't think I'd recognize the tree, and I've never
seen its flowers, which are said to be white, but that custom caused
'may' to be an alternate name for hawthorn. 'Bringing in the may'
meaning 'bringing in flowering branches of hawthorn.

May Eve is the famous Walpurgisnacht, and JKR said somewhere that LV
created the Death Eaters from an already existing group called The
Knights of Walpurgis. Walpurgisnacht means 'Walburga's night' (named
after St. Walburga) and it seems that Sirius's mother happened to be
named Walburga.